CHAPTER 31
The only fucking thing I want right now is my woman. It’s been a long fucking day, the sun has set, and darkness blankets the ranch. My tires crunch over the gravel as I drive up the long dirt road, the lights of the ranch illuminating the darkness ahead of me.
An unfamiliar car is parked in front of the house, and I pull up beside it, cutting the engine and the lights before I get out.
A prickling unease spreads through me, making me glance around, but only the heavy silence answers.
Too quiet. Not even the animals are making a sound, the owls in the trees watching.
I see their eyes reflecting the light, but their song is muted.
Swallowing thickly, I rush toward the house only to freeze at the porch when I see her sitting on the top step, Judge laying at her side.
“Elena?” I rasp.
She tilts her face toward me, toward the light shining out the window, and even though it’s dark, her features shadowed, I see the bruising, the cut on her head, the ring around her throat.
I’m at her side before I can take my next breath, gathering her to me.
“Who did this?” I growl, “Who hurt you, Elena!?”
“I’m sorry,” Is all she replies. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“What happened!?” I brush back her hair, trying to get her to look at me directly, but her eyes are down, her skin cold, hands covered in blood. “Elena!”
“Chase is dead.” She whispers.
“What?” I snap my head back. “What are you talking about?”
“We tried to run; I tried to get us inside but… he shot him. Killed him right there and then.”
The blood drains from my face. “Who?”
“Rio.” She swallows. “He found me.”
“Where’s Chase?” I demand, her words not quite registering.
“He’s dead, Knox.”
No. No.
Elena’s hand cups my cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“Where is he?” Her lashes flutter, a tear slipping out and rolling down her cheek before she looks toward that unfamiliar car and then I see it. The body beneath a blanket, the shape is barely distinguishable within the shadows of the night, I never would have seen it if Elena didn’t point it out.
I get to my feet, weight unstable as I stumble toward it, Elena following behind.
My knees hit the earth, and I pull back the blanket, unable to believe it unless I see it with my own eyes.
Even in the dark, I see how pale Chase has become, his eyes staring lifelessly toward the stars.
He’s stiff, cold to the touch, his clothes saturated in his own blood.
Elena kneels beside me, her silent tears tracking down her face, over the fresh bruising and cuts.
Grief and anger twist me up, burning bright beneath my skin. I feel my heart begin to pound, the blood pumping in my throat as a steady roar builds inside my ears.
“Where is he?” I demand, voice barely above a whisper, throat raw.
“He’s in the barn,” Elena’s voice may as well be a million miles away with how it sounds inside my ears, “I tried, Knox.”
“This isn’t your fault.” I get to my feet, walking away from her, toward the barn closest to the house. I hear her rise and follow. Her steps are unsure with a distance between us that didn’t exist before.
Elena… unsure.
This fucker. It’s the same one who put the bullet in her thigh. The one who betrayed her.
He killed my oldest friend.
Turned the headstrong devil of a woman into this shell.
The barn door hits the wall, causing the entire building to shake, dust and debris left by the birds in the rafters rains down onto the gritty floor.
He’s on his side, wrists and ankles bound, a cloth in his mouth and secured by a rope between his lips, tied behind his head.
Crusty blood sticks to his skin, and more blood stains his shirt, bite marks I realize.
“Judge saved me,” Elena whispers, her fingers tentatively reaching for mine.
“He’s alive.” I give her my hand, allowing her to wrap her own around it, holding tight. I curl my fingers around hers, hoping she can take some of the warmth from me that she is lacking and to give her some of my strength.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
And then I turn around, leaving the fucker there to rot for the night as I head back to Chase’s body, taking her with me. I have to bury him.
We have a cemetery on the ranch grounds. It’s been here a long time, some of the gravestones so old, the weather has eaten away at the names carved into the stones. He has no family. No wife, no siblings. No one to miss him.
Except me.
My heart fractures.
Chase has been around for as long as I can remember, and after his father passed, my father allowed him to stay and work on the ranch. He’s as much a part of this place as I am.
And now he is dead.
Pulling the door to the truck bed open, I turn and bend to lift his body, placing him gently into it before I lock it back up and head around to the front.
“Where are you going?” Elena chases after me.
“I’m saying goodbye to my friend,” I rasp.
“Do you…” She trails off and steps back.
“Come with me.” I turn my eyes to her, opening the door to the passenger side before I let out a whistle, calling Judge over.
I see the blood on his muzzle now, staining the whiter parts of his fur a deep color that almost looks black.
He bounds and leaps into the truck, taking the spot on the bench between the passenger and driver seats.
Elena accepts my hand as I help her into the cab and then close her door, rounding the hood to climb in behind the wheel, the engine rumbling to life a moment later.
There’s a heavy silence that fills the cab as I drive across the ranch, toward the northern edge where the ranch bleeds into a forest. The Carter Resting Ground is just beyond the tree line.
The lights cut through the shadowy darkness, illuminating the many headstones jutting out from the ground.
This particular spot gives a complete view of the ranch, set on top of a hill, it overlooks the many pastures, barns and the house and then beyond to the mountains.
I sit for a minute, staring at the headstones, finding my father’s immediately, the white marble a stark contrast against the older and weathered stones beside him. He’s buried with my mother, where he always wanted to be.
“What can I do?” Elena whispers when the silence becomes stifling.
I cut my eyes at her, taking in her beauty and then the marks that asshole left on her skin. The anger returns anew.
I am going to rip him apart.
“Nothing,” I turn back to the graveyard. “I’m going to dig a hole, okay? You wait in here; there are predators out here.”
She grasps my arm. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me.” I pull out of her grasp and get out of the car, heading to the bed to get the shovel I keep in there with some other garden tools I always store inside the truck.
My hand makes contact with the bottom of Chase’s boot as I reach for it, and I snap my arm back, dropping the shovel.
Placing my hands down, I let my head fall, hanging between my shoulders as the grief tries to take me down.
I didn’t cry when my father died.
I won’t cry now.
But fuck, is it heavy.
I can feel the emotion wanting out; it’s clogging up the back of my throat, but I grasp hold of it, I bind it and I turn it into rage. Anger I am friends with, anger I can handle.
My hand wraps back around the shovel, and it makes a hissing sound that’s loud in the quiet night as I drag it across the bed and then head toward the trees to pick him a spot.
The head hits the dirt, and thanks to the rain we had, the ground is softer than what it should be, making it a little easier to dig the hole.
Behind me, I hear the door close and a branch snap as Elena walks over.
She doesn’t offer help, but stands silently beside me, offering me a simple kind of comfort.
When the grave is dug, I make my way to get Chase, carrying him to the hole that’ll keep his body forever.
I get him into it as gently as I can before I stand, staring down on his body and lift my hat from my head, pressing it to my chest. I have no words to speak; I’ve never claimed to be wise or to have the right words, so it’s best I don’t say anything at all.
For a minute we stand in silence, and then I reach for the shovel again.
“Wait!” Elena calls out.
I pause, watching her as she jogs over to a small patch of wildflowers that’s growing along the tree line. She picks the brightest of them, creating a small bouquet, which she carries back before she gets to her knees and bends over the hole in the ground to rest the flowers on Chase’s chest.
“Che la terra ti sia lieve,” She speaks quietly, almost a whisper, but the words roll over me, prickling the skin on my arms.
“What did you say?”
“May the earth be light on you.”