Chapter 7
7
JON
I pounded the forest’s damp ground, my boot falls far harder than necessary. The ridgeline opened out in front of me as I beat a new pass into the soft packed earth, winding my way between thick trunks. My breath remained light as I jogged away from the cabin, unwilling to let them see me wrecked, though I loved every man in the small home Robe had built for us.
Will and Miller appeared between trees. The stocky soldier smiled, an all-too-knowing look in his eyes. “Gave you the shits already?”
It took every inch of my control not to snarl back at Miller. Mari had been in the house with us for less than a month, and I couldn’t bear sharing the space any longer. Too many memories surfaced every time she spoke.
I growled at Miller. “Maybe you should offer something proactive instead of having a temper tantrum in the middle of the house.”
“Like you just did?” He raised an eyebrow in perfect mimicry of Robe.
I wanted to bitch-slap it from his face.
Normally, I got along well with Miller, all things considered, since my incursion into their world at his master’s invitation. He followed Robe like a friendly stray, but the man was valuable. The rich boy turned soldier became Robe’s friend over the course of a dozen skirmishes continents away from their homeland, saved his life during half of their missions, and for that I forgave him most of our combined grievances.
This was not one of those times.
“Find your manners before you step foot in that house.” I pushed as much emphasis into the words as I could, shoving past the smaller man.
Miller might look intimidating to someone of Mari’s build and height, but to me he was another short log in my path. His expression remained indifferent as I plowed past him. Will shifted at his side, the easygoing kid clearly torn between playing advocate and backing the fuck away.
Smart boy.
The latter option fell in the young man’s favor, though Will’s gaze weighed across my shoulders as I picked a deer trail to torture. I slammed my feet into the delicate tracks, obliterating all trace of their passing, all too conscious that Will saw me as a sort of mentor or a woodsman superhero to emulate.
I wasn’t fit to be called either and tried to ignore the growing responsibility Robe thrust upon me unasked.
Unwelcomed.
Each of us played our role in his tattered family unit. Meeting the woods’ silence with my own secrets while keeping Robe’s was mine.
The boys’ chatter receded as I pushed deeper into the forest. Shifting greens blurred into a gray haze that distinguished nothing and hid everything. Pine needles bit into my skin as I found my stride.
It didn’t take long for the burn to start. I knew I’d have to stretch the lactic acid out later unless I wanted to walk like a cripple tomorrow. A quick glance over my shoulder assured me the cabin sat well out of sight.
The forest fell into a pensive snow-blanketed slumber around me as the echoes of my pounding boots reverberated beneath my feet. A half smile fell from my lips as I stared at the spaces between trees with a determined laser focus. Increasing the length of my steps, I sprinted like a madman through the forest, reckless and all too aware of the dangers nearby. I might be the size of a bear, but I didn’t have the claws of one. At least, not the physical sort.
Branches scratched at my arms. I shattered twigs and crumpled garnet-edged leaves as I pushed my bulk between the behemoths that refused to bend for me. Was this what Mari had felt, tear-assing through the forest while pursued by a horde of invisible predators to land in Robe’s lap? My heart pumped in my chest to the point of burning within moments at the thought of her endless terror.
At the exposed cliffside amid freezing battering winds, I turned a hard right. Appearing in clear view during the full light of day was stupid and out of character. Direct line of sight opened between us and our nearest neighbor at this range, situated a decent distance for sanity’s sake.
We avoided the boundary, but Mari’s abrupt arrival changed everything. Robe’s priorities were rewired by instinct. My priorities. I no longer cared about invisible fence lines dividing us from the evil in plain view, intent on pushing myself harder as the memories began to flood in.
Ragged, fire-filled breaths tore at my insides, anchoring me in a beautiful dance of heartrending memory that swept over the trees, obliterating the landscape.
Crisp lake air, so distant from the mountains I now called home, froze in the still fog that hovered over the mirage of a familiar lake in the brisk morning. Near the shoreline sat a pretty blue-and-white cottage I’d built for my new wife.
The image overlaid the weak sun pushing its final rays past the ridgeline, trying to announce its presence through my phantom memories.
The air around me drifted to silence as the heavy shroud extinguished reality. My pounding steps became the single slice of Recurve Ridge I allowed to break through my trance. A quarter mile into my self-imposed torture and my breath already wheezed out of constricted lungs.
My pain offered distraction enough to leave the hellish haven I’d created, assuming life would be grand, well away from city lights. I pushed my past away and concentrated on throwing each screaming thigh muscle before the other, setting a frantic pace along the scarred stone that understood my need.
Big men were never designed to sprint. I pushed through, determined on my self-flagellation. Watching Robe carry Mari into the house unconscious was one thing. Seeing her dressed in spare clothes, speaking her mind, and healing was another. In my head, Mari settled next to another woman I’d known who spoke out like that, both girls thoughtless and so damn sharp at the same time.
