Chapter 2
The blood beneath my tattoo bandage pulses with each heartbeat. Fresh ink, fresh claim—the words "PROPERTY OF DEMON" still pressing into the clear wrap.
The Range Rover disappears, leaving a cloud of dust behind as Colt drives away with my niece. Legion's niece.
Our niece.
I'm not sure that makes sense yet.
I'm not sure anything makes sense these days.
Watching Legion point a gun at my youngest brother didn't evoke the kind of reaction it should've.
He was calm. His hand did not shake, not one bit. There was no wild, jittery aim of someone who might miss, but the practiced calm of someone who never does. The way men who understand consequences handle death when the possibility of it rises up in front of them.
I should've felt fear for Colt. I should've felt sympathy for Destiny.
But God help me, watching Legion handle that gun made something low in my belly tighten.
Not because I wanted Colt dead—though part of me might after what I just learned—but because Legion in control is violence made beautiful.
In another timeline, I would have been Destiny's sister-in-law.
In that timeline, I would marry Legion instead of running away to college in order to put off the reality of Ashby expectations.
But I don't live in that timeline, I live in this one. The one where I came back to mama and the ranch, and the camera.
The one where Legion went to prison for something he didn't do.
The one where my thirty-one-year-old brother got his seventeen-year-old sister knocked up.
Now we're strangers connected by a child who shouldn't exist.
I'm ashamed for Colt, though Colt didn't look the least bit ashamed of himself. Standing there in his designer clothes next to Destiny in her sundress, like they're playing house instead of running from the wreckage they've created.
Legion turns from the empty road, dust settling around his boots as he walks back toward the clubhouse. Toward me. His eyes find mine for just a heartbeat. No words, just a look that says everything and nothing at all.
The space between us stretches wide as prairie sky though I could reach out and touch him if I dared. But I don't. His jaw is set in that way that means he's already gone, already somewhere I can't follow.
He disappears into the clubhouse without slowing, and I'm left standing on the porch with my bleeding wrist and my Badlands jacket, feeling the weight of choices made and unmade, settling into my bones.
My mother would've framed this moment differently.
Eleanor Ashby would've posed me just so—chin lifted, eyes reflecting the dying light, my hand reaching after something I can't have. She would've called it art instead of heartbreak.
The memory of finding her secret rushes in, unbidden and unwanted.
It happened after the reading of the will that made me both prisoner and queen of everything she built.
The brass key the lawyer slid across his expansive mahogany desk.
With a very serious expression, he said it was for my eyes only.
That night, I'd climbed the stairs to her study—the one place in the house where the light always felt wrong. Cold. The wooden box behind her awards was inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Inside, a note with numbers. Not coordinates, though they might as well have been. They led me down, down, down.
The elevator hidden in my closet. The vault thirty feet below where the ranch's bedrock starts.
Eleanor Ashby's photograph archive.
I'd been down there, but never alone. Never allowed to wander or look through things. Mother kept her negatives in perfect archival condition—every single photo she ever took. So it was exciting to finally have the code to use the elevator and see the photos without supervision.
But it was the safe that called to me. Heavy steel, turn of the century.
I'd been staring at that safe in the corner for decades before I finally had the means to open it.
The book was leather-bound, hand-stitched. Gorgeous. Inside and out.
Toddler Legion looked like a wild angel.
An angel about to be thrown from grace, even at that tender age.
Blond hair sticking up wild, a toy truck clutched in his fist. His eyes already knew things children shouldn't.
His face was dirty, but somehow Eleanor had caught him in perfect light, the dust around him transformed into a halo.
Little Legion was beautiful, no doubt. Even as a grown man, he still possesses all of this beauty. But the photograph, envisioned by Eleanor Ashby's masterful eye, turned little Legion Kane into something… ethereal.
Something… supernaturally splendid.
Something… alluring.
And I know that's the wrong word—it's so fucking wrong—but it's true. This perfect child drowning in golden light evokes an almost uncontrollable desire to… possess.
Even then, looking at a photograph that was nearly two decades old, I wanted to scoop him up out of that picture and hug him tight.
