by A. J. Downey
I set down my knife on the cutting board and leaned on my hands. If I had to guess, I’d say it’d been a half hour or so since I’d gotten off the phone with Dray. That meant I only had to hold out as long as it took Rush to get here. I most definitely didn’t trust Ken but we’d known each other since we were all kids, so while I didn’t trust his motives, I didn’t think he would do anything to physically hurt me.
He sighed and his shoulders dropped, he turned the chair at the head of my table out so he could face me and dropped into it.
“Wow, this whole thing about the farm has really done a number on you guys.”
“No, really? I hadn’t noticed.”
He held up his hands palm out, the offending keys to my house dangling from his thumb, “Woah, girl. I’m not the enemy here.”
“No, you’re just my brother’s best friend which doesn’t exactly put us on the same side here, Ken.”
He covered his heart with his hands and said, “Ouch, Bales, that really hurts.”
I tried to see if he was being genuine, but you never could tell. Not with the jet set. Fortunes were built and equally destroyed by thinking the wrong person was your friend. You had to be shrewd, you had to be cutthroat to really belong to the upper crust. Qualities that I may possess, but didn’t really have the heart to act on.
I sighed and came around the kitchen island and leaned against it, crossing my arms. The least I could do is listen to Ken’s pitch, even though I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it.
“Fine, why don’t you just tell me whatever it is that Philip sent you here to tell me.” I said it tiredly because I was tired. Tired of the whole damn thing.
Ken looked me over and sighed, “I really hate seeing you guys go through this, and Philip didn’t send me over here to do anything. This is all me. That being said, I do have to ask, why won’t you consider the offer on the table? You stand to benefit from it the most, being the majority owner of the place. They’re offering a lot of money Bailey. Enough you could buy yourself another horse farm.”
“I don’t want another horse farm, Ken. I want my dad’s farm. Blue Hills is way more than just another Kentucky thoroughbred racehorse farm. It’s one of my dad’s legacies, and my granddad’s before him. I can’t imagine that he would leave it to the three of us and want us to immediately sell it.”
Ken snorted and leaned back, kicking one leg out; his pressed jeans fitting him well. He had the rich playboy look. Handsome, like he belonged as a poster boy for J. Crew. He was too perfect, and it didn’t appeal anymore. Granted, I’d crushed hard on him when we were teenagers but we weren’t teenagers anymore and I was disillusioned. I wanted something real. I wanted a man like Rush. Honest, what you saw was what you got with him. It wasn’t always pretty but I was realizing honesty won out over pretty any day of the week.
“We talking about the same ol’ man?” he asked, and I heard my brother’s disdain for our father echoed in his voice. I hung my head and shook it.
“He may have been a shark in the boardroom, but he had some sentimentality when it came to a few things.”
“Like what?”
“Like this place, like our mother, like us...” I wanted to believe it, but sometimes I had a hard time believing. My dad had been multifaceted, that’s for sure. Strict and not always fair, but I sometimes wondered how much of that was him and how much of it was the way he’d been raised.
“Is that why he shipped you off to boarding school then?” Ken asked.
I knew why I’d been shipped off to Connecticut. The problem was, no one else did. My mother and father did it to protect me from the reporters surrounding the rape allegations against my brother. What they didn’t realize was that they couldn’t protect me from the scandal itself, not even so far away. I could read and use the internet, not that I really needed to. Not when my classmates were following it so closely and never gave up the opportunity to fill the rapist’s sister in on what was going on. They grilled me about Philip every chance they got until the faculty caught on and held an assembly telling the school to leave it and me alone.
It did more harm than good, I was pretty much shunned except for a close circle of friends. I was okay with that, though, keeping my circle small. You sort of had to in this lifestyle. God forbid your friend’s parents meet because of you and started brokering deals. I’d seen it destroy more than one friendship, burning everything to ash. This life was just pretty on the surface, believe me.
“You don’t know everything, Ken, stop pretending that you do.”
