Page 71 of Branded

“I think Sebastian’s right. Lennox isn’t the leak. Dad, think about it clearly for just a minute. Sebastian bought her just over two weeks ago. She didn’t even really know who he was; she’d never set foot in Texas before that.” Caroline looks over at me. “I ran her background,” she says with a shrug. “There’s also nothing to tie her to Marshall. Hell, her father hasn’t even sold him a bull.”

She pulls out her tablet. “I’ve been going through security footage, phone records, everything I can access. If someone called or texted the Marshalls about the raid, there should be evidence.”

“And?”

“Still looking. But I’ve narrowed it down to ten people who had access to the raid details and means to communicate them. Lennox isn’t on that list; she didn’t have her phone with her during the planning stages, and she was with Mom or Sebastian the entire time.”

“She could have passed information another way.”

“Dad.” Nathaniel finally speaks up from the corner. “Let it go. She’s not the leak. We need to focus on finding who actually is before they cause more damage.”

“Fine.” Dad doesn’t look convinced. Just outvoted. “But I’m watching her. Any suspicious behavior, any sign she’s working against us, and I’ll deal with her immediately.”

“Understood,” I say, though my stomach churns. Because Dad isn’t the only one watching Lennox now.

I’m watching her too. Watching to see if I’ve just destroyed the only real thing I’ve had in years.

All because I can’t admit, even to myself, that she’s stopped being property and started to become something I actually need.

Something I’m terrified of losing.

So, I hurt her and controlled her first. Made sure she knew her place before she could gain enough power to leave me.

And in doing so, I’ve proven I’m exactly the monster she’s feared I am from the beginning.

24

LENNOX

I unpack my bag in Sebastian’s bedroom, working on autopilot.

Jeans in the drawer. Shirts hung in the closet beside his expensive button-downs and suits. Toiletries in the bathroom that still smells like him, cedar and leather, and something darker I can’t quite name. Each item put away feels like another brick in the wall I’m building around myself.

The only defense I have left.

My hands are steady. My face is dry. I cried all the tears I had during the walk back to the house, and now all I have left is the cold, hollow acceptance of exactly what my life has become.

Seven hundred and nine.

I can survive seven hundred and nine days of anything. People survive worse. Prisoners in actual jails. Hostages. Women in situations far more dangerous than being married to a wealthy man who bought them at an auction.

I just have to stop hoping it will be anything other than what it is.

Stop fantasizing that the man who kissed me gently under the oak trees is real. Stop believing that riding together to recover cattle means we are building something beyond this fucked-up power dynamic. Stop being stupid enough to think that Sebastian Drake is capable of seeing me as anything other than property he paid for.

The monster is real. The gentle moments were an illusion.

I need to remember that.

I finish unpacking and sit on the bed—his bed, not ours, never ours—and look around the room. Stone walls that have stood for over a century. Windows overlooking the ranch operation I briefly thought I could be part of. Furniture that’s expensive but comfortable, chosen by someone who actually lives here instead of just displaying wealth.

This could have been home.

What if I’d come here as a wife instead of a purchase, what would life be like? If Sebastian had been a husband instead of an owner. If any of this had been real instead of a two-million-dollar transaction.

My phone buzzes. I pull it out, half-expecting it to be Sebastian with more threats, or more reminders of my place.

Instead, it’s a text from an unknown number.