Page 40 of Wild and Unruly (Three Rivers Trevors Ranch #3)

stetson

If you asked me how to get to this little hut in the ground in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Mitch drove for almost an hour, and it was mostly due to the many, many twists and turns that led us to wherever we were going.

None of us spoke the entire way up, all dealing with the seriousness of the situation. I sat in the front while CT, Logan, and Jax sat in the back. And Mitch drove with a cool and closed-off demeanor that’s become of him since he came home.

Once upon a time, Mitch was more open. He was a happy guy, shy maybe, but happy.

He would engage in conversation. He would hug our mom and us, be outside and play with us until the sun went down each night.

Maybe he would prefer to sit in the corner and strum his guitar or read a book, but he wasn’t mad, just… content to be quiet.

Now, there was something that lay underneath his skin. There was anger, maybe hate, maybe regret, that hung in the air all around him.

I feel like I don’t know my brother at all.

Mitch slows, turning on a road I can barely see, and you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t told it was there. He drives a few hundred feet before pulling off the side of the road.

There, sitting about twenty feet away from us, is a man leaning against a van, a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Behind him is a small hut that juts out from the ground. It is tiny and looks like an old well house.

I look over at my brother, but he just turns the truck off and gets out. We follow suit, and I look to my other two big brothers, who are watching with concerned interest.

He steps up to the man by the van, and finally, as my eyes adjust to the dark, I see who we’re meeting.

“Mick,” Logan says, reaching out to catch his hand in a shake. “How ya been?”

Mick smirks and shrugs. “Can’t complain.”

Mick was part of the Iron Horse motorcycle club here in Fall Springs. He’s been around forever and was in the same grade as Logan since there was only one school for both cities. He also was part of the reason we were able to save Thea last year.

He looks us over, and his gaze stops on me, giving me a nod, and I roll my shoulders back, reaching a hand out to shake his. “So, this is for you, huh?”

I glance at my brother Mitch, who’s standing with his feet braced, arms crossed, not saying a word. “What is for me, exactly?”

Mick gives a smirk and nods his head toward the shack. I take a step toward it, hearing the crunching of footsteps behind me. I open the door, blinking in surprise at the steps that reveal to me that lead down.

I look at Mitch. “What the hell is this?”

He clenches his teeth. “It’s where bad guys go.”

I close my eyes briefly and wonder how the hell I’ve gotten myself in this situation. “Mitch, how do we know we can trust him?” I ask in a low voice.

I want to find Tommy and take care of him, get him out of our life for good, but I’m not risking prison for it.

“You can trust them. They’re my brothers.”

Staring at Mitch, hurt lances through me. Logan and Jax turn to look at Mitch, confusion and hurt splashed across their faces.

Opening my mouth to say more, I pause when I hear the moan from below. Shit. He really was down there. Mitch moves past me, clomping down the stairs one at a time slowly, as if letting Tommy hear the slow descent of footsteps will amplify his fear.

“Stets,” Logan says in a hushed whisper, putting on his leather gloves like the rest of us already have on. “You don’t have to do this. We can take him somewhere and place an anonymous tip for the police.”

I grit my teeth, thinking through my options. But then, her face flashes in my mind. Her beautiful, lovely, battered, and bruised face and I wonder how terrified she must have been, how scared she was when this man came and used his strength against her like that.

I hear more moaning and flesh hitting flesh.

The sound of pleas rises to us, and I rush down the steps, my brothers and CT right behind me.

When I find purchase at the bottom, I see Tommy sitting in the middle of a curved floor, his head hanging back and blood dripping from his nose.

He’s tied to a chair and looks like he’s been here a while.

Looking at Mitch, I see his jaw tense as he looks back at me. “He’s all yours.”

Tommy lifts his head, glancing at the four of us in front of him, and his skin fades to a deathly color. “Shit.”

CT and Jax go to the left, finding places to lean while they watch. CT smirks at Tommy and winks, and Tommy’s frantic eyes return to me and Logan. “What’d I ever do to you?”

His question is directed at Logan, and my brother just crosses his arms, standing there without saying a word.

When Tommy’s gaze meets mine, a whole new world of anger spirals through me, and I take a step toward him, clenching my leather-covered hand.

It would hurt more if I punched him bare-knuckled, but I didn’t want my DNA all over him.

“What?” Tommy says, his eyes taking in my frantic look. “What? What?”

