Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Are you out here alone?” I asked, taking a step closer to the crack that looked a lot wider than it had when I was a kid. Sure, the earth was always moving, shifting, cracks grew wider, erosion happened.
But this… this wasn’t that.
This was mining of the rocks.
“Not anymore,” Sonny said. He sounded playful, but I knew him well enough to hear the false note in his voice.
Before I could even think to move, though, I felt him moving in behind me, the warmth of his body heat, the breeze of his breath on my hair.
His hand grabbed my gun and yanked it out of the holster, then pressed it into my back.
“You bastard,” I said, shaking my head.
I was too pissed off to be shocked.
Because it all just… clicked into place.
Sonny, who’d dedicated his life to this ranch. Sonny, whose father had done the same. All the long days, the heavy loads, the grunt work. Sonny, who likely saw himself as a second son to my grandfather. Sonny, who knew this property as well as I did.
Sonny, who knew how to fix every kind of engine on the ranch. Sonny, who could easily have fucked with my father’s hobby plane once he knew my father would have inherited.
Sonny, who knew my grandfather had hired private investigators to track me down.
Sonny, who had access to the minerals, who might have been able to dig out enough to pay those investigators to become murderers.
Sonny… who had access to my sick grandfather, even.
Maybe I should have thought that was impossible. But ranch life was… violent sometimes. I’d seen him shoot wolves and bears without blinking. I’d seen him slaughter cows if he even suspected they were sick or injured.
We were all just animals, after all.
And, surely, it was easier to mess with an engine, hire a hitman, or give my grandfather too many pills than it was to physically get down in the dirt and kill a living creature.
He could have done it.
He could have done it all.
And the motivation was simple, wasn’t it?
He was stealing from the ranch.
For who knows how long.
For who knows how many millions of dollars.
If I came back, the ranch was no longer just sitting there, unused. There would be more testing and surveyors and offers to purchase the land.
So I had to die.
So did Denali.
Then he could disappear into the sunset, with no one the wiser that he’d taken the minerals with him.
“I deserve this. I deserved to get all of this,” Sonny said, that familiar voice of his gone bitter over the years. “But, no. That old bastard had to have his come to Jesus moment when he got sick. Needed to leave everything to you and that bastard of yours.”
If there was anything he could do to strip away my fear and replace it with anger, it was bringing my daughter into this.
“Did he actually die from his sickness, or did you kill him?” I asked as the gun pressed into my spine.
“He had a foot in the grave. I just gave him a nudge.”
“Why not wait it out?” The gun pressed harder. “He was onto you, wasn’t he?”
“I slipped up,” he admitted. “Said something about the plane I shouldn’t have. Had to act before he reported me.”
So he had done it all.
Some part of me wanted to believe it was all just some crazy, asinine story I’d come up with. But, no. He’d actually done it. All of it.
“And look how easy you made this last part for me,” he said. “Came right to me. Luckily, blood should wash off the rocks pretty easily. Walk,” he snarled, jamming the gun so hard into my back that the pain shot up my spine.
I didn’t have another weapon on me. And I knew better than to think I could outrun a gun being shot at me.
But in the crack in the earth in front of me, there were a lot of rocks. Sticking out of the walls. Scattered on the ground.
If I could just grab one…
So I walked forward.
“What do you plan to do with my body?”
“Lotta predators out this way. There’d be nothing left but bones in a few months. Then those can just get crushed up pretty easily. If I’m still around by then.”
“Someone will look for me eventually,” I said. “Someone is watching my daughter. They’ll get suspicious if I don’t check in.”
“Well, that won’t be a problem for long. She’s got to go too. Neither of you deserve this ranch.”
“You know what the sad thing is, Sonny? If I’d been told and came here and saw that you were still working here, I would have cut you in.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I really liked you once, if you remember. And I saw how hard you and your father worked. I would have cut you in.”
“Not enough. Not as much as I’ve gotten myself. How much I’m gonna get myself once you’re gone. Get on your knees.”
