Broken Vow: A Dark Mafia Romance (Brutal Birthright Book 5)
Broken Vow: Chapter 19

Raylan walks me back to the house and all the way up to the guest room. I think he’s planning to tuck me into bed, but I say to him—unexpectedly, and surprising him as much as me—“Will you stay with me?”

Raylan looks surprised, but pleased.

“Of course,” he says.

Even though it’s a Queen-sized bed, Raylan is big enough that we’re still close together on the mattress, his weight causing us to roll together in the middle of the bed. With my head resting on his chest, I can feel his heart thudding against my ear, steady and strong. It’s an incredibly peaceful sound. As regular as ocean waves.

I feel my heart rate slowing to match his. My breathing getting deep and heavy like the air slowly rushing in and out of Raylan’s lungs.

I feel exhausted like I’ve never been before. Every muscle of my body is loose, warm, and still steeped in pleasure chemicals.

I’ve never been so satisfied. Not just sexually—mentally and emotionally, too. That sex stimulated my brain and my desire unlike anything I’ve experienced.

It’s paradoxical, because I would have thought that I’d HATE to be treated like that. I fucking hate being restrained, controlled, or bossed around. But not by Raylan . . .

I don’t understand it.

How could everything I hate be twisted and turned to such a degree that I found it wildly arousing?

Even as I’m drifting off to sleep, I’m pondering that question. Trying to understand what I just experienced.

Right before I fall asleep, I see a glimmering answer, like a nugget of gold in the silt of a riverbed.

It’s because I admire him.

I’ve never fucked a man I actually respected before. I’m so fucking arrogant that I looked down on every man I dated. They didn’t impress me. Outside of my own family, one of the only men I truly respected was Dante. But we were just friends.

I’ve never experienced what it’s like to fully esteem a man. To want to impress him. To want to please him.

There was a kind of pleasure in being conquered. Raylan is so handsome and rugged and capable, that I felt like he deserved to have me. He deserved to have me any way he wanted.

Then, on top of that, there was a deep and potent relief in letting go . . . in letting him take charge of the sexual experience. I didn’t have to think or plan or maintain my rigid hold on the situation like I usually would. Instead, I could set my brain free. There was no governor on my thoughts or on my physical response. I was free to simply experience what was happening, with no distractions.

Then, of course, there was a third element—how deeply filthy and taboo it all felt. He tied me down! He whipped me! He fucked me like an animal!

I should be furious and disgusted.

But instead . . . I loved it.

The perverse and rebellious part of me takes a deep pleasure in enjoying what I’m not supposed to like. In embracing what I’m supposed to reject.

It would only work with Raylan though, I know that. I would never respect another man enough to allow him to do that. Enough to WANT him to do it. And I would never trust anyone else like that.

That’s the core of why I was able to let go . . . because I do trust Raylan. However dominant and aggressive he might have seemed in the moment, deep down I knew that he would never actually hurt me. I allowed him to tie my hands because I knew that what followed would be pleasurable for both of us. I knew that even though he was pretending to use me for his own enjoyment, all the while he was watching my responses, gauging my arousal and my desire, so he could pull back from the edge of pain at just the right time, and soothe me with exactly the right kind of touch.

I trust him.

Just that thought alone hits me like a hammer.

I’ve never trusted anybody outside my own family (I include Dante in that, because he is my brother-in-law, after all).

But I trust Raylan. I really do.

If his heavy, warm arms weren’t currently wrapped around me, I think that realization might terrify me. But I’m too calm, too drained, and too comfortable to feel any negative feelings right now.

Instead, I slip off to sleep, simply marveling that something so unexpected has happened to me.

The next morning I wake up to Raylan’s tongue between my thighs.

He’s down under the blankets, gently licking and lapping at my clit.

I’m so flushed and warm with sleep that my pussy is incredibly sensitive. Each stroke of his tongue is utterly intoxicating.

