PART 2

The parlor went so quiet you could hear the frost crack on the windowpanes.

Beatrice stood paralyzed between the two men, her sister’s terrified warning echoing off the timber walls like a physical blow.

He’s the one who left me for dad.*

“Clara…?” Beatrice’s voice cracked, tears burning her eyes as she stared at the bruised, trembling woman standing on the porch.

Seven years. For seven agonizing years, Beatrice had believed her sweet eighteen-year-old sister had abandoned the family to run off with an itinerant merchant. Instead, Clara stood before her wrapped in a filthy, oversized wool coat, her hands clutching a double-barreled sH๏τgun with white-knuckled desperation.

“Don’t go near him, Bea,” Clara choked out, her sH๏τgun barrel wavering between Daniel and the mountain giant. “He’s not a mountain guide who got mauled by a bear. Gabriel Thorne is an enforcer for the syndicate.”

Daniel Holloway burst into a loud, mocking laugh, lowering his revolver just an inch. “Well, well! Look at the happy family reunion! I told you she was tougher than she looked, Gabriel. Takes more than a tumble down a ravine to break a Holloway girl, doesn’t it?”

Beatrice slowly turned toward Gabriel.

The six-foot-seven giant stood upright beside the stone mantel, his mᴀssive shoulders heaving, sweat dripping from his bearded jaw. But the fierce, protective warmth she had seen in his pale blue eyes over the past six weeks was gone—replaced by a chilling, hollow stillness.

“Gabriel?” Beatrice whispered, her voice trembling. “Is she telling the truth?”

Gabriel didn’t look at Daniel. He didn’t look at Clara. His eyes remained locked on Beatrice’s face, etched with a mixture of shame and agony.

“I didn’t leave her for d*ad, Beatrice,” Gabriel said hoarsely. “I pulled her out of the river after your husband tried to drown her.”

“Liar!” Clara sobbed, stepping over the threshold into the parlor. “You threw me in the wagon! You locked me in the storage shed behind the Silver Falls ᴀssay office!”

“BECAUSE DANIEL HAD MEN AT EVERY TRAIN STATION!” Gabriel’s voice suddenly thundered with such ferocity that the plates on the dresser rattled.

The giant took a heavy, shuddering step forward, his newly healed legs trembling under his mᴀssive weight, but holding firm.

“Daniel didn’t just marry you for this farm, Beatrice,” Gabriel rasped, glaring at her treacherous husband. “He found out seven years ago that your father had hidden the territorial charter for the northern gold basin inside your family Bible. He seduced Clara first. He took her to San Francisco, lived off her money, and had an affair with her behind your back while pretending to be an honest timber cutter!”

Beatrice felt a sickening wave of revulsion slam into her chest. She looked at Clara.

Clara’s face crumpled in shame. She lowered her eyes, unable to meet her sister’s gaze.

“Clara…?” Beatrice breathed, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces. “You… and Daniel?”

“He said he was going to divorce you, Bea!” Clara wept, tears cutting clean tracks through the mud and dried bld on her cheeks. “He said you hated him, that you only cared about the farm! I was young… I was stupid… and by the time I realized what kind of monster he was, he had already faked his d*ath and locked me away so I couldn’t run back to you!”

“And then you became inconvenient,” Gabriel said coldly, his voice slicing through the room. “A month ago, Daniel found an investor willing to pay sixty thousand dollars for this valley. But the deed required Clara’s signature as his legal common-law wife under his new alias. When she refused to sign away Beatrice’s land, Daniel took her up to Eagle Pᴀss to k*ll her.”

Daniel’s smug smile vanished, his knuckles turning white around his revolver. “Shut your mouth, Thorne.”

“I was hired to escort Daniel’s wagon train across the divide,” Gabriel continued, his gaze drifting back to Beatrice with raw sincerity. “I didn’t know who she was until I heard her screaming from the timber. When I stopped Daniel from shoving her into the canyon, his men jumped me. They sH๏τ me twice, threw Clara into the rapids, and pushed me off the cliff.”

Gabriel touched his ribs, his breathing ragged.