Gladly.
There was a big, sharp rock right in front of me.
My body was blocking it from his view.
So I started to go down, but before my knees hit the ground, my hand closed over the rock.
I whipped up and around, grabbing his wrist with the gun and pushing it up into the air as I swung with the rock, cracking him in the mouth. Then nose.
He cried out, cursed, then below all that I heard it. The gun cocking.
I didn’t think. I lowered down and rammed into his midsection, catching him off-guard enough to send him stumbling back, catching the corner of the stone.
He grunted, his arms flying out to try to catch himself.
The gun clattered to the ground and I flew at it. But the second I closed my hands around it, both of his were on mine, prying, crushing, making pain shoot through my hands.
I was half-blind with fear and anger and a bone-deep need to survive, to make it back to my little girl… and the man who had begun to mean so much to me.
Everything blurred around the edges as we fought over the gun, as we both lost it, lost sight of it, as all that was left was hands grabbing, hitting, slapping.
My back cracked against the wall, stealing my breath, making my eyes water.
Then I saw the rock in his hand.
I forced my body to go dead weight, dropping down faster than he could swing.
It was as I was down there, trying to hold onto his legs so he couldn’t grab me. I felt it then.
The bulge under his jeans.
I yanked up his pant leg, hoping for a gun.
But it wasn’t a gun.
It was a hunting knife.
A drop point hunting knife.
I clawed at it just as Sonny got a hold of my hair, yanking so viciously that tears flooded my eyes and my scalp screamed.
But I had the knife.
There were no thoughts right then.
Just survival instincts.
Just action.
Tightening my hold on the knife, I plunged it into his thigh, feeling the hot blood trickling over my hand as Sonny roared.
I yanked it back out, reaching higher, and stabbing again. And again.
The hand released me as he yelled out in pain as I yanked the knife back out of his pelvis.
“You fucking bitch,” he snarled.
He kicked out, sending me flying backward, but I held onto that knife like the lifeline it was.
Something stabbed me in the back and thigh as I landed and I scuttled backward, making it bite into me more as Sonny loomed over me.
He bent forward.
And I just… stabbed and stabbed.
Into his calf. Leg. Thigh.
It was the thigh that did it.
As soon as I yanked the knife back out, the spray jetted, splashing across my face, my chest, my arms.
I reached up, wiping my face. But the spray just kept coming.
Then Sonny stumbled, dropped.
When my gaze moved up to his face, he was ghost-pale, wide-eyed, and slack-jawed.
He reached down, pressing his hands hard into his thigh as I scrambled backward.
The blood wasn’t spraying, not anymore. But it was still pouring out of his leg way, way too fast.
I watched as Sonny’s head wobbled as he dropped onto his ass. Then saw him fall sideways into the rock wall, not even reacting to the rock that his face rammed into.
My heart had taken up residence in my mouth. I was gagging on it, and the scent of copper that filled the crevice we were nestled in.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t even think.
All I could do was stare at Sonny’s lifeless body.
His whole body was slack.
His breath was weird. It went from fast, frantic, to slow and deep, and, finally, to these weird gasping sounds.
I needed to call the police.
Get him an ambulance.
But I couldn’t unfreeze my body.
Then… there was no more gasping.
No more breath at all.
He was dead.
That seemed to pierce the bubble I was stuck in. I gasped for air as I jumped to my feet.
But instead of moving back, I stepped forward, grabbing a rock as I went, just in case.
I kicked Sonny’s leg. Once. Twice. Three times.
Nothing.
I don’t know how long I stood there staring down at him.
But eventually, I seemed to decide he couldn’t hurt me again. Then I turned and walked back to the house.
I honestly wasn’t even conscious of the climb, the descent, the sights or sounds.
All I could think was that I needed to get back to the house.
I needed to get to York.
Then, like I conjured him, he came flying out the back door of the house and toward me.
And I knew it was going to be okay.