Chapter Eight
EIGHT
Rocky
I hate horses. Yet I’ve been corralling panicky Thoroughbreds for the past hour, guiding them in hay-strewn stables at the Koning estate. Most would think I give a shit about them, and maybe I honestly give a little one.
These animals didn’t ask to be a part of Trent’s petulant rebellion against his younger brother.
Some jackass spray-painted them the colors of a rainbow, as if they’ve been plucked off the set of The Wizard of Oz.
Then they proceeded to let them loose. The horses neigh and buck as fireworks shoot off.
Strobe lights graze the night sky. A DJ remixes eardrum-splitting eighties songs beside the Olympic-sized pool.
It’s sensory overload, and I’ve gripped a dozen reins and ushered the animals away from the cacophony at the mansion.
It’s a miracle I haven’t been trampled tonight.
I can’t remember the last time a horse trusted me to get this close.
I’ve never led a horse anywhere. But maybe they smell the hero beside me.
Tall, preppy Jake has rolled up the sleeves to his button-down like he’s a rugged Montana native and not born of New England privilege and clambakes. We’re sweat coated and heavy breathed as we work together to lock up the remaining horses.
“Shhh, shhh,” Jake coos, stroking a pink-painted horse as he settles her in a stall. She calms against his touch.
I padlock a blue-streaked Appaloosa in the neighboring stall. “Sue your brother for destruction of property.”
“I can’t.” Jake shuts the stall gate and secures the padlock. “These are his horses. I had mine taken off the estate yesterday to the other stables.”
My brows jump while I wipe a drop of sweat off my temple. “We’ve been manhandling his property?”
“I don’t care if they’re legally his. We couldn’t leave them out there.” He slips into an adjacent stall and heaves a leather saddle off a Thoroughbred. The word Pussy is spray-painted red on the horse’s torso. I’m suddenly reminded that I hate people.
He places the saddle down. “These aren’t normal parties.”
“What gave that away?” I say dryly.
“I can’t stop the absinthe from flowing or the drugs, but I can stop this,” Jake professes, “and too many people are already plastered.”
“Yeah, some drunk fuck will try to climb on one and get bucked off. They’d learn a great lesson. Don’t fuck with horses.”
Jake shushes the Thoroughbred as a firework booms. Hooves trample the hay as the horse scoots into the corner with a pitiful sound. Jake side-eyes me. “You want to let them back out?”
I roll my eyes in a harsh arc.
No. I don’t.
Before I met Jake Waterford, I’m not sure I would’ve cared this much about helping out a horse. Excuse me, fourteen horses.
“Trent could have you arrested for touching his shit,” I tell him. “Emphasis on you because I’ll talk my way out of it as his friend, just like I plan to talk my way out of helping you now. But I can’t save you, man.”
“I’m not asking you to save me.” Jake comes out of the stall with the confidence of a firstborn.
He might be the thirdborn on paper, but he does deserve to be sole heir.
In more ways than one. He has boundaries he won’t cross and virtues he upholds.
He genuinely cares about the people in this town, and maybe this means more to me now that I know I’m a Wolfe.
My family founded Victoria with his, and the need to safeguard it has been intensifying inside me.
Still, of all the wealthy circles I’ve infiltrated, I’ve rarely seen men like Jake rise to the top.
He has the pedigree to claim billions, but not the teeth to protect it.
Not when others are more cutthroat and will do what he won’t.
Manipulate, sell their souls, fuck over anyone to line their pockets and succeed.
I will give him some credit. Jake isn’t beyond cutting deals with devils. Or else he wouldn’t have enlisted our help to take down his family.
Using his bicep, he wipes sweat off his brow. “You have a responsibility to protect your siblings and Phoebe and the rest of the Graveses, but you don’t need to worry about me like you do them.”
I narrow a look at him. He’s exuding “older brother” energy toward me right now, and I’m not sure I love it. But I also don’t hate it. Probably because he’s right. I don’t have a responsibility to him the way that I do the others.
