Prologue
Hazel
Two Years Ago
I was dying.
There was nothing left of me. Just pitch black. The absence of light. No air. No life.
My body felt heavy. So heavy, I was sinking into the earth. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything.
But I knew death. It had an icy grip. I felt it once in my mother’s fingers when breast cancer claimed her. This wasn’t cold. Why wasn’t I cold? I felt warmth.
And peace. Finally peace.
This was a mercy from the hell I’d endured.
A pinprick of light shone in the distance. Like a long tunnel, beaconing me forward.
A drum beat. Slow and stilted.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I wanted to follow it, but I couldn’t move. Instead, it appeared as though that single orb of light barreled toward me. Almost like it was galloping as it approached with each beat of the drum.
The drum was getting louder. But now it was accompanied with a ringing tone, making my ears ache.
Everything felt like I was under water. Someone was talking, but the words were muffled. Buffered footsteps thumped across the floorboards in a pacing rhythm.
My lungs felt like they were on fire. Blazing.
I’d so much rather be cold.
No, no, no, no, no.
I knew what was happening.
Damn it. The fucker can’t do anything right. Not even murder.
My chest seemed to crack, involuntarily opening. Desperate for air.
I sucked in a startling wheezing breath.
Glorious, glorious air. My lungs inflated.
I blinked. My vision was blurry at first, then cleared for a view of the pockmarked ceiling. Daylight from the windows cast a shadow across the plaster.
I rolled to my side, coughing, and desperately sucking in air until I could release a steady exhale.
“Shit!” Jesse yelled, stumbling away from me now, knocking over a chair at the table in the process.
I could hear him scrambling for something. Probably trying to find some other way to end me. Covering my nose and mouth with his hand while he pinned me to the ground hadn’t done the job he’d hoped.
“Fucking bitch!” He continued to curse.
From my side, I looked around the bunkhouse, taking in the bunk beds with tossed bedsheets.
The metal clank and clash of him fumbling through a drawer in the kitchen told me he was probably looking for a knife or some other tool to carve out my soul.
I continued to absorb air into my aching lungs as I struggled to get to my hands and knees.
There was no way I was going to let him kill me.
To get away with this. The brief moment of respite when I thought I found peace drifted into the ether.
There could be no peace as long as he lived.
Not for me. Not for the ranch. And definitely not for Chuck Larsen.
There was no way I was going to let him fucking do this.
My fingertips tingled with the fresh oxygen coursing through my veins as I crawled my way to the bottom bunk.
The drawer in the kitchen slammed shut and I knew whatever he found was about to inflict more pain than the fucking brand he’d burned into my shoulder blade.
His heavy boots were like thunder in my ears as he closed in on me. I scrambled to the mattress, lifting the corner until my fingers wrapped around the handle of the revolver. Five bullets. That’s all I had.
“I should’ve known better where your loyalty lay,” Jesse growled. His hand wrapped around my ponytail, jerking me back. Something cold and sharp went to my neck beneath my ear. But he didn’t press it. Not yet. He held it to my throat like a threat.
I swung around in his grasp before he could react, aiming the gun at him. Startled, the knife clattered to the floor freeing up his grip to try and pull the gun from me. But he’d have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
“It’s either going to be me or you, and I choose ME!” I gritted through my teeth while I pulled the trigger. The revolver fired, the shot going wide, whizzing off the top bunk.
We struggled together, my desperation spurring me on as I fired again. The bullet hit the ceiling above us. He hovered above me, his piercing blue eyes like glacial flames as he fought me. His teeth gnashed on a growl. His skin beet red with exertion and rage beneath his dark scruff.
Three. Three left.
I fired again. “Shit.” It sailed past his ear.
He was going to break my arm, but I didn’t give a fuck. I’d let him break my arm for good this time if it meant stopping him.
Two more.
I squeezed the trigger, squinting my eyes to aim for his face, and fired.
Then his grip loosened and he fell backward.
I scrambled to my feet, the gun still trained on him as he lay still on the wood floorboards.
My panting breaths and trembling limbs began to steady.
Blood flooded beneath him, growing into a pool of crimson as it slowly sank into the slits of the wood floor becoming one with the land he wanted so bad.
Oh god. I need to leave. I can’t be here. I—I killed him.
There was no time to think about this. I had one more bullet. I contemplated momentarily if I should turn it on myself, but then thought better of it. That was all I had left to end this for good. There was no way in hell I was going to go to prison for this bastard.
I stormed to the door, swooping up the keys to the truck that hung on the wall and ran out of the bunkhouse.
Adrenaline and panic coursed through my veins as I hopped into Jesse’s truck, tossing the gun in reach on the passenger seat.
I did not dare look back, my eyes trained ahead as I turned the key in the ignition.
Shifting the car into drive, I laid on the gas. The wheels spit gravel as I tore down the road away from the ranch toward the highway.
I was a former rodeo queen on the run. Ready to disappear. To finish this once and for all.