Page 15 of Ranger’s Oath (Lone Star Wolf Rangers #5)

“Somewhere with space and private security,” I say. “Somewhere with people like the boys.”

Cassidy grins and tips her mug toward me. “Exactly.”

I pull up public records. “Who on the island has ties to Houston? Who donated to the same energy PACs as the shell directors?” My fingers fly, connecting dots that may be useless or everything.

Kari sends us a message while I dig:

Need to run. Have a meeting with my publisher. Send me the shells. I’ll put eyes on Delaware and Caymans.

“Tell her Gulf Coast Heritage Foundation has nothing to do with this,” I add, thinking of the gala and the board who trusts me. “No one touches it. It stays clean.”

Cassidy nods and sends a reply to Kari whose bubble pops again:

Understood. Give me three hours.

The promise settles my pulse. We’re not helpless. We’re not waiting by a locked door.

Footsteps sound from behind us. Both Cassidy and I go still until they pass. Gage appears at the doorway and stops when he sees us on the floor with laptops and coffee and our hair still wild from the night. His mouth hardens, then softens, then settles somewhere careful.

“You should be asleep,” he says to me.

“I should be a lot of things,” I answer. “What I am is awake.”

His gaze drops to the screen. “What are you doing?”

“Research.” I keep my tone neutral, as if the word isn’t loaded with all the ways the team hates civilians in the middle of an op.

“On what?”

“Your job.” I meet his eyes without blinking.

Cassidy coughs. “Play nice, you two.”

Gage steps into the room as Cassidy rises and looks between us. His voice lowers. “We’ll share when it’s verified.”

“You’ll share when Rush decides we’ve earned it,” I say.

He doesn’t flinch. “Rush and this team more or less kept you breathing.”

“Not the point.”

“What is the point, Sadie?” He folds his arms, forearms stark with tension. “Because from where I’m standing, the point is you’ve got men with rifles targeting your head and you’re combing the internet for breadcrumbs that will make you feel less boxed in.”

“That’s a decent summary,” I admit. “Add this: I refuse to be the only person in the room without sightlines.”

Something like admiration flares in his eyes before he smothers it. “You stay on our side of the line. You bring anything you find to me or Rush.”

“And if what I find points at you?” I ask softly.

He stares at me for a long beat. “Then you point. I won’t hide.” He looks at Cassidy. “Kari’s looped?”

Cassidy nods. “She’s already pulling filings.”

He mutters something that sounds a lot like, “Of course she is,” then scrubs a palm over his jaw. “Keep it contained. Use the guest network, not the ops net.”

“We’re not idiots,” I say.

“Debatable,” he murmurs, but there’s no heat in it. He steps closer, near enough that the warmth of him brushes my shoulder. “Eat something. Then rest for two hours.”

“Orders?” I ask, lifting a brow.

“Common sense.” His eyes dip to my mouth and back. Heat jumps under my skin. He notices, of course he does. The corner of his mouth tugs as if he knows exactly what I remember from earlier. “Two hours,” he repeats, low enough that it feels like a promise.

He leaves before I can argue. Coward.

“You two are combustible,” Cassidy says.

“I am focused,” I lie.

She laughs quietly, then sobers. “Keep focused then. We’ll need it.”

By late morning, the house has the exhausted quiet of a place that has survived a storm. Someone fixed the shattered glass. Someone scrubbed the entry of blood. Outside, the sun turns the pasture into a sheet of white heat. Inside, we keep working.

Kari starts dropping files into a shared folder with ruthless efficiency. Shell A owns Shell B which leases to Holding C which paid for the island catering. Another note: Common director across three shells is an accountant in name only. Past work: moving defense contract money off-books.

A chill traces my spine. “This isn’t random.”

“Never was,” Cassidy says.

A new message flashes: Found the leak vector. Not your plane. Port-side longshoreman flagged a crate that shouldn’t exist. It moved the same night you arrived in Texas. Same shell paid for both crate and villa. Shell director shows up in a donation file for a state-level PAC two counties over.