My brain is still in that floating half-asleep state. My memories of the night before are both vivid and fantastical—real and dreamlike. With every touch of Raylan’s tongue, I feel like I’m experiencing the best parts of our sexual encounter all over again.

I remember the look of his body in the lantern-light—every muscle bulging with exertion. His skin glowing. His bright blue eyes intense and animalistic. The glint of his teeth when he growled at me, or when he threw his head back in pleasure.

I remember how he seemed to transform into the most commanding, most powerful version of himself. The more dominant he became, the more my arousal grew. I wanted to please him. And the more I pleased him, the more pleasure I felt myself, in an endless feedback loop.

He knew exactly what I needed. His attention was fixed on me a thousand percent. Those bright blue eyes were focused and intent, and his hands seemed to have a supernatural ability to wrench a reaction out of my body.

I’ve never known anyone as perceptive as Raylan. I know I can be difficult—stubborn, cold, contentious. Most people don’t understand me at all.

But Raylan sees through all that. Those blue eyes cut through the barriers I’ve built up. They cut through all my contradictory impulses. And he replaces my real, true desires. The things I want that I would have sworn I didn’t want at all.

Like right now—he’s eating my pussy gently and carefully, so there’s no jolting awake. Instead I’m recovering consciousness gradually, extending that state of dream-like bliss for as long as possible.

By the time I’m fully awake, my pussy is throbbing with pleasure, the waves of elation radiating outward through my sleep-warmed body.

Right as I come fully awake, Raylan climbs on top of me, his cock raging hard. He slides into me easily, since I’m soaking wet. But it’s still a tight fit, with a delicious level of friction that I’ve only ever experienced with him. As if his cock and my pussy were made for each other. As if every other partner we’d been with was the wrong sized shoe on the wrong foot—uncomfortable, and always rubbing raw.

He fills me up perfectly, his cock stimulating every single pleasure zone. The head of his cock rubs against that sensitive place deep inside of me, his girth stimulates all around my opening. And my clit grinds against his hard, flat belly with exactly the right amount of pressure.

He braces himself with bent arms on either side of my head, and he looks directly down into my face.

I look up at him, thinking how unusual it is for a man to be so handsome up close. Most people are better viewed from a distance. That’s why we close our eyes when we kiss.

Not Raylan. With his face only a few inches from mine, I see the clarity and brilliance of his eyes. They’re a vivid and electric blue, crackling with energy. His irises are encircled by a ring of deep black, the same color as his hair. That ink-black hair looks enticingly thick and soft, so much that I have to reach up and run my fingers through it, marveling how it feels like ermine, vibrant and alive, like every other part of Raylan.

I can’t stop touching him. I trail my fingers down the side of his face, where his thick, prickly stubble is already growing back. I like the way it outlines his lips and jaw, giving him a roguish, wicked look.

Then I touch his shoulders and chest, straining with the effort of holding himself up on the soft bed, and the exertion of slowly thrusting in and out of me.

He has a large tattoo on his right shoulder, shaped like a shield. Inside the shield is a kneeling knight, holding a sword. The background of the shield is a night sky, speckled with stars and a crescent moon. I know it must be from his mercenary company, The Black Knights. I bet all his brothers-in-arms have the same mark.

I’ve seen mercenary tattoos before—skulls, daggers, snakes, and guns, usually.

It strikes me that the Black Knights chose something quite different as their sigil—a kneeling man, in a penitent pose. It’s not aggressive or violent. Instead it seems to indicate chivalry, and honor.

Raylan is a good man.

He’s been good to me.

He’s protected me. He brought me to his own home to keep me safe.

I look up into his face and I DO feel safe. I feel cared for.

These are not sensations that come easily to me. Sometimes I struggle to feel that way even with my own family.

But Raylan isn’t obligated to care about me, like family is. If he likes me, if he protects me . . . it’s simply because he wants to. It’s real and genuine.

I can feel my climax building—it’s been building steadily since he was eating me out, but now it’s at the very top of a very high peak. And I’m about to go plummeting down.

