Page 38 of Ranger's Code

I stand over Chas, chest heaving, knuckles scraped and raw. The rush in my ears is deafening, a low thunder that pulses with each heartbeat. I don’t shake. Don’t flinch. The beast within me stirs but stays buried—watchful, respectful. My instincts don’t surge with the need to become something else; they ground me in the heat of what I already am. Human. Determined. Unyielding. This isn’t about the wolf. This is about me. My fury. My reckoning. My victory.

Gideon emerges from the shadows, his expression carved from stone. Blood streaks his knuckles and smears across his forearm, a visceral echo of the chaos that’s just unfolded. His eyes lock first on Chas—crumpled, groaning—and then slide to me, lingering. There’s something electric in his stare, a flash of shock followed by raw pride. His jaw ticks once, a pulse of restrained emotion beneath the surface. Without a word, he takes in the sight of me—bruised, defiant, standing tall over the man who once made me feel small. I did this. On my own terms. And I can sense his wolf, even buried beneath the surface, roars with approval.

“You didn’t shift,” he says softly.

“Didn’t need to,” I reply, voice steady. “Sometimes human is enough.”

His eyes burn with something fierce and deep—pride, relief, and something older, more elemental. Reverence, maybe. A recognition of everything I am and everything I’ve claimed tonight. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t deflect. Just steps in, slow and sure, his hand finding the back of my neck. His palm is warm, fingers splayed with deliberate tenderness as he draws me close, resting his forehead against mine like a vow sealed in silence.

“You’re mine,” he murmurs.

The corners of my mouth curl upward. “Damn right I am.”

And beneath our feet, the empire the Grangers have built begins to crumble—one forged invoice and broken jaw at a time. But in the rafters, the echo of my last strike still lingers, humming through the metal bones of the warehouse like a war drum that hasn’t stopped beating. Chas is down, but the war isn’t over. Not yet. Somewhere out there, the rest of the Granger rot still festers, and my fire? It’s just getting started.

CHAPTER18

GIDEON

The air inside the bait shop clings like old smoke and sea rot—thick, stale, with a trace of rust that scrapes at the lungs. Paint peels from the walls in curling strips, and the exposed beams above sag under years of salt and silence. I stand in the center, arms crossed, my stance loose but loaded, like a spring coiled beneath still water. My eyes lock on the man tied to the chair in front of me, gaze steady and cold.

Chas Warren looks worse than he did a few hours ago. His skin’s gone waxy, sickly pale beneath a sheen of sweat, and his once-pristine polo shirt clings to his frame like damp tissue—wrinkled, stained, and darkened at the collar and underarms. The zip ties around his wrists bite deep, the skin there inflamed, swollen, bruising to a sickly purple. He shifts in his seat with the twitchy movements of a man trying not to unravel but failing, anyway. The longer he sits there, the more the carefully curated mask of calm peels away—his veneer of control cracking, piece by piece, like old paint blistering under a blowtorch. There’s desperation behind his eyes now, the kind that doesn’t just hint of guilt—it screams it.

I don’t speak at first. I don’t have to. The silence stretches between us, thick and deliberate, like smoke from a fire we haven’t fully extinguished. It winds through the bait shop’s rafters and seems to wrap around Chas’ already fraying nerves, smothering the illusion of control he clings to. With each passing second, an invisible wire tightens the tension, squeezing breath and bluster from the man in the chair until only sweat, twitching fingers, and crumbling pretense remain. He sits straighter, tries to blink away the unease—but I see it. The way his throat bobs. The way his jaw works overtime trying to bite back fear. Silence has done more damage than fists ever could.

Deacon leans against the opposite wall, flipping through a manila folder with the detached ease of a man who’s seen worse and expects no surprises. “Financials are all there,” he says, his tone dry. “Shell accounts, offshore wire transfers, and enough falsified documents to bury a grand jury. That marina property? Purchased through a dummy corporation that doesn’t even have a working phone number. The surf shop? Pressured with fake code violations until the owner caved. And Maggie’s bakery? That was on the Granger hit list—scheduled for acquisition under eminent domain until someone got bold with sabotage. Too bold. Left a trail.”

Chas doesn’t react. Not in any way most people would. But I catch the change—the faint tensing of his shoulders, the way his nostrils flare like he’s caught a scent he can’t outrun. It’s the reaction of a man who gambled on bravado and is just now realizing the pot he wagered on won’t save him. He tries to keep the rest of his body still, tries to hold his expression flat, but the micro-tells give him away. His fingers curl tighter, white-knuckled, and his gaze flickers—not in confidence, but in calculation. The kind of look a cornered animal gives right before it turns feral. The walls are closing in, and now he can feel the air thinning.