I read it twice. “They didn’t follow us from the gala. They were already in motion. The crate moved when I did. Parallel lines.”

“And those lines converged here,” Cassidy says. “Because we’re where targets go when Team W gets involved.”

Another ping from Kari: Also, your penthouse elevator tech from last month? His certification got renewed by a company that doesn’t exist. Guess who funds it.

I stare at the screen until the words blur. “They were looking at me before Aruba.”

Cassidy’s hand finds my knee and squeezes, anchoring me. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“We know enough to be scared.” I swallow hard. “Why me?”

She hesitates. “Because you saw something. Because you didn’t die when you were supposed to.”

The room tilts a little. I breathe until it steadies.

“Send Kari the names tied to the drone controller purchase,” I say, voice thin but steady. “And ask if any of those overlap with the villa rentals.”

Cassidy types. For a while the only sounds are keys and the quiet click of my mouth against a water bottle. The normalcy of it grates, then soothes, then grates again.

“Eat,” Cassidy says, shoving a granola bar into my line of sight.

I make a face but take it. She watches until I bite. Bossy older sisters are a universal truth.

By afternoon, I’m vibrating with too much coffee and not enough sleep. Gage swings by the doorway again, scans the room, lands on me. “Two hours,” he says.

“I will,” I promise.

“You said that two hours ago.”

He crosses to the window and peers out, posture relaxed to anyone who doesn’t know him. Every line of him hums ready. He glances back. “We found why they picked this property.”

I sit up. “Tell me.”

“View corridors,” he says. “No line-of-sight obstructions from the county road to the rear pasture. They could stage behind the mesquite and read our shape against the house lights. We’ll fix it. Dalton’s bringing in panels and a planting crew. We’ll break the straight lines.”

He’s telling me because I asked for sightlines. The gesture warms something inside me that I probably shouldn’t name.

“And the van?” I ask.

“Gone,” he says. “And what was in it is ashes. Gideon pulled a text from the burner.” He checks his notes. “It’s a single line. ‘If the package isn’t at the island, check the c oast.’ ”

Package. I hate that word.

Gage reads my face and adds, “They can call you whatever they want. It doesn’t change what you are.”

“What am I?” I ask, daring him to say it.

His eyes don’t move from mine. “Alive.”

Heat creeps up my neck at the simplicity of it. I look away first.

“Two hours,” he repeats, softer now. “Sleep.”

“You sleep,” I mutter.

“After you.” He leaves before I can come up with a sharper line.

Cassidy elbows me. “You two are exhausting.”

“Tell me about it.”

We try for sleep. We fail. The bed feels like a stage, my mind a projector that won’t stop rolling footage I don’t want to see, water swallowing a phone on a bridge, a limo window sliding up, a steel door shuddering, Gage’s mouth hot and sure.

I last twenty minutes before I give up and pad back to the den. Cassidy joins me without being asked.

“Thought you’d be here,” she says, dropping onto the couch.

“Thought you’d stop me,” I shoot back.

“I will if you try to leave the house,” she says. “Research is safer.”

We work until sunset paints the pasture in long bars of gold.

Kari’s feed pings again with a longer note: Found a company called Pier One Logistics moving crates offloaded at night with falsified bills of lading.

The same manager who signed off on those also signed for a private charter refuel at Ellington the night you landed. Thread is tight now. I’ll keep pulling.

“Pier One Logistics,” I repeat, tasting the shape of it.

“It’s always the bland names,” Cassidy says. “They hide in plain sight.”

“Like you?” I tease.

She smiles without humor. “Not anymore.”

The front door opens and closes somewhere in the house. Voices drift. I catch Rush’s low rumble, Gideon’s clipped reply. No one calls for us.

“Let’s move,” I say. “If they won’t invite us to the board, we’ll bring our own chairs.”

Cassidy stands. “Careful.”

“I’m the definition of careful.”

She snorts. “Since when?”

“Since now.”