And for the first time in my life, I look right in a man’s eyes while I cum. It’s not awkward, or distracting. Instead, the eye contact amplifies the sensation a hundredfold. It takes sexual pleasure and pairs it with gratitude, admiration, and adoration. It stitches together sensation and emotion into one explosive climax. Instead of crying out, I make a sound almost like a sob.

“Are you alright?” Raylan asks me, his blue eyes full of tenderness.

“Yes!” I cry.

He nuzzles his face against the side of my neck, inhaling my scent. He lets go too, cumming inside of me with a long groan that thrills me from my head down to my toes.

When we’re finished, we lay there a long time, with Raylan still inside of me, and my arms still wrapped tight around his neck. I’m smelling the warm, clean scent of his skin, which is endlessly enticing to me. I can’t seem to stop pressing my face against his chest, inhaling slowly and deeply.

At last we can hear the noise of breakfast below.

Raylan says, “I guess we better get up before they start shouting for us. That’s the downside of ranch life—nobody can stand to see anybody sleep in.”

“That’s alright,” I say. “I hate sleeping. It’s a waste of time.”

But for the first time, that’s not actually true. I had the best sleep of my life last night. Not a waste of time at all.

Raylan and I pad over to the shower.

This is something else I’d usually avoid—cramming two full-size adults into one tiny shower. I’ve always viewed that as a ridiculous inconvenience.

But today, I want to be close to Raylan. I want to be right next to him for as long as I can. I don’t care that it takes longer to shower, or that sometimes we have to trade spots under the warm spray, and for a moment I’m shivering until he pulls me back under again and helps me rinse out my hair.

It feels lovely, having his thick, strong fingers massaging my scalp, feeling our bodies pressed together all slippery and wet and clean.

When we get out to towel off, the foot or two of space between us seems like too much. Having fallen into this unprecedented intimacy, I’m afraid to let us drift apart again, in case it never rematerializes.

“Are you hungry?” Raylan asks, toweling off his thick, dark hair.

“Starving,” I admit.

I feel like I could eat an entire outrageously-sized Raylan breakfast, down to the last bite of toast.

As we thump down the creaking stairs, a cornucopia of delectable scents hit my nostrils. The Boones never disappoint when it comes to food. The table is piled high with plate-sized pancakes, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, biscuits and gravy, and bizarrely, what looks like freshly sliced papaya.

Tucker and Lawson are each attacking a stack of syrup-drenched pancakes that would stymie grown men. Or at least, grown men who aren’t Boones.

Grady and Shelby are sitting next to their sons. Grady has a black eye as dark as a ring of boot polish. He looks like he’s wearing a giant monocle.

Celia is eating poached egg on toast. She looks up as her eldest son comes into the room.

“You were fighting, too!” she says accusingly, spotting Raylan’s split lip.

“Ah, it was nothing,” Raylan says dismissively. “Just a little dust-up. Nobody got stabbed or shot. Sheriff Dawes was pulling in as we left—I’m sure he cleared out anybody who hadn’t had enough already.”

Celia looks over at Bo. “Tammy Whitmore texted me and said that Duke started it.”

Bo flushes guiltily. “No, not really,” she says, without confessing exactly what happened.

“I saw him dancing with Lindsey,” Shelby says, knowing that she’s skirting the edges of the truth.

“Was he?” Bo says.

Bo doesn’t seem to have much appetite this morning, sticking only to a mug of coffee and a couple slices of papaya.

I’m piling my plate high with bacon and scrambled eggs, torn between my curiosity at whether Bo is going to admit what actually happened, and my desperate need to eat a ton of food as quickly as possible.

But Bo simply pushes her chair back from the table, saying, “That’s enough for me.”

“You barely ate!” Celia protests.

She turns to me, probably expecting me to make a similar comment, but instead I’ve got both cheeks as full as a chipmunk and I’m still shoveling in more.

Celia can’t help laughing.