Every picture gave off that same feeling. That same gut-wrenching desire to… have him. Hold him. Keep him.
That's why I didn't stop. That's why I kept turning pages. I needed to see them all. Every single one.
The pull was something like an addiction.
Closing that book and walking away, I felt like a junkie craving a fix even though there was a lot in there that made me sick.
The ones of us together.
All those stolen moments I thought were private—kissing behind hay bales, my fingers in his hair, his hands feeling up places they shouldn't have. Mother had seen it all. Documented it all.
And the later pages. Studio portraits. Professional lighting. Legion, half-dressed or barely covered at all, posed like a model but looking like a sacrifice. The light catching on shoulder blades that were already inked up, the beginning of the story of the demons inside him.
I still don’t know why he did it.
I have no idea what she wanted from him.
It was the final photo that broke me.
Eleanor and Legion together in an Ashby truck. Windows down, summer heat. A selfie, of all things. She looked radiant at forty-eight.
He looked... comfortable beside her.
Like they were friends.
Standing here on this porch, with Colt's Range Rover disappearing into dust, I finally understand. The rot in my family goes deeper than Cash's anger or Wyatt's drinking. It's not just snobbery or social climbing.
My mother's obsession with Legion wasn't so different from what Colt did to Destiny. Different ages, different methods, but the same corruption wearing the mask of benevolence.
The Ashbys don't preserve legacy—we devour innocence and call it art.
We seduce vulnerability and call it charity.
I look down at my weeping wrist, the words "PROPERTY OF DEMON" declaring me owned when I've never felt more lost.
The Book of Legion sits in that safe still.
Waiting.
Evidence of a sickness I never named until now.
I walk through the clubhouse like I'm sleepwalking, touching walls to stay upright. My fingertips brush against concrete blocks painted black a hundred years ago, the paint gone tacky from cigarette smoke and spilled whiskey. Men's voices drop to whispers as I pass.
"Legion?" I ask, but the word just hangs there.
Nobody answers. Nobody meets my eyes.
I go upstairs to the hallway of rooms they call the bunkhouse, the steps creak under my new-to-me boots.
The narrow hallway stretches before me, ten doors on each side.
Like a motel where nobody ever changes the sheets.
Lightbulbs hang naked from the ceiling, casting yellow pools every few feet, leaving darkness between.
The floor is bare wood, worn to splinters in the center from decades of heavy boots.
Legion and I stay in room 3. My new tattoo throbs with my pulse.
Even though we slept in here for a few hours last night, it was dark and I didn't really look at it.
Now, I do.
The room is... nothing. A twin bed, messy because I was pulled out of here early by Mama Jo this morning for the gifting.
A metal footlocker, locked. No photographs, no decorations.
The single window has duct tape patching a crack in the corner.
Below it sits a plastic milk crate holding three books—a Bible, something with a black cover, and what looks like a Harley manual.
The room feels like a cell. Not a home. Just somewhere to lay down between fights.
I blow out a breath and leave the way I came.
Alone.
Downstairs, whispers gather around me like flies.
I step into the dining room and everything stops—conversations, coffee cups mid-lift, cigarettes hovering. Five women frozen in their places around a scarred wooden table.
Their eyes move over me in waves—down to my bleeding wrist, up to my face, across to the door like they're expecting someone else. Someone more important.
"Have any of you seen Legion?" I ask, voice steadier than I feel. I push my shoulders back like Eleanor taught me for photographs. Chin up. Smile with your eyes. Never let them see you sweat.
"He walked right past you," Brandy says, eyes sliding over to gauge my reaction.
"That doesn't answer my question," I say, sharper now. "Have you seen him, or haven't you?"
The women exchange looks loaded with meanings I can't translate. Secret language of the claimed.
I don't belong here among these women with their leather, and denim, and cigarettes. I don't belong at the ranch with its chandeliers, and silver trays, and campaign donors. I exist in the cracks between worlds now, carrying too much of both to fit in either.
But there was a vote. Thirty-nine to eight.
I might not belong, but I'm allowed to be here.
"If you see him," I say to the silence, "tell him I'm looking."
I turn to walk out. And almost smack right into Mama Jo.
