After I Refused to Save My Ex-Wife’s Brother, She Went Crazy Chapter 04

After I Refused to Save My Ex-Wife’s Brother, She Went Crazy Chapter 04

She didn’t leave.

Within an hour, four black SUVs pulled up outside camp.

The security detail doubled.

Pierce sat at a table making calls, loud enough for the whole camp to hear.

“… Yes, all of them. Any guide who refuses this job gets blacklisted by every company we work with. Full industry ban. Every single one.”

Vince walked over with his mug, face dark.

“She’s insane. She’s going to crush every guide out here?”

I didn’t answer.

Sully came out of his trailer and walked up to me. He hesitated. Matt was behind him, red-faced.

“Cole…”

Sully’s voice cracked.

“I know you’ve got your reasons, but… me and Matt, we’re not skilled like you. We just scrape by. His wife’s due next month. Our family—”

Matt dropped to his knees. His kneecaps hit the sand with a thud.

“Cole, please. Just take the job.”

Sully flinched, then dropped down beside him.

I bent to pull them up.

“Get up.”

Two bodyguards appeared behind me and locked my arms.

I struggled. No use.

A third guard came from the side and shoved my face into the ground.

Hot sand burned my cheek.

Claire’s shoes appeared at the edge of my vision.

She crouched down, pulled off her sunglasses, and looked at me from above.

“Say no, and no one around you will make another dime in this industry. That’s a promise.”

Her voice was calm. No emotion.

“I’ve been in business a long time. There isn’t anything I can’t buy.”

I turned my head and looked at her.

Her eyes were empty. No care. No urgency. Just cold control.

Same as eight years ago.

Back then, she had said almost the same thing: “I don’t care. My brother is in danger too. Name your price.”

From a distance, I heard struggling.

Two guards had Vince pinned in the sun.

He was cursing, but they’d muffled him. All that came out were strangled sounds.

The sun beat down. His face turned red in under a minute.

At this hour, thirty minutes in that heat would give him heatstroke. Two hours would kill him.

“Stop!”

The word tore out of my throat.

“I’ll do it.”

The guards let go.

I pushed up slowly from the sand.

Claire stood and brushed dust off her clothes.

“Was that so hard?”

I raised my head and looked at her with nothing but ice.

“You want to know why I wouldn’t go?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“If I go into that desert, your brother won’t come out alive.”

Claire’s expression didn’t move—just the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll bury him there myself.”

I said it quietly. Word by word.

“My daughter died right where your brother is now.”

The wind stopped.

Claire’s face went white. For the first time, she looked shaken.

The whole camp was dead silent.

Only the distant dunes hummed low.

“You still want me to go?”