“At least we’re having a good influence on you,” she says.

“Yesh,” I mumble, mouth full and belly happy.

Raylan laughs too, loving that he’s managed to sway me over to the joys of breakfast, if nothing else. His laugh is loud and mischievous, the kind that pulls everyone else into mirth. The boys start giggling, and soon Shelby and Grady are, too.

I like this family so much.

They’re warm and welcoming, unpretentious and hardworking. They love animals and the outdoors.

I like them and respect them, as much for our differences as our similarities.

I don’t know why they seem to like me too—maybe they’re just kind to everyone. But I’m grateful all the same.

“What’s your plan today?” Celia says to Raylan and me.

“I’ve gotta run into Knoxville this morning to get some new horse stall mats,” Raylan says to me. “You wanna come with me, before you start working?”

“That’s temping,” I say. “I do love shopping for horse stall mats . . .”

Raylan chuckles. “I thought we could get you some toiletries and clothes,” he says. “I’m aware that horse stall mats aren’t a big draw for you.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Grady says. “A nice, thick flexible mat with that fresh rubber smell . . . they oughta make that into a candle scent.”

“Are you gonna go to the crêperie after?” Bo asks.

“Sure,” Raylan says, easily.

“Then I’m coming.”

“Me too,” Grady says.

We all pile into Raylan’s truck. I’m starting to like the wide, comfy bench seats and the view of the dusty roads from way up in the cab. Unlike with bucket seats, there’s nothing separating Raylan and me. It makes the drive strangely intimate, our free hands just inches apart on the seat.

Grady insists on picking the music, which is all country, and mostly all awful. That doesn’t stop him from singing along to every song, and drumming on the back of the seats. I’d usually replace this annoying, but today it just makes me laugh. Maybe it’s all the pleasure chemicals still zipping around in my blood. Or maybe it’s the huge breakfast I just ate. Whatever the cause, I’m in a bizarrely good mood.

As we drive into Knoxville, the city strikes me as surprisingly pretty. The streets are tree-lined and shady, and the high rises are built along the banks of a river, similar to Chicago.

It’s busier than I expected. The shops and cafes are crowded with people, and the downtown streets look prosperous. There’s no empty or boarded-up shops, and only one small brick building for sale.

There’s a pleasant air of friendliness—people smiling or nodding as they pass us on the sidewalk. I don’t know if it’s a southern thing, or if Raylan’s grin just makes people want to smile back at us.

Raylan waits while I step inside a CVS to buy what I need, then we go next door to something called the CAL Ranch Store. Bo wanders off to the firearms section, while Grady and Raylan get the mats. I’m distracted by several incubators full of eggs, in which dozens of chicks are currently hatching. The chicks look wet and bedraggled, and not nearly as cute as the fluffy yellow ones in the next box over, who have apparently been hopping around at least a day or two. Still, I’m fascinated by the slow, painstaking process by which they break out of their shell prison.

I’m still there when Raylan returns from hauling mats out to the truck.

“You want some chickens?” he asks me with a grin.

“No,” I say. “I’m just amazed they can do this, when they look so weak and floppy.”

“They’re tougher than they look.”

He scoops one of the clean, fluffy chicks out of its glass box and places it in my hands. I’m amazed how light it is, and how soft. I can feel its heartbeat against my thumb, ten times faster than my own. The chick nuzzles down in my palm, enjoying the warmth.

All our purchases complete, we head over to the French Market Creperie as Raylan promised. Raylan and I split a banana/Nutella/walnut crepe, and I have to admit, it’s pretty damn good. Not far off the crepes I ate in France.

We head back to the ranch, the heavy rubber horse stall mats weighing down the bed of the truck.

While Raylan and Grady are unloading, I head back into the house. I want to go back over those purchase agreements again, so I can puzzle out the discrepancy one more time.

Opening Bo’s laptop, I notice the deep quiet of the kitchen, punctuated only by a few creaks from the older parts of the house, and the odd distant animal sound from outdoors.