I preferred my women well-rounded, their figures robust with all the lush curves as the perfect foil for my work-hardened hands. Everything about Mari was wrong. Too skinny. Too pale.
Yet she called to me.
I shared that burden with every man in the cabin. I’d seen it in Robe’s face, and Alan’s. The younger men would follow suit, and what did that make us but a group of fools panting after a woman we couldn’t touch?
Couldn’t tarnish.
Mari’s fine frame reminded me of how breakable a woman could be despite her determination to survive. Live. The traditional fairer-sex stereotype never suited me, even as a younger man. Robe had staked his claim on the woman he rescued, and despite the fact that we’d shared girls in the past, I wouldn’t cross that line.
More than a fool’s errand, the fucker would offer to share. And having her—just her touch—would break me. Hell, I’d break her in all the ways he wouldn’t. The rest of us needed to back off until he got his head—and hers too—into the right space.
Mari’s emotional qualities shone through the plethora of bruises she collected in her flight, the sort of hook that lanced through a man’s heart and reeled him in, both as unaware of the invisible process as the other.
Her fine bone structure gave her an ethereal beauty. Not quite pixie-like or otherworldly, she displayed a rare inner tenacity all of us respected on sight. Despite the state she’d arrived in—filthy, frantic, and giving Robe hell—I had to admit she made a sexy addition to cabin life.
I knew what Robe was doing, and even his why , but having her in the house with a band of not-so-honest brothers made for a terrible fucking idea. We all knew it. Alan put on his little flirty-as-fuck face that drove me up the wall, and I half expected to find Robe with a dopey-ass grin decorating his scarred mug.
My fist curled at the thought of throwing down a beating, though I never needed to use violence to coerce the men into line. The threat, it seemed, was enough. That, and Robe’s weird brand of leadership that brought damaged men into his path, me included.
And cold little killers like Alan. Cute as the stripper could be, I’d seen the lithe man dance. If he considered this good behavior while wearing his best manners, I would hate to see him at his worst. Scratch that—I had seen him at his worst. I watched him garotte a man, cold and emotionless, then rifle through his belongings to make it look like a robbery and walk away whistling a soft, upbeat tune that stung my blood with ice.
Not that I could blame him for his vengeance.
The man he unalived had raped two underage male strippers who wouldn’t be considered legal in any state the world round. The boys were close to Alan at the time. Despite my repulsion over the matter, our exotic dancer’s bare-faced efficiency did things to my cock that only Robe had managed before him.
I’d seen that face on one man prior, and I’d never questioned him on his methods when he was in that mood either. Each of us was collected by Robe because we filled a role, outcast from our family, society, and the law.
Mari changed that status quo the moment Robe brought her into the house.
Unable to deal with the resurgence in memories, I speared deeper into the forest. Robe wouldn’t fuss. He knew a man would take his grievance out on the well-trodden paths by his own choice of tool and return clearheaded.
For a moment I’d been grateful for the woman who’d immediately consumed me. Until she spoke and that same thoughtful tone brought me back to a past I’d long assumed I would escape.
Mari’s head of dark hair with its gentle waves and deep navy eyes reminded me of another face—one taken from me too many years prior to count. A face I last saw when ropes tethered me to my own fence posts, the sort drilled nine feet into the ground and set in cement to prevent the damn things from moving.
When I first started working on the lake house, I never thought that the home I’d built for Jenny would turn my love of the place into something beyond loathing.
I slammed my soles into the ground, counting each step while in my mind’s eye, I watched my wife spread out on the ground beneath hooded figures, no farther than twelve feet from my boots. I screamed myself hoarse, then and now, the sound echoing off sheer rock face that speared my pain high across the valley, but it made no difference.
The remote location became a blessing that then transformed into a nightmare I relived alone in my too-large bed.
Jenny had no chance to get away from them, all soft curves and stunning eyes. A woman I wouldn’t break by accident. A simple laborer, my nature made me too rough for a woman with no substance.
The scratches of fine twigs became deep rents in my shirt as I burst out of the trees, slamming my boots into the rocky ground.
Thump thump thump
Beneath the icy air wafting off the lake, I strained against the ropes shackling me too tightly to the fence posts I laid myself, unable to tear my hands from their bonds. My black-edged gaze seared small details into my mind. Flashes of flesh, metal wrist watches and signet rings, colored angles of tattoos that curled around their hands in a matching set as bloodied fists rained down on her broken body.
Suddenly those curves were fragile things that shattered with each steel-capped kick.
Pound pound pound
Thump thump thump
A dark, still mound, indiscernible from a matted heap of kelp, lay before me along the shoreline when they walked away. No word, no glance. No jeers or cries of satisfaction. A job complete, punishment extracted for a crime I didn’t understand.
She’d spoken out against a then-small local politician before we left the city, a passionate woman protecting others’ rights. We moved away without another thought, a proud new husband with a glowing wife who consumed my every waking moment. Cooking with her, finding new scenes for her to paint, watching her as I worked among the trees.
