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For the first time in years, I realized I didn’t have to be a one-woman army anymore.

I still had a plan.

I still had to catch the senator.

But I wouldn’t be facing him alone anymore.

I’d be facing him as someone who had something worth fighting for.

Someone worthlivingfor.

20

Cyclone

The sun was high overhead when Jude rolled out the old blueprint map of the ranch onto the kitchen table. Dust motes floated in the air, sparkling like tiny stars as she leaned over it, her brow furrowed in concentration.

I stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her.

Not interfering.

Not stopping her.

But there.

Always there.

“This place,” Jude said, tapping the map, “was never just a getaway. It was a fallback.”

My eyes narrowed slightly.

“A fallback for what?”

“For this,” she said. “For taking him down. This was my husband's plan.”

She glanced up at me, her eyes hard, determined.

“I have files hidden here—documents, coded messages, bank accounts tied back to him. Enough to make him burn if it gets out.”

Cyclone’s respect for her deepened even further. She wasn’t just a survivor.

She was a fighter.

A damn warrior.

“I’m going to leak just enough,” Jude said, tracing a line from the house to an old storage shed marked on the map. “Make it look like I’ve got everything ready to hand over to the authorities.”

“And he’ll come for you,” I finished, my voice like gravel.

She nodded grimly.

“He’ll come himself. He’s too dirty to let it be handled by someone else. He’ll want to shut me up permanently. I hope he comes himself.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw, but I kept my voice even.

“And what’s your plan when he does?”

“I’ll record everything,” she said. “I’ll get him confessing to the bombing. To everything. Then I’ll send it to every news outlet, every government agency, every watchdog group in the country. We have to make sure we get this news out there to everyone before the government tries to cover it up.”