It feels strange to be alone.

I’m surprised how quickly I’m getting used to the noise and bustle of the ranch, and the near-constant companionship of Raylan himself. Twice I replace myself looking up from the work, about to make a comment to him, only to realize that he’s out in the stables, not in the kitchen with me.

I shake my head at my idiocy and try to lose myself in the numbers like I usually do.

I asked Lucy to send me those documents. I’m pleased to see that she managed to replace everything I needed and sent it in several emails so none of the attachments would be too large.

I download them all and start sorting the data, comparing it to my previous spreadsheet.

After a couple hours of intense comparison, I’m finally able to slip into that state of almost hypnotic focus, where the numbers seem to flow and float through my brain, rearranging themselves into patterns that seem to occur almost outside of my control, as if I’m watching what’s happening instead of actively organizing it.

Numbers have always had a particular personality to me. 6 is lucky, 7 is quixotic but powerful. 9 can be tricky. 2 is useful. 5 can always be depended on. I know this is irrational, but it’s a device that allows me to rearrange and memorize sequences of numbers as if they were people or objects, not just symbols.

I’m looking at the computer screen, but I’m seeing the flow of numerals in my brain. I’m watching them twist and reform in kaleidoscopic patterns. Until at last . . . at last . . . I see it.

I see the irregularity.

I see it, and I understand it.

I let out a long, slow breath.

“Motherfucker,” I whisper.

Josh Hale has been stealing from us. And not a little bit . . . a whole fucking lot.

When we had to purchase all that land for the South Shore Development, he duplicated some of the properties. He copied the purchase agreements almost exactly—omitting only a single number or letter per page. That way, the documents would look identical to the naked eye, but could be sorted into separate folders in the computer system.

But where did the money go? That’s the question.

The numbers all add up in the spreadsheet, with the duplicate properties removed.

Which means the money we paid for the properties is gone. Siphoned off to some other account that I can’t see here.

I know it’s Josh, because the only properties with double documents are the ones signed by him and him alone.

But I don’t know where the fuck he sent the money.

We’re talking almost fifty million dollars . . .

I guess Josh figured out he wasn’t getting the partnership. And he thought he deserved to be paid.

I sit back in my chair, mind whirling.

I have to tell my family, obviously. Especially Cal. I’m pretty sure I just discovered why Josh wants me dead. He poked his head in my office and saw me working on the purchase agreements. He must have thought I already knew about the duplicates—or was about to replace them.

But strangely, I don’t rush to call Cal.

I want to talk to Raylan. I want to explain what I think I’ve found, and see if he thinks my conclusions are sound, or if I’ve missed something.

It’s not that I doubt myself—I just want his opinion. I’ve come to trust him over these weeks. Sometimes he sees things that I don’t.

So I wait for Raylan to come back from fixing the mats.

He strolls into the kitchen, sweaty and a little sunburned, but looking cheerful.

“You want some lemonade?” he says, taking the jug out of the fridge.

“No,” I say. “Well . . . maybe I will.”

The lemonade looks pretty damn good.

Raylan pours us each a glass, and we drink it standing up, next to the sink.

“What are you about to tell me?” he says, grinning a little. “You look excited.”

I explain what I found, and what I think it means.

Raylan listens, his face still except for a little line of tension between his eyebrows.

“So?” I say when I’m finished. “What do you think?”

“That’s pretty quick for that Josh guy to hire a hitman,” he says. “Just a couple hours at most from seeing the documents on your desk to the time the Djinn got in the pool . . . ”

“He knows where I live. He probably even knows I like to swim, the nosy fucker.”

Raylan is quiet, twisting his empty glass between his thick fingers.

“What?” I say.

“I dunno. It makes sense . . . if this guy’s been stealing money from your family, he’d do anything to cover it up. But something’s off . . . ”

I feel flustered that Raylan isn’t entirely agreeing with me. I know I asked for his opinion, but it’s unsatisfying to hear that I might not have solved it.

