26. Delilah
— ? —
Delilah
The Houston Rodeo swallows me whole the moment we step through the gates.
The stands packed to the rafters. The roar of the crowd vibrates through my bones, through the concrete beneath my boots, through the thick evening air that smells of popcorn and leather and something electric.
Cameras flash from every angle - press badges, phone screens, professional rigs mounted on scaffolding.
Every major sponsor in the industry has a booth somewhere in this maze.
Every investor who matters is here, champagne in hand, deals being made in shadowed corners.
This is the biggest event of the season. The Super Bowl of our world.
I’m not competing tonight. The doctor’s voice echoes in my head: Not ready for competition yet.
Give it more time. My leg throbs faintly, a dull reminder that my body hasn’t fully forgiven me for what happened.
But I can walk. I can stand. I can show my face and prove that the Montoya name is still standing strong.
Lucas walks beside me, close enough that our shoulders brush with every step. The VIP section sprawls ahead of us - white leather couches, a private bar, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the arena. People turn as we enter. Whispers follow us like shadows.
That’s her. The one who almost died.
I keep my chin high. Let them look.
And then I see her.
Aimie.
She stands near the bar, laughing with a group of people I half-recognize - minor sponsors, social climbers, the kind of crowd that gravitates toward scandal.
Her hair is perfect. Her makeup is flawless.
That gold necklace - the necklace, the one she bought herself and planted on my husband’s desk - glints at her throat like a trophy she hasn’t realized she’s already lost.
She’s laughing. Tossing her hair. Acting like the last few months never happened.
Like she didn’t try to destroy my life.
“Lucas.” I grip his arm. My fingers dig into the fabric of his jacket hard enough to leave marks. “She’s here.”
He follows my gaze. His jaw tightens - that familiar clench I’ve learned to read like a weather forecast. Storm coming.
People are starting to notice. The whispers spread through the VIP section like wildfire catching dry grass.
I can feel the weight of every stare, every phone screen angling in our direction.
Everyone knows the rumors. Everyone’s been waiting - hoping, probably - to see what happens when Aimie Lawson and Delilah Montoya end up in the same room.
Every instinct tells me to walk away. To let the lawyers handle it, clean and quiet.
But then Aimie sees me and smiles.
That same sweet, innocent smile she’s been wearing since the day she walked into my house and started taking everything that was mine.
The smile she wore when she handed my daughter breakfast. When she sat in my chair at the dinner table.
When she convinced my husband that I was paranoid, jealous, broken.
The smile that makes me want to scream.
She excuses herself from her group and walks straight toward us. Confident. Unbothered. Like we’re old friends about to catch up over cocktails.
“Delilah! Lucas!” She air-kisses in our direction, close enough that I catch the scent of her perfume - something floral and expensive that I’m certain she charged to a card that isn’t hers.
“So good to see you both. Isn’t this event amazing?
I was just telling everyone how much I miss working with the Montoya team. ”
I stare at her.
The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking audacity of this woman.
“You’re joking,” I say.
“Why would I be joking?” She tilts her head, all fake confusion, her eyes wide and wounded like I’ve said something terribly unfair. “I know things got a little… complicated. But that’s all in the past now, right? No hard feelings?”
Something snaps inside me.
“No hard feelings?” I step closer. The crowd around us has gone quiet, conversations dying mid-sentence as people sense the shift in the air. “You tried to kill me.”
“Oh, Delilah.” She laughs - light, dismissive, pitched perfectly for the audience she knows is listening. “That’s so dramatic. It was an accident. Everyone knows that.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. Every muscle in my body screams at me to lunge, to grab that perfect hair and pull, to make her feel even a fraction of the pain she’s caused me.
But I don’t need to hurt her.
I have something better.
“It’s over, Aimie.”
The words come out calm. Steady. Colder than I knew I could sound.
Her smile flickers. Just a fraction. But I see it.
“Jimmy told us everything,” I continue, and I watch the color drain from her face one shade at a time.
“We have the footage from that night - the server recovery came through. We have the receipts for that little necklace you bought yourself and left on my husband’s desk.
” I let that land. Watch her eyes cycle through surprise, then calculation, then something close to panic.
“Sheriff Martinez is here tonight. And not for the champagne.”
The silence around us is absolute. Fifty conversations have stopped. A hundred eyes are fixed on us. Someone’s phone is definitely recording.
Good.
Something flickers behind Aimie’s eyes. But she keeps smiling. God, she keeps smiling, like she can still charm her way out of this, like the right combination of words will make everyone forget what she’s done.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, her voice steady despite the panic I can see building behind her eyes.
“And frankly, I think you’re embarrassing yourself.
” She glances around at the crowd gathering, playing to her audience.
“Maybe you should go home and rest. You’ve clearly been through a lot. ”
“Don’t.” My voice is low, dangerous, vibrating with every ounce of rage I’ve been holding back for months. “Don’t you dare stand there and act innocent. Not after everything you did.”
“Everything I did?” Her smile sharpens, turns into something ugly beneath the perfect lipstick. “You mean stepping up when you couldn’t? Taking care of things while you were lying in a hospital bed feeling sorry for yourself?”
“You put me in that hospital bed!”
The words rip out of me, raw and ragged, and I don’t care anymore who hears. Let them hear. Let them all hear.
“Prove it,” she says.
The crowd murmurs. Someone shifts. I feel Lucas behind me, a solid wall of heat and tension, but I don’t look at him. I can’t look away from her face.
“Why?” I ask, and my voice cracks on the word despite my best efforts to hold it together. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why me? Why my family? What did I ever do to you?”
Aimie’s mask slips.
Just for a second. Just a flash. But I see it - the rage underneath. The bitterness she’s been hiding beneath all that sweetness, all those helpful smiles and concerned glances. The rot at the center of her.
