Chapter 71
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Ace
Song- Bodies, Drowning Pool
Violet asked me to pick up a dress from the boutique on Main Street.
She asked nicely, which is rare for her, so I said yes.
Plus, it gets me out of the house. Out of the silence.
Out of the routine of training, riding, working, sleeping, and staring at a phone that never lights up with the name I want.
I need the air. I need to move. I need to feel human again, instead of being a ghost rattling around a house built for two.
I take the long way into town because the morning is clear and the road is quiet, and Seven could use the rest after yesterday's ride. The truck hums along the back roads, windows down, dust kicking up behind me.
I clock the car at the junction.
Not the dark sedan. This time, a silver SUV with tinted windows. Sitting at the turnoff that leads to the highway, engine idling. I pass it without slowing. Check the rearview. It pulls out behind me.
They keep their distance. Three, four car lengths. Matching my speed. When I slow, it slows. When I take the turn onto Main, it takes the turn onto Main.
That's two different vehicles in a week.
I park outside the boutique. The SUV rolls past without stopping. Keeps going down Main and disappears around the corner. Could be nothing. Could be everything.
I grab my hat, lock the truck, and head inside.
The boutique is small. Janet, the lady behind the counter, recognizes me and smiles too wide, the way people in this town do when a Sterling walks in. I give her the order number. She disappears into the back and returns with a garment bag.
"Tell Violet it's gorgeous. She's going to love it," she says.
"I'll pass that on. Thank you, ma'am."
I step back onto Main Street. The sun is high. A few people are on the sidewalk. A truck idles outside the hardware store. I sling the garment bag over my shoulder and start walking back toward my truck.
And I feel it.
That prickle. That cold, crawling sensation at the back of my neck that I've learned to trust more than my eyes. Someone is behind me. Matching my pace. Close enough that I can hear boot heels on the sidewalk, slightly out of rhythm with mine.
I don't turn around. Don't speed up. Just walk. I’m just a cowboy carrying a dress bag through his hometown on a Saturday morning.
I pass my truck. Keep walking. If whoever's behind me thinks I'm heading somewhere predictable, they'll stay close. If I lead them somewhere quiet, I control the ground.
I cut left between the hardware store and the old feed mill. The alley is narrow. Dumpsters along one wall, a chain-link fence at the far end. No cameras. No windows. And most important, no witnesses.
I stop. Set the garment bag down on a crate.
The footsteps behind me stop too.
I turn around.
He's mid-thirties. Stocky. Dark jacket despite the heat. One hand in his pocket. He's trying to look casual and failing. His shoulders are too tight, his breathing is too fast, and his eyes keep flicking to the mouth of the alley behind him.
"You've been following me for three blocks," I say. "So either you want an autograph, or we've got a problem."
He doesn't answer. His hand comes out of his pocket.
Knife. Fixed blade. He holds it low against his thigh, the way someone trained holds a knife. Not waving it around.
"Who sent you?" I ask.
Nothing. He takes a step forward.
"I asked you a question," I press. I ain’t in the mood for this shit.
Another step. His grip shifts on the handle. He's going to come at me. I can see it building in the weight transfer to his front foot, the slight drop of his shoulder.
He lunges.
I've been riding two-thousand-pound bulls since I was a teenager. I've been hit, stomped, thrown, and trampled by animals that weigh ten times what this man weighs. A guy with a knife in an alley doesn't scare me. It pisses me off.
I sidestep the blade. Grab his wrist with my left hand and twist. The knife clatters against the ground. Before he can pull back, I drive my right fist into his jaw. His head snaps sideways. I hit him again. Same spot. Then his ribs. Then his stomach.
He doubles over, and I grab the back of his head and bring my knee up into his face. The crack echoes off the alley walls.
He hits the ground.
And something inside me breaks open.
Every sleepless night. Every unanswered text.
Every morning that I wake up reaching for someone who isn't there. The sedan. The SUV. The feeling of being hunted on my own land. Paulie’s death.
Harper in LA, married to a man who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her.
