• Three •
“Don’t recall inviting anyone.”
Thatcher
Present Day
Leaning against the concrete wall of what had once been an old firehouse storm shelter, I took a deep pull from my cigarette as I studied the pansy-ass bastard hanging by his wrists from the ceiling. He’d pissed his pants and I found that pathetic. Both of his eyes were so swollen that I didn’t know if he could still see me or not. I wasn’t sure just yet what I was going to do with him. He should be thankful he was still alive.
If I hadn’t been keeping tabs on him and he’d made her cry, then he’d be dead. This punishment would have never happened. But seeing as how I was the one who had caught him fucking some bitch after calling Capri, I hadn’t snapped … completely. I was just triggered enough to make him wish he’d left her the fuck alone. My head stayed clear for the most part. Sure, I had jerked him off the woman he’d mounted and dragged him from the cheap-ass hotel room, but I hadn’t slit his throat.
Flicking my ashes, I considered leaving him here and letting fate have its hand. It was what I was leaning toward, but I knew he’d die. I might as well kill him now if that was the case.
“Why?” he croaked out.
Taking another pull from my cigarette I thought about that answer. I’d not said much to him. I wasn’t one to waste words. I found most shit that came out of people’s mouths was pointless.
I took the cigarette from between my lips and studied him for a moment. Probably best that he knew why he was here. What lesson would he learn if I didn’t teach him?
“You’ve spent the past three weeks leading Capri on. Flirting with her. Making her think you’re into her,” I told him.
“I was—I am,” he stammered.
My body tensed, and I had to take another pull from the nicotine that no longer took the edge off like it once had. Now, it was just a fucking habit.
“Might want to be real careful with the words you choose to use,” I warned him.
Even I couldn’t be sure what would make me react. The knife I kept in my left boot was too close for me to slide out and use.
“We’re not in an exclusive relationship.” The pleading tone didn’t help my mood.
I continued to use my smoke as a calming technique the best I could. That stupid bastard was pushing me. When I took a step toward him, he flinched as if I had hit him. Typically, I got a high from teaching lessons, causing pain. But right now, I was too focused on remaining sane.
“You’re fucking sluts you picked up at bars and then getting close to Capri.” I shook my head as a shiver of disgust curled inside me. “I can’t have that.” I took the cigarette from my mouth and dropped it onto the floor before covering it with my boot. “I can’t have that,” I repeated.
He said nothing, but the way he trembled as I took another step closer to him told me he could still see. I ran the pad of my thumb over my bottom lip as the bristle from my unshaved face reminded me that I needed to shave. Maybe I’d grow it out. Try the beard shit.
“I didn’t know she was, uh, important to you,” he babbled.
That was the conundrum. One I had yet to figure out. There was little that caused any real reaction from me. When I had been a kid, my father had found humor in it while my mother looked at me like she was frightened. I had often wondered if my lack of emotion was why she never treated me like she did my brother. Our mother’s adoration of Sebastian never bothered me, but as a kid, I’d noted her lack of interaction with me.
Until the day Capri’s gray eyes met mine with a pleading, panicked look as Beauden held her with his hand around her throat, I’d never experienced rage. It was my first real emotion. And she was the one who had drawn it out of me.
“You’ll have to stay away from her,” I said, walking around him as I examined all the injuries I’d inflicted. “If you want to live, that is.”
“I’ll stay away. I won’t come back to work. I’ll quit.” The words came out of his mouth in rushed gibberish. “I won’t tell anyone about this.”
My lips curled in a cold, amused snarl. As if I had any concern as to who he told.
The sound of footsteps was faint, as if whoever was coming down here didn’t want me to hear them. There were several pairs. I scowled and reached for another cigarette. They were like a bunch of damn women. Didn’t they have better shit to do? I lit the cigarette but kept the lighter in my hand as I waited for them to come barreling in here to the rescue.
King walked through the door first, and I inhaled some of the smoke as I stared at him. His eyes swung to the bastard hanging up beside me, then back to me. “What the fuck, Thatch?” he said, shaking his head.
Sebastian, Storm, and Wells all entered behind him.
“Don’t recall inviting anyone,” I replied with the new cigarette clamped tightly in my mouth. “This was a private party.”
“Fuck,” Sebastian muttered as he stared at the stablehand.
Storm was studying me, as if trying to solve a puzzle. I’d helped him with his female. He owed me one, and he fucking knew it.
As for Wells, I didn’t care for him. Never had. I didn’t even bother to glance his way.
“Please tell me this isn’t about the jockey.” King sounded put out.
“She’s got a name,” I said, annoyed that he kept forgetting to use it.
“Help,” JB begged.
Turning to look at him, I was surprised that he was that stupid. Flicking my lighter, I ran it across his cheek, and he cried out in pain.
