Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
That building’s been there since my grandfather’s time.
Why does Reyes care about it?
Unless…he knows something I don’t.
The thought slams into me, hard.
I grab the burner again.
What’s in that building?
Three dots flash.
Doesn’t matter. It will be gone soon.
My throat goes tight.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
I’m tired—bone-deep, soul-rotting tired. But under it is anger. I hate that he’s manipulating me, hate that I’m about to dance to his tune because he’s holding my mistakes in a vial.
I drop my head back against the seat and shut my eyes.
No other choice.
But there’s always a choice. That’s what I’ve always believed. That’s what separated me from my father.
At least I thought it did.
Now? I can’t tell the difference.
Maybe that’s how it started for him, too. Maybe he really did think Ted was a danger. Or maybe Ted found something—something my father couldn’t risk becoming public. Something that would’ve cracked this family’s secrets wide open.
The thought gnaws at me like a pebble in my boot.
What if Ted wasn’t a threat to the family’s safety but to its secrets?
I can still see Ted’s face in my mind—the kind eyes, the quiet intelligence. At times I thought he was the only one who truly got me. He was kind to me. And not just to me. He was kind to my siblings as well.
So what the hell did he know?
I think back to that day.
The day when my father shot me.
Then killed Ted in cold blood.
He said he did it to protect us. To protect my mother and sisters from being raped in their sleep.
But Ted was kind to all of us, and though I didn’t know it then, he was gay. He had no interest in harming my sisters. Or me or my brothers for that matter. He was a good man. An honest man.
And my father ended his life. Then he tried to convince me he had done something noble. To protect the family. For the good of the family.
Perhaps he truly believed he had no other choice.
But whatever threat Ted was, he would never have harmed my mother or my sisters. Or any of us, save maybe my father.
The phrase repeats in my head, growing louder each time, until it’s all I hear.
No other choice.
Maybe my father wasn’t just a murderer. Maybe he was a cornered man.
Maybe Ted found something out about the family—about the money, the land, the ranch, something buried deep—and my father silenced him to keep it from surfacing.
But what could it have been?
Our family’s rich, sure. Steel-baron rich. We’ve got influence, but not cartel connections. At least, not that I ever saw.
Unless that’s the point.
The best secrets are the ones that hide in plain sight.
Maybe Ted stumbled across something on the ranch. Old records. A deal gone sideways. Or maybe the Bellamys weren’t always the Bellamys. Maybe the name itself was built on someone else’s grave.
The possibilities churn, each one darker than the last.
And here I am, about to do exactly what my father might have done—follow orders to protect the family name.
The irony is so sharp it almost makes me laugh. I spent my whole life trying not to become Austin Bellamy, and now my eyes aren’t the only thing I got from him.
The difference, I tell myself, is that this time it’s rotted wood and nails. Not flesh and blood.
But the truth sits there anyway. The line between justice and survival is thinner than I ever wanted to admit.
I toss the burner onto the passenger seat and start the truck, but I don’t shift into drive. My foot hovers over the pedal, my hand frozen on the gear.
If I do this, I become him.
If I don’t, I lose everything.
My pulse hammers in my ears.
No other choice.
This isn’t about laws or guilt or even morality. It’s about leverage. It’s about keeping control when someone’s already got the blade against your throat.
I drag a hand down my face, exhaling hard.
The coordinates are still glowing on my phone.
An old barn on the Bellamy property.
Why that barn?
Why our land?
The question needles me until I can’t sit still.
My father may have killed a man to keep a secret.
I’m starting to think that secret might still be buried on our land.
And now someone else—Reyes, of all people—wants it burned.
Whatever’s in that building, it’s not just old lumber.
It’s history. It’s guilt. It’s truth.
And I’m going to find out what it is.
16
DANIELA
I hate crying. I fucking hate it.
It starts as a sting at the bridge of my nose and then a hot blur, and before I can look away from the monitor, the first tear sneaks over my lower lid and drops onto my knuckle. Another follows. And another. By the time I swallow, I can taste salt.
“Dani?” Raven’s voice is soft at my shoulder. “Hey. Hey, what is it?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to. She’ll think it’s Belinda. And it is.