Chapter 25
I throw the rifle on to the passenger seat, and get behind the wheel.
My blood is pumping more adrenaline into my veins that I can cope with, and my sweaty palms clutch the wheel as I swing the truck into reverse and race off after the men who just killed my father.
I have to remind myself to breathe as I speed down the open road, and when I realize I have no idea where I’m headed, I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell.
“What’s up?” Noah yells, over the loud music in the background.
“I’m sending you a license plate number,” I tell him, taking my phone away from my ear so I can type it into my messages.
“Have Zayne figure out who it belongs to and get right back to me,”
“Is it urgent? Zayne’s a little…”
“Yeah, its fuckin’ urgent,” I snap at him impatiently.
“Yo, Zayne…” I hear Noah call out, over the loud music. “Dust off ya nose. I need ya,”
“What’s this about, Garrett?” Noah comes back to me sounding serious.
“My father’s dead.” Saying the words out loud makes me feel sick. I’ve spent years butting heads with my old man. Wishing he’d step down and let me take over running the ranch.
Suddenly, none of that seems important. What matters is the fact he was at every single one of my football games, he taught me how to spot a decent bull at an auction, and that he was there to hold us all while we cried when Mom abandoned us.
As I stare out the windshield, the rain’s coming down so hard I can barely see anything in front of me, and when I hear Noah’s voice again, I remember he’s still on the line.
“Your plates are registered to a Danny Holston. Grylls Creek Ranch. You know it?”
“Yeah, I know it,” I recall the name, too. The small ranch between here and Columbus stopped functioning a few years back. Danny came to the ranch looking for work. I’d heard some rumors about him being thrifty, so I didn’t take him on.
“You need some backup?” Noah checks. The kid always seems thirsty for a fight.
“Get back to your party,” I hang up the phone and clench the wheel tight in my fists, then taking the road that leads to Columbus, I head for Grylls Creek.
I think of Maisie and how scared she looked when I left. I can’t let myself feel bad for leaving her, not while I’m carrying all this anger. Right now, she needs reassurance and comfort, and I can’t offer her that.
I pull up a safe distance from the derelict ranch, and when I see the sedan parked up outside the house and notice a light on inside, I feel a rush of relief. My phone rings for what has to be the twentieth time, and I give in and pick it up.
“Garrett, what the fuck’s happened?” Cole yells down the line at me.
“He’s dead, and I’m gonna make ‘em dead, too,” I tell him blankly as I stare at the house in front of me.
“I’m at the ranch; where are you?” he asks, sounding worried.
“Have you spoken to Wade?” Through the window I see two men sitting on the couch while another walks in front of the window, talking on the phone.
“Yeah, he’s trying to get a flight back from Tulsa, but they’ve stopped all flights ‘cause of the storm… Garrett, tell me where you are. I’ll get to you.”
“Take care of Maisie, she's scared,” I tell him, hanging up the phone and sliding on my leather gloves before I pick up the rifle.
I trudge across the yard toward the front door and let myself in without hesitation. The three men are kicking back with a beer, and if it weren't for the three masks, the envelope of cash and the gun on the coffee table, I’d think I was in the wrong house.
“Fuck!” One of them quickly reaches for the gun, and I blow a hole into his arm and send him to the ground. I cock the lever to reload, before I pick up the handgun myself and check if it’s loaded.
“Don’t see many semi-automatics around here.” I study it before pointing it at the two men sitting on the couch.
“Where’s Jason?” I press my boot into the throat of the man on the floor, and both of the fuckers who were brave enough to invade my home stare back at me in fear.
“Come on, speak up. Where is he?” Both flick their eyes between me and their friend.
“He took off,”
“I wanna know where he took off to, and I wanna know what was important enough for you to break into my home and kill my father for. Because whatever it was, you better hope it was worth dying for,”
“We didn’t kill nobody. Nobody got hurt,” The one with the ponytail shakes his head in confusion, and I use the semi-automatic in my hand to shoot him right between his eyes. Blood splatters all over his friend, and I watch him turn pale as it dawns on him how much shit he’s in.
“First thing you should know about me is, I don’t tolerate fucking lies,” I tuck the handgun into the back of my jeans and use the barrel of the rifle in my other hand to force the guy on the floor's mouth open.
“What’s your name?” I turn my attention back to the guy on the couch.
“Holson,” his voice quakes.
“You ever seen anyone get their head blown off, Holson?” I sound calm, but on the inside I feel my pulse beating in my ears.
“No, sir,” he shakes his head frantically, as the man with my barrel between his lips makes a terrified moan.
“I need you to tell me where Jason is, and I need you to tell me what he took from me,”
“I don’t know where he is, and I swear that’s the truth.
That cash, right there.” His eyes flick to the money on the table.
“That’s all we got out of it, and it wasn’t taken from your place.
Nothing was taken from your place but the file.
This was just a job for us. Jason was the one who set it all up,”
“What file?” I push my barrel deeper, making the guy on the floor choke.
“Some details for an off-shore account. That’s all I know,” The bastard’s crying now, and I can only guess it’s because he’s out of information.
“Did you touch the girl?” I think about the way Jason looked at her that night in the bar before I knocked his ass out. This has got revenge written all over it. I made a fool of him, and this is his retaliation. The guilt of that makes my guts twist, and the anger inside me multiplies.
I swear if any of these assholes, left alive, have touched her, I’ll make their death a long, drawn out fucking process.
“She wasn’t touched. And I don’t know what happened with the old man, but no one was supposed to get hurt,” he shakes his head desperately.
“Well, you really fucked up on that one, Holson,” I pull my trigger, and the guy on the floor's head explodes. Blood and brains decorate the walls, and splatter on my skin, while Holson throws up all over the carpet.
I carefully step across the floor and drag a still gagging, Holson onto his feet, placing the rifle in his trembling hands.
“You ever fired one of these before?” I ask, cocking the lever for him and pointing it at the headless body on the floor.
“Once or twice,” he swallows thickly as I place his finger over the trigger and press the semi-automatic against his temple. He’s shaking like a shitting dog, and when I pull back his finger and the thing goes off, he screams in terror and drops it to the floor.
He’s hysterical, completely lost it, and I step in front of him and pull the trigger on the semi-automatic I’m holding.
Firing it into his head, I put him out of his misery, and I watch his body fall sideways and smash through the glass table.
I place the handgun in the good hand of the other guy.
Then taking one final look around at the massacre, I make sure all traces of me being here are gone, and step back out the door.
Three down, one to go.