I step forward with the slow, deliberate grace of a predator closing in—measured, grounded, each step an unspoken warning. My boots thud softly against the worn wood floor, a rhythm that echoes like a countdown. Shoulders squared, spine straight, my entire presence narrows into something colder, harder. Controlled, yes. But barely. There’s heat simmering under the surface—something old and dangerous—and every inch I close between us presses that weight tighter into the room.

“You knew what you were doing when you took the contract,” I say, voice even. “You knew what the Grangers were planning. You targeted her because she wasn’t one of us. Because she was human.”

Chas’ eyes flick toward Maggie. She sits on an old wooden crate in the room’s corner, her arms folded, posture deceptively relaxed. But her stillness isn’t passive—it radiates quiet authority. Her expression’s unreadable, but her eyes pin him in place like a specimen under glass. She doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t need to. Her silence coils tight, made of judgment and steel. I see the way it lands—hard and sudden. Chas stiffens, like something heavy just slammed into his chest, like he can’t draw a full breath. It shakes him more than any threat I could’ve ever thrown his way.

He squirms in his seat, trying to find a new angle, but the zip ties hold fast, biting deeper into his swollen wrists. His jaw clenches so tight the muscles twitch under his skin, and a bead of sweat rolls down his temple. The veneer’s cracking—he knows it, and so do we.

“What’s the endgame, Chas? What kind of name is that for a wolf, anyway?” I ask. “Are the Grangers planning to buy the whole damn coastline? Burn anyone who gets in the way?”

Still, silence.

But it’s not the silence of defiance anymore—it’s thinner, reedy, the kind of quiet that comes when words can’t compete with the freight train of realization. Chas’ breathing changes, faster now, more ragged, like each inhale scrapes past a weight in his chest. His knee bounces once before it stills. His fingers twitch again, subtly, then more obviously, betraying the storm starting to churn beneath the remains of his brittle exterior. The crack isn’t just showing now—it’s spreading, webbing out from the center of his calm like a windshield spidering after the first hard impact.

He glances up—but not at me. At Maggie. And when his eyes land on her, the last mask he wears begins to buckle. Because she’s not afraid. Because she’s still standing. Because he wasn’t supposed to lose to someone like her.

Chas twitches—a subtle, involuntary jerk of muscle along his shoulder, like a man realizing the temperature of the room has changed but refusing to name the cold settling in. His eyes dart briefly toward the warped floorboards, jaw flexing hard, lips pinched into a tight line as if biting back the next stray thought. His knee bounces again, the motion aborted halfway through as though he remembers he’s being watched. But it’s too late. The tell has shown. He’s fraying, and the fray is beginning to burn.

The twitch isn’t much—a flick of his fingers, a flex of his bound wrists against the zip ties that hold him—but I see it. Not just defiance anymore. Frustration. Panic. The kind of jittery, edge-fraying fear that creeps in when confidence starts to rot. Sweat gathers at Chas’ temples, and he blinks rapidly, jaw grinding like he’s chewing on regret and swallowing down whatever scraps of control he has left.

His gaze skates back to Maggie. It doesn’t linger—he can’t seem to hold it. But the flicker is enough. I catch the stutter of his breath, the way his pupils flare just a little wider. It’s like her presence rattles him. Not just because she remains standing when she should be buried, but because her sharp, steady gaze shows she has already analyzed the situation and found him wanting. There’s no fragility in her presence, no crack to exploit. Just coiled intelligence and quiet confidence, the kind that makes predators hesitate and gamblers fold. Chas blinks fast and looks away, but the damage is done. He’s shaken. And she hasn’t even spoken.

Chas laughs, but it cracks down the center, fraying at the edges. “You think this ends with me giving you what you want? That the Grangers won’t just rebuild somewhere else?”

Maggie rises from the crate with a slow, deliberate precision that sends a ripple through the stale air of the bait shop. She doesn’t rush—she prowls, each step measured, her feet brushing the weathered floorboards as if testing the ground before claiming it. There’s a newfound command in the way she moves, like her bones have learned a different rhythm, her instincts coaxed closer to the surface with every breath. Her eyes never leave Chas. When she finally stops, standing only a few feet from him, the weight of her silence hits harder than any accusation. Chas flinches—just barely—but it’s enough. He’s already unraveling, and now she’s the one pulling the thread.

“No,” she says softly. “I think it ends with you realizing you already lost.”

His jaw ticks. His eyes jump back to me, then to Deacon, flicking with the nervous energy of a man whose bravado is coming apart thread by thread. He opens his mouth like he means to deliver some cutting retort—maybe a last jab—but nothing comes. Just a harsh exhale through his nose, ragged and thin. He slumps a fraction lower in the chair, his body no longer holding the pretense of confidence. The swagger, once so ingrained it clung like armor, begins to flake off in strips, brittle and hollow. The shine in his eyes dims, replaced by something rawer. And I see it then—what I’ve been waiting for. The tipping point. He’s beginning to buckle beneath the weight of his own façade.

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