"Arthur," a smooth, cultured voice echoed through the small cabin. It was a voice I recognized instantly, a voice that had haunted my family's nightmares for the past year. Silas Thorne. "I hear you had a little vehicle trouble at the pump. Such a shame. It's a long walk to Bend, Arthur."
"Thorne," I rasped, my throat tight with anger. "What did you do to my truck? What do you want?"
"I wanted to make sure we had a clear understanding," Thorne replied, his tone dripping with a sickening, polite arrogance. "You see, I don't actually want your forty-five thousand dollars, Arthur. That's pocket change. What I want is the deed to the valley property. Your son's little military pension and Sarah's pathetic attempts at ranching aren't going to save that land. The water rights are worth ten times what you're carrying. I sent Grizz and his boys to relieve you of that heavy bag so you wouldn't have to make the trip. But it seems you found yourself a bodyguard."
A heavy silence hung in the air as Thorne paused, his breathing steady on the other end of the line. "Tell your new friend that he's playing a very dangerous game. If you aren't in my office by six with the signed deed of surrender, I won't just foreclose. I'll make sure the county sheriff finds some very interesting, illegal substances on Sarah's property. Chloe is a sweet girl, Arthur. It would be a tragedy if she had to go into the state foster system because her mother was arrested for drug trafficking."
"You monster," I roared, my hand clenching around the phone so hard the plastic creaked. "If you touch them—"
"Six o'clock, Arthur," Thorne interrupted, his voice turning cold as ice. "And don't bother bringing the cash. Just the deed. I've already sent Grizz to your ranch to make sure Sarah and Chloe are... comfortable while we wait."
The line went dead.
A cold, paralyzing dread washed over me. I dropped the phone onto the floorboard, my face draining of color. "Sarah," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Chloe. He's got them at the ranch. He sent those bikers there."
"They're not at the ranch," Logan said, his voice dropping an octave, filled with a dark, dangerous certainty. "I've had eyes on your ranch for the last three days, Arthur. I have a partner watching the house. If anyone had approached, I would have known."
I turned to him, my fear turning into a desperate, white-hot anger. I reached into the glove box, searching for anything—a flashlight, a knife, a registration—and my hand closed around a laminated piece of paper. I pulled it out.
It was a photograph. Two men in full desert camouflage tactical gear, their faces covered in dust but grinning widely, stood in front of a mud-walled compound in Afghanistan. One of them was the young, muscular man sitting next to me—Logan. The other, his arm thrown over Logan's shoulder, was my son, Danny. He was wearing the exact same silver Spartan ring on his finger, holding it up to the camera with a proud, boyish smile.
My breath caught in my throat, a tear finally escaping my eye and tracking down the deep lines of my cheek. "Danny," I whispered.
"He was my sergeant," Logan said softly, his voice cracking slightly for the first time. "We were hit by an IED in Helmand Province three years ago. Danny took the brunt of the blast. He... he didn't make it to the medevac. But before he died, he made me promise. He told me about Silas Thorne, about the predatory loans, about how he had to enlist just to get the signing bonus to try and save the ranch. He made me swear that if anything happened to him, I would watch over you, Sarah, and Chloe."