She materializes in the doorway like she's been summoned by my defiance, silver hair pulled back in a tight braid, eyes narrowed to slits. The whispers die instantly—not fading but slaughtered. The room goes cemetery-still.
"I've got something you should see, Not Mine." Her voice carries no warmth. No invitation. Just fact.
In her weathered hand is a black burner phone, the kind they sell at gas stations for cash. The screen is scratched, the plastic case worn smooth at the edges. She extends it toward me without explanation, like I should already understand.
"Take it," she says when I hesitate.
The phone feels unexpectedly heavy in my palm. Ancient technology compared to my usual sleek devices. When I snap the cover open, the screen flickers to life, already showing a website I don't recognize.
And there I am.
Naked. On my knees on the floor of the clubhouse, leaning over Legion's lap, his fat cock in my mouth.
My breath catches, but my face stays perfectly still. Eleanor's training wins again. I scroll methodically, my thumb moving with practiced precision despite the tremor building inside my chest.
The images are explicit. Unfiltered. Raw.
Me with my lips stretched around him, looking up with hunger in my eyes. Legion's hand in my hair. My breasts exposed.
Me straddling him on that broken couch, his hands gripping my ass, my head thrown back as he thrusts inside me.
The timestamps show they were posted three hours ago. The angles suggest cameras I never saw—one high in a corner, another low and to the side. Professional setup. Not phone snapshots.
I keep scrolling, face betraying nothing while my mind catalogs every detail. The website name. The user who posted them. The comment count already climbing into the thousands.
"They're everywhere," Mama Jo says flatly. "Twitter. Reddit. The porn sites."
My entire life, captured without permission. First by my mother's artistic lens, creating the perfect childhood that never existed. Then by Marcus's social media team, crafting the perfect political wife.
Now this—my claiming, my choice, my one honest moment—stolen and distributed for strangers to consume.
Inside, something ancient and feral is clawing at my ribs, but on the outside, I'm still Savannah Ashby, perfect in all circumstances.
My cheeks should burn with shame, but they don't. I just feel... empty. Like I've been hollowed out by the endless performance of my life.
"And?" I hand the phone back to Mama Jo.
The kitchen falls silent. Five women watching me like I might shatter.
"And?" Brandy echoes, incredulous. "You're fucking famous. These are everywhere."
I smooth my hands down the front of my borrowed jeans.
"I've been famous since I was three years old.
My mother sold my childhood for followers.
Marcus sold my image for votes." I touch my new tattoo, the raw letters spelling PROPERTY OF DEMON.
"Why should I care anymore? Why should it bother me?” The words come out calm, almost peaceful.
They taste like truth—the first real truth I've spoken in years.
"Where were you three hours ago, Brandy?" Mama Jo says, suspicion hardening her features as she turns toward Brandy.
Brandy's smug smile falters. "Don't look at me. I don't have access to the security feeds."
"You think I don't see you? Creeping around, trying to matter?" Mama Jo's voice is low, dangerous. Not the practiced calm of my mother's disappointment, but something wilder. Protective without possession. "This girl just got here, and you're already trying to burn her house down."
Brandy glances at me, waiting for tears or rage, finding neither. Her certainty cracks. "I didn't leak shit."
"Then who did?" Mama Jo demands.
I laugh softly. "Who cares? Does it matter?"
Mama Jo's face hardens. "Of course it matters. This is about Badlands, not just you."
I don't say anything back. I have nothing to say.
Mama Jo studies me for a long moment, then shakes her head like she doesn't understand me. "I'm taking this to Diesel. This is club business now." She moves toward the door, pausing beside me. "You know perfectly well this matters. Your mother would've had a crisis team on the phone."
"My mother would've been more worried about the lighting than my consent," I snap back.
Some of the women exhale. They make big eyes in my peripheral vision. They snicker.
Mama Jo leaves. And, like magic, the dining room empties quickly.
No one wants to be near the fallout.
I stand alone in the silence, feeling oddly weightless.
What's done is done. The photos are out there. The perfect Savannah Ashby is dead.
And somehow, I'm still breathing.
I need to find Legion.
I need to tell him I've finally chosen my side.