Page 51 of Ranger's Honor
Gage’s expression softens, and he nods slowly. "I saw some of it while scrubbing. The files you decrypted from her archive—if the world knew half of what that syndicate is capable of..."
"They will," I say quietly. "But not all at once. I need to get it right."
He nods again. "Then I’ll make sure the only trail left is yours. And it’ll lead exactly where you want it to."
"Copy that."
I glance back toward the warehouse. My laptop is still inside. I’ll retrieve it myself. Later. Right now, I need air. I need space. I need to be more than the woman who barely lived through her own story.
We don’t say goodbye. No one here needs to. When the cleanup starts, Dalton takes my hand, and we leave.
Galveston smells like salt and memory, laced with the briny tang of the Gulf. The distant crash of surf and the faint cries of gullsthread through the thick, humid air, a reminder of the sea’s nearness. Warm breezes curl through the streets, carrying traces of seaweed and sunbaked sand—a softer echo of the storm’s chaos.
The moment we step inside, a strange stillness settles over me. The air is heavy with silence and memory—echoes of the choices that led us here. No one's perfume lingers. No voices haunt the walls. Just the quiet hum of a house that has seen too much and is still standing anyway. I draw a breath, steady and deep, trying to remember who I was the last time I crossed this threshold—and who I am now, carrying a truth that isn't mine, but matters all the same.
I wander the house in a slow circuit, my fingertips grazing over surfaces: the dented doorframe from where I dropped my gear that first night, the coffee mug I always reach for when I’m staring down a deadline, still resting in the drying rack. The memories don’t belong to anyone but me. The weight of the truth I uncovered presses into every familiar thing, reshaping it.
After making a security check of the perimeter, Dalton watches me from the hallway without speaking. His gaze follows every step I take, his expression unreadable but heavy with something I feel more than see. When I finally stop in front of the framed photo on the entry table—me, Maggie, and a beach bonfire behind us—he comes up behind me and rests his hand lightly on my back.
"You don’t have to do this tonight," he says.
"I do. I have to start while it’s still fresh. Before I bury it."
He doesn't argue. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, then leads me to the couch like we’re walking together through something sacred.
He sits. Pulls me down with him. Our bodies sag into each other like two structures held together by proximity. My houseis still standing, still quiet, like nothing ever happened. But everything’s different. I’m different. We both are.
I don’t cry. Not yet. Instead, I write.
I sit cross-legged on the living room floor with the laptop balanced on the coffee table and Dalton stretched out on the couch behind me, silent but near. The first sentence comes slow—aching and deliberate. The second floods out with a dam break of memory.
I write about the day Sutton showed up on my doorstep, eyes hollow but burning with urgency, a thumb drive clenched in her hand. I write about the files she gave me, the evidence Sookie had gathered—the men in suits smiling while orchestrating horrors beneath the surface of respectability. I write about the silence that followed Sookie’s murder and the burden Sutton passed to me. I write about what it means to carry someone else’s truth when they no longer can, and the cost of seeing it through.
Words pour out in fits and starts. My fingers cramp. My vision blurs. Sometimes I stop, close the lid, and bury my face in Dalton’s thigh until the shaking passes. He never asks if I’m okay. He just slides his hand into my hair and lets me breathe.
I rewrite one paragraph eight times. Another I can’t bring myself to touch. It feels sacred.
Grief isn’t linear, and neither is this process. Sometimes I curse at the screen. Other times I smile through the tears, imagining the kind of woman Sookie must have been—fearless, unrelenting, too clever for her own good. I picture her poring over files with fury in her veins, calling out injustice with a steady voice and sharp eyes. I never met her, but I carry her work now. I carry the weight of everything she left behind.
I write because if I don’t, her death will have been for nothing. And for a moment, my fingers still over the keys as doubt slips in—what if I get it wrong, what if I fail her a secondtime? The weight of that possibility presses hard, but it’s exactly why I keep going, forcing the words out until the truth stands on its own. As I write, her truth becomes a weapon I can wield like a sword of justice. For two straight days, I write.
Dalton brings me coffee, food I barely taste, and wraps himself around me at night like a living barricade. He doesn't say much, but he doesn't leave my side either. He doesn't have to.
When I finish, I submit the article under my real name—Kari Bonham. I title it"The Silence She Shattered."The piece goes viral within hours. News networks clamor for interviews.
I decline them all because this isn’t my story. It’s Sookie’s.
I dedicate the piece to her. Her photo—one Sutton gave me, tucked into the folder of encrypted files—is the header. I stare at it for hours, committing the lines of her face to memory. Not because I knew her, but because so many of us owe her a debt we can never repay.
She didn’t die in vain.
The next day, we head back to the ranch. The whole team is already there.
Cassidy wraps me in a bone-crushing hug that nearly knocks the wind out of me. "You scared the hell out of us," she whispers fiercely, her cheek pressed to mine. "Next time, give us a heads-up before you decide to take on a cartel and a ruthless assassin."
I laugh, breathless and shaky, clinging to her like a lifeline. "Noted."
She pulls back just enough to look me in the eye, her smile tremulous. "You did it, Kari. You made it count."
