Page 46 of The Reaper
Then blew out the candle, closed my notebook, and finally—finally—headed to bed.
Sleep still didn’t come easy.
But at least now, I wasn’t buzzing from pressure.
I was buzzing from possibility.
From want.
And from the warm hum of a man who probably had no idea what he’d just signed up for.
12
CALEB
Istepped out of Dominion Hall into the heavy Charleston morning, the iron gates clanging shut behind me like a vault sealing secrets. The air hit me hard, humid and thick, laced with salt from the harbor and the faint sweetness of jasmine curling through the manicured grounds.
Meghan’s scent clung to my senses, a mark I couldn’t shake, didn’t want to shake. My body thrummed from her, my pulse quickening at the memory, but my mind was chaos.
Ryker’s words from our early-morning confrontation burned hotter than her touch. Byron Dane, our father, led a double life. Husband in Montana, father to seven sons there, but also a ghost here, building another family, another empire. Stealing billions from the bad guys along the way.
I was reeling, but energized, like adrenaline had replaced my blood.
Dad—Byron—hadn’t just been a shadow in our lives, slipping in and out on “work” that kept him gone for months. He’d been a thief, a manipulator, siphoning funds from black ops and shady deals, funneling them into his second family.
Or were we his second family?
After breakfast at the hotel, we’d driven to Dominion Hall and Ryker had laid it out in the war room, his voice steady but heavy, like he was unloading a magazine he’d carried too long.
“You’re one of us,” he’d said, gray eyes locked on mine. “But we bring your brothers in slow. One at a time. Test them. See if they’re ready.”
He’d sworn me to secrecy, his grip on my shoulder firm, his warning clear: no calls, no texts, no whispers to the Montana clan.
At first, I’d thought it was a mistake. Why not tell Jacob, Ethan, Lucas, Gideon, Levi, Micah—my brothers, forged in the same ranch dirt, wild as the winds that shaped us?
But as Ryker had walked me through Dominion Hall, I’d understood. The place was proud, powerful, impregnable. High ceilings arched like cathedrals, oil paintings of old battles lining the walls—scenes of blood and steel, muskets and men falling in fields long forgotten. Hardwood floors gleamed under soft lights, polished but scarred, as if they’d seen more blood and bourbon than I could imagine.
The war room—Ryker’s term—was the heart of it, a long oak table dominating the space, screens flickering with real-time feeds from ops around the world: a drone strike in a desert, grainy footage of a yacht extraction off some coast, a cyber hack pulling data from a server farm in Eastern Europe.
“Private security,” he’d called it, but it was more. Military-grade.
The hangar housed drones that made my old recon gear look like toys—sleek, black, armed with tech I’d only read about in classified briefs. The armory was stocked with rifles, handguns, and experimental rounds I’d begged for and been denied—armor-piercing, hollow-point, even some I didn’t recognize.
Guest suites were luxury bunkers, each with encrypted lines, panic rooms, and bulletproof glass disguised as floor-to-ceiling windows.
The terrace overlooked the harbor, water dark and endless, boats bobbing like sentries under the moon.
It wasn’t just a house; it was a kingdom, built on secrets and power.
If I told my Montana brothers now, what would happen? They’d fight back. They wouldn’t believe it. Jacob, steady as rock, would demand proof, rifle in hand, eyes narrow, his instincts kicking in. Ethan would smell a trap and dive in, anyway, moving silent and deadly. Lucas, Gideon, Levi, Micah—each a weapon in his own right, trained to question, to fight, to never trust blind. They’d storm these gates, thinking it was a setup, a betrayal.
No. That couldn’t happen.
The Montana Danes were family, but they were dangerous—wild as the winds that shaped us, loyal to a fault, but quick to pull triggers on anything that smelled like deceit.
Ryker’s plan was right: one at a time, test them, let them see the kingdom for themselves.
I wasn’t mad at the secrecy anymore. I was intrigued. Energized. Possibilities bloomed like a map unfolding in my head—family, power, resources beyond anything I’d had in the field.
