“If Conner answers to anyone, it will be me,” I grind out.
“I wasn’t talking about him.” She turns away. From the set of her shoulders, I’m guessing she’s done talking.
I stare at the wall. The photograph is still on the nightstand where I set it down. The photo I don’t want to look at again, because he’s in it.
Last night, those hands were on my skin. This morning, they directed a child onto a truck headed south.
I don’t know how to hold both of those truths. I don’t think I’m supposed to. I think you pick one and let the other die, and the one I pick determines what kind of woman I am.
The pull is still there. Behind my breastbone. Steady, patient, aimed at the man in the photograph.
I want to rip it out.
I can’t.
But I can use it. The rage, the disgust, the knowledge of what he is—I can use all of it. I can sit across from him at Dutch’s and smile and ask careful questions and learn every detail of the operation that put an eight-year-old boy on a truck headed south. And underneath the smile, I’ll be outlining the system that’s going to bring his world down.
Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow.
Tonight, I lie on this bed and let the rage settle into something cold and useful, and I don’t think about the swimming hole, or the way he saidit’s not casual for me, or the sound his wolf made when I touched his face.
I don’t.
Chapter 17
Conner
Something’s changed. I’ve been an enforcer long enough to know when a situation shifts. It’s not always dramatic. Sometimes it’s a scent on the wind, a pattern that breaks, a wolf who moves differently than they did yesterday. The skill isn’t in spotting the obvious. It’s in reading the thing that’s almost invisible.
Willow is almost invisible today. Sitting at the counter at Dutch’s, posture relaxed, same as always. She looks up when I walk in. Smiles. Says hey. Lets me take the stool beside her, order my coffee, and settle into the rhythm we’ve been building.
But her scent is wrong. Not gone. She still smells like herself. But there’s a new layer underneath. Cold. Metallic. I don’t like it.
Two weeks ago, I’d have noticed it and dismissed it. Today—a day after putting that family on a truck—I notice it, and my enforcer brain wakes up. Logs it. Starts a parallel assessmentalongside the part of me that just wants to sit next to her and hear her voice.
“Long morning?” she asks.
“Ranch stuff. The usual.” I glance at her. “You?”
“Briar and I were south of town. She found some good trails past the creek crossing. She’s been exploring the area.” She takes a sip. “What about you? Anything exciting in the enforcer world?”
The question is light. Casual. Tucked inside small talk… curious but not pressing. Nothing to be troubled by. Except today, something about her focus makes the hair on my arms rise. Not alarm. Attention.
“Same old. Boundary checks. Garrett’s got me running assessments on the eastern margins. Usual drifter traffic.”
“Does that pick up at certain times of year? The drifter traffic?”
“Some. Fall’s busy. Wolves move south before winter. Looking for warmer territory, better hunting. Most of them are just passing through.”
“And the ones who aren’t just passing through?” She asks it the way she asks everything, with the slight tilt of the head, the engaged expression. It’s smooth. Natural. Exactly the kind of conversation two people have over coffee. Except the questions she’s asking—about drifter patterns, how we handle wolves on the margins—aren’t the questions of a woman looking for ranch work. They’re the questions of someone planning an operation.
I answer anyway. Because she’s not the only one extracting information in this conversation. Garrett is still pressuring me to find out more about her.
“The ones who aren’t passing through get assessed. I check in, find out their situation, make a decision. Most of the time, they move on voluntarily. Nobody wants trouble.”
“And the assessment… is that something you decide, or does it come from Garrett?”
“Garrett sets the policy. I execute it.”