Page 1

chapter

one

Jaxon Thorne didn’t believe in second chances.

Which made waking up at a halfway house for ex-cons in the middle of Montana… complicated.

The bed creaked as he sat up, muscles stiff from sixteen hours in the truck and five years of sleeping on a cot as thin as toilet paper. He scrubbed a hand down his face, grimacing at the rough stubble and prison stink still clinging to his skin.

What am I doing here?

The thought hit again, same as it had when they rolled in from California in the middle of the night and Walker Nash tossed him a key and pointed to his bunk.

No orientation.

No welcome packet.

Just a warning in Walker’s gruff voice: “You only get one shot at redemption, son. Don’t waste it.”

But Jax didn’t believe in redemption either. That was a church word, and he hadn’t seen the inside of a church since the day they buried what was left of Mac, the last of his SEAL team to go into the ground.

There had been six of them once. Six young men with dreams as big as their testosterone levels, a band of brothers who’d faced hell together and made it home again. All except that last time, when faulty intel and a string of bad decisions turned homecoming into a roll call of caskets.

Now, there were only three left.

Shane Trevisano, who had been burned beyond recognition.

Rylan Cross, who had lost an arm.

And him.

The one who walked away unscathed.

Physically, at least.

The bed was too soft. The air was too quiet, with only the low hum of a refrigerator and the occasional groan of settling wood. No guards doing hourly rounds, no coughs or snores from the next bunk, no distant sound of metal clanging against metal as cell doors slammed shut.

Just… stillness.

He hated it.

He was free, but freedom felt like a trap when you didn’t know what the hell to do with it.

He spent most of the night staring at the log beams across the ceiling before finally falling into a restless sleep.

But he didn’t stay asleep long. He woke sometime before dawn to the murmur of voices and low laughter outside his door.

A drawer opened. Utensils clattered. A kettle hissed. A dog barked from somewhere close.

There was a window beside the bed, and outside it, the Montana sky was pale and bruised with the first hint of morning.

The voices outside got louder.

“I said, stay, King!”

Wet paws skittered across hardwood. A deep, braying bark echoed through the hall, followed by the man’s gruff voice, this time laced with exasperation: “He went in the damn pond again. Before six fucking a.m. I swear, I’m trading this furry asshole in for horse duty.”

“Horses can be assholes, too,” someone else said.“And they’re bigger.”

Something thudded. A splash of water. More of those deep barks.

“Shit, Jonah—grab him!”

Jax shoved out of bed, pulled on yesterday’s jeans and boots, grabbed the duffel he hadn’t unpacked, and bolted. He didn’t even know where the hell he was going. Just away.

The hallway outside his door was narrow, wood-panneled, and dim.

The voices came from the far end where the hallway opened to a common room.

More wood paneling, vaulted ceiling, stone fireplace, cold but swept clean, worn leather couches that had seen years of asses and boots.

A scarred pool table sat off to one side, half-covered in laundry.

The far wall was all windows, morning light slanting across the hardwood floor and catching dust in the air.

There were six men in the room.

One stood at the stove. Tall and rangy, hair a curly mess, he hummed off-key and flipped bacon like breakfast was a Broadway audition. He wore a threadbare US Navy T-shirt, plaid sleep pants, and… bunny slippers?

What the hell was up with that?

A giant, shaggy beast of a dog tore through the room, slinging water and drool in its wake.

“God dammit , King!” A mountain of a man gave chase with a towel. Muscled, inked, with buzzed hair, he looked like he’d been carved out of bad decisions. The dog slid on the hardwood and slammed into a couch, shaking water in all directions.

Someone else tried to help wrangle the beast—a man with a Marine Corps globe and anchor tattoo on his forearm and rust-brown hair that looked like he let the wind style it for him.

“Jonah, on your six,” the big guy called.

The Marine turned and launched at the dog, who slipped easily from his grasp. Unlike the big guy, Jonah looked like he was enjoying every second of the chase.

A man with dark hair and darker eyes full of shadows snapped his laptop from the table before the dog crashed into it, sending a half-full coffee mug flying. “This is why I don’t do breakfast.”

“Or joy,” a black man said from one of the couches. He lounged there like he didn’t have a care in the world, wearing nothing but a grin and a pair of loose basketball shorts that left nothing to the imagination.

The man with the shadowed eyes glared at him. “Jesus, X. Put some clothes on. Nobody wants to see your cock flopping around.”

