Chapter Twelve #3
“It was enough to get on my land that day and soak it with gasoline, but not enough for the house not to realize that something was wrong.”
“You don’t deserve that place. I’d rather watch it burn than see it run into the ground by you.”
“Well, unfortunately, that sounds like a you problem. I’ll admit, though, I was confused, not just by how you got all the gasoline up there undetected, but what the point of it all was. I figured it out eventually, though.”
“Share with the class, Cece. I don’t know fuck-all about this.”
I turn to Austin and shrug. “Not long after I came back, Porter here tried to sabotage one of my pastures. He soaked the land in gasoline.” I turn back to Porter.
“I noticed a lot of water troughs up there, but I don’t remember using that pasture for the cattle.
When I investigated, I realized they were tip tanks filled with gasoline.
You didn’t sneak it onto my land after I got back.
It was already there, and all you had to do was spill them out. ”
“What the fuck?” Austin curses.
“I’m guessing it was something you had rigged in case shit hit the fan, and you needed a distraction, or just something as trite as an insurance claim.”
He glares at me. “She had one fucking job.”
I feel my eyes drift closed. “Dawn was supposed to start a fire. You knew she was coming to see me that day.”
“I heard her talking to the brat,” he admits.
I stomp over and backhand him before Austin pulls me back. He holds me to him with one hand as he slides my hair over my shoulder with the other so he can kiss my neck. I don’t need to look at him to know his eyes are locked on my father’s horrified ones.
“You and him?” He laughs. “How the fuck—”
“It’s a long and complicated tale that’s honestly none of your fucking business.”
“Then you’re a fool. He’s a hunter, and hunters only fuck witches for one thing. Power.”
I let the sparks move up my arms, making them morph and grow until they’re so bright Porter has to squint. Austin, of course, is unaffected.
“You would know, wouldn’t you, Dad? Tell me, did Mom know you were a hunter before you fucked her? Maybe you drugged and raped her like you did Dawn. It does seem to be the norm, after all.”
His mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
“I always thought you were a smart man, mean for sure, but smart. How else did you seem to have so much power? But then I grew up and realized just how fucking dumb you are. You blackmailed and coerced a bunch of people to lock away a girl because you were so scared of her gifts. You faked your own death, not to escape abuse charges, but to escape any revenge I’d been dreaming up over the years.
Ironic really. All you had to do was love me, and I’d have given you anything you asked for.
But love was the one weapon you never used against me. As I said, you’re an idiot.”
I zap him again, scorching the shoulder of his shirt, making him yelp in pain.
“I can’t help but wonder as you sit here in your own filth, chained to the wall like vermin—no ranch, no wife, no children who give a fuck about you—if it was worth it.”
“I built that ranch into what it is. My blood, sweat, and tears went into it. It’s mine.”
I shake my head and let the sparks die out. “It was my blood that built that place, and I’m betting my mother’s blood before that.”
I move closer as I taunt him. “You stole fifteen years of my life.”
He grins evilly at that. I send a spark at him and set fire to his hair, watching it burn as he screams and thrashes before I wave my hand and suck the oxygen away, snuffing out the flames in an instant.
“How sad is it that those fifteen years away from you turned out to be the best of my life? I was safe, fed, and cared for in a way I’d never been before. I was safer sleeping in a bed surrounded by murderers than I ever was sharing a home with you.”
“Fuck you. It was my home—”
“No. It was mine. Just like it was my mother’s and her mother’s before that.
You tried to take it from us, but the house refused to recognize you.
You put all that time and effort into a foolhardy plan, and yet you still can’t seem to accept defeat.
The house kept you out the whole time I was gone.
If that doesn’t tell you who it belongs to, nothing will. ”
He struggles against the shackle again, making me grin.
“You keep trying to escape, but you’re not going anywhere.”
“You can’t keep me here.”
“I know.”
He relaxes a little at that, my words acting as a light at the end of a dark tunnel.
“I’m going to kill you and dump your body. And then I’m going to watch as the state scrambles to apologize and offer me restitution for stealing my life. I’d say thanks for making me a very rich girl. But then, I’m already a very rich girl, what with the ranch and my secondary inheritance.”
“What?” Porter snaps, momentarily distracted from his plight. Money always did have that effect on him.
“Oh, didn’t you know? I inherited twenty-two point two million the day I turned thirty. A little safety net from my ancestors, one I wouldn’t have needed if it weren’t for men like you.”