Page 9 of Sinful
That animal instinct that kept me alive when Andrew—Andrés—turned out to be Los Coyotes.
Someone knows I'm here. Someone knows my real name.
And I have no idea who they are or what they want.
I double-check all three locks.
Push my dresser in front of the door.
Sleep with my knife under my pillow and my phone in my hand.
But sleep doesn't come.
Just the memory of a stranger's voice saying my name like he owns it.
Like he's been looking for me.
Like maybe I've been found.
CHAPTER ONE
Bravos
The sun bleeds out over Sharp Shooter Ranch like it's dying.
All orange and red, painting the hundred thousand acres in shades of fire that make my chest tight.
Not because it's beautiful—though it is.
Because fire always makes me think of things I'd rather forget.
Fifteen years old. The smell of smoke. My sisters screaming.
I shake it off, lean back in the porch chair that creaks under my weight.
These chairs have been here longer than I've been alive, probably.
Weathered wood that's seen decades of Texas sun, carved with initials from members long dead.
JR + MC 1987. SANTO '92. REAPER 2001.
History written in knife marks and wear patterns,each groove telling a story nobody remembers anymore.
The porch itself wraps around the main house like a snake—all reclaimed wood and stone pillars that speak to old money, cattle money, the kind that built empires before oil made everyone rich.
The floorboards are worn smooth in paths where generations walked, and the overhang provides shade that's necessary in Texas, where the sun doesn't just warm—it punishes.
Phantom's family has owned this land since before Texas was Texas.
Back when it was Mexico, and before that, when it belonged to people who didn't believe in ownership at all.
A hundred thousand acres.
You can't see the edges from here, just rolling hills and scrub grass and mesquite trees twisted by wind into shapes that look almost deliberate.
Like nature's sculpture garden, all thorns and survival.
Cattle dot the landscape like punctuation marks—Herefords mostly, their red and white coats catching the dying light.
