She watched Andre climb into his truck, every movement reluctant. He looked back three times before driving away.
The morning had fully broken now. Sunlight streamed across the ruined bee yard, revealing every detail in harsh clarity. The twisted metal of hive tops that had melted in the heat. The wooden frames reduced to charcoal. The ground thick with tiny corpses.
Joy dropped to her knees among the dead bees, and she scooped up a handful of the small bodies with her bandaged hands. These creatures who had given her everything were reduced to weightless husks.
Above her, the survivors circled in desperate loops. They needed homes. A queen. Structure. Her mind raced through options even as grief threatened to drown her. Empty equipment boxes in the workshop could serve as temporary shelters. She'd need to order new hives immediately, but delivery would take days. The survivors needed protection now.
Her mountain lion rose inside her then. The predator recognized that someone had declared war on her territory, her pride, her life.
Ryan Holbrook. The name burned on her tongue like acid. She could see his pale eyes. Hear his voice dismissing her life's work as a temporary inconvenience.
As she stood among the ashes of everything she'd built, Joy made a promise to the dead. Not just to her bees, but to herself. To the woman who'd built a business with her own hands. Who'd created beauty and sweetness in a world that wanted to reduce everything to profit margins. And to the survivors still circling overhead—she'd rebuild. For them. For all of them.
Chapter
Nineteen
The conference roomat Fate Mountain Police Station smelled of burnt coffee and sweat. Andre stood beside the wall-mounted screen, the small drive clutched in his palm like a talisman. His knuckles ached from the death grip he'd maintained on the steering wheel during the drive here. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around, race back to Joy, wrap himself around her until nothing could touch her again.
Heath Reynolds leaned against the conference table, arms crossed over his broad chest. The police chief's jaw was set in a hard line that Andre recognized—the look of a man holding back rage by sheer force of will. At the table, Officer Tyler Hoffman hunched over his laptop, fingers poised above the keys like a pianist about to perform.
"Let's see what we've got," Heath said, though his tone suggested he already knew they wouldn't like what they found.
Andre inserted the drive into Tyler's laptop. The system interface loaded with agonizing slowness, each second stretching like an hour. When the eight camera feeds finallyappeared on the wall screen, miniature windows into Joy's property, Andre's chest tightened.
Joy’s property. The place he was supposed to protect.
Tyler clicked the first feed. Static filled the window, harsh white noise that made Andre's teeth clench.
"Camera one is down," Tyler muttered, already making notes. He clicked the second feed. More static. "Camera two, same thing."
Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Nothing but electronic snow, as if the cameras had been staring into some digital void. Andre's stomach dropped like a stone into deep water. The skin on the back of his neck prickled with the knowledge of what this meant.
"Seven cameras completely jammed," Tyler said, his voice taking on that rapid-fire quality that meant he'd found something significant. "This isn't interference or malfunction. Look at these signal patterns."
Only camera seven showed anything—the one covering the southwest approach to the bee yard. Andre stared at the timestamp in the corner, and bile rose in his throat.
4:52 AM.
His hands curled into fists. At 4:52 AM, he'd been spooned against Joy in that hotel bed, her warmth seeping into his bones, both of them drifting in that peaceful space between sleep and waking. In less than two hours, they'd discover what these bastards had done.
"Professional signal jammers," Tyler continued, pulling up technical data. "Military grade, probably Eastern Europeanmanufacture based on the frequency signatures. Each camera was targeted individually in sequence."
Andre moved closer to the screen. "I installed this system. Every unit was positioned to create overlapping fields of view, no blind spots. But look—" He pointed to the pattern Tyler had identified. "They jammed them in the exact order that would create a corridor of approach. Northwest camera first at 4:45. That's the high ground position. Then northeast at 4:47, taking out the secondary angle."
His finger traced the path. "They knew my installation pattern. Knew which cameras provided primary versus backup coverage. This isn't just someone with good equipment. This is someone who studied my system."
Heath's expression darkened. "Inside knowledge?"
"Or surveillance." Andre's jaw clenched. "They could have watched me install them. Mapped every position." The thought made his bear snarl. Someone had been watching even then, planning this.
Tyler pulled up the surviving footage from camera seven. "This one survived because?—"
"Because it's my failsafe position," Andre finished. "Hidden higher than the others, with a different power source. I installed it separately. If they mapped the main installation, they might have missed this one."
The video began to play, grainy but clear enough in the infrared spectrum. Three figures emerged from the tree line like wraiths, black clothing covering them head to toe, faces hidden behind masks. Andre leaned forward, memorizing every detail.
The leader’s arm gestures were sharp, commanding, pointing out positions like a field general. The second figure carried the accelerant can, narrow shoulders and quick movements that spoke of nervous energy. A runner's build. The third was broader, shoulders like a linebacker, carrying what Tyler confirmed was the signal jammer.