“Where did you get the extra files from?” Raylan says.

“I asked Lucy to send them to me.”

He frowns. “Did you tell her where you’re staying?”

“No, of course not.”

“But you emailed her from this laptop?”

“Yes,” I say hesitantly. “Does it matter?”

“Probably not,” he says, but he looks troubled. “Have you called your brother yet?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Alright. Well, call him now if you like.”

He hands me his phone. It’s an old one of Bo’s that Raylan’s been using, since his cellphone got burned up in my apartment along with everything else.

I dial Cal’s number, putting it on speaker so Raylan can hear the tinny ringing at the same time as me.

Cal picks up after only a couple of rings, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Hello?” he says, with that slightly suspicious tone he always has when he doesn’t recognize a number.

“It’s me,” I say.

“Oh, right,” he says. “Sorry, I keep forgetting to make a contact for this phone—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupt. “I think I know who hired the Djinn.”

“You do?” his tone is eager and tense. “Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker. Dante’s with me right now.”

I hear Dante’s rumbling voice—“What happened? What did you replace out?”

I quickly summarize again.

There’s silence when I finish, Cal and Dante digesting what I’ve said.

Then Cal says, “That slimy little shit.”

Cal’s only met Josh once or twice, but I don’t think he liked him any more than I did. Cal’s always had a particular hatred of suck-ups and brown-nosers. I think it comes from his days at that fancy private school, where other kids would try to leech on to him because of our family name.

“If we leave now, we can probably get him at the office,” Dante growls.

“Better call Uncle Oran and warn him,” I say. “If you just show up there and grab his employee, he’s going to be startled.”

“Yeah, I will,” Cal says.

“We’ll get the contract details out of Josh, so we can call off the hit,” Dante assures me. “I don’t care if I have to pull out every fucking fingernail and tooth in his body.”

“I doubt it will come to that,” I say. “He’s kind of a little bitch.”

“It won’t take long,” Cal says. “You can start packing your bag to come home again.”

My heart gives a little lurch in my chest.

I glance quickly over at Raylan, to see his expression. His face is still, but a muscle jumps at the corner of his jaw.

I had almost forgotten that I’d be going back to Chicago once we’d figured out who the fuck was trying to kill me. As soon as Cal and Dante get Josh, they’ll be able to wring the details of the hit out of him. Then they can call back the marker. The Djinn is just a hitman for hire—he doesn’t have any grudge against me.

The idea of being free of that shroud is certainly appealing. I want to be able to go where I like and do what I like again, without worrying about some boogeyman popping out at me.

But on the other hand . . . I’m not entirely excited to leave the ranch. I was actually enjoying myself here.

Still, Cal’s waiting to hear my response. So I lick my dry lips and say, “Yeah. I’m excited to come home. I missed you guys.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as it’s done,” Cal says.

He hangs up without actually saying goodbye, like he’s in a movie. Aida always teases him about that. “Too busy and important to waste half a second, Mr. Alderman?”

I don’t mind. I’m impatient, too. And I don’t care about little formalities.

I’m much more concerned with the strange tension between Raylan and me. It started with our disagreement over Josh. And now it seems to have expanded to fill the whole space of the kitchen.

“I’m sure Dante and Callum will handle it,” Raylan says, as if he’s reassuring me.

“I know,” I reply.

I don’t think that’s what either of us is actually worried about, but it’s the easiest thing to address.

Raylan hesitates. His blue eyes search my face, as if he’s trying to read me like he usually does, but for once he’s coming up blank.

“Do you want to go back?” he asks me.

“Well . . . I have to,” I say. “I’ve already missed so much work. And with Josh gone . . . I know it sounds stupid, because apparently he’s a treacherous asshole, but he did handle a huge workload. Somebody’s got to pick up the slack. Not to mention it’s pretty clear who’s getting the partnership now.”

“Congratulations,” Raylan says dully.

