Chapter 44
I’ve been sitting in this chair for what seems like hours.
It’s been long enough of a time that the buzzing lights above to sink into my skull, for the cold to creep up through the soles of my bare feet. Long enough for my pulse to slow from a frantic gallop to a steady, miserable thud that echoes in my ears.
And long enough that I really need to pee.
I test the restraints again, subtle this time. Small movements. Wrists rotating. Fingers flexing. The rope bites into my skin, unforgiving, already chafing raw. Whatever’s underneath it doesn’t budge.
Think.
Think.
I focus on breathing. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Slow. Controlled. The way I learned when I was eight and my mother was screaming at one of her drugged-up boyfriends and I needed to disappear inside myself to survive it.
Henry’s words won’t leave me alone.
Already broken.
What happened to get her there.
What she did…
My stomach twists. I don’t want to believe him. I don’t want to give him that power. But doubt is a nasty, persistent thing. It worms its way into cracks you didn’t know were there and starts chewing.
Footsteps return.
This time, I hear them sooner. My body tenses, every muscle tightening in preparation for pain. Fear sharpens my senses until every sound feels amplified. The scrape of rubber soles against concrete, the soft clink of metal.
Henry steps back into the light, and my breath catches despite myself.
He’s carrying something now.
A small table on wheels. The kind you see in a clinic or a mechanic’s shop. On top of it sits a roll of cloth, a bottle of water, and –
A knife.
Not big. Not dramatic. A simple blade with a black handle, clean and utilitarian. That somehow makes it worse.
“No,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Henry pauses like he’s considering me, his head tilted slightly. “We’re just talking, remember?”
My pulse slams into my throat. “You don’t need that to talk.”
He smiles thinly. “I do.”
Henry wheels the table closer, the sound loud in the cavernous space. It stops inches from my knees. I can smell the oil on the blade now, sharp and metallic.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he says casually, like he’s discussing the weather. “If I wanted that, you wouldn’t have woken up.”
My fingers curl uselessly against the restraints. “Then what do you want?”
He picks up the knife, testing the weight of it in his hand. “I want everything you know about the Shaw family. All of their contacts. Their backroom deals. Everything you know about the family.”
The family?
He isn’t the first one to refer to them that way. John and Pace have on several occasions. I’ve heard Colter say the same thing, but I always thought it was a saying that represented all the ranch families underneath Black Diamond Ranch.
But the way Henry says it makes it seem as if there is something deeper to the meaning.
He steps behind me.
I freeze.
Every nerve lights up, my body screaming at me to fight, to thrash, to do anything—but I know better. Sudden movements will only make it worse. I force myself to stay still, even as dread coils tight and suffocating in my chest.
“I don’t know anything,” I tell him honestly, my voice shaking. “I swear.”
“You see,” Henry’s voice drifts from somewhere over my shoulder, “I highly doubt that, Peyton. You are the woman to the most feared and powerful crime boss in the southern states. Hell, in the nation, most would say. There is no way he would claim you and not tell you who he truly is. Who they all are.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I scream in disbelief. Crime boss? Colter? All of the meth really has gone to this fuckers head.
The blade touches my skin.
I gasp as cold metal presses against my forearm, right below the elbow. My entire body locks. The contact is light, almost gentle, but it’s enough to make my vision blur at the edges.
“Please,” I beg, the word tearing itself out of me. “Henry, please. I don’t know anything. I swear. Just don’t—”
Pressure.
Then pain.
It’s not a deep cut, but it’s sharp and sudden, like fire slicing through skin. I cry out, a broken sound ripping from my chest. The chair jerks as I instinctively try to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go.
The knife moves again. Slower this time. Controlled.
I sob, tears spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. The pain blooms, radiating outward, my arm burning as warm wetness trails down toward my wrist.
Henry steps back, breaking a little harder now.
“There,” he says softly. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
I’m shaking violently, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My arm throbs, pain pulsing in time with my heartbeat. I can feel the blood, so much of it, sliding down my skin.
My heads starts to feel…light. Floaty. The edges of the room blur, the fluorescent lights stretching into long white streaks.
Henry crouches in front of me, bringing himself level with my face, he gives me a sip from a water bottle he grabbed from the tray.
“This is only the beginning, sweetheart. A little reminder to keep you motivated. You don’t want to be non-compliant when my benefactor shows up. Trust me, that won’t be good for you.”