“Why not? It’s a thing of beauty. Dare I say, a gift to humanity.”

“Yeah,” said the guy in the bunny slippers, deadpan. “The gift that keeps on giving syphilis.”

X flipped him off as the others howled with laughter. Loud, easy laughter. Like this kind of chaos was normal. Like they were brothers.

Jax wasn’t part of it. Couldn’t be. His brothers were dead, and the two that weren’t wanted nothing to do with him.

Jonah was the first to spot him lingering in the hallway. “Yo, you’re the new guy, right? I’m Jonah. Sorry for the craziness. King’s a menace. You want coffee?” Each sentence came rapid-fire. The guy had the same happy-go-lucky energy as the puppies Jax used to train in prison.

Jax didn’t answer.

The sixth man was crouched in front of the fireplace, stoking the flames.

He had broad shoulders and a solid build beneath a red-and-navy plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows.

A thick, dark beard covered his jaw, and his neatly trimmed hair was swept back like he’d run a hand through it out of habit, not vanity.

One scarred hand flexed as he braced it against a knee to stand, his movements economical, controlled.

A wolfhound sat calmly beside him. Shaggy, broad-chested, with watchful eyes, the dog sat there like a sentinel, silent and unmoved, until the man shifted. Then his ears twitched and his body tensed, ready to follow or defend, whatever the man needed.

The man’s hazel eyes met Jax’s with quiet understanding. “I’m Anson,” he said. “You okay?”

No.

Not at fucking all.

The walls pressed in. His chest clamped tight.

Too many bodies. Too much noise.

Jax strode across the common room, ignoring the six sets of human eyes and the two dogs. He pushed through the front door hard enough that the screen banged shut behind him, and he heard one of the men laugh.

“Twenty bucks says he comes back.”

“Not taking that bet, Riv,” X responded. “Boone always gets them to come back.”

Outside, the morning sun was just cresting the mountain ridge. Dew clung to the grass. The air smelled like pine and horses.

He didn’t stop moving.

Didn’t look back.

The ranch driveway was long, at least a mile.

He followed it to a dusty two-lane road and picked a direction to start walking.

He was maybe three miles out when the sound of a car engine broke through his thoughts.

A teal sedan came around the bend and rolled to a stop with its hazard lights flashing.

Jax slowed his pace, puzzled, until he got close enough to see the reason for it. Flat tire.

A woman climbed out of the driver’s seat and looked at the flat.

She kicked the tire with one booted foot, then pulled a phone from her jacket pocket.

But she didn’t call anyone. Instead, she replaced the phone in her pocket and kicked the tire again, before turning to lean back against the car, head dropped back, shoulders slumped in pure defeat.

Her hair was dark and pulled back, but loose strands whipped around her face in the wind.

She looked like she was holding it together by a thread.

He could relate.

“Does kicking it help?” His voice was rusty from disuse, but she turned sharply toward him.

She watched him approach with big, dark eyes far too world-weary for someone who couldn’t even be thirty yet.

“No,” she said finally and pushed off the car, positioning herself between it and him. “But it makes me feel better. Are you from Valor Ridge?”

He didn’t know how to answer that. Yes, he’d come from there, but was he from there? No. And he didn’t plan to be.

“I’m just passing through.” He stopped walking a good distance away from her. He didn’t want to scare her. “Do you have a spare? I can help you fix that if you want.”

She looked back at the car, and he caught sight of a small figure moving around in the backseat. A kid.

Her gaze returned to him. “You’re not a murderer, are you?”

Not for lack of trying.

Again, he didn’t know how to respond, so he kept his mouth shut.

She shifted on her feet and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “People in town talk about the men at the Ridge. How you’re all dangerous, and none of you should be trusted.”

What would she say if she knew he’d been out of prison for less than forty-eight hours? But she didn’t sound afraid. More like she was resigned to whatever fate might throw at her next.

“I can change the tire,” he said instead of answering.

The kid stuck its face against the window, staring at him with just as much suspicion as the woman. Jax couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl.

“Mom?”

“It’s okay, honey,” she said without looking away from Jax. Like taking her eyes off him might be a mistake.

Silence stretched between them, only broken by the mournful coo of a bird.

“I’m not going to hurt you or your kid,” he said at last. “But if you’re not comfortable, I get it. Just point me to town, and I’ll send help your way.”