My chest feels tight. I know I should be happy. I’m finally getting what I worked toward for years. I’ll have my name on the door and on the letterhead. I’ll be a partner, not just an employee. I’ll be equal to my uncle in my father’s eyes. And I can just imagine how Uncle Oran will sweep me into one of his stiff, tight hugs that smells of cigar smoke, saying in his raspy voice, “Well done, girl.”

I want those things, as badly as I’ve ever wanted them. But I also want the look of hurt to disappear from Raylan’s eyes.

“You’ll come back with me, won’t you?” I ask him.

He lets out a little exhale of air. “Well . . . you won’t exactly need a bodyguard anymore, will you? And that’s a good thing,” he hastens to add.

“Right,” I say. It’s true. Still, I feel a little dull at that realization.

Which is ridiculous. Did I think Raylan was going to follow me around everywhere for the rest of my life?

The whole point was to figure out who hired the hitman and get back to normal existence.

That’s done. Or, almost done.

“Besides,” Raylan says quietly. “I don’t plan to go out on any more jobs. At least not in the foreseeable future. You probably saw my mom broke her foot—it’ll heal up fine, but she’s gonna break it again if she keeps working as hard as she has been. I’ve let her and Grady and Bo run this place too long. It’s time for me to make a choice if I want a stake in it or not. It’s not fair for me to let them do all the work, acting like I can come back any time I want.”

“So . . . you want to be a rancher?” I ask him.

“I am a rancher,” he says. “I just did other things for a while. I don’t ever want this place chopped up and sold. This is home.”

If Raylan would have told me that before I ever saw this place, I would have thought he was crazy. Who would want to live in Tennessee, after having traveled the world?

But I’ve seen with my own eyes how beautiful Birch Haven is. How endless in scope. I’ve seen how connected Raylan is to his family, and the animals, and the people around here. He was gone for years, and when he came home again it was like barely any time had passed. That’s how strong his bond is with this place—it can’t be eroded by time or distance.

I feel the same way about Chicago, in some ways. I’ve lived there all my life. I know its sights, its sounds, its smells. But I’m just one person out of millions in Chicago. Whereas Raylan is needed here. His family and the ranch depend on him for survival, in the long term.

“I understand,” I tell him.

“You do?” he says.

“Yes. This is a corner of the earth you own. That’s different than just living somewhere.”

He nods slowly.

And of course, there’s the other part of it. I know from what Celia told me that Raylan left here in anger, thinking that he didn’t actually belong to this place. But that was never really true. It was always his home. And he was always meant to come back here, to heal that wound.

I think he’s finally ready to do that.

I shouldn’t say anything to prevent that from happening. I think he needs it. Badly.

I don’t know how to bring up what I know, but I don’t want to keep it secret from him, either.

“Your mom told me what happened right before you enlisted,” I say. “She told me about your father.”

“Waya was my father,” Raylan says at once.

“I know!” I say quickly. “That’s what I meant.”

Raylan looks at me with a strange expression. “I’m surprised she told you,” he says. “She doesn’t like to talk about that. Obviously,” he gives a short, mirthless laugh, totally unlike his usual laugh. “Since I never heard about it for eighteen years.”

“You do belong here,” I say. “I just wanted you to know . . . that I understand that.”

Raylan looks pained. His voice is tight. “Does every family have an ugly history?” he says.

“Mine certainly does.” You could write a thousand-page saga of the pain and bloodshed in the Griffins’ history. Another for the Gallos, too.

I want to ask Raylan what I couldn’t ask Celia, because I didn’t want to seem intrusive, after all she’d told me. But the lawyer in me knows that there’s more to the story. From what she told me about Ellis, he never would have let her get away easily . . .

“Your mom told me what happened,” I say. “But not how she got away from Ellis Burr.”

I don’t say “your father,” or even “your biological father,” because I know Raylan doesn’t view him that way.

Raylan lets out a long breath. “I’ll tell you,” he says. “But not in here. Come for a walk with me.”