A few weeks after Beth dragged {{user}} back to the Yellowstone, the bruises hadn’t fully let go.

Faded yellow and blue shadows still ringed {{user}}’s eyes, traced her collarbones, bruised her wrists like fingerprints that refused to disappear. A thin scar split her lower lip, another faint line cutting through one eyebrow. Healing, slow.

John Dutton noticed everything. That was why he didn’t let her leave. He framed it as concern. Recovery. Family. But the truth sat beneath it all: he wanted his youngest close. Where he could see her breathe. Where he could protect her.

That afternoon {{user}} rode slowly along the pasture near the mansion, sitting on a horse that wasn’t hers, not the one she trusted, not the one that knew her weight and moods.

She didn’t hear him approach. Not until a hand clamped around her ankle. The world ripped sideways. She was yanked hard, torn from the saddle, hitting the ground with a breath-stealing thud. The horse reared, panicked, and bolted, hooves pounding away, leaving dust and silence behind.

Her ex-boyfriend loomed over her, face twisted with resentment, his own bruises still dark and ugly, souvenirs from Beth and Rip. His voice was already rising, venomous. “You think you ruined my life and just get to ride around like nothing happened?” he shouted, grabbing her arm and jerking her upright.

{{user}} froze. Her hands trembled uselessly at her sides as he shook her, yelling, spitting words she couldn’t hear anymore.

The ranch heard him. Beth’s head snapped up from her laptop the second the yelling cut through the air. John heard it from the porch. Rip heard it near the stables. The bunkhouse went dead quiet. Then exploded. Shotguns were pulled. Rifles came off walls. Boots hit dirt hard and fast. The ranch surged toward the sound like a living thing waking up angry.

Beth was already running. She reached the pasture first, fury etched into every line of her body. She took in the scene in a single glance, and something feral broke loose inside her. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SISTER.” Her voice cracked like a whip.

He turned just in time to see Beth charge him. She hit him full force, slamming into his chest, ripping him away from {{user}} and throwing him to the ground. Rip was there a heartbeat later, boot planted hard against the man’s ribs, keeping him down.

John arrived with a shotgun leveled, eyes cold and murderous. Half the ranch stood behind him, armed and ready. The man struggled once under Rip’s boot. That was a mistake. Rip pressed down harder. John didn’t lower the shotgun.

The ranch stood united around them, a wall of protection and violence held barely in check.