Jenny never looked back, never searched for me, but she knew they were holding me there the entire time.
I couldn’t reach her, but she didn’t face her end alone.
Alone was where Robe found me less than an hour later, hanging from my ropes. Tears long shed crusted my cheeks, my throat raw. He untied me, bore my weight when I retched and reached for her. I lifted the first stone and the one after until we formed a cairn over her body. Robe worked alongside me in silence, and though he didn’t pray with me, he stood sentinel until I was done.
He waited while I’d vomited into the sink and grabbed the few things I needed to leave the life I cherished behind me forever in favor of the vengeance he promised. He said nothing, remained unmoving when I found the positive pregnancy test in the bathroom she hadn’t announced yet.
I cried anew, and still he waited.
Then, when my heart had released every iota of emotion within its confines, we walked in silence to the place my feet pound now. Laid a foundation for a new life in a place that bears as many scars upon its bare rocks as I do upon my soul. The cabin might feel rustic now, but it was far less stark than when we started. A few rough logs nailed together. Care factor came well after, once we established the status quo.
After I met Miller. Found Alan and Will.
When, day after day, he trained me.
Honed my body, sharpened my mind from the blunt instrument I’d been, unable to protect those I loved.
Mountain air now sucked into my wheezing lungs in shallow waves. I forced myself to return to Recurve Ridge, away from the ghost of my dead wife and the lake house. My own harsh steps reverberated through my bones, shaking my body to my core, but I refused to stop, ignoring the burning acid in muscles pushed too hard.
One more step, and another. I ignored the bleak, void presence of the compound opposite.
Until Mari said otherwise, we couldn’t risk attacking Gideon or show our faces, singular or otherwise. Until she named him, everything we thought we knew got filed under suspicious , nothing more. Robe required proof before he went off half-cocked, while the rest of us seethed over unhealed scars, prepared to extract vengeance for hurts long past.
Besides, what was a small band of criminals capable of achieving against the expensive personal arsenal at his disposal courtesy of that once-small-time politician?
The moment Robe brought Mari into the cabin, he had unwittingly created a division between us. The broken man who hid behind a facade of manners and rules only some of us played by held himself to a high standard and was possessive as hell. If he claimed Mari, he wouldn’t want anyone else touching her—and that broke all our house rules about sharing what was ours.
Still, I figured he’d come around at some point. But right now, and for the first time in a decade, I didn’t have my feet in his back pocket. I made a mental note to get Alan to make me pom-poms so I could announce my siding with Team Mari.
Somehow, I didn’t think Robe would mind.
It would be interesting to see how the other boys interpreted that change.
I drew to a halt on an exposed rocky outcrop, soaking up the weak sun’s warmth. My shirt stuck to my skin that was coated in chilled sweat. Light glared out my vision, and I blinked away the kaleidoscope that splayed a brilliant array of color behind my eyes.
My sight cleared after a moment. I stared across the lush valley floor that arched upward in violent lines at either side. Recurve Ridge rose to the north, following the trail from which I’d burst out of the forest and leading deep into the dell where Robe had built the cabin. Opposite our hidden location as the crow flew, Gideon’s concrete palace had been eked out of stone like an irregular geode that slit the landscape, an open scar unable to heal. Exposed and unapologetic, his compound created an eyesore we couldn’t ignore. The gray behemoth marred the ridge’s natural beauty across the broken abyss from where I stood, separated only by thin, crisp air and a scattering of tarnished leaves lifted by the mountain’s breath.
A flicker drew my attention a second time. I knelt, letting damp mulch cool my hot palms as I scraped my fingers into the dirt beneath it. Never taking my eyes off the house, I raised my hand, rubbing the fine particles between my fingertips. The crumpled leaves filtered through the air, highlighting what hid in plain sight before they were whisked away on the brisk current of wind assaulting the barren rock face.
Twin lasers slashed the air in horizontal lines, drawing two identical dots on my chest.
I straightened, forcing my shoulders back, and stared in the direction of Gideon’s snipers. I might not have fought on the battlefield Miller and Robe had experienced, but I trained with them, and I trained like them. In no way would I insult the hours Robe spent sweating beside me by backing down.
Come at me, you fucking assholes.
My hands loosened at my sides as the wind whipped my hair around. The distance required a decent shot, even with a sniper rifle, though I had no doubt Gideon’s men would be able to account for the gale that assaulted the ridgeline more days than not.
When no shot pierced my chest, I nodded once and made my way back along the domed rock face. I didn’t glance back at the compound with its twin lights that no doubt lit my path, but even when the trees closed over me, obscuring its view of my back, I knew we’d jostled the hornets’ nest.
A manic grin split my lips, emitting the sort of restless energy I possessed when I first arrived at the cabin.
Robe needed to know I sided with Team Mari all the way.