Chapter 24
Chris stepped into the barn. The setting sun sent a stream of light through the top windows, casting a golden glow across the gleaming wood and meticulously swept aisle.
The air hummed around him. Horses snorted rhythmically, contently munching in their stalls, and hooves thudded gently on soft bedding.
His eyes narrowed in calculating focus, scanning the stable.
This wasn’t the dusty barn he envisioned.
A pang of doubt flickered through him, but a chilly reserve held him here.
Gleaming brass nameplates on stalls and horses with braided manes made his lip curl.
A silent message flashed across his phone screen. Good. He triggered the alarm.
He crept forward, retreating deeper into the stable. The horses swiveled their heads, their large, intelligent eyes filled with a question Chris couldn’t answer.
Finally, he would have his chance to avenge his brother’s death and fulfill his promise to the Devil’s Demise, if he joined them.
That old man Larry put ideas in his head.
Maybe after this, Chris would find a new woman and make a fresh start.
He might even stay with the Thunder Valley gang.
Watch over Audra’s boy. Wouldn’t that be something?
They accepted him. “No matter what you’ve done,” Larry told him.
“Be open to the word of God.” The old fool, talking about how a hard heart will hear the word of God, but nothing changes.
Nothing can grow. And worry fettered inside Chris, remembering those conversations. Hearing him.
But it wasn’t enough. Not soon enough. Not for him.
Outside, a vehicle approached. Chris moved behind the heavy sliding door.
A door shut, and Chris flexed his hands.
Counting to keep calm. Keeping his back pressed against the large door, his heart pounded.
Chris tightened his grip on the gun in his hands.
A surge of adrenaline coursed through his veins as Sebastian Daniels came inside. Beast.
He took a deep breath and stepped forward, pointing the gun toward Beast’s back.
“Hey old buddy,” he whispered.
Sebastian spun around. His eyes widened. “Chris? What are you doing here?”
Chris sneered, a cruel twist of his lips. “I’d tell you I came to help set up for the wedding, but I’d be lying, and I hate liars.”
“Wedding?” Sebastian’s gaze landed on the gun in Chris’s hands. “I heard you were asking around about me.”
“You are a hard man to find, but I knew you’d come back. Everyone always comes back to family.” Soon, Beast’s family would feel the same pain he did when Chris’s brother and Audra were taken away from Chris.
“I hear you’ve joined up with my old family. I’m glad I’ll still be able to call you brother.” Sebastian’s gaze remained on the gun.
Chris took a step back. “Brother?”
“Yeah. Brother.” Sebastian held out his hands, palm up.
“Family,” Sebastian said again, lifting his gaze to look Chris in the eyes.
Chris took a deep breath Looking a man in the eye and killing him wasn’t part of the plan.
He couldn’t let anyone else have the job.
They’d screw it up. No more screwups. If you wanted something done right, his father always said you had to do it yourself.
His grip tightened on the gun. An accident.
This was just all an unfortunate accident that would soon go away.
“I’m not your brother,” Chris said, his voice calmer than the trembling going on through his insides.
“Sometimes family isn’t about blood.” Sebastian moved to the left, slowly, close to one of the occupied stalls.
Foul beasts. He endured listening to the occasional bang of a horse’s hoof against the stall doors and the settling of the barn.
The place freaked him out with all its silence and random noises of horses and nature.
“You sound as messed up as the old men in that group you call a club back in Johnstown.” Chris refused to think of Larry or the time the old man spent trying to convince him to live his life, according to Jesus.
“We all have our faults. Why don’t you put the gun down, and we’ll figure this out.” Sebastian kept his hands where Chris could see them. No matter. Unarmed, armed. It wouldn’t save him.
“You killed my brother. My blood brother.”
Sebastian’s face fell. “I-I’m sorry about the way things went down. You should have told me Pike was your brother. None of us knew.”
“Yeah, because Pike wanted it that way. I had to work my way up the ranks. So he would acknowledge me.” A tremor ran through Chris’s hands as he spoke.
Months of grief and anger, a bitter cocktail churning in his gut, clawed its way up his throat, forcing the words out in a ragged, desperate pitch.
“Then I would have been his Beta. I would have helped run the club. But you killed him.”
“He killed Audra.”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You took his life and ruined everything!”
But before he could act, a voice rang out from behind him. “Put the gun down!” A click of a firearm sent a shudder through Sebastian.
Startled, Chris whirled around. Cole stood at the back of the barn. “He’s mine. You don’t get to take back the hit.”
Chris’ lip curled. “I sent you months ago. I had to hire someone else.”
“And he failed.” Cole walked closer. His black cargo pants and black t-shirt were dusty and soiled with flecks of hay. Chris kept his gun pointed at Sebastian. Sweat beaded over his forehead, threatening to drip down and burn his eyes.
Chris hesitated, his mind racing. He hadn’t expected the other hired bounty hunter to be here. Why did everyone have to go messing up his plans?
Cole held his gun pointed at Sebastian. “He’s mine. That bounty is mine.”
