Chapter 10
Henley
The frigid air numbed my fingers through my gloves as I stacked bales. I was moving our pile to the other side of the barn after finding water coming in through a fucked board in the wall. With a long winter ahead of us, we couldn’t afford to lose an entire stack to mold.
While the task took entirely too fucking long, all work couldn’t be shoved aside because of the murderous woman currently throwing a monkey wrench into my life.
Not only that, but if I stopped helping out around the ranch and didn’t have Aubree as an excuse to disappear, the guys would grow suspicious.
I tossed a bale, mentally calculating how long the last twenty would take me, when a loud clang rang through the air.
I turned, hopping off the stack, and rounded the corner until I found Austin with his head aimed at the ceiling, hands on his hips like he was silently asking for patience.
Moving my gaze, I found a ratchet lying in a pile of bailing twine.
“Piece of fucking shit,” he muttered under his breath.
I crossed my arms, leaning a shoulder against a wood support beam as I eyed the massive dent in the side of the tractor he was working on.
“Givin’ you a hard time?” I asked.
Austin heaved a breath, barely glancing at me before shooting mental daggers at the machine. “It still won’t fucking start.”
“We go through this every winter. Shouldn’t you know what you’re doing by now?” We primarily used this tractor to plow snow on the property, and while it hadn’t begun dumping snow yet, we’d need it soon.
Something shuffled somewhere in the barn, Booker likely the culprit.
“I work on it every fucking time, and it’s always a different issue,” Austin gritted out.
I shrugged, crossing one ankle over the other. “Sounds like you don’t know what you’re doing then.”
Austin’s narrowed eyes landed on me. Clearly, neither of us were in the mood for this shit. “You wanna take a stab at it, dumbass? Seems like all you do is stand around like a fucking peanut gallery and don’t get any real work done.”
“Austin,” Booker warned, appearing from the other hallway.
The barn was huge, with stalls lining the center.
The front, where we were now, had a garage-type area where we could work on equipment.
The side I had come from was larger, holding extra supplies, snowmobiles, side-by-sides, old tack, and hay.
While Booker was also a grumpy asshole, he was at least self-aware. Austin, on the other hand, was a little more self-absorbed when it came to his attitude.
“No”—Austin walked over to the ratchet and picked it up, then tossed it right at my stomach—“let the know-it-all try. He seems to be a pro at everything.”
I grabbed the handle before it could knock the breath out of me, but the end still got a good hit on my rib.
“What the fuck crawled up your ass today?” Booker asked Austin, irritation blaring in his tone. He hated when we did this. Unfortunately, three men being around each other nearly twenty-four seven made for a hell of a lot of testosterone waiting to explode.
“Don’t worry, Aus.” I dropped the tool, the clang of metal on concrete loud. “I won’t be a problem much longer.”
Booker’s focus turned my way. “What the fuck does that mean?”
The anger previously showing on Austin’s face was wiped away, replaced with frustrated curiosity.
My lips pressed into a flat line as I silently cursed myself for opening my mouth. I was annoyed, and my inability to control that led to the one thing I didn’t want to happen: the guys knowing someone wanted me dead.
“Nothing,” I said, even though I knew that wouldn’t slide.
Booker’s arms crossed. “That’s not just nothing, Henley.”
“Spit it out,” Austin demanded. Impatience ran through the lot of us.
There was no way out of this, other than telling them the situation at hand. Austin was persistent as hell, and Booker had no sense of boundaries. Even if I didn’t say what was going on, they’d dig until they figured it out themselves.
Might as well save them the time so this wouldn’t be drawn out.
“Alright, fine.” I shifted back into my stance against the beam, as if it’d make this sound any more casual. “Someone was hired to kill me.”
Telling them my hired killer was Grace would likely not result in any brownie points for her, and with her spending more time with their girlfriends, I didn’t want that potentially coming between any of them.
