I chuckle. “When we throw the big wedding, you’ll be by my side, bro.”
Beau hasn’t moved. He’s standing by the barn wall with his arms crossed and his jaw set so tight I can see the muscle working beneath his skin.
“Why?” he asks.
One word. But it carries the weight of something heavier than curiosity.
“Because I love her.”
“You loved Ashley once, too,” he says evenly.
The air between us shifts. Colten glances sideways at Beau. Ace pauses what he’s doing behind us.
“This isn’t like Ashley,” I say carefully. “And you know that.”
“Do I?” He pushes off the wall. “What I know is that you married a woman you’ve known for a few weeks while you’re facing a murder charge, a war with the Greeks, and ninety days to prove your innocence. And I’m guessing this wasn’t just about romance.”
I hold his stare. Because he’s not wrong. And he deserves the truth. “If something happens to me. If I go to prison, or worse, Lola has no protection. She’s not a Sterling. She has no legal claim to this ranch. No obligation from any of you to keep her safe.”
Beau’s expression doesn’t change. But something behind his eyes hardens.
“As my wife, she has an interest in the ranch. She carries our name. And if I’m not here, she looks after Wyatt.” I let that sit. “It’s not just about protecting her. It’s about protecting my son.”
“So you married her to rewrite the line of succession,” Beau says flatly.
I guess I did. I did what I had to do to protect the people I love. “I married her because I love her. The protection is a consequence of that, not the cause.”
He stares at me. Something moves behind his expression that I can’t quite read. “The ranch was supposed to go to me, Hunter. That’s what Dad’s will says. That’s what’s been agreed since he died.”
“And it still does. If something happens to me. In which case, Lola will have a stake. To keep her and Wyatt safe. That’s all this changes, Beau.”
He doesn’t respond. He just nods once—tight, minimal, the kind of nod a man gives when he’s choosing not to say what he’s really thinking. “Fine.” He turns and walks toward the house.
Colten watches him go, then looks at me. “He’ll come around,” he says.
“Yeah.” I watch Beau’s back disappear around the corner. “Maybe.”
I don’t have time to worry about Beau’s feelings. I’ve got a dead man’s phone in my pocket, a wife upstairs, and a clock that’s running out.
I pull out the cracked phone and dial Romeo. “I’m sending you a device. Greek operative. I need everything. Call logs, messages, GPS history, and deleted data. Every fingerprint this thing has left on the digital map for the last six months.”
“Give me forty-eight hours,” Romeo says.
“You’ve got twenty-four.” I hang up. Pocket the phone. Look out across my ranch.
Somewhere behind me, Ace is finishing what I started. Somewhere ahead of me, Lola is picking up my son from school with my ring on her finger.
And somewhere in between, the answer to who killed Ashley Edwards is sitting on a cracked phone screen, waiting to be found.
I’m coming for it.
All of it.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
LOLA
Wyatt seems prettycool with me being the one to pick him up from school on my own.