“What did you do to me?” She laughs, but it’s ugly now. Harsh. Nothing like the musical tinkle she performs for investors and sponsors. “You really don’t remember, do you? You don’t even see it.”
“See what?”
“Patterson’s ranch. Years ago.” Her voice turns venomous, dripping with old poison that’s been fermenting far too long.
“We started at the same time, Delilah. Same job. Same opportunities. But who did Patterson put in charge of the training program? You. Who got the promotion? You. Who got to work with the fancy clients while I mucked out stalls?”
The pieces start clicking into place.
“That was years ago-”
“You.” She jabs a finger at me, her composure cracking like ice under pressure. “Always you. Little miss perfect. Little miss ‘I can tame any horse.’ Everyone loved you. Everyone thought you were so special.”
I stare at her. This woman I’ve hated for months, whose motives I’ve never understood. This woman who slithered into my life and tried to take everything I had.
All because of a job I don’t even remember getting.
“And then Lucas shows up,” she continues, her voice rising, losing control now like water through a broken dam. “Handsome. Rich. Looking for someone to train his precious rescue horse. And who does he pick? Who does he fall in love with? Who gets the fairytale ending?”
“Aimie-”
“You didn’t deserve any of it!” She’s shouting now.
Full volume, no attempt to hide it. People are staring openly, phones out, recording every word.
“You just batted your eyes and smiled and everyone handed you everything. The job. The man. The empire. And I had to watch. For years, I had to watch you live the life that should have been mine!”
“So you tried to take it.”
The words come out quiet. Almost sad.
“I tried to take what I earned!” Tears of rage streak down her face, cutting rivers through her perfect makeup.
Her mask is gone now - shattered on the floor between us.
This is the real Aimie. This is who she’s always been underneath.
“I’m a better rider than you. I’m smarter than you.
I worked harder than you ever did. But none of that mattered because everyone was too busy worshipping Saint Delilah! ”
The crowd is dead silent.
A whole stadium of people out there, and in this room, no one breathes.
“The necklace,” I say quietly. “You bought it yourself. Planted it on Lucas’s desk. You wanted me to think he was cheating.”
She doesn’t deny it. Can’t deny it, not now, not with everything spilling out of her like blood from a wound.
“You were supposed to leave him.” Her voice cracks, ugly and broken. “You were supposed to crumble. That’s what you do, right? Fall apart when things get hard? But you just kept holding on like a cockroach that won’t die.”
“And the accident?”
The question hangs in the air. This is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
“It was supposed to end your career.” Her voice breaks completely, tears and rage mixing into something barely human. “Just your career. You weren’t supposed to - the horse wasn’t supposed to fall like that. I just wanted you out of the way. I just wanted my chance.”
There it is.
In front of everyone. In front of a wall of recording phones and a room full of witnesses and every sponsor and investor who matters in this industry.
A full confession.
I’m vaguely aware of Lucas on his phone, speaking quietly to someone. Security moving through the crowd, positioning themselves. Martinez stepping through the side entrance, badge glinting.
This was always the plan. We just needed her to say it out loud.
“Your chance?” I shake my head slowly, and despite everything - despite the months of pain and fear and rage - I feel something that might almost be pity.
“Aimie, you could have had your own career. Your own success. You’re talented - I’ve seen you ride.
But instead of building something, you spent years being bitter about what someone else had. ”
“Don’t you dare pity me.”
“I don’t pity you. I feel sorry for you.” I step back, putting distance between us. “You wasted a decade of your life hating me. And for what? You still don’t have what you wanted. You never will. Because you can’t steal someone else’s life. You can only destroy your own.”
Two deputies appear at the edge of the crowd. Sheriff Martinez is with them, his face grim and professional.
Aimie sees them. Her face goes white.
“No. No, you can’t - this isn’t-”
Lucas steps beside me. His hand finds the small of my back, warm and steady. I feel him nod to someone over my shoulder. This was always the plan. The evidence gathered. The sheriff positioned. We didn’t need her confession to convict her - but we needed the world to hear it.
“Aimie Lawson.” Sheriff Martinez steps forward, his voice carrying through the silent room. “You’re under arrest for assault with intent to cause bodily harm, reckless endangerment, and animal cruelty.”
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt!” She’s backing away, but there’s nowhere to go. Deputies closing in from both sides. “It was just supposed to slow her down! I didn’t-”
“You have the right to remain silent.” The deputy catches her arm, firm but professional. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
She struggles. Screams. Mascara runs down her face in black rivers as they cuff her hands behind her back.
“This isn’t fair! She gets everything and I get nothing! It’s not fair!”
The deputies lead her toward the exit. The crowd parts to let them through, a sea of shocked faces and glowing phone screens. People are filming. Whispering. Staring.
I watch her go.
This woman who spent years nursing a grudge. Who let jealousy rot her from the inside out. Who threw away her own life trying to take mine.
Part of me expected to feel triumph. Victory. The satisfaction of watching your enemy fall.
But all I feel is tired.
Lucas’s arm wraps around my waist.
“You okay?” he murmurs against my hair.
“Yeah.” I lean into him, let his strength hold me up. “I think I am.”
An older woman near us - one of the big sponsors, someone whose name I should remember - catches my eye. Her face is soft with something that might be respect.
“That took guts, honey,” she says. “Standing up to her like that.”
“She needed to face what she did.”
“And now everyone knows.” The woman nods approvingly. “Some things need to be said out loud. In front of witnesses.”
I look around at the crowd. At the phones still recording. At the faces full of shock and sympathy and - for once - understanding.
Aimie wanted the spotlight. She wanted everyone to see her.
Well.
Now they do.