Savior Complex: An MM Age Gap Romance (Wild Heart Ranch Book 3)

Javier and I spend the week in the trailer, making love and promises to each other, swimming in the creek each morning before rinsing off and driving together to Wild Heart.

We’ve been eating at the bunkhouse with everyone each morning. Yaya makes a damn good breakfast, and even Charlie and Justin show up. Erik’s still staying at the bunkhouse too.

With so much family in town, Ant is a little less focused on the big guy, and I’m happy for him. Erik, however, looks a little…discomfited. Not that at ease is a description I’d ever assign to Erik Bash, but he’s struggling. And he still doesn’t know why.

Unfortunately, this is one he’s going to have to figure out on his own.

Ant and Gael have gotten up early every morning this week to check on the horses, then go for a ride. As we’re driving up, the two of them ride past on Domino and Luna. I flag them down.

“Holy shit—you’re riding Domino in the open?”

Ant’s smile is brilliant. “Yes! His quarantine is up today, and Gael’s helping me integrate him with the horses in the barn.”

“That’s awesome. Though…I’m shocked he hasn’t thrown you.”

Ant snorts, then buffs his nails on his shoulder. “Domino would never throw me. He loves me.”

I check in on Gael, surprised to see he’s equally happy. He was so afraid of the horses earlier, but he quickly made friends when he saw how much the horses help Ant.

“Mind if we go to the training arena together so I can get a feel for him?” I ask. “I’d like it if we could get him more comfortable around other humans too.”

“Of course. Gael, you want to join us?”

He grins and shakes his head. “Charlie’s taking us into Austin. Y’all can hang out with the problem horses.”

“Y’all?” I ask, laughing.

“It’s a good word. You and all. It is perfect.”

“Sounds good. Why don’t y’all get the horses put up and come back for breakfast, and then, Ant, you and I will work with Domino.”

He sends me a thumbs-up, then takes off with Gael toward the barn.

I join Javier on the porch, and he wraps an arm around my waist.

“I feel lucky to get to see them this way.”

“Me too. I think about the odds of Charlie and Erik finding the people who took Ant, chasing him down when he wasn’t with the rest of the group, and then deciding he would be better here than anywhere else. Is it weird that I’m grateful but also bothered by how lucky he had to be?”

“No, I feel the same way,” Javier answers, his voice heavy. “That Google alert I had for him? I set it quickly after he went missing. I didn’t even know it was a thing you could do—somebody had to show me. I hadn’t checked that email account for the longest time. I happened to see the message notification on my laptop. I sat in front of my computer for a really long time before I believed it was real. Save for the articles we interviewed for, it’s the only time that alert has ever gone off.”

I shiver, thinking about how close Ant came to oblivion. “Sometimes I look at the work we’re doing and I see the number of people we help versus the number of people still in these horrible situations, and I don’t even know if we’ve done any good.”

Javier kisses my temple. “I know exactly how you feel. On one trip to Minneapolis, I got drunk with a teacher, and we talked about how impossible our jobs seemed. She shared with me a teacher’s parable about starfish. Have you heard it?”

I shake my head.

“Essentially, a guy goes to the beach after a big storm and finds millions of starfish dumped on the beach as far as the horizon. So many starfish. He starts picking them up and throwing them back into the water, one right after the other. He’s eventually approached by a local who asks him what he’s doing, and he explains that he’s trying to save the starfish.

“‘You’ll never get to all of them,’ the guy says. ‘There’s so many. You’re not even making a dent in the problem. This work you’re doing doesn’t make any difference.’

“Instead of listening to him, the guy picks up another starfish and turns to the man. ‘It makes a difference to this one,’ he says, and throws the starfish out into the sea.”

I scratch my beard. “So…I’m supposed to find that inspiring and not incredibly depressing?”

Javier lets his head fall back with a laugh. “It’s about your perspective. For the first time, I’m around people who have a higher level of access than I do. They’re asking me what I’m doing at the microscopic level, and I’m over here throwing starfish back into the sea as quickly as I can. And so are you. Is it efficient? Will it solve the problem? No. For trafficking to go away, the big governments on the planet have to decide it’s actually a problem. They have to actually go after the traffickers. They have to dry up the money at the source. They have to cripple the companies that use humans who’ve been enslaved. They have to go after these rich men who traffic young children. But at least we’re doing something.”

