“Careful, cher,” I said softly and bit my tongue to stop anything else from coming from my mouth.
Sia blinked at me, and then her gaze followed a path down my arm to the hand that was still holding her elbow. She swallowed, and I watched as her cheeks dusted to red. “Th-thank you, Hush.” She stared up at me with those big baby blues.
I pulled my hand back and thrust it into my pocket. Sia carried on walking until we reached the edge of the ring. We arrived just in time to see the final barrel racer sprint around the track. The bitch didn’t even get close to Sia’s time. When Sia saw her name at the top of the leaderboard, she smiled so fucking wide it almost blocked out the sun.
It was a strange feeling, pride. I never had much of a chance to feel proud of someone before. Cowboy took up for me every day. Would fight anyone that even looked badly at me. But that was just us. How we’d been for so long I never really noticed it anymore.
But right now, I was so full of fucking pride for this bitch who’d swooped into our lives like an eagle riding a hurricane that I couldn’t help but smile.
A second later, Sia’s hand came down on my wrist, and her mouth dropped open in shock. “Hush!” she said dramatically. I fixed my gaze on her. “You can smile!”
I nodded and ran my hand over my shaven head. “Rare, I know. But it happens once every blue moon.”
Sia nudged me with her shoulder. “It suits you, darlin’.” Her eyes dropped, and she kicked the dirt with the toe of her boot. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it a whole lot more.” She threw me a wink. One I knew she’d fucking picked up from Cowboy. “And, you know, you’re kinda hot, more so when you flash those pearly whites in this gal’s direction . . .” My eyes blazed, stomach fucking tightening.
The announcer called out that it was time for the saddle bronc riders. I glanced behind us and saw Cowboy approaching us alone, no sight of AK, Vike, and Flame. Cowboy was almost at where we were stood when someone brushed past him, did a double-take, and then stopped dead. My eyes narrowed, trying to gauge what was happening, when the guy in brown chaps said, “Aubin? Aubin Breaux? Is that you?”
Cowboy’s attention snapped to the guy to his right. The smile he was wearing slipped right off his face. The minute I saw who it was, I was overcome with rage so fucking hot it almost burned me where I stood. My hands shook so fast I actually fucking looked down at my fingers, before curling them into fists. My chest slammed up and down as I lifted my head back to the fucker that had dared fucking speak to Cowboy. I was gonna fucking explode. I was gonna fucking tear him to shreds. I was gonna—
“Hush?” Sia said, putting her hand on my arm. But I couldn’t respond. My heart pounded too fast in my chest as I watched Cowboy recognize the man standing before him. Cowboy’s face flamed as if the devil himself had possessed his body.
Cowboy shot a brief glance my way. I blinked, my narrowed eyes moving to the tattoos peeking out from under the cunt’s collar, his sleeves . . . Tattoos I would recognize anywhere.
I fucking knew it. Knew they’d have gone down that road eventually.
“Fuck, man, where the hell have you been?” Pierre said, speaking like all that shit hadn’t gone down years ago. I told myself to fucking move. I told my fucking legs to run and smash the prick’s nose across his face, but nothing was working. Pure anger stopped anything on my body from fucking working. “You’re in Texas? This is where you disappeared to? I know a lot of shit went down a while back, but we never thought you’d leave town.” Pierre frowned. “Your folks have been looking for you for years.” Cowboy’s mouth opened to say something, but Pierre looked over his shoulder and signaled to someone.
I felt like I was watching a slow-motion movie as a face I never wanted to see again came strutting through the crowd. Cowboy turned. Jase Du Pont stopped as his eyes fell on Cowboy. Then he rushed through the crowd.
Him. That motherfucking cunt.
My body vibrated. I felt Sia’s hand press down harder on my arm, but I couldn’t fucking hear anything she was saying. All I could hear was the blood surging through my ears. All I could see was the fucking red mist descending over my eyes as the mark on my back ignited with fire.
“Aubin?” Jase ran over and took hold of Cowboy’s arm. “Fucking Aubin Breaux!”
Cowboy didn’t reply. Instead his eyes met mine. I knew if I could see clearly, they’d be silently telling me to calm the fuck down. But how could I when these assholes were here? In my fucking home!
“You here competing?” Jase asked, clearly not understanding that Cowboy’s silence meant he was one second from slitting his fucking throat. Because there was no way Cowboy wasn’t close to snapping. He hated these cunts almost as much as I did. “I’m here with my nephew. Just starting out on the youth circuit.” He turned his nose up. “Bit of a shithole competition for you, isn’t it? This what you’re reduced to now? Shitty rodeos in Texas. You were a fucking king of the rodeo once. Better than all of us.”
