Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
RHETT
I steer my motorcycle down the worn and beaten drive that leads through Rustler Ranch, white-knuckling the handlebars as I try to avoid fishtailing along the soft gravel. I wore my dark-visored helmet tonight even though it makes it hard to see the ground in front of me—it’ll give me the chance to take in the scene when I pull up to the game before anyone spots me.
The old cattle barn appears in the distance, the silhouette of the steep slope of the roof cutting through the warm colors of the dusky sky. The building looks even worser for wear than the last time I was here. The Rustlers built a handful of new cattle barns decades ago, and instead of tearing this old one down, they use it as headquarters for their side-hustle.
My phone buzzes against my ribs from the inside pocket of my jacket, but I ignore it for now as I canvas the half-dozen cars already parked in front of the game barn. There’s a white sedan and a gray SUV I don’t recognize and an old silver truck and a newer black one that I do, but it’s the classic orange coupe that catches my attention. I’d know that fucking car anywhere, unmistakable with the parallel black racing stripes that span from hood to rear.
Mean-Eyed Maverick.
My stomach rolls at the thought of Ellis allowing that hellion back into a game after what happened last time, when his fucking brother was stabbed at the table. For Christ’s sake—I’m shocked Colt would allow it after it took over a month before the hospital would even release him back home.
Fucking Rustlers .
Batshit crazy family with no regard for their own mortality. For as much trouble as my family has gotten into over the years, we don’t hold a candle to the shit these boys are involved in.
I ease my bike to a stop at the far edge of the narrow dirt lot and push down the kickstand with my boot. Yanking a glove off with my teeth, I reach into my jacket pocket to pull out my phone. When I see Olivia’s name across the screen, everything we said to each other last night comes racing back.
Fuck .
A volatile mix of panic and guilt slices through me as I fumble and almost drop my phone. I’m met with the sudden desire to turn this bike around and drive straight to her, leaving this stupid game in the dust where it belongs. The truth is, even though I gave my word to Colt, even though I need this money if we have a real shot at keeping the ranch, walking through those barn doors is the last thing I want to do. I’ve never cared a whole lot about myself or the trouble I get into, but something’s been shifting inside of me, something tired and aching for respite.
I look toward the horizon, to the setting sun and the burst of colors it’s leaving behind. My guilt turns sour, like acid. I told Olivia I’d be there for her, a soft space for her to land, and I’ve fucked it all up. Serves us both right I guess, for ever believing I could handle something as important as her.
Shoving the phone in my pocket, I stand from the bike and pull off my helmet before marching toward the barn, an uncomfortable fire igniting in my veins. It’s a familiar call of the wild, a temptation to tear everything around me to the fucking ground. The pang of knowing I’m letting everyone down—letting Olivia down—settles in my stomach, because there’s a very real possibility that this goes sideways.
Good , I think.
Maybe she’ll finally understand why I’m no good for her.
The thought chafes. Before I know it, I’m turning on my heel and hustling back toward my bike, fishing my phone back out of my goddamn jacket.
She answers on the first ring. “Rhett,” she says, her voice warm but tentative, like the first morning of spring. “I’m sorry I called . . . I just—I hate how things went last night, and I was hoping we could try again.”
This girl . . . this perfect girl. Still not giving up.
My response is shaky as I admit, “It’s not a good time, peaches.”
“Oh,” she says. The disappointment in her tone is as obvious as my goddamn irritation about what I’m doing. “Are you okay?” There’s a trace of fear in the question, and I hate the sound of it.
I lean on the seat of my bike, squeezing my eyes shut. “Yeah, um . . . something came up with a friend of mine,” I force out through gritted teeth. I told her I would take care of my family as best as I knew how, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to risk sharing details that could implicate her. “But I’m good.”
Stop , she’d said last night—and I honestly thought I’d lost her for good, right there on that gravel road. Even though ending things was the whole point, my traitorous heart wanted to walk it all back the second I heard that word leave her lips.
That she’s even calling now—it makes me feel like even more of an asshole. I’d meant everything I said, that I can’t be what she needs, but I’m not sure I actually have the heart to let her go.
I hear her sigh. “Look, you don’t have to tell me what you’re doing. Just tell me that you’re safe.”
“I’m good,” I repeat low into the phone as another car I don’t recognize makes its way up the drive.
“Come over when you’re done,” she says in a rush. “I’ll leave a key under the mat.”
“No, don’t leave a key out.” The car in front of me parks and two men get out. They both throw uneasy glances my way. “Anyone with bad intentions would look there first. I don’t need a key to get in.”
“So you’ll come?” she asks, and the hope in her voice lights me up.
“It’ll be late,” I say. “You’ll probably be asleep.”
“I don’t care,” she insists. “I just . . . I need to feel you. I need to know you’re safe.”