“Sounds like textbook savior complex.”

“Yeah? So? Some people need saving,” he says, leaning in close to nudge my ear with his nose.

“Hard to argue with that.”

We kiss on it and go in for breakfast.

Javier, Gael, and Yaya go into Austin with Charlie while Ant and I spend the rest of the morning introducing Domino to the other horses, and he’s perfect.

So is Ant, for that matter. He’s so gentle with Domino, praising him when he interacts well and reining him in when he gets a little testy with me.

“Have you ever considered working with horses full-time?” I ask as he gets Domino set up in his new stall.

Ant goes quiet for a moment, and when he looks at me, conflict settles into his eyes. “I…I would feel disloyal if I left Justin and Nacho after everything they’ve done for me.”

“I’m pretty sure they would smack you upside the head for saying that.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they love you to death. All they want is for you to be happy and safe.”

“You think? They wouldn’t be mad at me if I did something else?”

“Dude, no. They’re your friends. I promise. They just want you to be happy.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask.”

He sticks his tongue out at me, and we make our way to the therapy area as Javier, Charlie, Erik, and Anders walk in through the front door and aim right for us.

“What’s up?” I ask Charlie and Javier. “I thought you two were in Austin with Yaya and Gael.”

Charlie makes a pained expression. “We’ve got a time-sensitive issue, and it involves all of you.”

We gather around, and he explains, “Wimberley’s been looking into the information Javier gave to Parker, and they like where his head is at with hitting the problem at the source. It doesn’t matter if a warehouse is liberated if the people actually doing the kidnapping are still taking people from their communities. Globally, Wimberley has identified hundreds of small towns near large cities ripe for trafficking.”

“Really?” I ask, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“They’re willing to go after the source?”

Charlie grimaces, knowing exactly why I’m asking. I don’t know much about Wimberley, but everything I’ve gathered from Anders is that while he and his buddies are all about the vigilante life, the people who actually run the place have only one objective in mind: money and lots of it.

As if reading my mind, Anders steps in. “I wouldn’t exactly say that. But some of the companies using trafficked labor have incredibly profitable patents.”

“There it is,” I mutter under my breath. Bram nods along.

Ignoring me, Anders continues, “If we disrupt their workflow enough, Wimberley’s corporate infrastructure can go in and execute a hostile takeover. There’s a lot of money in it for your team if you can show that it’s effective.”

“What does that mean?” Javier asks, raising his brows skeptically.

“It means if you successfully take a company out at its knees, Wimberley will pay a fee to Wild Heart in the form of a donation, and then everyone involved with the operation gets a cut of the profits once Wimberley’s gone in and done their thing.”

Erik shifts uncomfortably, and Charlie runs his hands through his hair. “Wimberley’s business model is virulent capitalism backed by vigilante work. Get rich by any means necessary, but if you can do good…sure, why not.”

“That’s how we got the land,” Bram notes dryly.

It’s a good point. Wimberley’s focused on the cash, but they don’t mind when Erik uses their fancy jet and government connections to go to Mexico for Ant’s family.

Huh. I wonder…

I turn to Charlie. “If you’re getting these ‘donations’ from Wimberley, does that mean you won’t have to do the bounty work anymore?”

Charlie lets out a breath. “Maybe.”

Anders speaks up. “They want to do a test run, and we’ve got the perfect proving grounds right here in Texas. There are dozens of colonias along the Texas-Mexico border, and children have gone missing from them for years now. It hasn’t gotten the news coverage it should have because most residents of colonias are undocumented, and the children that have gone missing are usually labeled ‘anchor babies,’ merely a ploy to stay in the US, and therefore…less valuable in people’s eyes.”

“A million dollars says the same people who use the term ‘anchor babies’ also call themselves ‘pro-life,’” Erik grumbles.

“Agreed. In this case, Wimberley’s intelligence connects the missing children to a massive semiconductor plant in the valley. Their technology allows for the tiniest microchips on the planet, and Wimberley is interested.”

“Wait…children at a semiconductor plant?” Ant asks. “What the fuck would a kid know about that kind of technology?”

“Small bodies, small fingers,” Erik says by way of explanation. “Adults develop back and eye issues working with technology and need more space in their area to function. Kids can go longer, and there’s less turnover.”

“What happens when they grow older and get too big?” Ant asks.

“They’re resold to the traffickers, who then resell them for domestic labor or sex work, depending.”