“The fall broke my spine. But before the cold took me, Clara dragged my broken body onto a timber raft. We survived together for three days in the gorge before Daniel’s brother Silas found us.”

Beatrice froze. “Silas…?”

“Silas didn’t drop me at your door as a cruel joke to mock your weight, Beatrice,” Gabriel whispered, a tear slipping into his dark beard. “Silas works for Daniel. They brought me here paralyzed so Daniel could keep me under surveillance without raising the sheriff’s suspicion… until they could forge your d*ath certificate and wipe out both sisters in one clean stroke!”

“Touching speech, mountain man,” Daniel sneered, his eyes flashing with lethal venom.

Daniel cocked the revolver, aiming it straight between Gabriel’s eyes.

“Too bad none of it matters. Silas has four men surrounding this house right now. The kerosene is already splashed against the barn walls.”

Daniel took a step closer to Beatrice, reaching into his vest to pull out a silver-plated derringer with his left hand.

“Here’s how this ends, Beatrice. You sign the deed transfer right now, or I sht your crippled lover through the skull, put a bullet in your sister’s chest, and burn this entire homestead to ash before the morning mail coach reaches the valley.”

Clara raised her sH๏τgun, her fingers shaking. “Don’t touch her, Daniel!”

“Drop the scattergun, little girl!” Daniel barked. “You don’t have the guts to pull that trigger, and we both know it!”

Beatrice looked at Daniel. The handsome, charming boy she had given her youth to. The man who had mocked her body, stolen her savings, slept with her little sister, and declared her legally d*ad to rob her of the soil her father had cleared with his bare hands.

Something deep inside Beatrice Holloway snapped. The five years of shame, tears, and humiliation burned away, leaving behind pure, unadulterated iron.

“You’re right, Daniel,” Beatrice said, her voice dropping to a low, icy calm. “Clara won’t sht you.”

Daniel grinned smugly. “Sensible woman. Now sign—”

“Because she doesn’t have the shells.”

Daniel blinked. “What?”

Beatrice took a single, deliberate step toward him.

“I keep the sH๏τgun shells in my apron pocket, Daniel. Because unlike you, I actually know how to run a farm.”

Before Daniel could process her words, Gabriel lunged.

With an explosive roar of fury, the mountain giant launched his 260-pound frame across the parlor. His iron grip seized Daniel’s gun arm, twisting the wrist with a sickening crack. Daniel screamed as the heavy revolver fired wild, the bullet splintering the timber ceiling.

“BEATRICE! THE POKER!” Gabriel bellowed, wrestling the screaming man to the floor.

Beatrice grabbed the heavy wrought-iron fireplace poker from the hearth and brought it down with all her strength against Daniel’s shoulder, pinning him flat against the floorboards.

“You miserable parasite,” Beatrice hissed, pressing the cold iron against his throat.

Gunfire erupted from outside.

Through the cracked parlor window, the barn burst into a towering wall of red and orange flames. Thick black smoke began pouring across the porch.

Silas’s voice screamed over the roaring blaze:

“DANIEL! WE’VE FIRED THE BARN! BRING THE DEED OUT OR YOU BURN WITH THEM!”

Gabriel pinned Daniel with one mᴀssive knee, his breathing ragged, and dragged the forged papers from Daniel’s coat pocket. But as the papers spilled across the floor, a small leather-bound notebook tumbled out.

Beatrice’s eyes caught the handwriting on the open page.

It wasn’t Daniel’s hand.

It was a letter written only two days ago, bearing the official gold seal of the United States Territorial Governor.

Her fingers trembled as she read the first sentence:

A county execution warrant?

She flipped to the final line, and her bld turned completely to ice.

The judge who had signed the order to have Beatrice hanged for treason and gold theft…

WAS HER OWN FATHER.

Before Beatrice could utter a single word, the parlor window shattered inward in an explosion of flying glᴀss.

A heavy iron grappling hook tore through the frame, followed by a smoking stick of dynamite landing with a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ thud directly between Beatrice and Gabriel’s feet.

The fuse was burning short, sparking violently in the dark.

Three seconds left.

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