Chapter Thirty-Four
brEANNA
ON MY way down the hill, I almost slide onto my ass in the weeds that are weighed down to half their height from the rain. When I catch myself, my hand sinks into the soft, slick ground, and cold mud squishes between my fingers.
Slinging what I can off, I walk more slowly down the hill, picking my footing more carefully.
The truck’s headlights wash across the yard, lighting up the freshly dug trenches that fan out in big squares across the backyard. On one end is a larger, darker hole where my shiny new septic tank sits.
One figure moves around the edge of it, a bag over his shoulder, breathing hard, each breath hanging in the cold air. But he’s too short to be Connor.
My stomach drops when my brain realizes who it is.
Jacob Neil.
I stop where I am, in the shadow at the front corner of the truck, and I make myself stand still and watch before I do anything else.
He hasn’t seen me yet. He’s hefting the bag down next to the open tank, and when he rips the top off, I read the word stamped on the side in the headlight beam.
Concrete.
The round lid from the neck of the tank is off, sitting in the mud by his boot. He’s going to pour it down the tank and ruin the entire system. Thousands of dollars gone and back to square one.
My heart is beating wildly in my chest; he can’t know I’m here. I pat my jacket pocket to ensure my phone is there. I need to call someone.
I don’t pull it out, not yet. If the screen lights up in the dark, he’ll see me. Taking one step back toward the rear of the truck, I mean to stand behind the tailgate to call for help, but my boot finds a soft spot and makes a wet sucking sound.
He turns. “Well, well.” Swaying just slightly, I can see the loose, too-careful way a man holds himself when he’s had too much to drink. “Come to inspect my work?”
“What are you doing, Jacob?” I keep my voice even and my feet planted where they are; trying not to give away that I’m scared shitless right now.
Rule number three on Dad’s list that he’s repeated to me since I was seven: never let ‘em see you cry.
“Step away from the tank, Jacob.”
His laugh is laced with anger. “You’d love that, wouldn’t ya?
Just throw around your orders. That’s what your kind does.
” He spreads his arms, and the open bag tips at his feet.
“City suspended my contract this morning. Pending investigation. You know what that does to a man? Over ten years building something, and a woman who’s been here five minutes makes one phone call… ”
“All I did was ask for a second opinion. That’s all.” I can’t say everything I want to say, it would just anger him more, and I can’t afford that.
“That’s all?” He takes a step toward me, and I take one to the side to put the open hole of the tank between us, the same way I put a gate between me and a horse deciding whether to kick.
“You don’t even hear yourself, do you? You never did.
You’ve had people stepping in front of you to take care of you your whole life, protecting you, making sure you’ve never had to find out what it costs the rest of us. ”
The smell of stale beer mixed with diesel and mud carry on the icy breeze, explaining why he’s not making a lot of sense. He’s drunk, and he’s slow, and he’s bigger than me by half, which means I can’t let him catch me. Size wins every time, so I need to play my cards right.
Keep him talking. Keep the hole between us. Get to cover and call for help. The checklist in my head sounds easy enough; I wish my racing heart felt the same way.
Keeping my hands loose at my sides, like when I’m approaching a spooked animal, I softly say, “Okay. Okay, Jacob. You’re angry. I get it. Walk back to your truck and we’ll…”
“Don’t.” His voice is like the crack of a branch. “Don’t manage me.”
He’s faster than a drunk man should be in the mud.
He comes around the short side of the hole instead of the long way that I expected, cutting the distance, and I twist and run for the truck.
I get three strides before his hand closes on the back of my jacket and pulls, making my feet go out from under me in the slick mud.
I go down hard on my side, half of my head splats in the mud, and the world is suddenly cold and wet.
He’s on me before I can get my hands under me, not pinning me yet, just grabbing, sloppy and heavy, trying to get a grip on someone who won’t hold still.
I twist and kick and drive an elbow back into something soft, and I hear him grunt. Every animal I’ve ever handled has taught me the same thing: because it’s down doesn’t mean it’s done.
Just don’t stop moving, don’t give him a still target.
As I’m scrambling, I manage to get a knee under me and shove up, but my kneecap comes down full-force on a jagged rock that’s been turned up by the digging and hidden in the slick.
White-hot pain shoots up my thigh, and my leg folds under me. Fuck! My entire leg is screaming, and I feel his hand close around my ankle.
“Got ya.”
No, you don’t.
My fingers are hurting from the wet cold, but the adrenaline has dulled my fear. The mud is thin, slimy, and wet, and I scoop a fistful and twist toward him to throw it in his face as hard as I can, right into his eyes.
He howls, his hands releasing me to fly to his face, clawing at the grit burning his eyes, and he rocks back onto his heels, blinded.
Not wasting the reprieve, I drag myself through the mud, away from his hands, toward the open trench to put it between us. Bending my good leg under me, I get up half-crouched, soaked and shaking, and lopsided because of my hurting knee. But I’m clear of him.