“Okay.” I nod, looking down at my feet.
It takes her a beat, and when she says a quick “Okay” back, I hear the worry seeping through. “Be safe, please?”
“I will. Promise.” I hang up the phone before she can respond and take in a deep, shaky breath. Every ounce of will inside of me is begging to bail on this. To run back home to her.
Home .
“Rhett!” Colt calls from behind me, snapping through the haze of my internal undoing. I turn to find him standing at the entrance to the barn, his face cast in shadow as a dull, yellow light spills out into the dirt around him, illuminating his edges.
I hold a hand up. “Coming,” I shout before fiddling with the helmet that rests on the bike’s seat, pretending like I’m not having a fucking moment. Tucking my phone away again, I force my way back toward the barn where Colt waits for me. Unlike the last time I saw him at Spurs, he wears a guarded and wary expression that tells me he’s not looking forward to this either. “You good?” I ask quietly as soon as I reach him.
He nods his head once, quick and clipped. “Glad you’re here. Ellis bit off more than he can chew.”
I scoff, annoyed that the eldest Rustler brother would be so reckless. We’ve all had our fair share of debauchery, but inviting Mean-Eyed Maverick was a fucking dangerous and stupid move. I dip my head toward his car. “Did you know he was going to be here?”
“Nope. I knew there’d be other big players, people we don’t know well. But I had no idea he’d be here.”
“What the hell is Ellis thinking?”
Colt frowns as one of his hands lifts to press against his ribs, as if he can still feel the wound from Maverick’s knife where it pressed into him three years ago. “I don’t know,” he says, his worry evident. “Someone must have him by the balls if he’s this desperate for cash.”
I don’t want to tell Colt it’s my own desperation for cash that got me here. A half-million dollar bet puts over a million in the pot, and that kind of money would be life-changing in a way my family really needs right now, even with the unspoken rule between all Rustlers and Bennetts in play: any of us wins the pot, we split it evenly amongst ourselves. It gives us a greater chance at winning when Ellis isn’t counting cards. “Yeah, well, if Maverick sniffs out any funny business in those cards tonight, he’s going to flay us all wide open.”
Colt’s eyes snap to mine with a rush of fear that I feel in my own throat. “Thanks for coming.”
The words snare and tangle in my stomach. It’s never done well to have anyone relying on me, especially with something this serious. But I guess if there’s anything to rely on me for , it’s answering assholes with violence. “Yeah,” I mutter. “Like I said on the phone, I can’t match the bet.” I took what I was able to from the bar’s safe, but it’s only about eight grand.
Colt looks nervous. “Ellis put aside a few stacks for you, but I’m pretty sure he padded them. Just—be careful betting too high if you don’t have a hand. If you have something good, make sure I know so I can bow out and feed you more under the table.”
I shake my head—it doesn’t take a genius to know fucking around with counterfeit money on a night like tonight is bad news. All of this could go downhill so fast.
Colt throws me a look like he’s sorry, and then turns to walk back into the dimly lit barn. I trail behind him, eyes tracing along the empty and forgotten horse stalls that flank either side of us, wondering who might be crouched and hiding within. My mind plays out visions of Maverick’s posse jumping out with shiny blades and brass knuckles—their favorite toys to play with—and I scrub a hand down my face.
I force my gaze forward, to a large round table set beneath the single bald light hanging from the rafters, where Ellis sits surrounded by gruff men and . . . “What the fuck is Wylie doing here?” I ask Colt under my breath.
He’s already ramrod straight next to me, cursing under his breath.
Wylie, the second youngest Rustler child, is by far the wildest, even wilder than Ellis. At only twenty-three years old, she’s already hurled herself so far through her own sordid life experiences that she came out the other side with a permanent scowl on her face and a baby on her hip. Tonight, her blonde hair burns golden beneath the yellow light, spilling around bare shoulders. Her black tank top molds to her body like a second skin, just like the blue jeans she wears.
I’m not surprised that, even in the middle of a biting Texas winter, she’s dressed to show herself off. Once, two years ago, I almost made the mistake of letting her into my bed after she’d used her weapons of those curves, a sultry-sweet smile, and captivating banter to unravel the awareness that she was my very off-limits best friend’s sister. We’d gotten as far as the hallway to the stairwell of the apartment that sits above Wild Coyote before she was already shucking off her shirt and the reality of what we were about to do hit me like a horseshoe to the face. I was able to come to my senses in time to expertly pull her shirt back over her head and gently shove her out the bar’s door back downstairs—thank god.
To this day, I’m not sure what her motive was in sleeping with me. But if one thing’s for certain about Wylie, she always has a motive.
