Chapter 2
I come back in pieces. First, the pain—cataloged, filed away. Then sound—wind through wooden slats. Then awareness—my hands bound behind me, my shoulders wrenched backward against a support beam.
Rope, not cuffs.
Blood has dried tacky across my face. Left eye swollen to a slit. Two ribs are definitely cracked on my right side.
My breathing is shallow and uncontrolled. I feel like I can’t get enough of it. Like I need to gulp it like water.
But I've been in worse situations. Not a good thing to admit to yourself when you’re in the middle of being kidnapped and restrained by an Ashby militia of two, but it is what it is.
I keep my head slumped, chin to my chest, and try to control my breathing. There are two other people here. When I lift my eyes up, I see Wyatt at the window. He’s looking out, fingers tapping against glass. Cash paces the room.
They smell like money, even from here.
I'm in what appears to be a hunting shack. Off grid if the one kerosene lamp burning somewhere to my right is anything to go by. It's still dark. Same night? If so, it's the wee hours of the morning.
But there's no telling how long I've been out. Could already be tomorrow for all I know.
I've been in this cabin before. Eleanor took pictures of me everywhere. And after I turned eighteen, these photo shoots got more and more… planned. Professional. If these fucking boys knew just how well I knew their mother, they'd kill me.
Bad enough I know their sister better.
Savannah.
Just thinking her name makes my heart hurt. Just picturing her, up against the silo wall, skin silver in the moonlight. Her mouth on mine, her body arching. Then light, sudden and brutal. Her brothers. Men with rifles.
Her scream as they dragged her away, still echoing in my skull.
The rage builds slow and cold. It doesn't cloud my thinking—it sharpens it. Makes everything crystalline.
If they've hurt her, I'll tear this place apart with my teeth. I'll hunt them across every acre of their precious ranch. I'll become the demon they named me.
Even if she's untouched, they're all dead men walkin’ to me.
They just don't know it yet.
I keep my breathing steady, my body slack. Let them think I'm still unconscious while I allow my mind the freedom it craves to plan revenge.
Patience is just rage on a longer fuse.
Suddenly Cash mutters, "Family fucking legacy." His voice is pitched low but meant to be heard. "Six generations of Ashbys, and this is what it comes to." His boots stop. I can feel him lookin’ at me. "Trailer trash with prison ink thinking he has rights to what's ours."
He starts moving again, faster now. Agitated.
"She was supposed to marry well. That was the deal. That was always the fucking deal." A thud as his fist hits something wooden. "Mother made it clear. The land passes through the bloodline. And what does Savannah do? Spreads her legs for a Kane."
He says my name like it's something rotten in his mouth.
Wyatt is still standing by the window, a darker shadow against the night. He doesn't speak, but his silence feels like judgment. The patient kind. The kind that waits for you to move wrong before it pulls the trigger.
I test the rope binding my wrists. Tight, but not professional. There's give where the fibers cross. If I work it right, I can make space. Just need time.
"Three fucking years we kept her clean," Cash continues, circling back to where he started. Like a dog chasing its tail. "Three years rebuilding what he destroyed. And the minute he's out—"
He kicks something that skitters across the floor. I keep my breathing even, head down. I'm counting steps to the door. Measuring the distance to Wyatt's boots. Calculating how much blood I can afford to lose and still make it to the tree line.
"Where the hell is Colt?" Cash suddenly demands, voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "He was supposed to be here."
Wyatt clears his throat. "Said he couldn't make it."
"Couldn't make it?" Cash's voice rises. "This is family. This is Savannah."
"He's been... different lately." Wyatt's voice is measured, careful. "Past few months, he's barely at the ranch. Misses meetings. Doesn't answer calls."
"That's not like him."
"No," Wyatt agrees. "It's not."
A pause stretches between them, loaded with something I can't quite name.
I keep my face slack, storing this away. Something's off with the brother. Something they don't understand yet.