He sighed and got up, coming to me and putting his hands on my shoulders, giving me a little shake. “Bales, it’s me, seriously, there’s no need to get hostile. I’m just trying to figure out where your head is at on this, that’s all. You seem to be going through a lot of stuff and it’s like you’re not thinking clearly. I’m worried about you.”
I stared up into his hazel eyes, warning bells going off inside my brain. One of those moments where if you tried to explain precisely what it was that was freaking you out about a situation, people would look at you like you were crazy. I mean, Ken was a friend to my family, not just my brother. Hell, he’d been my first kiss as embarrassing as that was to recall right now.
I’d been seventeen and – hey, don’t judge, all girl’s boarding school, remember? Anyway, he was twenty and I was home for spring break. There was an abandoned quarry in the county that had filled with water and made a fantastic swimming hole. Much safer than a lot of the lakes and rivers in the area. River drownings were especially common because of unexpected currents, so we used the quarry.
I’d been the one to kiss him, and he’d let me down pretty easy considering. We’d been horsing around in the water and it just sort of happened. He’d set me back and had told me thanks but no thanks and said I was his best friend’s little sister, and how weird would that be? It’d hurt and been embarrassing, but as far as I knew, he’d kept it to himself. Still, it was embarrassing for me, even to this day which is why his proximity made me blush so hard right then.
He tipped my chin with the side of his finger so I’d look up at him and said, “Man, I should have gone for it back then, I actually really regret it now.”
I pushed past him into the free space between my kitchen’s island and my dining room table and said, “Yeah, but you didn’t and it’s too late now.”
He grabbed my wrist, and I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be some compelling romantic gesture, but all it was, quite frankly, was terrifying. I whirled and jerked it back but he didn’t let it go, his grip tightening.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be, right?” he said. “Seriously, Bailey, you should take the money, offload this place and move on. Buy out one of your competitor’s, renovate; make the place yours. You’d still have plenty left over and I could help you invest and grow your money. What do you say?”
He was close now, way too far into my personal space for my liking. I shook my head and said, “You haven’t heard me at all, Ken. I don’t want to sell Blue Hills. I love it here, it’s my home and I’d like you to leave.” I stumbled back and he just kept coming. I tried to pull my wrist free and said, “Let me go!”
“Bailey, come off it! You need to listen to me and stop this foolishness!” he had me back up against the table, the chair digging into me but I wouldn’t sit down. No way. Instead I leaned back and almost climbed the damn thing to get away from him. It was awkward but I couldn’t focus on that right now, I needed to focus on him and figuring out a way to get myself out of this situation.
Shit.
“I’m done listening to Philip and I’m done listening to you. I mean it, Ken. Get out of my house!”
He backhanded me with his other hand and I yelped, stars exploding across my vision. He batted the chair out of his way and before I could register what was happening, he had me up and I was flying, weightless for a moment; but what goes up must come down and this was no exception. I slammed down onto the hard woo
d of my dining room table top and Ken loomed over me, pinning my body with his, situating his hips between my legs and pinning me down.
Fear spiked in the center of my chest and dread unfurled in the pit of my stomach. Ken shook his head, his hazel eyes cold and his face a mask of irritation below which cold fury roiled, looking for any excuse to escape. It was one of the most terrifying things I’d ever seen but I had to stay strong, I had to stay calm.
“Let me go, or I’m going to scream.”
“No dice, princess. You know, I told him you wouldn’t go for it. I said I’d try to talk you into it but I knew it would probably come to this. I don’t want to hurt you, Bailey, but your obstinacy is about to cost Philip and I a lot of money. We can’t have that, so you need to sign on the dotted line.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I do that,” I said and he shook his head.
“I thought you’d say that,” he said and went for his belt, “I’m going to enjoy this a lot more than you are, Bales.”
My eyes went wide and I opened my mouth to draw breath to scream, kicking out, trying to fight, but before I got the chance my front door crashed inward on its hinges and a blur of muscle and hate barreled past me and pulled Ken off.