My blood boiled as I glared at the dark-haired, freckle-skinned prick. My foot moved forward, pure hatred spurring me on. “Hush?” Sia stepped in front of me. But I kept my eyes on him. The one I intended to fucking kill. “What’s wrong? Do you know those men?” Sia’s voice was panicked.
“What the fuck are you doing in Texas, Breaux? And please tell me you no longer have anything to do with that fucking mongrel, right? Fucking bastard ruined your chance at going pro and brainwashed you. Fucking took you away from us, the manipulative cunt. Just like one of them to fuck up a good man’s life.” Jase spat on the floor. Sia sucked in a sharp breath, her head whipping to Jase. Her nails dug into the flesh on my arm. I welcomed the fucking pain it caused. It spurred me the fuck on.
Cowboy’s eyes had slammed to me the minute the asshole’s slur was ejected from his stupid fucking mouth. Jase, trying to see what had caught his old buddy’s attention, swung around . . . and his gaze collided with mine.
My face was stone, my cold eyes locked on his so tightly that I could see a dribble of chewing tobacco escape his mouth at my presence. He spat on the ground again . . . the brown liquid hitting the toe of my boot. “You have to be fucking kidding me!”
He pulled on Cowboy’s arm. But before he could throw another racial slur my way, Cowboy raised his fist, and just like he did back in Louisiana when we were teens, smacked the fucker right in his face. Jase fell to the ground, jumping back up when a bunch of his buddies came running over. Brushing Sia’s hand from my arm, I ran over, breath echoing in my ears, to where he stood. Jase rounded on me the minute I arrived. “You fucking half-breed bastard!” he hissed, then lurched for me. I smashed my fist into his face. Over and over again, letting the bone crack and the flesh split under my knuckles. I fucking unleashed hell, the cunt’s tattoos driving my fucking rage. The mark on my back my fucking fuel.
Only a few seconds later, I heard, “Well, well, what the fuck do we have here, ladies?” Viking’s booming voice carried over the motherfuckers I was gonna take down. For everything they’d done. For those nights they came for me. For that one fucking night they—
“What’s this? Another mongrel lover? You like the white-and-black pollution too, huh?” Jase had barely stopped speaking, stumbling away from me, blood drowning his fucking ugly face, when Flame jumped forward and knocked the fucker out.
“No!” I screamed, about to throw Flame out of the way when AK yanked on my shirt. Blood dripped from my lip from where a stray punch had landed on my mouth.
“Get her the fuck home,” AK said. I fought to get free from his hold, needing to get to Jase. Needing to finish what he’d started long ago. Needing that fucker to feel what he had made me feel time after time after time, until the night when I went to hell and never fucking came back.
But AK held tight to me, grabbing my throat until I couldn’t fucking breathe. Viking dragged Cowboy away too, Flame taking his place slamming his fists into the racist bastards.
“I mean it! Get her the fuck home now! Last thing we need is to draw a fucking crowd.” AK pushed us away and toward Sia. Cowboy kept looking back at the dicks he’d grown up with, his “rodeo buddies.”
I only saw them as dead men walking. I wanted to go back. Needed to fucking end them all . . . I turned to see AK glaring at me. Flame and Viking were walking away from the mostly beaten men, a crowd beginning to form around those on the floor. These fuckers were like kings at these things. I didn’t care. I couldn’t give a shit what happened to me. I pulled my knife from my boot, then—
“Cowboy! Hush!” Sia cried out, stopping me dead. I turned to see her still standing, face ghost-white, against the fence. My hand tightened on the handle of my knife. I saw Jase’s eyes slam to mine through the crowd. Then the fucker smiled, and I—
“We need to go,” Cowboy said, moving into my path. I was panting, fucking breathing all over the fucking place as I just let my anger control me, giving Hades himself permission to fucking take these assholes down once and for all. “Val!” Cowboy spat, face red. “We need to fucking go!” Cowboy’s eyes fell to someone behind me. I followed his gaze, and saw Sia . . . fucking scared to all hell. Eyes wide as she watched me, knife in hand. “Don’t let her see this shit,” Cowboy said just for my ears.
My body shook from my toes to my head. Throwing my head back, I screamed out my frustration, the sound sailing over the small rodeo ground. Closing my eyes, I took a long breath, then put my knife in my belt. I turned to Sia and took hold of her hand, pulling her behind us. I started running. Cowboy took her other hand, and we pushed through the waiting competitors. Cowboy slid into the truck. He opened the window as me and Sia climbed inside, and shouted to Clara, who was waiting by the trailer. “Drive the horse back to the ranch. We’re leaving.”
Clara looked confused but did as he said. Cowboy gunned out of the competitors’ parking lot. He pulled out onto the road and started heading for the ranch. My leg slammed up and down. My blood was rushing through my veins at the speed of fucking light. I couldn’t calm down. I just kept seeing those cunts in my head. All the shit they’d done . . . their fucking tattoos.