Cash's head snaps toward me, eyes narrowing like he's just realized the prey he thought was dead is still breathing.
"Well, look who decided to wake up." He crosses the room in three strides, crouches until his face is level with mine. His breath smells like whiskey and entitlement. "You think I don't see what this is? What you're doing?"
I stare back, let my silence fill the space between us.
"Savannah Ashby doesn't belong to you." He says her name like it's property with a deed attached. "She never did. She never will. That girl was born for something better than some ex-con's come stain on her family name."
The rope burns against my wrists as I work it, but my face stays still. Dead-eyed. Prison-calm.
"You think I don't know?" Cash's voice drops lower. "You've been circling our family since you were a kid. My mother—" He stops, jaw working. "Eleanor saw something in you. God knows what. Took all those pictures."
My pulse quickens, but I don't give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Just keep breathing through the blood in my mouth.
The rope gives another quarter inch. I keep working.
"You think those pictures meant something, Kane?
" Cash laughs, but it sounds hollow. "That you meant something to her?
You were just another one of her projects.
Like those fucking coffee table books. 'Montana Wildlife: Trailer Park Edition.
That's all you were. Trailer blood doesn't get to rewrite legacy.
Doesn't get to touch what's been Ashby since before Montana was a state.
" He's preaching now, to himself more than me.
"You're just a footnote. A phase. The mistake Savannah needed to make before finding what's real. "
I say nothing. Let my silence hum with defiance. With the knowledge that Savannah came to me. That she chose me.
Cash leans in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper like we're sharing a secret.
"She's with Marcus now," he says, each word measured, precise. "Where she belongs. With a man who can keep her name clean."
My jaw locks. Something hot and black swells behind my eyes.
"Had to drug her, you know. Just a little something to calm her down. You make her crazy." He tilts his head, studying me like I'm something under glass. "She was hysterical. Screaming. Scratching. Not herself."
I focus on the rope, on the slow give of fibers.
"Marcus had to wash her down." Cash's lips curl slightly. "Your filth was all over her thighs. Inside her. Had to clean that out, too."
The demon rises in me—not some fairy tale bullshit, but the thing I've carried since I was a boy. The thing that knows exactly how to break a man's neck with a quarter-turn more than necessary.
"She's sleeping now. When she wakes up, we're gonna cut the memory of Legion Kane out of her.
She'll never think about you again. Won't ever miss fucking her trailer-boy in that silo.
You think I didn't know, all growing up, that's where you two met?
Shit… Eleanor had pictures of that too. Sick fuck, that's what you are.
Did you tell my mother that you were fucking her daughter at the silo?
Is that why she was there?" Cash's voice has the rhythm of scripture, like he's practiced these words.
Privately, I am a bit stunned at this news. I had no idea Eleanor ever took pictures of Savannah and me out at the silo. Never even suspected it.
Is Cash lying?
I stop listening. Just watch his mouth move.
He better be lying.
Because if Eleanor was taking pictures of Savannah and me… well… that paints a pretty sick picture in my mind. And to be honest, I was just barely coming to terms with the sickness I already knew about.
I don't need this too.
"You hear me, Kane?" Cash stands up and gives me a kick in the ribs. The pain is sharp and real.
Then, before I can catch my breath, he kicks me in the chest too. A sharp, silver-tipped boot lands square inside my brand. The pain swells. Something worse than being burned alive. Broken ribs and rotting flesh.
Stars swim in the blackness behind my eyes.
"Badlands," Cash sneers. "There's not gonna be a rescue, Kane. It's over for you. "
In my head, I'm already standing. Already moving. Already watching Wyatt's eyes go wide as I drive his own rifle stock through his sternum. Already feeling Cash's throat collapse under my thumbs.
I name the bones I'll break. I count them like rosary beads, a prayer of violence that drowns out Cash's voice.
I think about the photo Eleanor never took—the one with my hands around her son's throat.
