Page 31 of Montana Justice

Lachlan

The gravel sprayed under my tires as I skidded into Pawsitive Connections’ parking lot. The rage that had been building during the drive erupted as I slammed the truck door hard enough to make the windows rattle.

The main barn loomed ahead, its familiar red paint looking garish in the afternoon sun.

I’d kissed Piper goodbye in this same spot yesterday morning, tasting coffee on her lips while she’d smiled up at me.

All lies. Every smile, every touch, every whispered word in the dark—all of it calculated manipulation.

“Lachlan!” Lark appeared in the barn entrance, her auburn hair escaping from its messy bun. “Thank God you’re here. Something’s wrong with Piper?—”

I pushed past her into the barn. The familiar scents of hay and horses barely registered as I stalked down the aisle, boots striking the concrete with sharp cracks that made several horses shift nervously in their stalls.

“Where is she?”

“Lachlan, wait—” Lark grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “What the hell is wrong with you? You need to calm down. She’s not well.”

“Not well?” I barked out a laugh that held no humor. “That’s one way to describe being a lying, manipulative?—”

“Stop.” Lark stepped directly into my path, forcing me to halt or bowl her over.

Despite being half a foot shorter, she held her ground with the same stubborn determination she used with difficult horses.

“Whatever’s going on, she’s in no state to handle you storming in here like a bull in a china shop. ”

“You don’t understand what she’s done.”

“Then explain it to me. But first, take a breath.” Her green eyes held mine, unflinching. “I’ve never seen you like this. Not even during that hostage situation last year.”

The hostage situation where I’d kept my cool while negotiating for three hours.

Where I’d talked a desperate man into surrendering without anyone getting hurt.

But that had been a stranger threatening innocent people, not the woman I’d taken into my home, into my bed, who’d used our son as a weapon against me.

“She’s been feeding information to her father, Ray Matthews, a known criminal,” I said, each word precise and cold.

“She’s allowed a weapons and drug trafficking enterprise to flourish.

Every operation we’ve planned against it, every raid that could’ve stopped them?

That’s gone sideways because of her. She planted a recording device on me. ”

Lark’s expression shifted, but not to the outrage I’d expected. Instead, something like understanding flickered across her face. “And you know this for certain?”

“Travis found the bug. In the watch she gave me.” I held up my bare wrist. “The one she said was a thank-you gift. Every meeting, every phone call, every plan I discussed while wearing it—her father heard it all.”

“Okay.” Lark nodded slowly. “That’s bad. Really bad. But?—”

“But nothing. She played me. Used me. Made me think—” I cut myself off before I could voice exactly what I’d thought. That she cared. That we were building something real.

That we were building a forever .

“There are always two sides to every story,” Lark said quietly. “Maybe there’s something you don’t understand.”

“It’s not terribly difficult to understand betrayal.” The words came out harsh enough to make her flinch. “Now, where is she?”

Lark studied me for a long moment, then sighed. “Back corner, near Duchess’s stall. But Lachlan—she had some kind of episode. Started hyperventilating, collapsed. She kept saying a name—Sadie. Over and over.”

“Sadie? Who’s Sadie?” The name meant nothing to me. Another lie, probably. Another con.

“I don’t know. But the way she said it…” Lark shook her head. “Like her heart was breaking.”

I pushed past her, though her words followed me down the aisle. Heart breaking . As if Piper Matthews had a heart to break.

I found her exactly where Lark had said, propped against the wall outside Duchess’s stall.

A damp washcloth pressed to her forehead, her skin pale as a ghost except for the red splotches where tears had tracked down her cheeks.

She looked small, broken, nothing like the woman who’d systematically destroyed everything I’d worked for.

Her eyes opened as my shadow fell across her, and I watched the sequence of emotions play out—relief at seeing me, then confusion at my expression, then naked fear as understanding dawned.

“Lachlan.” My name came out as barely a whisper.

“Get up.”

She struggled to stand, using the wall for support. The washcloth fell forgotten to the ground. Up close, I could see she was shaking—fine tremors that ran through her whole body.

“I can explain?—”

“Can you? Can you explain how you’ve been reporting every word I say to your father? How you’ve been helping him sell drugs that have gotten people killed?” My voice rose with each question. “How many weapons are on the street because you warned your father and his cronies about our raids?”