“You little…” He lurches after the sound of my heavy breathing, still scrubbing at his eyes, and his boot comes down on the soft lip of the trench that gives way under his weight, and he goes down into it sideways with a heavy grunt.
I don’t care if he’s hurt, I’m already limping to the headlights, my hand digging into my pocket for my phone, when lights sweep across the side of the house.
Another set of headlights are bouncing up the driveway fast, and then truck doors are slamming, and boots running in the mud.
“Breanna!”
Mato!
I know his voice in the dark like I know my own name, and I turn toward it. My leg nearly buckles under me, and then he’s there, coming out of the dark at a dead run.
His hands are on my arms, my shoulders, my face, and rough-checking me all over.
“I’m okay.” I get out, but my teeth are chattering, and I’m covered head to foot in mud. My knee is a screaming knot, but I’m still up. “I’m okay. He’s in the trench.” I wave my hand in the direction I just came from.
His eyes move over me one more time, he takes in the mud and the way I’m holding my leg, and something in them goes very cold.
He looks past me to Jacob, who’s clawing his way up out of the hole, swearing, half-blind, and just in time for Mato to reach him.
Mason and Jax move past me to help Mato, but they don’t need to do much. Mato gets a fist in the front of Jacob’s jacket and hauls him the rest of the way out of the trench like he weighs nothing.
One punch cracks in the dark and drops him in the dirt like a bag of rocks. Mato’s not done; he straddles Jacob, fisting his jacket and pulling him closer.
His voice is calm, which sounds worse than if he were yelling. “What did I tell you would happen if you ever touched her? Just because it was twenty years ago doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it.”
Jacob turns his head and spits in the mud, but doesn’t answer.
Mason looks at his phone. “Sheriff’s two minutes out. He’s done, man. Let him sit in it.”
Mato holds him there for another second, and then lets go, letting him fall back into the mud as he steps back. That’s when his whole demeanor changes.
The fury drains out of him as he turns away from Jacob like he’s already forgotten him and walks to me.
“Your leg.” He’s already lowering to one knee in front of me, his hands hovering at my knee. “What happened?”
Setting my hand on his shoulder to keep my balance, I feel how tense he is under it. “Rock buried in the mud. It’s not broken.”
“I’m checking, anyway.” His palms close around my leg and carefully feel along the joint and around my kneecap.
Over his head, I can see Jacob in the headlights, sitting in the mud holding his face as Jax stands over him.
As the adrenaline leaves my system, the shaking hits me, the all-over kind. Mato feels it and stands to pull me into him, mud and all, his arms tight around me. He’s warm and I lean into him.
My mind goes back to the day Jacob showed up at school with a black eye and a busted lip. Later that day, I saw Mato had a cut on his knuckle. “It was you? You were the one who threatened Jacob when we were little?”
His lips are in my hair; I feel him breathe out, long and uneven. “I’ve loved you all my life, Breanna.”
Jacob groans on the ground, and Mato’s grip on me loosens as we turn to see if he’s getting up. He’s holding his nose with one hand and his ribs with the other.
“Don’t move.” The command is calm but firm, from the force of nature standing in front of me.
Within seconds, two cars pull up, lights flashing.
One look at the bag of cement next to my septic tank and the sheriff pushes his hat back with his finger. “Pressing charges?”
Spitting grains of dirt from my mouth, I nod. “Yes, he’s been trouble from the first day he got here.”
The sheriff pulls his notebook from his pocket. “Any reason why?”
Mato, who’s positioned himself between me and Jacob, but won’t leave my side, says, “He’s always been an asshole.”
Leaning my head toward Mato, I sigh. “I’m not sure why he hates me so much, but he said his contracts with the city were pulled because he’s being investigated. He says it’s my fault.”
The sheriff doesn’t miss a beat. “Is it your fault?”
Mato’s body tightens next to me. “No, he tried to cheat me out of thousands of dollars, and when I got a second opinion, it spiraled from there.”
Everyone looks at Jacob when I say, “I could smell the beer on him when I walked down here.”
We watch them cuff Jacob in front of his truck and they rattle off his Miranda rights.
After taking my full statement, the sheriff says, “He’ll be charged with criminal mischief, trespassing, assault, and public intoxication.
You’ll need to come to the station to give a full report. I’ll be in touch.”
As the cruiser pulls away with Jacob in the back seat, I can’t believe it’s come to this.
Mason steps up next to me. “You okay, pipsqueak?”
“I will be after I wash this mud off me.”
Mato is still next to me, towering over me like a sentry. “Mason, you drive my truck back to the house. I’ll drive Breanna’s truck behind you.”
I want to argue, but with the drop in adrenaline, I’m just so tired. And to be honest, I sort of want him to drive me home.