“What does Wimberley want to do with the kids?”

Anders answers, “The powers that be don’t really care. That’s for us to decide. I’m assuming we’ll want to do reunification and then do what we can to help with basics in these colonias.”

“Basics?” Ant asks.

“Colonias are underdeveloped settlements,” I explain. “Many houses don’t have running water or steady access to electricity.”

“In the United States?” he asks, the sadness in his eyes breaking my heart.

“Yep.”

Charlie lets out a big breath. “Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Whenever we’ve worked with Wimberley before, it’s been an even exchange and kept between Erik, me, and their operations team. With this, we’re now on the radar of the money people. Not gonna lie. It feels like we’re making a deal with the devil. Financially, we don’t need it—the bounty work brings in plenty of money. With Wimberley’s help, though, we can actually make a dent in trafficking.”

Anders nods. “It’s true. And if this works, we’ll share it with whoever’s serious about solving the problem.”

“So what’s the move?”

“Wimberley’s going to handle the plant, but we need to take down the street team grabbing these kids, see if that actually cripples the operation before going in. We can hit multiple places at once, and Wimberley is going to spare a few bodies for us.” Turning to Javier, Charlie asks, “What do you recommend?”

“I’d need to look at the colonias and make a plan. What kind of time frame do we have?”

“Wimberley wants to see a downturn in their profits by the end of the quarter, so the faster we can get in and fuck things up, the better. Is it too much to hope for this weekend?”

Javier scrubs his beard, thinking for a few moments. “I think we can do it. I assume you have intel on where they’re keeping the kids they’ve taken?”

“Yes. I’d like Nacho, Bram, and Ant to go with me into the warehouse while you’ll go with Erik, Anders, and some of the Wimberley folks into the individual residences.”

Ant lights up but shrinks back when he sees Bram’s disapproving face. Before I can tell Bram to back off, he asks, “Why aren’t we bringing Levy?”

Huh. Not where I thought that was going to go.

I answer for Charlie. “I’m doing way better with my reaction to blood, but I’d be a liability if things got hairy.”

Shaking his head, Charlie says, “That’s partially true, but I also think we need to go in with a smaller team.”

“Me going in with Nacho could also be considered a liability,” Bram reasons.

He did get a little trigger-happy the last time Nacho was in a dangerous position. Charlie tilts his head side to side, considering.

“Do you anticipate a lot of violence at the warehouse?” Bram asks

“No. According to our intelligence, there’s only two guards, easily subdued.”

“Then it sounds like the liability is minimal, and I know Levy can handle it. The only way he can work through this is to work through it.”

Bram isn’t one to show his emotions often, but I know he trusts me, and this show of faith in me means the world.

Charlie looks between us and nods. “Okay then. Levy, if you’re willing to go in, we’ll put you on the team instead of Bram.”

“I’m your guy,” I say with only slightly more confidence than I feel.

That settled, Ant grins broadly. “So…you’re actually letting me in on an op?”

Charlie’s demeanor is serious despite the tiny bit of pride in his eyes. “Your job will be to help me secure the building, keep Nacho and Levy safe, and keep an eye out for trouble.”

Ant’s smile could power a city, and I’m a little nervous when he rubs his hands together and looks up at Erik.

“Okay, well, Charlie wants me to go, but how do you feel about it?” he asks, squaring up to him as he crosses his arms.

Erik pulls his ponytail around to the front, twisting it in his fingers.

“I worry,” he finally says. Ant sags a little, but Erik holds up his hand. “I do agree with Charlie though. According to the intelligence, this is more of a dorm-room setup and doesn’t have a lot of security. A guard outside, a guard inside, and that’s it. It’s a good test of your abilities.”

“Wow. I bet that hurt to say,” Ant tosses back, smacking the big guy’s shoulder.

“Excruciating.”

Wiggling his butt, Ant pumps his fist. “I’m going to be op official.”

“You’re going to be in the back is what you’re going to be. Wearing a bulletproof vest and keeping your mouth shut,” Erik demands.

Ant responds by zipping his mouth shut and sending Erik a double thumbs-up, followed by a salute.

Erik rolls his eyes but pulls Ant into a hug. “Please, please keep yourself safe while we’re doing this. Okay?”

Ant nods and hugs him, then steps back, putting a little distance between them.

“Time to kick some ass.”