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“You want to know what Barker Mountain is, Callista? It’s a goddamn cemetery for our enemies. Some who came to me still breathing…”
It doesn’t matter that I haven’t taken a life with my own hands in three decades. The years I did the truly dirty work left enough blood on them for a thousand lifetimes.
Tears pool in Callista’s eyes. “Why are you showing me this?”
I release a frustrated growl. “So that you’ll understand that you do not fuck with the Barkers, and you certainly don’t come up here making demands. You are here because you have to be. I’m keeping you here because I have to.”
Her brow furrows. “What do you mean, you have to?”
“Things aren’t always what they appear, Callista.” That’s as much of an answer as I can give her. “Your father made a shitty choice and created a big enemy, and now, we both have to face the consequences.”
She shakes her head, her blond hair practically glowing in the last rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re not meant to. Just stop asking questions. Eat, wander around the house, do whatever the fuck you want to occupy your time, but stay out of my business and stay away from me.”
That should be a strong enough warning for her.
That should make her understand without fully unraveling everything that’s going on, but she stares up at me with her wide green eyes, her bottom lip trembling.
“Am I ever going to see my father again?” She motions to the gorge. “Or is he going to end up down there?”
I take a step back from her, then another, but it isn’t enough space to keep me from wanting to comfort and appease the woman who has uprooted the life I thought I understood in only a matter of a few days. “That isn’t up to me.”
“What if he can’t fix it? What if…”
I clench my jaw.
It might be easier if she knew everything, if she truly understood, but getting her involved in Barker business would only put a larger target on her back when she’s already on the radar.
“Just stay out of it, please.”
That might be the first time I’ve said that word in thirty years.
The last time I did flashes through my head vividly.
Begging never worked, nor did pleading. The only way to get things done was by a show of force—something I learned far too young.
I close the distance between us until I can feel the heat of her body radiating into mine. The only comfort I can offer her—plus a little sage advice. “The only way we get through this is if you stay quiet and compliant. Do you understand me?”
Her bottom lip continues to quiver as she stares up at me, looking far too beautiful for this world and definitely for this place. “Yes, sir.”
I flinch at the word. “Don’t call me that.”
“Then what should I call you?” She raises a pale brow. “Beast?”
I snarl at her. “I don’t give a fuck, but you don’t ever call me ‘sir’ again. Do you understand?”
There was only one man who ever bore that honorific, and he’s one I’ve tried to outrun my entire life. He turned me into this monster I’ve become, and for that, I’ll never forgive him.
Callista retreats one step, then another, wincing as she sets down her injured foot. “Fuck…”
The worry that sparks in my chest is more troublesome than the woman who caused it. I shouldn’t care if she’s uncomfortable, shouldn’t give a shit that she’s hurt and still feeling it, or that it was, in some way, my fault that she got injured in the first place.
I shouldn’t care, but I do.
And that’s the most dangerous part of all of this.
Chapter Six