“To kill you?” Austin’s voice was a bit too loud, making me extra thankful we lived in the middle of nowhere with no prying ears.
“Who would want you dead?” Booker questioned, likely already running through the possibilities in his head.
We’d been on the outs with a dangerous group ever since I lost the deed to the ranch in a bet.
We stole it back, but that didn’t remove the target from our heads.
Brynne and McKenna had suffered for it, and now I wondered if the focus had shifted to me.
When those issues had arisen, though, those other guys hadn’t been afraid to do their own dirty work.
It wasn’t likely they’d pay someone else to do it.
Because of that, I had reason enough to believe they weren’t involved. I’d pissed off plenty of other people over the years.
It was kind of my specialty.
My phone began vibrating in the front pocket of my jeans, text after text coming through. I didn’t have friends other than Austin and Booker, so the notifications only meant one thing.
I pulled out the device, ignoring the guys pestering me for answers as I clicked the first text.
I’d set Grace’s phone up to forward her texts to my cell without her knowledge. After she’d made the decision to have an entire conversation with someone else during our meal at the restaurant yesterday, I decided I wanted no secrets between us.
If she wanted to text Brynne, I’d know. If she was sexting with some idiot, I’d know. If she chose to make plans behind my back again, I’d know.
There would be nothing she could hide from me until I decided this was over. Though at that point, she’d be dead, so it wouldn’t really matter.
Grace: Which location was it again?
McKenna: The one on 6th Street, not Eagle Ave
Brynne: If it helps, it’s got a purple overhang out front
Grace: Is there parking out front?
Brynne: I’m waiting here with McKenna and there’s like two other cars in the lot. You’re good!!
Grace: So it’s a lot?
McKenna: Paranoid about parking, G?
Grace: Usually I like to scout the place out before I actually go, but since this was last minute I didn’t have time
Brynne: We got you!! You can park next to my car. There’s a ton of space
Where the fuck was she going this time? The woman had a threat dangling over her head to complete her orders to kill me, and she was going out with the girls?
Is that really who she was fucking texting yesterday?
When she’d told me, I’d been hesitant to believe her, but I guess she was telling the truth.
I pocketed the phone, then tugged off my gloves and fisted them, needing something to hold onto before I lost my shit. “I have to go.”
“You don’t get to say that shit and then walk away with no explanation,” Austin pressed.
“Technically, I can do whatever the fuck I want,” I replied, heading for the large door that led out of the garage area. I didn’t look back, knowing that pissed Austin off.
“Henley,” Booker called out as I gripped the handle.
I shoved it open while turning to face him. “What?”
“This conversation isn’t over,” he stated, a warning in his tone.
“Well aware,” I muttered before slipping out the door.
If I knew anything about Austin and Booker, it was that they couldn’t let shit go. Obviously, it was for things that mattered. Like my life, or the safety of their women.
Semantics.
I hated explaining shit to them. And once they got involved? I wasn’t sure I could keep Grace hidden from their wrath.
Finding where Grace had gone with the girls wasn’t difficult. There was only one business on Sixth Street with a purple overhang—a fucking spa.
The little killer was getting pampered.
How fucking nice.
She better be real fucking grateful I wasn’t barging in there and dragging her out with the strap of her thigh sheath wrapped around her neck. Instead, I planned on waiting her out and attacking when she left the facility.
I stared at the skeleton mask sitting on my center console, knowing that once Brynne and McKenna saw it, they’d know who it was. And if they knew what was good for them, they’d let me take Grace with no problems.
Grace and I apparently needed to have a conversation about staying focused.
She needed to be alert at all times, waiting for a text, call, or signal so we could find a reliable contact to figure out who had placed the hit on my head. Her stuffing her phone inside a locker and popping on a fluffy robe was not productive to the cause.
Lifting my gaze, I found a black Suburban pulling up to the spa. It moved slowly until stopping directly in front of the doors, then killed its lights. It wasn’t dark out, but the fog clinging to the buildings made visibility poor.