I still don’t know if she ever told anyone about it. Doubtful, since her brothers would wring her neck just as hard as they’d wring mine. But it doesn’t make me any less nervous to see her, and not because I’m scared of her. The Rustlers are the closest thing the Bennetts have to friends, and I don’t want our little almost-mishap to be what throws a wrench in that decades-long alliance.
Ellis watches Wylie like an overprotective hawk as she takes an open seat next to him.
“Oh my . . . Looky here,” Maverick says from where he sits between two of his fiercest cronies, eyeing Colt and me like we could be lunch. He wears a ratty denim jacket over a dark shirt, strands of greasy hair falling into his coal-like eyes. A thick, pale scar cuts across one eye from forehead to cheek—it’s a wonder he didn’t lose the eye itself. “Two of my favorite little rascals.”
Colt’s back is so full of tension it might snap, but he still finds a way to stiffen further. “Maverick,” he says coolly.
The old criminal smiles, crooked and mean. “Good to see you again, young Colt.”
Colt’s eyes narrow. At nearly thirty, he’s hardly the scrawny teenager he once was, but instead of taking Maverick’s bait, his eyes move to his sister. “What’s she doing here, Ellis?”
Ellis scoffs, clearly annoyed about something as he keeps his eyes trained on her. “Dealing.”
Wylie makes a show of rolling her eyes. “So much hostility with you boys, I swear. Good thing I’m here to show our friends some southern hospitality.”
“These aren’t friends, Wylie Jo,” Colt chides through clenched teeth.
“Then why are they on our property, Colt?” Wylie’s eyes move to me, and she has the audacity to wink.
Ellis catches the movement and angles a deep frown in my direction.
Jesus .
Maverick chimes in from his seat with a smile. “I heard you’re a mommy now, Wylie. My sincerest congratulations.”
Colt flinches. That Maverick is keeping up on the Rustler family is . . . not good. I press a hand to his shoulder and hope to god he doesn’t do something stupid.
“Don’t talk to my sister,” Ellis bites out.
“Quit bossin’ people around,” Wylie mutters.
Ellis whips his head toward her. “Remember the rules, Wylie.”
Her face falls for a moment before she regains her mask of indifference. “Yes, boss,” she says with a mocking salute before picking up the deck of cards and shuffling.
Ellis pins his focus on us. “Sit down and shut up. We don’t have all night for this shit.”
* * *
Over the last two decades, Rustler Ranch has become a tourist attraction, a destination for families who come from all over the country seeking to experience a wild and western way of life. It was Colt and Ellis’s grandfather who’d first decided to split their land in half, designating one side to their own cowboying and cattle and the other to hosting a guest ranch open to the public. It became an opportunity for outsiders to immerse themselves in the beauty of this land while also enjoying accommodations like meal services, daily wagon rides, and horseback riding excursions through the many trails that snake along the rolling hills around them.
As one of the largest cattle ranches in East Texas and its relative proximity to the Gulf Coast, the land is beautiful in pictures and sells itself on the internet without much effort by the family. Our land in Saddlebrook Falls is big, stretching out in all directions for miles and miles. But the Rustlers own at least double what we have, and the effort to maintain it all is that much greater.
While I’m sure it’s gotta be hard to host complete strangers on their property, those guests provide a level of financial stability as the family’s cattle business goes through its natural ebbs and flows. But somewhere along the way, the Rustlers found another new way to make things even more lucrative: sniffing out the type of guests who might like to participate in their underground, unregulated card games. Through cards—and Ellis’s expert sleight of hand—they’ve made a killing hustling even more money out of folks who are none the wiser.
Still, cheating cards with unwitting tourists is a lot different than at a table with real criminals who will stab first and ask questions later, and though I used to worry Ellis might be dumb enough to try, he’s always kept high-stakes games like this honest. With Wylie dealing, it’s even more assurance of a straight game—though, with the way she handles the cards, I’d bet she’s been practicing some of Ellis’s tricks.
On nights like tonight, it’s more a game of chance and numbers: the more Bennetts and Rustlers at the table, the higher probability one of us will win to split the profits. Like always, we play two games with restricted bets to knock some of the dust off and get everyone’s blood pumping. For a while, everyone’s quiet, focused on the cards in hand against the cards on the table. Even Wylie keeps her lips closed as she deals each round. But it doesn’t take long for Maverick to reveal he’s the same cocky son-of-a-bitch he’s always been, eager to slap his dick down on the table and show Ellis’s new friends from Cheyenne that he’ll win in the first game.
“Straight,” he says proudly, laying his cards down. It’s not a great hand, but it beats the rest of us who only have pairs and a three-of-a-kind.