I pushed myself up, eyes wide as Rush knocked Ken onto his ass, kneeling over him. Rush wrapped one fist into the front of Ken’s shirt and pulled his other back. Before I could shout or do anything else, the fist he’d cocked back barreled forward into Ken’s face with a sickening crunch. Ken shouted and went limp but Rush didn’t let up, he was going to kill him.
“Rush! Stop! Oh my god, stop! You’re going to kill him!” I wrapped my arms around his one and pulled back and he miraculously stood up.
“He deserves to die, touching you like that.” He spit on Ken’s prone form and turned to me and all I could do was stare open mouthed.
Chapter 21
Rush
I almost turned around and went back down the porch steps when I saw them through the fucking window. It hit me in the center of the chest like a blow from a hammer. My first instinct was fuck she’s been playing you all along but then I saw her hands, pressed against the wood, palms down as she tried to push away from him. He put one hand in the center of her chest, between her breasts and went for his belt as she tried to get away and I’d seen enough.
I tried the front door but it was locked, like that was going to keep me from getting to her. I hauled back and kicked that fucker clean off its hinges, the doorframe exploding into slivers and shards of wood. I moved in and I brought the fires of hell with me. Dude put up his hands to fend me off. Aw yeah, it was a lot fuckin’ different when you weren’t the biggest dog in the fuckin’ yard anymore, wasn’t it?
I let fly and put my fist right into the bastard’s face. Then I did it again, and I was going to keep doing it, if Bailey hadn’t stopped me. I stood up, chest heaving and spit on his unconscious fuckin’ ass before I turned to my girl. She stared at me, skin ashen, brown eyes way too wide and her sweet mouth slightly agape.
“You alright?” I demanded.
“Are you?” she demanded back.
“Yeah.” I pulled my piece out of the back of my pants and pointed it at him.
“Say the word and I’ll pull the trigger, baby.”
She stared at me, the wheels and gears clicking and whirring. She shook her head and I put up my gun and pulled out my burner phone instead.
“Who are you calling, the police?” she asked.
I snorted, “Fuck no, I’m calling the cavalry,” I said. Dragon picked up on the first ring and without preamble I said, “Dragon, its Rush, we got a situation. Bring the crash truck.”
“Dead body?” he asked and didn’t sound the least bit grim more like he was asking the status of the weather out here.
“Not yet, gonna be though.”
“Bailey alright?”
I looked her over and said, “Shocky, but yeah, she’s a tough cookie.”
“On our way.”
“Thanks, man.”
I hung up the old school flip phone and shoved it back in my pocket. Bailey was pouring a bourbon, her hand shaking so bad she slopped half of it on the counter. She lifted the glass and downed what she managed to get in it in one shot.
She was staring at the douchebag’s unconscious body and I stepped over it. I went to her and pulled her into my arms, tucking her head under my chin. I pressed her into my chest and her arms went around my waist. She trembled against me and I sighed.
“It’s okay, baby. You ain’t got to be strong over this one. You do what you need to do. I’m here, let me be the strong one this time.”
It was like she needed permission or something and once granted she sagged against my chest and just lost her shit. As far as girls losing their shit went, I would take Bailey over just any broad any day. It started with a broken sob at first as she turned her face away from the mess I made on her dining room floor. She buried it into the front of my tee shirt and clung to me.
She cried, sure, but they were these tiny, heart wrenching, hiccupping sobs, not the great bawling mess I was accustomed to out of most women. No screaming, no theatrics, she just clung to me and wept as quietly as she could. It felt as if her heart had been shattered in a million fuckin’ pieces and I couldn’t be sure it hadn’t. I didn’t know who the guy was, I didn’t care. He really was a dead man, you didn’t put hands on Sacred Hearts property like that and live, and make no mistake; Bailey was mine. I think this shit just clinched it.
