Chapter 22
S helby West may have a heart made of gold, but she proves her skin is made of leather, as she rocks on the chair on her porch watching me and Garrett kick the shit outta the man whose kneecap she blew out.
I think I even see a smirk raise on her split lip when Garrett slams the back of the guy’s head into the fencepost.
When Mitch and Cole show up to join the party I step away, letting them take their turn at some fun, so I can join her.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find the others. They’ll all pay too,” I assure her. “Did they take anythin’? Were they after livestock?” I check, there's been an increase in cattle theft north of here lately. Those rustlers better hope for their own sakes they ain’t bringing that shit to our territory.
“No,” her head shakes as she watches Cole pummel his fist the intruder Garrett’s got tied to the fencepost, in front of us.
“There’s only one thing they want,” she tells me with a sad look on her face as the man’s pain-filled grunts and groans fill her yard.
“Shelby?” I take her hand in mine and try to make sense outta what she’s saying.
“For a few months now, I’ve had a few different hotshots from the city makin’ me offers.
And I’m talkin’ silly offers.” She draws her attention to me and lifts her brow.
Then as I go to take out a smoke, she holds out her hand expectantly.
“I refused ‘em of course. It’ll be my cold, dead corpse that leaves this place, and when it does, I’m going over by that tree right there,” she gestures her head over to the field on the other side of the yard.
“I don’t know which one of ‘em it came from, but this here was a warnin’.
” Her hands are still trembling when she uses my Zippo to spark up.
“These men were sent here in an attempt to make a weak, old lady feel unsafe in her home so she’d give in and sell it. ”
“Wade!” Cole shouts over to me, “We got an address for the others.”
“You done with him now?” Shelby asks, blowing out a steady stream of smoke before she places the cigarette back between her lips.
“Sounds like it.” I smile back at her.
“Good.” She stands up on her feet feebly, and with her smoke hanging from the corner of her mouth, she cocks her rifle and hobbles toward her attacker. My brothers and Mitch clear a path for her, and she looks the blood-beaten bastard right in his eyes as she points the rifle at his head.
“Wrong old lady, mother fucker.” Her hands ain’t shaking anymore and she don’t hesitate in pulling the trigger, splattering his brains all over her yard. Silence takes over the ringing in our ears as she takes another drag on her cigarette and blows the smoke into the air.
“You gonna be good boys and take care of that for me?” Her eyes remain stone cold as they focus on the body. Whoever he is, I can tell he’s not the first man she’s killed.
“Sure thing, Shelby.” Garrett presses a kiss against her bruised cheek before taking out his cell to call Finn and Tate.
* * *
It’s a few hours later and we’re all standing on the tree line close to the house, that the sorry son of a bitch Tate and Finn are currently burying, directed us to. The River Boys have joined us, and Sawyer’s so fuckin’, angry he hasn’t even spoken yet.
“We got a plan?” Mitch asks.
“Sawyer’s lead.” Garrett looks to the sandy-haired River Boy and awaits for his instruction.
“We kill ‘em all.” He slams his fist into his palm, eager to get going.
“I like that plan, a whole lot.” Noah kneads his buddy’s shoulders as if he needs encouragement. Shelby hasn't just been a mother figure to us over the years. I know she treats Noah and Zayne like sons too.
“Before anyone dies, we need to figure who they were workin’ for,” I point out. I wanna kill every single fucker responsible for hurting her, but I think Shelby’s right, this was a warning, and these dumb-assed fuckers were just the messengers.
“Your gran told me she’s been gettin’ hounded by someone wantin’ to buy the ranch,” I explain to Sawyer, who’s staring back at me clueless.
“Ain’t said shit to me ‘bout it.” He shakes his head looking confused.
“She’s too stubborn for that,” Cole tells him, crushing his smoke under his boot and preparing himself for some action.