Another cut, but this one on my bicep. It sends pain spiking up my arm and I scream.
He gives me another drink.
“There you go,” he coos. “Drink it all up.”
Something feels off.
Within a few moments, I can’t focus on his face anymore. It swims in ad out of clarity, his features warping. My tongue feels thick in my mouth.
“What was…that blade…make me feel…” I can’t keep the words straight.
Henry straightens. “Don’t worry,” he assures me. “The water was laced with a little something to help loosen you up a bit. Get the truth out of you.”
“Don’t…anything…”
Henry straightens. “Rest,” he says. “I’ll let that cocktail settle in a bit.”
He leaves me bleeding, shaking, and dizzy, the sound of his footsteps fading into the distance once more.
The world tilts.
I fight it at first. I refuse to pass out. Refuse to give him that satisfaction. I focus on the pain. On the sticky warmth on my arm. On the ache in my shoulders from being bound.
But my body betrays me.
The floor feels farther away. The chair feels like it is tipping backward even though it isn’t moving. My thoughts drift, disjointed and slow.
Moments blur together. Or maybe minutes. Perhaps hours. Time stops making sense.
Then…
Heels catch on the concrete with sharp, deliberate steps.
The sound slices through the fog in my head, pulling me back toward awareness. I blink hard, trying to clear my vision.
The footsteps stop in front of me.
I squint, my eyes struggling to focus. At first, all I see is a silhouette. Tall. Still.
Then the light catches her face.
My breath catches painfully in my chest.
“You.”
She looks nothing like the woman I saw on the porch at Blue Skye.
No sagging cardigan. No unbrushed hair. No slump to her shoulders or brittle looking hands.
Her gray hair is swept back into a sleek twist at the n ape of her neck, not a strand out of place.
Her clothes are tailored, expensive—dark slacks and a fitted coat that costs more than everything I’ve ever owned combined.
Her posture is immaculate.
Her eyes, my mother’s eyes, are sharp and calculating as they take me in.
The woman who is biologically my grandmother.
She steps closer, heels echoing, and stops out of reach. Her gaze flicks to the blood soaking my sleeve, then back to my face.
“Nasty business, having to cut into that flawless skin of yours,” she says coolly. “But the drug I developed is most effective on those who are…worn down, so to speak.”
The words land like another cut.
Laurel Masterson eyes me like I’m nothing more than garbage beneath her shoes.
“You look so much like Sadie,” she admits, a cruel twist to her mouth. “It was almost like seeing a ghost when you walked onto the ranch.”
“You…did this?” I whisper in disbelief.
She sighs, like I’ve exhausted her already. “Henry is a blunt instrument. But sometimes blunt instruments are useful.”
My stomach churns. “Why?”
She studies me for a moment longer, her expression unreadable. “Because you were never supposed to come here. Henry didn’t do his job right the first time. Managed to kill that worthless daughter of mine but messed it all up. Fumbled the ball because he couldn’t keep his dick out of her.”
The truth settles heavy and suffocating in my chest.
“You had your own daughter killed?”
“After she failed to do as instructed, of course,” Laurel scoffs as if I offended her.
“My husband may have been content eating from the hand of Hudson Shaw and taking the scraps he gave us, but I wasn’t.
He promised me the world and all I got was an old cattle ranch and a husband who worshipped the ground other walked on. It was sickening.”
“You should have left then,” I spit bitterly, my head still swimming.
She laughs, cold and mockingly. “You really don’t know who your family is, do you?”
My jaw tightens, the pain causing me to wince, but I don’t take my offs of the woman in front of me as I remain silent.
“How utterly stupid of them to keep you in the dark,” she muses, light dancing behind her eyes. “Foolish, honestly.”
“Why don’t you tell me what I’m missing then,” I breathe, the pain in my arm growing worse. “You seem to find it funny they left me in the dark.”
The fog in my head thickens, but fury burns hot beneath it, keeping me awake. Attentive.
“You poor sweet girl,” she mocks. “Why should I tell you anything? I’m not the one with drugs working their way through my body. I am going to be the one asking the questions here.”
“You’ve already ascertained I know nothing about my family,” I remind her bitterly. “Not much for me to tell you that you don’t already know yourself.”
“Henry might be wanting that kind of information, but not me,” she tells me, leaning forward so that she’s perfectly in my view. “No, I want to know something different. More personal.”