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I sit with that a second.

A jet. Fuckin' Cash Ashby just handed me a jet like it's a spare tire.

He just gave me the Ashby ranch pilot's name, number, and the protocol to make him do what I say. Like I'm the kinda man who says jump and a grown man goes and fuels a plane.

On the map he's drawn a line in red marker tellin' me how to get to the air strip. It looks to be about six or seven miles away. You gotta leave the ranch, ride alongside it on the highway, then take another entrance to the ranch to get there.

Full circle. Like everything else out here. Like everything that belongs to the Ashbys eventually just loops back around to more Ashby land, more Ashby water, more Ashby everything, and here I am, holdin' the map, holdin' the keys, holdin' a piece of it now too, and not knowin' yet if that makes me rich or just makes me owned.

I look at the credit cards for a moment. One is black and made of metal. The second is silver and made of metal. The third is actually a full-color picture of what I know for sure is one of Eleanor's pictures of the ranch.

I can't imagine why I'd need three of these things, but I shove them in my wallet just the same.

Then I look at the keys. None of them come with a label. I'm not even sure they lock that front door to the house, to be honest. I've never seen Savannah take out a key to open her front door.

But there's a whole bunch of them, and not a single one looks new.

What's interesting is that none of them are a key fob to a car.

But two of them are a set. One square head, one round.

"What the fuck," I mutter, gettin' out of the truck and scannin' the parkin' lot as I look for the outlier.

Not all the trucks are modern, but I don't have any trouble findin' the one that's now mine. It's a '77 K10 square body wearin' fifty years of faded brown-over-yellow two-tone paint job. Buffed smooth and sealed under clear coat like the rust is somethin' worth keepin'. It's got chrome bumpers and mirrors catchin' the midday sun, polished runnin' boards, and it's sittin' on the dirt like an old man in his church clothes.

I look over at Cash and he gives me a nod to confirm.

It's mine.

Well, it's his.

But it's mine now.

This is when it hits me.

I really am home.

I go inside, lookin' for Savannah. Cash wants us to leave and not come back for a couple days, and fuck it, I am more than happy to oblige. It's like a break from bein' the boss.

Which is funny, because I haven't ever been the boss of nothing before a few weeks ago. At least not nothing that ever involved other people.

I was always the boss of myself and I have always been on my own.

Me. Legion. Fightin' a holy war I got no business bein' a part of, let alone starrin' in.

Angel and demon both, dependin' on the light, and the mood, and how much death is hangin' in the air. Ink on my back tells one story. Ink on my chest tells another. Neither one of 'em's the truth, but both of 'em bleed the same when ya cut deep enough.

Funny thing about wars—somebody's always callin' the shots, and it sure as hell hasn’t ever been me. Not with Brick. Not with the club. Not with anyone, really.

I just show up, do the work, take the hit if it's comin'.

Been that way since I was a kid.

So being on the other end of things—the end where someone else runs the show and all I gotta do is nod? The other end where that same person is exactly the one who should be in charge?

Yeah. That's a relief.

I could use a fuckin' weekend away.