By the time Dray stepped through the ruin of the front door the storm had passed and Bailey just stared mutely, dispassionately at the groaning pretty boy on her floor who wasn’t so fuckin’ pretty anymore. She wouldn’t let me go, and I was okay with that, her arms tight around my waist, her smaller figure pressed tight into the protection of my larger frame.
“Who is this guy and what the fuck happened?” Dray demanded.
“Ken Sias, my brother’s best friend; I thought one of my friends…” she shut her mouth and bit her lips together, taking in a deep breath through her nose and letting it out slowly.
Dragon who’d come in after Dray stared down at the dude, face neutral and asked, “What’d he do to deserve this treatment?”
Bailey didn’t answer so I did for her, “Put his hands on her.” Dragon’s mouth turned down and he surveyed the damage, finally giving a little nod.
“Good work,” he said dryly.
“What do you want to do with him?” Dray asked.
“Kill him,” I said matter-of-factly. Bailey inhaled sharply and I rubbed her back.
“Relax, baby. The man asked me what I wanted to do with him, he didn’t tell me what we were gonna do.” I murmured.
“Right, think he’ll be missed?” Dragon wanted to know.
“Yes,” Bailey said, then swallowed and asked, “shouldn’t we call an ambulance for him?”
“Nope.” Dray said, and put his hands under the dude’s armpits. Dragon took his ankles.
“Where are you taking him?” Bailey asked.
“Hospital, have Doc patch him up and then when he wakes up, we’re gonna have a conversation,” Dragon said.
“I’ll fix the door in the morning.”
“Right, see you two later and thanks for all the fish,” Dragon said then he looked at his son and said, “One, two, three, lift!”
Bailey’s mouth fell open as they carried the injured man out and put him in the back of Dragon’s old pickup. Bailey and I had kind of naturally just followed them and we stood in the ruin of her open doorway.
She hugged to me tightly and shuddered and I sighed, “Well, that’s it then…” I murmured. “You’ve seen the worst of me.”
“Would you have really killed him?” she asked quietly, “If I’d said so, would you have shot him?”
“Without hesitation.”
She closed her mouth and had a faraway look on her face for what seemed like a long time. She let her arms slip from around my body
and took a step back and my heart sank.
“I think I need another drink,” she said and her tone was brittle and empty… soulless.
“We can do that, then I’ll clean up this mess.”
She nodded and we went back into the kitchen, our boots crunching over broken glass, the dinner she’d been preparing left forgotten where its components lay. I looked it over and she uncorked her bourbon bottle and took a drink directly from it, her dark eyes never leaving mine. She coughed a little and passed me the bottle saying, “Man up, we’re drinking dinner tonight.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the brass pair she was sporting, my hope rising a bit that I hadn’t just killed it completely, but I could see she had questions. I took a swig out of the bottle and waited for her to ask them.
Chapter 22
Bailey
I lay in the dark, wide awake and losing yet more sleep over my asshole brother, but it wasn’t the main thing keeping sleep at bay. I couldn’t stop seeing Rush’s powerful fist plowing into Ken’s face over and over again. His model perfect looks would never be the same again, I knew that in my heart of hearts but what scared me about the thought wasn’t the thought itself, it was the fact that I felt nothing about it. Well, that wasn’t precisely true, what I felt about it was satisfaction. Did that make me a terrible person?
Rush jostled me slightly and I jumped, his voice softly penetrating the dark of the room and the miasma of my thoughts to ask, “Hey, you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“What’s eating you? What I did to that guy’s face?”
“That’s part of it,” I confessed.
Rush grunted, “You ask me? That was some karma right there. No girl‘ll ever be suckered in by his pretty boy face again. He tried it on you, Bales, there’s not tellin’ how many he’s succeeded on.”
I blinked and my heart sank, not for me but for the fact that Rush was right. I suddenly didn’t feel like such a monster for not feeling bad for the cockroach. Still, if it ever got out what happened to his face it would be my fault, just by virtue of being a woman. Never mind associating with a criminal element capable of such barbarism. I sighed, and Rush pulled me a little closer in the dark.