“These fuckers didn’t take anythin’, the whole thing was about scaring her. She said she’s had a few companies makin’ her offers, so we find out which of ‘em ordered this, and we clear that up too.” I take off my hat so I can drag back my hair, placing it on my head again before we head inside.
“Ya got that rope?” Cole asks Zayne, who holds it up and nods.
“Okay, let's get to work.” Garrett looks to Sawyer so he can take the lead, and he nods gratefully before moving forward and storming us into the house.
The three men are older than I expected ‘em to be, old enough to know fuckin’ better, that’s for sure.
Sawyer greets the one that shoots up from the table and comes at him by ramming his head directly into his.
He stumbles on his feet and I snatch the dazed bastard up in my arms as Sawyer moves on, with vengeance in his eyes and power in his stride.
“You sit right there, fucker.” I slam his ass into one of the plastic chairs, catching the rope Zayne throws at me so I can tie him up.
“Get ya kicks outta beatin’ up old ladies, d’ya?” I slam my elbow into his face when I’m done.
A loud crash comes from the other side of the trailer, and I watch Sawyer repeatedly pound one of the other guys’ heads into the kitchen counter.
Blood sprays up the walls and splatters on his face, and when Noah steps in and pulls him back, Sawyer has to stop himself swinging for him too.
“Come on, we need ‘em to talk.” Noah looks at the guy with the busted-up face as he speaks to Sawyer. “We can make ‘em suffer after.”
Cole drags the guy by his throat over to me, and we tie the halfdead fucker up beside his friend. Mitch comes back from outside with the third guy and chucks him at Garrett. “How did I end up bein’ the one who chased the runner? I’m too old for that shit.”
Garrett sniggers while the old man catches his breath, then after Noah and Cole take the bastard off him, to tie him down too, he looks between the three of ‘em and shakes his head.
“I’ve looked upon some sorry-assed cunts in my lifetime, but you three…” Garrett chuckles, “you three just about top ‘em all.” He calmly lights himself a cigarette off the gas stove, while Sawyer snarls like a tiger ready to pounce.
“I wanna know where your orders came from?” Garrett narrows his eyes at them all and waits for one of ‘em to start talkin’.
“We were just—”
“Shoot him,” he orders Mitch, who immediately takes out his gun and puts a bullet in the guy’s forehead, startling the other two enough to weep like babies
“ We were just , sounded like the start of a fuckin’ excuse! Anyone else here gonna try wastin’ my time with crap?” He glances between the other two and scratches his stubble. The pair of ‘em look like they’re ‘bout to shit their pants as they shake their heads in unison.
“C’mon then, I ain’t got all day!” Garrett’s already getting impatient. He’s been away from Maisie for far too long.
“You should know, that nice, old lady, that ya beat the shit outta, means somethin’ to us all. And between us, we’re prepared to do some real nasty shit to ya for hurtin’ her.”
“We… We don't know who the job was for. We were ju… we were recruited,” one of them manages to talk, while the other one closes his eyes and looks like he’s praying.
“How many men are there, like you?” Garrett remains calm.
“How the hell am I supposed to know that?” He looks between us like we’re crazy.
“Ya better hope ya can find out for me because, right now, that’s the only thing that’s keepin’ ya alive.” I wait for him to think that over in his head for a few seconds, and after a long, heavy sigh, he eventually drops his head and mumbles.
“Snakebite, he’s the one who puts the gangs together. I don’t know who he takes his orders from, but us… we’re all the same. Desperate men.”
“With no fuckin’ morals.” Sawyer punches the nasty piece of shit right in the face.
“You can’t have morals when ya broke.” The guy spits the blood outta his mouth on the floor.
“You know where I can find this Snakebite?” Garrett asks, rushing him back to the point.
“He works over on the Brownstone Ranch.”
“Thank you for ya cooperation.” Garrett starts heading for the door.
“Please don’t tell him I sent you. He’ll fuckin’ kill me,” the guy calls after him.
Garrett turns around and smiles.
