Page 41 of Ranger's Honor
My fingers tremble as I run them over the impression, the weight of what it means anchoring in my chest like a stone dropped in deep water. This isn’t just a clue; it’s a hand reaching out from the grave, trusting me to pick up the pieces. The woman who tucked it in here, disguised and buried, like a failsafe only someone like me might recognize. Someone who can imagine what it means to live behind locked doors and encrypted files. A thread meant to stay hidden unless everything else fell apart.Unless the danger got this close. Unless someone needed to finish what she'd started—and carry it further than she could.
And now? Now that someone is me.
The pressure in my chest tightens as I run my fingers over the groove. Heat floods my throat.
She’d carved a password into the damn page.
"Sookie, you paranoid genius," I whisper, throat thick.
I’m already back at the table, inputting the code into the partitioned vault I hadn’t been able to open before. My breath catches. The screen blinks, loads, and then spills open like a confession:
Master File — Project SALVO
Inside are names. Dozens. Judges. Politicians. Military contractors. Syndicate affiliates. And not just names—dates, accounts, recordings.
This is it. The whole damn conspiracy. Everyone who had a hand in killing Sookie. Everyone who let her die.
A cold sweat breaks down my spine. I copy a section—enough for Gage to verify—and load it onto the flash drive.
The upload pings. One percent…
My fingers hover above the keyboard, hands clammy with sweat, the pads of my fingers slick against the keys. My pulse hammers at the base of my throat, breath shallow, chest tightening like it might collapse under the weight of silence. Each percentage point crawls by like a countdown to detonation, and still I can’t look away. The silence in the room suddenly roars—too loud, too still. The soft hum of the laptop fan sounds like a siren, the tick of the clock above the door like gunshots.
Adrenaline surges, lighting up every nerve ending with fire. My lungs feel too tight. What if they trace it? What if the Reaper sees the ping? My eyes dart to the windows, half-expecting to see movement beyond the shutters. Nothing. But that doesn’t meanwe’re safe. Rush swore we were… swore there was no way to trace us or any transmission we made via the satellite uplink.
I grip the edge of the table, knuckles white, willing the upload to continue, willing Gage to get it, to know what it means. The air feels charged, crackling with invisible danger, like lightning about to strike. My mouth is dry. My heart hammers out a frantic rhythm.
There’s no backup plan if this fails. No second shot. Just me, a stolen password, and a dead woman’s truth finally clawing its way into the light. If this crashes, it will destroy Sookie’s legacy and she will have died for nothing. I won’t get another moment like this. I won’t get another chance to matter.
My hand shakes.
I open a secure channel and send it to Gage. No message. Just data.
Then I sit back, press my hand over my mouth, and whisper the words I didn’t think I’d ever have to say aloud.
"If I die before I finish this... don’t let it be for nothing."
CHAPTER 16
DALTON
The second Gage confirms the file, I know the game has changed.
A chill slithers down my spine, coiling low in my gut. It’s not fear. It’s something colder—darker. Like the first breath before a storm breaks wide open. My hand tightens on the steering wheel, knuckles pale against the worn leather. My wolf stirs restlessly beneath my skin, muscles tense with the instinct to protect, to fight, to destroy whatever threat’s coming for her.
Everything in me reconfigures, recalibrates. Because this isn’t speculation anymore. This is war.
We’ve left the coast and are barreling toward Team W’s remote ranch outside of Galveston before the sun has even cleared the horizon. The predawn sky stretches in shades of murky violet, mottling into the storm-heavy gray smudging the horizon. Salt clings to the humid breeze pushing through the truck’s cracked windows, thick enough to taste.
The tires thrum against uneven asphalt, the sound steady and brutal—a war drum that syncs with the pulse pounding behind my eyes. Every bump jars the gear-packed bags in the back seat, and Kari’s shoulder brushes mine with each rut inthe road. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak. Just stares straight ahead like the future’s etched into the pavement and she’s bracing to read every line.
Heat rises in shimmers off the road as we rattle over a patch of washboard, and I catch the tension coiled in her posture—shoulders rigid, hands clenched in her lap, jaw locked tight. Her breathing is shallow, almost too controlled, like she’s holding something back. A tremor threads through her exhale—fear, adrenaline, maybe both—and it punches low in my gut.
She hasn’t said much since hitting send on the upload. I haven’t pushed. Not yet. But the silence is loud. Heavy. She’s in her head, working something out, and every instinct I have is split between pulling over to make her breathe—or flooring it until we’re somewhere no one can touch her.
My eyes flick to her profile—lips pressed tight, eyes glassy but locked forward. She’s terrified and determined all at once. And I don’t know which concerns me more.
I catch the tiniest tremble in her hand as it curls into a fist against her thigh, then releases. Again and again. A rhythm born of tension she won’t name aloud. I know that kind of restraint. Hell, I’ve lived it.