She flinched at each accusation, arms wrapping around herself like armor. Behind us, I heard Lark approaching again.

“Lachlan, you need to calm down,” Lark said firmly. “Whatever’s going on?—”

“She betrayed us all.” I didn’t take my eyes off Piper. “Every single person trying to protect this town, trying to keep drugs away from kids, trying to stop weapons trafficking—she sold us out. Everything Pawsitive Connections stands against, she was trying to help.”

“There’s something you don’t know,” Piper said, her voice stronger now but still thread-thin. “Please, if you’d just listen?—”

“Listen? Like I listened when you cried in my arms about being scared? Like I listened when you said you were trying to build a better life for our son?” The word our tasted bitter now. “Every word out of your mouth has been a lie.”

“Not everything.” Tears streamed down her face, but she held my gaze. “Not how I feel about?—”

“Don’t.” The word cracked like a whip. “Don’t you dare stand there and pretend anything between us was real.”

Piper wisely didn’t try to dispute me.

I turned to Lark. “I’m taking her home. We need to talk. I won’t hurt her. But this ends today.”

She looked between us, clearly torn. Finally, she nodded. “Piper, do you feel safe going with him?”

The question sent fresh rage through me. As if I was the threat here. As if I was the one who’d lied and manipulated and?—

“Yes,” Piper whispered. “It’s okay.”

I grabbed Caleb in his car carrier, and we walked to my truck in tense silence. I held the passenger door open, not out of courtesy but because I didn’t trust her not to run. She climbed in slowly, movements careful like everything hurt.

I started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, gravel crunching under the tires.

“Want to see what I’m not wearing?” I held up my bare wrist, then tossed the printed pages into her lap. “Travis found out it was a transmitter. Didn’t take long for me to put the pieces together from there.”

Fresh tears tracked down her cheeks as she stared down at her hands, but she didn’t speak.

I didn’t speak either. Didn’t trust myself to. The rage was too close to the surface, mixed with a betrayal so deep it felt like drowning. Every instinct screamed at me to pull over, to demand answers, to make her explain how she could have done this to me. To us. To our son.

But I kept driving.

Ten minutes stretched like hours. Piper’s breathing grew more ragged, hitching on suppressed sobs. Her hands clutched the papers like a lifeline, knuckles white with tension.

When we finally pulled into my driveway, I cut the engine and sat there for a moment. Home. The place where she’d cooked dinner every night, where we’d bathed Caleb together, where we’d made love in the shower just this morning. All of it tainted now.

“Inside,” I said, the first word I’d spoken since leaving Pawsitive.

She grabbed Caleb’s carrier, and I took it from her and carried him inside. The familiar scent of home—coffee and baby powder and something that was uniquely Piper—hit me like a slap.

I took him out of the carrier and laid him carefully in his crib, shutting the door behind me as I left. I found Piper in the living room. She stood in the middle of the space, looking lost, like she didn’t belong here anymore.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” My voice came out rough, barely controlled. “Or was the plan to just keep bleeding intelligence until we were all compromised? Until someone got killed?”

“I tried to minimize?—”

“ Minimize ? You think that makes it better?” I slammed my palm against the wall. “You sat at my table, slept in my bed, smiled at my friends, all while stabbing us in the back.”

“I didn’t have a choice!”

“Everyone has a choice. You could have trusted me. Could have told me the truth from the beginning.”

“You don’t understand?—”

“Then help me understand! Explain how you could do this. Make me understand how the woman I—” I bit off the words. “How you could betray everything I stand for.”

Part of me couldn’t wait for the elaborate lies that I knew would come out of her mouth. Something complicated and difficult to understand at first—some long story where the details were vague at best.

“Ray has our daughter!” The words exploded out of her, raw and desperate.

That was definitely not what I expected. “ What ?”

“Sadie. Our daughter. Your daughter.” Her voice cracked, body starting to shake violently. “Ray has her, and the only way I get to keep her alive is to do exactly what he says.”

“What?” I parroted, completely incapable of putting these pieces together.

“Twins.” The word came out as a wail. “I had twins. Caleb and then…Sadie.”

She dropped to her knees, as if standing was beyond her capacity. Her hands went to her hair, fingers tangling in the blonde strands, pulling hard enough that I winced.

“You’re lying.” She had to be lying.