I watch the two new cowboys carefully as Maverick greedily pulls his winnings from the table toward himself, trying to figure out how a pair of old boys like them could be strapped with so much cash. They’re dressed in basic work clothes, their boots solid but nothing fancy. I can tell from their calloused hands and sun-wrinkled skin they know a hard day’s work. They must have an illegal hustle of their own at home . . . or they’re making a fucking killing in cowboying, which is hard to do. It amazes me more that Ellis would be willing to risk so much of his family’s money to match their bet.
I wonder if his father knows how crooked his son is getting with the family business.
I can’t tell for sure if Maverick knows the amount of cash up for grabs tonight. How a mean fucker like him could possibly have that kind of money on hand in the first place. Unlike the Cheyenne cowboys, Maverick hasn’t worked an honest day in his life and instead makes his bread clawing and stealing from those around him. He might’ve won the first game tonight, but Colt takes the second, a flair of retaliatory determination set in his eyes as he watches Maverick fold his hand.
It’s enough to set Maverick on defense, watching Wylie’s hands carefully as she shuffles the deck for the third and final game—the one that matters most, the real reason we’re all here tonight. I shoot Colt a warning look to settle his ass down.
“Ready, boys?” Ellis asks, monitoring Wylie as she deals us all two cards before laying the flop down on the table. There’s an uncomfortable tension in the air that I once reveled in, once felt most powerful in, but that now just feels wrong. Looking at my cards, I spot a pair of sevens, and hope sparks. Colt makes the first bet, dropping a stack of cash he pulls from a backpack at his feet on the center of the table with a smug grin. “Ten grand.”
All eyes shift to me. I work to keep my expression neutral as I count out a matching bet and set it down next to Colt’s.
Both of the Cheyenne cowboys to my left do the same, as does Maverick’s first lieutenant. When it’s Maverick’s play, he makes a show of examining his cards against the cards on the table before he, too, matches the bet with a knowing smirk that I know is meant to intimidate. The bullish man next to him follows suit, and then Ellis does the same.
When Wylie flips a fourth card down on the table next to the first three, that earlier hope expands. It’s an eight—and I have one in my hand.
I’ve got two pairs. It’s a decent hand . . . Not nearly enough to win the game, but there’s still one more card left.
Colt tenses next to me, and at first I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. He takes a long look at his cards. At the cards on the table. And then at Mean-Eyed Maverick, who gives him a hateful smile.
And then he folds, kicking the bag of money at his feet toward me.
It’s the permission I need to make a bold move. I set my cards down and reach into the backpack, pulling out enough cash to make anyone at this table without a decent hand squeamish. “Two fifty,” I say, stacking two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on top of what’s already on the table.
The cowboys next to me give nothing away, but I don’t miss the way Maverick’s eyes widen in surprise. Which means . . . fucking hell . Ellis didn’t tell him how big the stakes are tonight.
I look at Ellis and find him watching Maverick with a cold glare. And that’s when I realize—he’s setting him up. Ellis is forcing Maverick into a corner with no choice but to fold, to make him feel inferior in front of everyone else here.
It takes everything in me to keep a mask of indifference on my own face as the weight of this knowledge sinks in. If Maverick and his men have to fold, this game turns into one between Ellis, me, and the cowboys—both of whom, I note, drop enough cash on the table to match my bet.
Maverick’s first sidekick immediately folds, tossing his cards on the table in defeat. Maverick glares at him, and then at me. And then at Ellis. I’m smart enough to know that look means trouble. Colt must sense it too because he shifts in his seat, and I see the way his hand carefully slides into his pocket.
Turning my gaze back to Maverick, I watch him throw an expectant look to his second man who grumbles before sliding his bank of cash toward his boss, folding his own hand regardless of what he might have had. Maverick counts the money alongside everything else he’s brought and what he’s already won, and by the skin of his teeth, he has enough to make the bet. “Two fifty,” he says, dropping the cash on the table, the malice in his tone cold and biting.
Ellis nods. “Two fifty,” he repeats, adding his own cash.
Wylie eyes the money with a palpable hunger, and I don’t blame her—there’s well over a million dollars on the table. But she needs to keep herself in check in a room full of vipers—these boys will bite.
“Wylie,” Ellis chides with a low grunt.
She blinks, looking at her brother before smiling at the rest of us. And then she lays down the river.
It’s another fucking eight.
I have a full house.
Adrenaline prickles along my temples and the back of my neck, but I keep my face unreadable. It’s a good hand—it still might not be strong enough to win the round, but it’s enough to stay in the game. I look around at the others to see how they might be faring: the cowboys give nothing away, but Maverick can’t contain his growing temper. I turn my focus to Ellis and find him already looking at me, a glint in his eye that I know all too well.
I watch as he turns to scan the table, his shoulders relaxed and expression easy in a way I’ve seen from him countless times. Like he already knows he has the whole table beat.
And it dawns on me.
He’s actually rigged this game.