“Thatch! Jesus, stop it!” King’s frustration made me smirk.
I flicked my gaze back at him. The smell of JB’s burned flesh appeased me.
Slipping the lighter back into my pocket, I glanced over at my brother. The concern in his eyes was a shame. He was too fucking sensitive. Always had been.
“He’s slow. I had to give him a reminder that I decide if he lives or dies. Your arrival doesn’t change that.”
King ran a hand through his hair, and he shifted is gaze to the man beside me. “Please tell me he did something to deserve this. That it’s not because he was flirting with the jock—Capri.”
I should have known they’d figure it out. Even though I had kept my distance since she had begun coming to the stables to train with Bloodline, Storm had made the mistake of yelling at her. For a moment, I saw nothing but the red haze of fury and attacked him. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep from hurting him. If Capri hadn’t been watching me, I didn’t think I could have stopped my reaction. Her presence was the only thing that seemed to stabilize me. That moment had been enough to give me away to the others.
“I told him. Storm didn’t,” Sebastian admitted.
I’d already known that. Storm was loyal when he felt he owed someone. Sebastian, on the other hand, thought I needed saving from myself. You’d think, after all these years, he would have figured out no one could save me. If JB lived, it would be because I’d decided he could. Not because they’d come in like the fucking calvary.
“I didn’t know,” the moron blurted out beside me. “She talked to me first—”
The back of my hand hit his jaw hard enough that his head snapped to the side, then fell limp.
“FUCK!” King shouted behind me.
I turned back to them. “I didn’t say he could talk.”
King shook his head and glared at me. “Thatch, this shit is messed up. You can’t kill him for flirting with her.”
I took the cigarette from my teeth. “That’s not why he’s here.”
“Then, tell me something that makes this okay,” he pleaded.
I sighed, glancing over at the others. Sebastian was looking at JB in horror. It wasn’t like I’d killed him. Just shut him up for a bit. He’d come to eventually. Wells stood back with his arms crossed over his chest, watching everything with that wide-eyed look of his. Storm, however, was looking at me. He was harder to read. We both knew that if the fucker had flirted with Briar, he’d be strung up. As insane as Storm had been acting lately, JB might have already been dead.
“I found him fucking some bitch he’d picked up at a bar,” I explained, not that it was their business. “He shouldn’t have flirted with Capri if he was going to fuck around.” Yeah, it didn’t sound sane, saying it out loud either.
King raised his eyebrows as he stared at me as if I had grown another head. “This is about him fucking someone else?”
I nodded putting the cigarette back between my lips and inhaled the smoke that was gonna be what eventually killed me, wishing he’d shut the fuck up.
“You can’t kill him for that,” King said, sounding like he was ready to have me committed.
“Didn’t really plan on it. I debated it, sure, but he needed to be taught a lesson.”
King’s brows drew together. “What lesson was that exactly?”
I took the cigarette from my mouth and put it out on JB’s arm. His body jerked, and he moaned, then lifted his head.
“There. See, he’s awake,” I said, giving my brother a sadistic grin before turning back to the bastard still groaning. “He needed to learn not to make Capri think he’s something he is not.”
JB’s head did something weird that I thought was meant to be a nod.
I cut my eyes back over to King. “I think he got the message.”
Wells let out a short laugh. “Ya think?”
My eyes shot to him, and Sebastian shoved his arm.
“Shut up,” he hissed at Wells, who looked nervous.
His eyes swung to King, as if he thought King could save him if I really wanted to do anything to him. How the fuck he and Wilder were related, I didn’t know. Wilder I’d take a bullet for.
“Can we let him down and take him home?” King asked me.
I shrugged. “I’m not taking him anywhere.”
King let out a weary-sounding sigh. “Can I take him home?”
I stuck a new cigarette back between my teeth. “Do what the fuck you want,” I told him, then headed for the door.
Wells stepped out of the way quickly.
“If this is how you’re gonna react, we need to let Capri go,” King called out behind me.
I stopped my teeth from sinking into the butt of the cigarette.
“Guys will flirt with her. You can’t teach them all a lesson. We won’t have any stablehands left,” Sebastian added.
I took a deep breath and tried to remember these men were family. The demon inside me didn’t seem to give a fuck about that though. It was me who had to overpower the simmer threatening to take control.
“She stays,” I bit out.
No one said anything. The silence was only making things worse.
I spun around and slammed my hand against the wall. “SHE STAYS!” I roared, not recognizing my own voice.
King nodded. “Okay. She stays. I’m going to make sure every male who steps on the property is aware she is off-limits though.”
Probably a wise idea. I didn’t say anything more. I had to leave before I did something I shouldn’t. I might not take it out on them, but the stablehand would die. King was really intent on that not happening. Leaving was best.