Chapter 10: LAW

It was time to go back and deal with Dana, but first, I had one last thing to take care of. I pulled my phone again and made the call that would set things in motion. "Clay, get Brandon and Kyle and meet me in the clubhouse in five."

I headed back to the house in search of her and was surprised to find her in the kitchen cooking.

"I hope you don't mind; I cook when I'm nervous. It relaxes me."

"No problem." I was sure what I was about to do would either scare the fuck out of her or make her knee me in the balls.

"I'm going to ask you this outright this once, so think hard before you answer. Do you want to marry Royce Davis?"

"No." She started that shaking shit again, and I glared at her ass until she stopped.

"Your mother is leaving, but you're staying." I figured telling her that would ease her mind and stop that shaking shit; I don't know why but it bothered me.

"Why is she leaving? She can't want to go back there, you can't send her back, how can you..." she actually moved towards me in anger.

"Dana, don't ever ask me my business again or try to tell me what the fuck I can or cannot do; that shit pisses me the fuck off."

I was more pissed off than her little slip warranted, and I could see the confusion in her eyes, but I wasn't about to give her any satisfaction.

She'd brought this shit to me, and now I was contemplating doing something that could fuck up my life but good, so she could fucking deal.

I can't seem to catch a fucking break no matter how I cut it.

"I'll be back; finish your cooking but don't leave this house for any reason. Anyone comes to that door; you don't open it. I don't care who it is. And don't go near it or the windows. You think you can do that for me until I get back?"

"Yes, but what's going to happen to my mother?" I didn't answer her, just walked out the door. Seems everybody was having trouble with their hearing today or some fuck.

Sam caught up to me halfway to the clubhouse. "You told Sheila to get out?"

"You have a problem with that; you can join her." The next person that pisses me off is gonna land on their ass.

In the space of a few hours, three separate people have questioned me. I was either losing my edge, or I'd fallen down the fucking rabbit hole.

"No sir, no problem. Thank you." He looked around after saying that like he expected her crazy ass to jump out at him.

"Don't mention it; next time, don't let your dick do the thinking for you; if you do, I won't be there to pick up the pieces for you; I hate that shit."

"Sorry, boss, I won't do it again."

"Yeah, you will; cause you're young and stupid, and right now, pussy is king. Go make sure they know at the gate that she's supposed to be gone." He ran off to see to it, dumb fuck.

Most of the guys here are young. They had no prospects in town since Royce bought up and owned just about everything there was to own there, and he only hired people who were loyal to him.

Some people had scruples and weren't interested in working for a murdering asshole, so those people either had to leave their homes and move away to find work or starve.

When I'd started my little campaign, I'd opened the ranch to any who needed the work. That was before I became the unofficial head of a wayward group of misfits.

The funny thing was, it turned out that I need them just as much as they need me. Sure, dad had taught me about the running of the place, but there were men here who actually knew what the fuck they were doing.

I had the ranch up and running when I thought for sure it might go under. There was money to pay my people because dad had been a shrewd businessman.

There was one last thing that I had to see to, something that could mean even more money coming in. I'd found the notes in dad's papers not too long ago.

They had finally given me some insight into why a man like Royce Davis might want my family's land when he had so much of his own.

Especially so far out here, away from everything. Sure it could've been to build a shopping mall, and homes like some of the whispers had implied, but the notes told a different story, a more plausible one.

And if I pulled it off, it would crush Royce Davis once and for all. All I needed was the right time, and I'd get that shit started.

***

I found my boys waiting for me. There were a few more people here in the clubhouse now than there had been earlier because the place was waking up.

"Chaz and Ty call back yet?" I walked over to the bar area to get some coffee. I hadn't had time to eat shit this morning, and my stomach was starting to protest.

"Yeah, he's been looked after; it's just a concussion and a few broken bones. They wanted to keep him, but the boys are on their way back with him; they had to sneak him out."

"Did they use their real names?"

"Of course not, they're not stupid; they faked it and paid cash for the medicine."

"Fine, tell them to bring him back here and chain his ass in the old outhouse until he wakes up. Where's the friend?"

"He's being detained like you said."

"Good."

I didn't want anyone overhearing what I had to say, so we headed back to the meeting room and put up the shields.

"Royce bought her." No sense in beating around the bush; that's not how I deal with my guys, at least not the three that were in this room with me.

"What do you mean bought her exactly?" Clay sat forward on his seat and cracked his knuckles, his face set in lines of anger. It's good to see they could keep a cool head.

"Just what I said, apparently he saw her when she was twelve and decided he wanted her. At least we ought to be thankful the evil fuck waited until she was eighteen."

I filled them in on what I knew so far.

"But here's the thing, they're supposed to be getting married tomorrow."

"You said supposed..." Kyle had the beginnings of a smile on his face; my baby brother knows me so well.

"Yes, because she's not marrying him. So we have to figure out what the fuck we're going to do because we all know he's not gonna just give her up that easily, not after spending all that money to have her refined or whatever the fuck the freak was up to."

"We put double the men on the wall and called in the others for the day. There're still a few of our people out there working, but they've all got the call, so they should be here before the sun goes down. We all know Royce isn't going to do anything in the daylight."

"That's true, Brand, but how long are we going to do that for? No, we have to take the fight to him, make first strike."

"Okay, bro, I'm with you whatever you want to do, just say the word."

"I'll get back to you on that; right now, I have to go tell a young girl that her life is fucked." Not that it hadn't been before now, from the moment she came under Royce's radar, life, as she knew it, was fucked.

I left them after filling them in on some other shit that had nothing to do with Ms. Dana and her fuckery.

Kyle ran to catch up with me, "Travis is coming home." I stopped moving and looked at him. Finally, some good fucking news for a change.

"When?" Travis was our cousin. He used to spend the summers with us when we were all kids and had lived with us here up until the summer before the murders when he'd gone off to college.

After college, he'd gone away for a year to work for some company that was supposed to help him get a leg up, and now he was coming home.

"He should be here any day now, he tried calling you, but you never answer your damn phone."

"Why don't you go bitch at your wife bro, I've got shit to do."

"Yeah, about that, what do you plan on doing? I know you're not gonna give her to him, so what else is there? I mean, we can hide her out here for a while, I guess, but how long's that gonna last? This is no place for a girl like her..."

"Melissa seems to do fine enough."

"Yeah, but Mel grew up around us, she knows the deal, and she loves me."

"Yeah, well, don't worry about it; when I make up my mind, you'll be the first to know." The little fucker gave me that look like he knew some fuck I didn't.