With the vehicle still clearly idling, the driver door opened.
I narrowed my eyes, watching as a largely built man stepped out.
He could’ve been anyone’s husband, probably picking his wife up after a few hours of relaxation.
But something about the way he moved had my suspicions rising.
Even from where I was parked across the road, I could tell he looked determined.
Given the current events, and Grace having likely pissed off the man at the club—if I knew anything about her, that much was certain—this didn’t sit well with me.
The man’s hand disappeared inside the front of his jacket as he rounded the hood and approached the spa. Right as he was about to remove it, a pillar blocked my view. In the reflection of the window on the front of the establishment, I saw the door swing open, then shut.
I had enough common sense to know that whatever he was grabbing for couldn’t be good.
Snatching my mask in my fist, I exited my truck. As much as I wasn’t happy with Grace, I couldn’t just sit out here and hope that the man wasn’t after her.
As I tried to keep my steps as light as possible on the asphalt, a thought hit me.
I couldn’t be the only one watching Grace’s texts.
It was the only logical explanation for why, less than thirty minutes after she’d been conversing with her friends about her location via text, a pissed-off looking man would walk into that same building.
Maybe he wasn’t sent to kill her, but a message could be just as lethal.
Though maybe Grace could use a broken bone or two, as a wake-up call.
I shook my head, pulling my gun out of the waistband of my jeans. If anyone was going to break her, it’d be me. The only reason that was my new rule was because she was vital to the mission.
Not because my cock got hard when I broke past her murderous outer layer to reveal the soft, sensitive layer she tried to hide away.
Carefully, I nudged the glass door open with my shoulder and slid inside. One quick glance around the small entryway showed it was empty. Now, I wasn’t one for spas, but that definitely didn’t seem normal.
There was a hallway to the right of the light oak desk ahead of me. After double-checking no one was hiding—or sprawled on the floor dying—behind the desk, I inched my way down the hall, listening for, well, anything.
I was met with silence, which could either mean the girls were entirely unaware there was a man with less-than-innocent intentions lurking while they got their facials or massages or whatever the fuck they were doing, or they were extremely aware and hiding because of it.
I wasn’t sure which would be the best-case scenario. Ignorance was bliss until you were staring down the barrel of a .9mm after turning into a prune in a sauna.
I pulled my skeleton mask over my face, then whipped out my phone to send a quick text to Austin and Booker. It wasn’t anything too particular, in case someone was also reading my texts. Just a location pin and the word girls.
They’d shit their pants and come running at the thought of anything happening to Brynne or McKenna.
There’d been too many close calls in the past, so I wouldn’t blame them.
Despite alerting the guys that something might be wrong, I didn’t think any harm would come to their girlfriends, unless this asshole was trying to piss a hell of a lot more people off.
I simply didn’t want them around for when I grilled Grace on how to be a proper fucking partner.
Were we partners though?
Again, I shook her from my head.
Now was not the time to solve the issue of whatever the fuck she and I were in this fucked-up mess.
A door closed down the hall, and I quickly plastered my back against the nearest wall. I quieted my breathing behind the mask, listening for any footsteps. When a minute passed and none came, I suspected the man was searching another part of the spa.
I came upon a room with at least a dozen fancy-looking wooden lockers and quickly found the one with Grace’s purse inside. I grabbed a few things, then left to continue searching for her.
Of course, the girls had to pick the one place with dozens of dimly lit rooms to spend a day of relaxation. Couldn’t they have gone ice skating in the next town over? Or, I don’t know, maybe hang out on the ranch we fucking owned? Horseback riding was great for decompressing.
I headed farther down the hall, still careful to be as quiet as possible. But in the next five seconds, too many things happened at once.
A shadow filled the distant doorway.
A curtain of black hair peered out of another hallway.
And I moved, fully prepared to shoot the fucker who thought he could get anywhere near my little killer.