The future I can't see. All of it, every ounce of rage and grief and loneliness I've been swallowing for weeks, it fucking explodes.
I grab him by the collar and hit him again. And again. My knuckles split on his teeth, and I don't feel it. Blood on my hands that isn't mine, and I don't care. He's trying to cover his face, trying to curl up, and I drag him upright and slam him against the dumpster hard enough to dent the metal.
"Who. Sent. You."
He spits blood. Mumbles something I can't make out through his broken mouth. I think it started with an F.
I pin him by the throat against the dumpster. My forearm across his windpipe. His feet barely touching the ground.
"Say it again."
His eyes are swelling shut. There is blood pouring from his nose, his lip, and a gash above his eyebrow. He's done. Completely done. But I need the answer before I let him drop.
He chokes out a word. One word. A name I don't recognize.
I let go. He slides down the dumpster and crumples on the floor, gasping for air.
I stand over him. Chest heaving. Hands shaking. Knuckles raw and bleeding. The anger isn't gone, it's just found its edges. The red haze pulling back enough for me to think.
I need Colten.
I pull out my phone. The screen is cracked; it must have been hit during the fight. I wipe the blood off with my shirt and unlock it.
A missed call. Unknown number. No voicemail.
My thumb hovers over it. Something twists in my gut. A bad feeling. The kind I can't explain and have learned never to ignore. Unknown numbers don't usually mean anything. Spam. Scammers. Wrong numbers.
But this one sits wrong. The timing. The area code I don't recognize, but it's not local. It's not Arizona.
I stare at it for three seconds. Then I close it and dial Colten.
He picks up on the second ring.
"I need you on Main Street. Alley between the hardware store and the feed mill."
"What happened?"
"Someone pulled a knife on me. He's down. He's breathing. But I can't drag him to my truck in broad daylight; he's bleeding all over the place."
"I'm ten minutes out. Don't move."
"Wasn't planning on it."
I hang up. Look down at the man on the ground. He's conscious, barely. Curled on his side, wheezing, blood pooling under his cheek.
I crouch beside him.
"When my brother gets here, you're going to tell him the same name you just told me. And then you're going to tell him everything else. Who hired you, why they're following me, and what they want. If you do that, you might leave Arizona with most of your teeth. If you don't—"
I pick up his knife from the asphalt and turn it in my hand.
"Well. You've seen what I do when I'm in a bad mood. Imagine what my brother's like. He’s a hell of a lot worse than I am."
I stand. Lean against the wall and check my phone again.
The missed call stares back at me. Unknown number. That area code is nagging at me. Something familiar I can't place.
I should call it back.
I don't. Not right now. They ain’t called again. They haven’t left a message.
Colten's truck appears at the mouth of the alley eight minutes later. He gets out, takes one look at the man on the ground, then at my hands, then at my face.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
He doesn't ask anything else. He grabs the man by the ankles and drags him to the truck bed. Tosses a tarp over him. Closes the tailgate.
"Romeo came back on the sedan plates," he says, leaning against the truck. "Registered to a rental company in Los Angeles."
LA. My stomach drops.
"Who rented it?"
"Shell company. Romeo's still digging. But it's connected to a real estate firm."
Real estate. LA. Shell companies. The pieces are floating in front of me, but I can't make them fit. Not yet.
I pick up Violet's garment bag from the crate, brush off the dust, and check it for blood.
Clean. She'll never know. One day, when she’s less stressed, I might tell her what happened with this dress.
“I’ll meet you at the barn,” I tell Colt as he hops in his truck.
He nods and drives off, and I walk back onto the street as if nothing happened. Just a cowboy carrying a dress for his pregnant friend.
I climb in my truck and sit for a minute. Staring at the cracked phone screen. At the missed call.
Something's wrong. Not just the knife. Not just the cars. Something bigger. I look at the unknown number one more time.
Then I toss the phone on the dash, start the engine, and drive back to the ranch.
Whatever's coming, it's coming fast.
And I've got a feeling I'm not going to see it until it's already here.