The one where his eyes bulge and his tongue turns purple.
The one where I finally become what they always said I was.
I fall into darkness with the words on my lips…
Demon.
For we are many.
The creak of the cabin door wakes me. I crack my eyes open just in time to watch Cash's silhouette disappear into the soft pastel hues of a breaking dawn. Wyatt follows him out. Their voices drop to whispers, but the broken window to my left carries words like the wind.
"This is getting out of hand," Wyatt says, voice tight with something that might be fear. "Marcus is acting crazy, man."
"He's always been a little off," Cash replies.
"No, I mean crazy crazy. Says he's keeping Savannah out at north ridge all week."
My muscles lock. North ridge. The hunting cabin. Five miles of pine forest from the main house. No cell service. No neighbors. Just log walls and trophy heads with glass eyes.
And Savannah.
"We're not gonna let him do that, right?" Wyatt's voice cracks. "What if he hurts her?"
I start working the rope again. There’s a slickness there. Letting them move smoothly. Blood. My wrists are bleeding.
After a pause that stretches too long, Cash says, “OK. Fine. We’ll go check on her. I mean, what is the point of all this if he…”
Cash doesn’t finish.
Wyatt asks the same question I’m thinking in my head. “If he what? Kills her? You don’t think he’s gonna kill her, do you? I mean, Cash. What the fuck are we doing? If she’s dead…” He stops.
If she’s dead… what?
What was he gonna say?
“No,” Cash finally responds. “No, we can't have her hurt." Then, quieter, "We need that fucking inheritance."
Inheritance.
What the fuck is happening here?
Is this about my dick inside their sister? Or… something else?
Cash and Wyatt walk out of hearing range, their boots crunching on gravel, voices fading.
There’s something off here. This isn’t concern for a cherished sister. This isn’t brotherly protection.
This is just dollar signs where a heart should be.
The sound of horses being mounted carries through the thin walls. Hoof beats drum the earth, growing distant.
Then it’s me and the wilderness.
I keep still, thinking. Trying to sort out all the information I just learned. It doesn’t add up. Yet. But it will.
If I can get the fuck out of here.
Mercy.
My sister’s name hits like a bullet to the chest. Is she still at the trailer?
Did she wake to find me gone? How many times has she already been left?
I close my eyes, see her small frame curled on that new bed, BB gun clutched to her chest like a teddy bear.
Nine years old and already knows better than to sleep without a weapon.
Did she try calling? Did she think I abandoned her again?
The rope gives another fraction. I twist harder.
Don't give up on me, Mercy. I'm coming home. I swear it.
Savannah's at the north ridge cabin. Marcus is keeping her there.
Cleaning her. The words twist in my gut like a rusted blade.
I've known men like Marcus my whole life—men who think money buys the right to break things.
Rich boys who smile for cameras and keep trophies of their sins.
Not like normal people. Normal people hurt each other in simple ways. Men like Marcus make art of it.
I pull against the rope, feeling skin tear. Blood trickles warm down my wrists.
What is he doing to her right now? What has he already done?
The rope gives a little more.
Three weeks. That's how long I've been out of prison.
Three fucking weeks of trying to be a man who keeps promises.
Who stays clean.
Who builds instead of burns.
"Never going back to prison," I'd told Mercy. Told myself.
But if Marcus touches Savannah again—if he's already done what Cash implied—I'll kill him slow.
I'll take my time. I'll make sure he feels everything.
And I'll go back to Whitefall with his blood still under my nails.
Another twist. Another tear of skin.
I test the tension in the restraints. Feel the fibers starting to give.
I'm going to walk out of here.
The only question is how much blood it'll take.
Mine. Theirs. Everyone's.
There's a storm building in my chest—not thunder, but something older. Something patient. The kind of violence that doesn't need to announce itself. The kind that simply arrives, like dawn.
Inevitable.
Silent.
Mine.