Ever since we included Jake in the family business, it’s been an odd change—but not a bad fit. Feels more like packing an extra gun at the hip.
I lean on a wooden post where rope is hung. “I’m not worried about you. For you, maybe. I doubt you’d do well in jail.”
“I’d survive,” he says simply. “And I promise you’ll get paid once my funds are untied. Whatever I have.” He owes us all a million each for the job that killed his mother, but that was under the stipulation that he inherited everything.
That never happened.
The only one scrambling for that payout is Everett Tinrock, the godfather. He believes it’s owed, no matter the outcome, but we all would rather finish the job before squeezing Jake.
Trent is a disease on this town. On Jake. On Phoebe. On me.
It’s personal. I don’t even care about the money. I’m not sure I ever really did.
“Don’t rush to the bank” is all I say.
He nods, understanding. His gaze softening.
We hear a loud bang, and our heads whip to the left. “That was a shotgun,” I say.
“Skeet shooting,” Jake guesses. “It sounds like they’re hitting clay pigeons, or we’d hear screams.” We’re both more tense.
Claudia Waterford laid out an extremely messy division of assets in her will. One term: Trent and Jake were to split the Koning estate. She must’ve fantasized about her sons living together in harmony under one roof.
There is no harmony here. It’s mayhem and debauchery most nights.
What’s become of the estate would make a frat house look civilized.
And I’ve had a front-row seat to the temper tantrum.
Jake refused to sign over his half of the estate to Trent, so Trent did what any big brother would do.
He threw a party. And another. And another.
His attempt to annoy Jake into giving away his rights to the mansion and land—it’s juvenile. Laughable. And highly fucking irritating.
I push off the post. “He wants you gone, sweetheart.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m not selling him the estate, and he’s not accepting any offer I make so I can buy it from him.” They’re at a cold standstill, and Jake was advised by his legal team to live at the estate full-time.
So he’s been sharing a house with Trent. Albeit, twenty-five-thousand square feet of space, but space nonetheless. Trent already told me he was invited to summer at Stonehaven, and if he accepts, then Jake will, too.
I don’t want Trent at Stonehaven. I don’t want him anywhere near Phoebe, but it might be better to have him around Varrick. He’s like gangrene, and I want Varrick to deal with this infection.
“If Trent keeps throwing parties here, you need to start playing as dirty as your brother,” I counsel. “Or else he’s going to do something that you won’t survive.”
Jake is frustrated. He pulls at the drenched button-down that suctions to his chest. “I can’t be like him, Grey.”
“Your moral backbone isn’t going to win you the estate, Jake.”
He scrapes a hand through his light brown hair. “What should I do?”
“Make his life hell, for starters. Cut the Wi-Fi. Have construction workers banging outside his bedroom window. You could be doing reno while he’s sleeping. Instead, all week you’ve been letting him pass out all day and party all night.”
He considers this. “I wish I could just call the cops.”
It’s not a solution when Trent has paid off the sheriff. They’ve shown up before, said a casual “Keep it down” and turned around.
Jake shakes his head slowly in pained thought. “You said he’d do something I won’t survive. What’d you mean by that?”
“He knows you love animals, and he had someone fuck with the horses, Jake. What else do you love?”
He stares off with tightened eyes. “What or who?”
I swallow tar. His reddened gaze lifts to mine, and I wish—I wish, more than anything—that he never got attached to the only two women I’d go to hell for.
“He thinks you loved Phoebe. He doesn’t know you have any feelings for my sister.
Keep it that way. Or else she’ll be the rope you’re wrenching back and forth in your tug-of-war.
And it’s one thing to have Phoebe in that role, but Hailey has never been in that position. Ever.”
It’s why I’ve been so very fucking careful of acknowledging my sister whenever I’m with Trent. I barely say hey to her. The more interest I give her, the more interest he takes.
And I want him to forget she even exists.