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“Alright, they’re gone. Now, give me my horse before I snap this pretty girl’s neck,” Wayde hissed.
“I need help understanding something first,” I quickly stated, swallowing the second wave of adrenaline-fueled nausea.
“No more negotiating!” he snapped.
I narrowed my gaze, keeping as calm as possible. “Is killing someone over a horse that’s not yours, really worth it?”
“It is my horse!” he shouted.
“Really?” I gasped, feigning shock.
Briar’s brows twitched, confused and worried, but Wayde slackened his hold on her hair just slightly. “You really think it’s hers? Is that what she told you?” he asked.
I nodded slowly, purposefully pulling exaggerated confusion on my face. “Did she lie to me?” I mumbled and then pulled my brows together and looked directly at Briar. “Did you lie to me?” I shouted even louder.
“That’s what she does,” Wayde said, his lips sliding into a rather greasy, triumphant looking smile. “She lies, and manipulates, and tries to ruin people.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” I mumbled and loosened my hold on Sundance’s lead rope. “How am I supposed to know whether you or she is telling me the truth? How do you know she tries to ruin people?” My eyes darted wildly between Briar and Wayde, feeding into the desperate, last-ditch attempt to hopefully lead Wayde into a trap of confession.
“Because she and her father tried to ruin me! All I have left is that horse! Nothing I did was good enough for them, apparently, so they sent every authority possible snooping around my place,” he explained.
I let my jaw tremble, locking onto Briar’s terrified expression, hoping to convey my faked confusion. “So, what’d you do?” I whispered.
His grin widened even more, as if he seemed excited at the idea of telling his wicked ways as if it was something to be proud of—as if he’d already won when he was so deep into losing. He patted Briar’s cheek and then spoke. “I decided to ruin them. Which meant getting rid of Thomas Kensington first.” He chuckled and turned his hollow eyes to look at Briar. “You really think your dad lost control of his truck that night because of ice? No, I threw a litter of puppies out in the middle of the road right as he was cruising on by. And he swerved out of the way just in time to hit the telephone pole.”
Her mouth opened, a cry of pain so earth shattering, Wayde had to keep her on her feet. Tears tumbled down her cheeks as she shook her head in denial. Disgust rolled hot through my veins as he made it sound as if what happened was a good thing.
“But that didn’t get any of the authorities off of my back,” he continued, jerking her upright. Silent agony coursed through her body, the desperation clear in her eyes that stayed locked with mine. It took everything in me not to unleash those chains that restrained me from sending him to meet the ferryman at this instant.
Yes, I wanted him dead.
“So, you what?” I hissed, the coolness in my figure fleeting by the second. If this didn’t end soon, he’d see right through my charade.
“I went after Briar. I wanted her to have nothing, to have everything she had taken away from her just as she was doing to me. So, I started with her cattle.” He snickered and rubbed his cheek against Briar’s face. Nausea curdled in my throat, but I remained planted.
“It was easy, too,” he continued. “Bought me big ol’ buckets of sodium chlorate, and just dumped that stuff all over her pastures whenever I knew she wasn’t home because of my tracker on her truck. Or I did it at night when she was sleeping because I knew she was staying locked in that house as much as possible. Such a wimp this one is. Scared of me, too, and rightfully so.”
He threw back his head and laughed as my fingers unintentionally tightened around the lead rope. “Then she stole my danged horse. I knew it was her that did it the moment that he went missing, because she disappeared, too, and I watched the little dot indicating her location just move farther and farther away. So, I hired a dozen men to go after her. The plan was that once they took care of her, I’d come to collect my horse easy peasy.”
He shook his head and then ran a hand down Briar’s arm, a look of sickening lust coating soulless eyes. Rage clawed like a grizzly bear desperate for its final meal before hibernation in my belly. I nearly hissed through my teeth, a threatening warning to not have him touch her. Luckily, he started speaking again before I had the chance.
“But, over two weeks passed, and nothing. Then that neighbor who’s missing a couple fingers drove this big eighteen-wheeler over to her abandoned property and used his tractor to load some of the dead cattle.” He paused and shook his head.
“Destroying her home and her livelihood wasn’t what you wanted, though?” I questioned, my heart tearing in two with the front I was putting on. He ripped Briar’s hair back again. She clutched at his hands but kept her tortured scream in her throat.
“She still had people who seemed to care about her and help her no matter how sticky of a mess things were! They needed to be gone too. She deserves to be broke and alone just as I am!” He pushed his head tighter against her. “Those men you thought were illegal hunters, they were after her. The drunk driver was supposed to kill her.”
And he swung his gaze toward me. “BUT YOU KEPT GETTING IN THE WAY!”
“Yeah,” I nodded, no longer able to keep up the facade. Besides, there was the confession that was needed. “That was on purpose.”
“What?” he snarled. “You know what, who cares. Just give me my horse.”
“Why now?” I stepped toward him, keeping hold of the lead rope, and Sundance hesitantly exited the round pen. “Why did you show up now?”
“Because I was an idiot to trust anyone else to actually do the job right! My mother always told me that if I wanted something done correctly, I should do it myself. And I was a darned fool to not have listened, but I am here now,” he snarled and jerked Briar forward a foot. “Now, give me my horse before I kill her.”
He shoved his free hand into his pocket and withdrew a switchblade, pressing the sharp iron edge against her exposed throat. “Give me him.”
