“Your brother and his crew, they don’t have to worry about the rules like my crew does,” Turner explained. “They could go in hot. They could take those risks, no plan, flyin’ by the seat of their pants.”

“I know,” Nick replied.

“We were comin’ for you,” Turner went on. “You and Hettie.”

Nick didn’t repeat himself.

They were. It was still too late. When Knight and his crew tore in there to save his ass, they were too late too.

Too fucking late.

“Coupla weeks, we’ll go for a beer,” Turner suggested.

It was Nick’s turn to study him.

“You do that a lot with your ex-CI’s?”

Turner suddenly looked pissed. “Jesus, Sebring, the shit we been through the last coupla years, you seriously think you’re still just a confidential informant to me?”

Now that…

That felt good.

Nick had not had a habit of surrounding himself with good people.

And Turner was definitely a good man.

“Fucked thing to say,” Nick muttered.

Turner’s face again changed. He might not have any clue how bad it was but he still got where Nick’s head was at.

“Coupla weeks, buddy,” he said quietly.

Nick nodded.

Unexpectedly, Turner was whispering, “Be smart, Nick.”

Yeah. He knew.

But Special Agent Eric Turner had taught him a lot.

So he also knew Nick had some of the skills he needed to get the job done.

And she’d taught him patience.

He’d acquire the skills he didn’t have. If it took him a decade, he’d do it.

Then he’d get the job done.

* * * * *

Five Months Later

Nick stood by the river, its banks covered in tiny but bright bursts of wildflowers, the spring thaw of the mountains having subsided, the rush of water still heavy but also soothing.

He felt him coming before he came to a stop at Nick’s side.

“Me and Cassie are glad you showed,” Deacon Gates said to him.

“You put a pink bow on your dog,” Nick replied.

“I didn’t,” Deacon returned.

“Your woman put a pink bow on your dog,” Nick said then turned to look at the man at his side. “And that dog is a German shepherd. It’s a wonder every shepherd breeder in North America isn’t rushin’ this location to put a gun to your head to demand payback for that dog’s dignity.”

Deacon grinned at him, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s a wedding.”

It was.

That day, in a gazebo by a river in the middle of fucking nowhere in the Colorado Mountains, the man known throughout the dark, harsh, fetid, hostile underbelly of this great United States as Ghost got married to one of the most beautiful women Nick had ever laid eyes on.

She was also one of the most down-to-earth.