Chris grinned at Sebastian. “How does it feel to have people fighting over you to kill you?”
Sebastian met Chris’s gaze head-on, his expression unreadable. “How much is my life worth to you?”
Chris shrugged, “A half a million.”
“That’s a lot of cash for an errand boy,” Sebastian said.
“Work smarter, not harder. Isn’t that what they say?
” Chris glanced over Sebastian’s shoulder, silently cursing as a woman with dirty blonde hair entered the barn.
Frustration gnawed at him, but maybe having the sister—he assumed it was the sister—show up might play right into his hand.
It was the best kind of revenge. A slow grin stretched across Chris’s face.
Her eyes widened. “What’s going on here?”
“Go back to the house,” Cole told her.
“Looks like we have a party crasher,” Chris drawled, keeping his gun trained on Sebastian.
“S-Seb?” The woman’s hands trembled, holding a large glass of iced tea. “Is that you?”
“It’s okay, Sam. Go back to the house,” Sebastian said, not looking over his shoulder at the terrified woman.
Chris tilted his head and glanced between Sebastian and the woman. She backed up, but Chris waved his gun and pointed it at her. “Nope. I think she should stay.”
Cold tea spilled down over her hand, and she dropped the glass to the ground.
“Let her go, Chris. She has nothing to do with this,” Sebastian said.
“C-Cole?” Sam stammered.
“She’s mine,” Cole said, taking another step toward Chris. He held up his hand to hold back the bounty hunter. He could see it in the other man’s eyes. The glint of worry was not easily hidden, and it gave him an idea.
“No,” Chris said, pointing the gun at the woman.
“She’s mine. All this time, I’ve waited for the day to see you dead,” he said to Sebastian.
“But now?” He shrugged. “You also took Audra away from me. The son we would have raised together is being raised by another family. I think it’s only fair that I get her. ”
The woman gasped, her cheeks gone pale. Her wide eyes were adorable. Chris never owned a woman. Plenty of guys in the club had an old lady. Yeah. She would do. “Come here, sweetheart,” Chris said. “You’re mine now.”
Cole growled, and Chris glanced over at the other man. “You get him and your money, and I get her.”
“Touch her, and I’ll kill you,” Sebastian growled.
Wearing shorts and an old concert t-shirt with a pair of laced-up work boots, the woman stumbled back. “Don’t,” Chris said. “You run, and I’ll kill him.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on him. “Let her go.”
“No can do, brother.” Chris motioned for Cole to join him. “If I don’t kill you, he will.” Cole took a few more steps closer. “And we can’t have her spilling our secrets, can we?”
“Cole?” The woman crossed her arms over her chest.
“It’s okay, Sam. I’ve got this,” Cole said.
Chris snorted. Sure, he did.
Sebastian took a step forward, and Cole’s gun pointed in his direction. “I don’t miss.”
“You’re just too slow.” Chris extended his hand toward her. His voice held a hint of amusement, masking the nervousness uncurling within him. “Come here, sweetheart, unless you want me to shoot your brother in front of you. It’s brother, right? The resemblance is unmistakable.”
Maybe this unexpected complication was in his favor, after all. This woman, with her fiery gaze and defiant stance, would bring a welcome challenge after he finished with Beast.
“Chris.” Sebastian hissed a warning.
Tears crested over the woman’s lashes. She walked toward him, slowly.
“Try anything, and I’ll shoot her,” Chris warned Cole. The humid air in the barn clung to Chris like a second skin, prickling his already dampening shirt. A sheen of sweat dribbled down the side of his face.
As Sam almost reached him, her foot snagged on something, sending her stumbling.
A yelp escaped her lips as she collided with a nearby pitchfork.
It toppled over with a clatter, startling a horse in the nearby stall.
It reared up, and its whinny set off a chord of sound from the other horses in the stables.
Before Chris could react, Sebastian lunged.
He grabbed a bucket, half-filled with brushes, and in a single, desperate motion, hurled it toward Chris.
With a startled grunt, Chris lunged to the side.
The thick rubber container whooshed past his head, missing by a hair’s breadth.
He stumbled, briefly off balance, and was forced to ditch the gun to shield himself from the flying projectile.
Cole grabbed Sam and pulled her to him, shielding her body with his own.
Frustration morphed into white-hot rage as Chris stumbled back, the impact of the dropped pitchfork handle sending a jolt of pain in the center of his forehead.
The blow stole his breath, driving him back until he slammed against the rough wood of a horse stall.
The world spun, a sickening kaleidoscope of hay and dust as he landed hard, slumping to the ground.
Sebastian was on him in a heartbeat. Chris flipped and pinned Sebastian to the ground, but the victory was short-lived. A cold click pierced the air.
Chris’s gaze snapped up, the world narrowing to the stark black circle of a gun barrel aimed directly at his stomach. His vision blurred, and blood seeped from his nose. He blinked as sweat burned his eyes. Her face was going in and out of clarity.
“Do it,” he growled. “Do it!”
A moment later, pain exploded in his head, his hold gave out, and Chris went down with the scream of the woman who held the gun behind him.