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“Curiosity,” he says, silky voice low. “What’s it to you?”
My head is spinning—I need a fucking cigarette. Pushing past him, I pull on my coat and take a pack out of the breast pocket. He follows me out onto the porch and plucks the cigarette I light from my fingers. I’m so strung out, it’s all I can do not to take it back and knock him the fuck out.
I need to calm down.
I light up and start pacing back and forth. Jack watches me coolly.
“Sovereign is angry,” I say. “He brought you back, which means he’s planning on doing it tonight.”
“Killing the Garrison brothers?” Jack says. “Seems so.”
I stop, turning on him. “There’s a woman at Thomas’ house. I want her out of there, safe.”
The corner of Jack’s mouth turns up in a tempered smile.
“There’s always a woman,” he says.
“I mean it,” I say, voice flat. “If anything happens to her, I will hold you and Sovereign responsible. You leave her to me.”
“I’m here to kill Garrisons,” he says. “I’m not responsible for anything else.”
My blood is boiling. Maybe I’m not angry with Sovereign; maybe I’m angry with myself. I swore to keep Diane safe, and I let her sit in that house for months. I should have ignored her pleas to let her save Carter Farms. I should have walked in there the day they took her and put a bullet in both Garrisons.
“What’s she to you?” Jack asks.
I take a step closer. “She’s mine.”
His brows rise at the aggression in my voice, but I don’t wait around for him to answer. My boots carry me back through the frontdoor and into my office. Above the mantel is my gun rack. I pull two pistols and a rifle down, take my hat from the hall, and go back out to where Jack stands.
His eyes follow me, watchful.
I shove the rifle into his hand as I walk by, heading down the front steps. Jack’s silky voice cuts through, like a gossamer thread.
“Where are you going, gunslinger?”
My steps falter. I look down at the pistol in my hand and on my belt. I’m holding the magazine in my other hand, full of bullets. My eyes rise to the cold sky overhead, the branches of the oak like cracked ice across the gathering clouds.
I waited. I watched. I wanted.
I’m done. It’s not my fucking business what happens to anybody else. I don’t care if Sovereign knows I’ve been fucking another man’s wife. My pride is irrelevant. My patience is at an end.
I slide the magazine into the pistol, clicking it in place.
“Where I should have gone a long time ago,” I say savagely. “I’m going to get my girl back.”
I go to the barn and prepare the horses for a hard run. My heart is empty save for blind anger. All I know is that for all his faults, my father would never have waited this long to take what he wanted.
When Sovereign and Jack finally appear, I don’t have a fucking word to say as we mount up and ride out into the night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DIANE
I haven’t heard from Westin in a few weeks.
My heart isn’t broken, but it’s crumbling.
Soon, there will be nothing left.