I could tell he was starting to panic. His heart rate was probably skyrocketing as we spoke, but I was taking sick gratification in knowing that I was doing that to him. It was wrong, but he had hurt so many people in my life. He’d killed a man that I was sure didn’t deserve to be killed.

“You know,” I start, taking a slow step toward him. “I’m not a very violent person.”

“Good, let me go.”

I walk around him, taking slow steps as I process what I want to say. “But when I saw what you did to my beautiful girlfriend, I have to admit, there was something that came over me that I’ve never felt before.”

“What?” Tommy squeaks. “Who’s your girlfriend? She probably came onto me, man! ”

I stop and look at Logan who shakes his head, disgust plainly splashed across his face.

I walk around until I’m facing Tommy again. “How often do you beat women, Tommy boy?”

“I-I-I—” He fumbles and shakes his head, pushing his hands against the ties that hold him back. “I don’t. I swear I don’t.”

Ha. What good are his promises at this point?

“And yet, you hurt my woman because she revealed the truth.”

Finally, he recognizes me, and his face blanches. “You’re talking about Bonnie? She?—”

I reach out quickly, my hand clasping around his throat and squeezing until he stops talking.

“You keep her name out of your mouth.” The growl that comes from my chest surprises even me, but watching my finger marks develop on his throat, in the same way that Bonnie’s throat has bruising along it, makes me glad I came all this way.

“That whore ruined my career! She told everyone I was a drugging psychopath!” His pleas were absolutely pathetic, even to someone like me who usually fell for it.

So, this was what it was like to give up your last flying fuck.

It felt kind of good, actually.

“I don’t really care what you think she did.

You touched her, made her bleed.” I lean down until I’m gazing into his eyes, and some part of me hopes that I look just as unhinged as I’m feeling.

The fear that spikes in his eyes tells me that I’m accomplishing just that.

“And now, I’m going to return the favor. ”

Finally, the facade of pretending he doesn’t know anything fades, and I watch as the true man he is comes out to the surface. “Fine. Do what you must. She got everything she deserved and more. ”

I react before I realize I’m doing it, slamming my fist into the side of his face, right beside his eye socket. He moans as I feel the satisfaction of hurting him pulse through my hand.

He spits on the ground, even though I haven’t even punched him in the mouth. That was coming. This slow torture of him was getting him to talk, and the more he did, the more I wanted to hurt him.

“She and her brother deserve what happened to them. Her piece of shit brother was going to take my place. Did you know that?”

I frown in confusion but interrupting the villain’s monologue wasn’t a conducive way to get information, so I let him speak.

“My dad loved Mason. He was going to start working on training him to take over the ranch.” He glares at me, spewing his venom. “ My ranch! The one I’d been promised since I was a kid, and he thought Mason had more potential than me.”

Jax snorts and shakes his head, drawing Tommy’s attention. “Yeah, you think that’s funny? Try having a dad who doesn’t give a shit about you and see where it gets you.”

Jax glares back at Tommy, his fists clenching like he was going to get in the next shot.

“Bonnie was a little on the chubby side.” He tilts his head, and I clench my fist, ready to take my next hit. “But I figured if I couldn’t get rid of Mason, I would just work on her a little. See if I could gain her empathy and convince her to tell Mason to quit.”

He smiles, and it shows the truly evil and purely wicked person that lurks underneath. “But I never had to. Mason’s horse acted up, Mason overcorrected, and boom. A cripple for life.”

Anger like I’ve never felt before courses through me. This piece of shit was the reason Bonnie’s life derailed so hard, why her brother was such a problem, why she was beat to shit now.

I’ve heard enough.

Without warning, I roll my arm back and keep swinging, feeling gratification with each punch that lands on his face, in his stomach. Blood spurts from his nose and from his mouth, where I knocked a couple of teeth out.

I don’t stop until his pleas do, and even then, I can’t seem to get myself to stop.

“Stetson.” I hear Logan’s warning. I hear my brothers and CT start to tell me to stop, but I can’t. I was a man possessed, and this man in front of me, this sniveling fraction of a human being, he had hurt the one thing on this earth that I love more than anything.

Payment was due, and I was collecting.

Finally, when his head is lolling and his eyes no longer stay open, I stop.

My chest heaves, my gloves are bloody, as are my jeans and boots. God knows what my face looks like. Stepping back, I don’t even look to my family around me as I turn and make my way up the stairs and back to my truck, leaving behind this chapter of our lives and moving on to something better.