“You're already dead,” he tells him darkly before he leaves.
“Wait! What now?” Sawyer chases after him.
“I gotta wife to get back to. I told ya, kid, this is your party. You think of the worst possible thing you can do to a man then ya draw it out and make ‘em suffer it.” Garrett tips his hat and leaves us to it.
* * *
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man scream like that before.
” Zayne laughs after we’ve dropped Sawyer back off, to be with his gran.
Cole’s headed straight back to the ranch with Mitch and I’ve decided that a drink with Noah and Zayne is just what I need to distract me from the fact that Leia will probably be spending the night with her fiancé.
Sawyer proved he’s got some real fucked-up ideas when he had us bury those two fuckers alive.
“When we gonna catch up with this Snakebite bastard?” Zayne asks, sounding bloodthirsty. He may be the quieter one out of the trio, but he still lives for the same chaos.
“Give it some time, let the dust settle. He’ll soon be wondering where the four, he sent to shake up Shelby, are,” I say what I know Garrett would be tellin’ ‘em if he were here.
“Your brother’s worried about this shit,” Noah points out, taking his attention from the road to look at me.
“He’s gotta lot on his mind right now. He won’t let it be a problem. Trust me, we’ve dealt with developers before.”
“Yeah, well, this one is gonna be different, no fucker messes with Shelby.”
Noah grips the steering wheel tight.
“On that, we all agree,” I assure him.
Noah parks up outside Cahoots and me, him, and Zayne step inside.
The place is pretty packed but the booth where the River Boys always sit is clear, and that's where we head. The waitress comes straight over wearing a huge smile and a top two sizes too small. I’m pretty sure she was the Mullen sister that had her lips wrapped around Noah’s cock at his latest party.
“What can I get you boys?” she asks, pushing out her tits and trying to make her voice sound sexy.
“Three beers.” Noah pays her no attention.
“With chasers,” I add to his order, and as she sways her hips back over to the bar, I do a proper scan of the room.
Looks like all the regulars have turned out tonight, but my eyes stop searching through them when I see someone I don’t expect to be here.
I don’t know if it’s jealousy, or rage, that burns under my skin when I see Caleb and Leia sitting together at a table on the other side of the bar, but it’s sure hard to keep it under control.
Leia looks real pretty, but not the kind I like on her. She’s got her hair up, the way her mother wears it, and the white blouse she’s wearing is tucked into a navy pleated skirt that ain’t her style, at all. It’s a reminder of what they’re trying to turn her into and I hate it.
“You get an invite?” Noah asks with a smug look on his face when he catches me staring.
“Yeah, I got one.” I smile at the waitress politely when she places my beer in front of me. Flicking my eyes back across the room at them, I quickly knock it back.
“That boy hasn’t got a clue what the hell he’s in for. Leia may be doin’ what her daddy tells her to, but she ain’t gonna take no crap.” He laughs to himself, and I don’t share his amusement because I realize that for a long time, Leia’s been misunderstood. By me, as well as everyone else.
I watch the way her eyes keep shifting over here, and how Caleb has to be constantly touching her in some way or another. It makes my temper flare even more.
I ain’t looking at the girl I used to play pool with on a Friday night, who’d let her hair down and out-drink most of the boys.
I recall all the times she’s called me from a party to give her a ride home when she’s been wasted.
For years, I’ve been the person who was there for her, just waiting for her to notice.
I don’t wanna be that person anymore. I wanna be the one who can hold her hand across a table, I wanna walk over there, free her hair from that stupid updo, and shake it out with my fingers.
Everyone in this bar, and in this town, should know she’s mine.
I have another few beers ‘cause Noah is driving, and as time passes on, the tension in my face gets tighter. The envy of watching him put his hands on her shakes inside me, threatening to erupt, and when she gets up from the table and heads for the bathroom, I take the opportunity and go after her. If I can’t prove to everyone in this room who she belongs to, I’ll damn well have to prove it to her.