Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
JENSEN
Leland’s men pull back just as Brothers’ soldiers start pouring over the edge of the pit. They part, leaving us in the bloodied dust. My vision wavers. My body is exhausted, but in me is a fire I’ve never felt.
Pushing myself up, I stride to the fence. Brothers is at my heels, shouting to his men. He’s far away and right up in my ear all at once, voice blaring in my ears. We’re almost to the gate when I look back as the crowd melts away, and I see her for a moment.
She’s being dragged. Her dark hair falls around her beautiful face. Her eyes are big, terrified. Her lips move, pleading. I think she might be calling my name as they haul her away into a wave of bodies.
Right then, I think my heart breaks.
She’s so fucking brave, and she doesn’t even know it. I’ve seen courage like hers before, a long time ago, in the face of a kid who kept peeling himself off the pavement thinking he was really going someplace.
This time, that look won’t go unnoticed.
Tonight, the Caudills are going down. I’ve got blood on my tongue and nineteen years of anger in my chest. Hellfire is going to sweep through this town, and there won’t be a damn thing they can do to save themselves.
Turning on my heel, I head through the clearing and out into the woods where the truck is parked. Brothers is mobilizing his men as he follows me, and it’s giving me a head start. I yank open the door, but he appears behind me, grabbing my arm.
I turn on him. “Don’t you fucking stop me.”
“I’m not,” he pants. “I got horses in the woods. We can’t make it in time by road. We have to ride.”
“And then what?” I spit.
His eyes flash. “Jen,” he snaps. “We need to get the women out of that house before Leland hurts them. This isn’t the time to argue.”
He’s right. The fear in his face isn’t for Della or me.
“Where are the horses?” I say.
“Get in the truck,” Brothers says. “They’re about five minutes from here. The men are going to meet us there by road.”
Heart pounding, I slide into the passenger side. In the back seat, something glints. He gets in and puts the truck in drive, screeching it back and around like hell is on his heels. I reach back and rip the canvas cover off a stack of AKs halfway up the seat.
“You came prepared.” I turn around.
His fingers flex on the wheel. “I’m always prepared,” he says.
We’re going ninety on the dirt road, truck bouncing so hard, it might pop the hubcaps off. Brothers is tensed up like a bow. I’ve never seen him afraid before. My cheek stings, and I wipe it, blood and sweat covering my palm.
“Christ,” I murmur.
He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it over. I mop up my face, trying to get a feel for how bad the cut on my cheek is. It’s soft, swollen. Maybe that’ll keep it from bleeding too bad.
“You all good, Jen?” he says hoarsely.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Took some hard hits out there.”
“Nothing much.”
He turns the truck at a hairpin bend, veering the opposite direction we came from. “Not the way he took them.”
“I had it handled out there,” I say.
“You get the women out tonight, I’ll be your spotter,” he says.
“Sounds like a plan.”
My confidence doesn’t come from cockiness. No, it’s made of all the anger I’ve carried on my back. I’ve fought for a break for thirty-nine years. Then, she appeared. Now, I see the light coming through the trees. The opening of the clouds.
I want a family. I want her. I want to feel what it’s like to fix a truck with that little boy of hers. Maybe nobody did that for me, but I can sure as hell make sure somebody does it for him.
The trees blur, the headlights a smear across my vision.
I’m so fucking angry.
I think I got real angry down in my marrow the day I came home and saw Cherry, Holly, and Kyle dead on the floor.
There was no path to revenge, so I tamped it down, pretended it didn’t exist. But I lived with that rage, not realizing it was still growing inside me.
Brothers bringing me back here activated it like a sleeper cell.
Tonight, it all came spilling out in the pit.
I can’t put it back. I’ve been gutted, and I’m holding everything that used to live inside me in my hands.
Brothers hits the brakes, pulling off the road. He reaches in the back and pulls something out, tossing it in my lap before getting out of the truck. I look down, lifting it—soft felt, a little worn and smells like a barn. It’s a cowboy hat, dark brown, the kind I might wear out in wintertime.
There’s a tingle of emotion in my chest as I get out of the truck. Just off the road sits a silver horse trailer. Brothers’ horse and Godspeed are tied to the side.
“You wanted to be a cowboy, Jen,” Brothers says. “Go on, be one.”
I put the hat on, and it fits. “So what do we do when we get the women out?”
“Angus is going to have the plane ready at the gravel park at the park-and-ride, off seventy-five,” he says, untying his horse. “You get Della and Landis to it, and they’ll take you back to Montana.”
I stare at him.
“You’re just letting me go?” I say. “Just like that?”
His face is shadowed as he checks the cinch of his saddle.
“I made a mistake when I took you on for the business. I should’ve taken one look at you the day we fixed your truck and left you the fuck alone.
Hell…life had already kicked you around enough.
But I got selfish. We really clicked, and I felt like maybe I could step in and fix some of the shit people did to you. ”
I don’t know what to say.
“I hurt you, Jen, but not on purpose,” he says, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry for that.”
The people pleasing part of me that used to take precedence back in the day wants me to forgive him the way I did in the diner, but grown Jensen is a different story.
“You got your family with Della and her boy,” he says. “Take them and go. I’m sorry I played a part in yours dying.”
I clear my throat. “You hauled me all the way back here to say sorry, huh?”
He mounts his horse, turns him, and stacks his hands on the saddle horn.
“No,” he says. “I hauled your ass back here to help me take down the Caudills and settle my debt.”
“You dying or something?”
“No,” he says, frowning. “Tell me we’re even and go home, Jen.”
My hand finds Godspeed’s side. He throws his head, and I take a second to gather myself, untying him and mounting up. I’m on eye level with Brothers now.
“Get me Della and Landis. Get me to that plane,” I say. “Then, we’re even. But we’re also done. You go your own way with Kayleigh, and I’ll go mine. Don’t contact me again.”
His jaw twitches like he’s wincing.
“It’s a deal,” he says.