His Brutal Game by Audrey Rush

CHAPTER 7

Wilder

The woods next to Pierce Mountain were one of my favorite spots to hunt. The trees were dense enough that they kept you guessing, always checking your surroundings, and once the fog dissipated, the swamp water permeated the air. Clouds covered the sky, leaving the area in perpetual dusk. Best of all, my wife hadn’t followed me here.

Eileen Hathaway had been missing for three months. The Feldman Farms hadn’t been called in until a few weeks earlier, which was when my father had failed to locate her. And while information about Eileen was scarce, there were hints she was still alive, living in these woods. A discarded water bottle. A forgotten sweater. A bent ID card. Empty paper bags. Someone was helping her survive out here, helping her avoid me.

But I wasn’t going to let that continue for much longer.

I set up a small camera inside of the bark of a tree, smaller than a horsefly, then set up a few more, opening the app on my phone to check that the footage was stable. If my instincts were right, not more than a day or two would go by before either she or her accomplice would cross these lenses. Then I would know where they were, and I’d move onto the second name on my list for the Feldman Trial.

The Feldman Farm didn’t mean much to me, but it granted me security.

I trekked back to my SUV, my footsteps breaking up the chorus of croaking frogs, then drove to The Trap. Across from a power plant, the pink building came into focus. A sign held up two pinups posed in the shape of a bear trap. Underneath it, the bubble text read, The only strip club with alcohol for a hundred miles! While my father and brother often held meetings here, I hated the place and hated myself for going there now, but I had some unfinished business to attend to myself.

Once I paid the entrance fee, I stood at the edge of the club, watching the exits carefully. When the dancers approached me, I dismissed them quickly, waiting for a specific woman’s attention. When she finally came over, a black dress snug against her form, she held out a hand with pointy fingernails.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m Bambi. I—”

“VIP room,” I said. There was no point in wasting time.

“Sorry,” she grinned. “I got fired from dancing here a long time ago.” She glanced up at the stage, where one of the employed strippers glared down at her. “But we can have fun out there.” She tipped her head toward the front entrance.

The idea of ‘having fun’ in a parking lot wasn’t ideal.

“I’ll buy you a drink,” I said.

“I’m already drunk, baby. I just need your fun tonight.”

She subtly nodded to a blond man a few feet behind her. He grinned at me as if to encourage an encounter.

Green. Maisie’s ex-pimp.

Bambi didn’t have a choice, then. It was the parking lot or nothing. I followed her outside. We went to my SUV. Despite wearing thin heels, she hoisted herself up to the SUV. I sat in the driver’s seat.

“How much do you want?” I asked.

“For slip and slide?” she winked. “A hundred with a lifeboat. Two hundred without. And—”

I gave her four hundred. She reached for my belt, but I blocked her from me.

“I want to ask you a few questions,” I said.

“Huh,” she said. She counted the bills again, her lips moving, then tucked them into her purse, humming to herself. “You even tipped me.” She wiggled her shoulders, then laid down, putting her head in my lap, draping herself over the console.

“If my man sees that I’m not working, he’ll question it. He gets jealous when we talk,” she said. “Says we’re being lazy.”

My skin crawled. I shoved her off of me.

“Lean on the console,” I said. “Pretend you’re using your hands.” She nodded, appeased. I crossed my arms, facing forward. “Tell me about Maisie.”

“Maisie?” Her eyes lit up. “We’ve known each other since high school. She’s a good one. Always looking out for me. Even from Green.”

I closed my eyes, then opened them slowly. “What happened with Green?”

“Well, you know how men can be,” she said. “One time, we were out with this party, and then I—”

She started rambling, and though I kept my eyes focused, I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to know about the men they had fucked together. Not because I cared, but because I didn’t care at all. Maisie existed solely to get my father off of my case. She was my wife by title only. Husband. Wife. Mother. Father. Son. None of it had any meaning.

“Did Green touch her?” I asked, interrupting her.

Bambi stilled, staying quiet. “Of course he touched her,” she said. “He’s our man.”

Was. I dug my fingernails into my legs, then faced Bambi, rage filling my skull.

Why was I here? I didn’t give a shit about Maisie.

“Did he hurt her?” I clarified, raising my voice.

Again, Bambi shrunk back. “You’re going to make me answer that?”

I let out a breath, then flipped through my wallet. I kept back in the shadows, then handed her a thousand dollars.

“You sure you don’t want to have more fun?” she asked. “Are you her new husband? Why didn’t you bring Maisie with you?”

I leaned over her, avoiding physical contact as much as I could, and opened her car door.

“Guess we’re done, then,” she said.

I stared ahead, waiting for her to leave. The car door slammed shut. I watched the building through the tinted windows, looking for that bastard in his white dress-up shirt, his blond hair. I had known exactly who he was that first night I met Maisie. At the time, I didn’t care who he was, or the arrangement he had discussed with my father, or what he had done to Maisie in the past. But now, I pleaded to the universe that he didn’t step out of that building. Because if he did, I was going to rip his fucking head off.

For giving Maisie up.

For letting her come into my life.

No. That was a lie. It wasn’t any of that.

It was for what he had done.

Before anything could happen, proving how I felt, I peeled out of the parking lot, racing back to the farm. None of the ranchers were out. My shoulders tensed. Inside of the Calving Barn, a table was stretched out between the corrals and chutes. My father and brother were near the office, the door propped open, speaking in hushed voices.

“Good. You’re here,” my father said, slapping my back. “Seems we’ve run into some trouble with the new hires.”

“Cash,” Sawyer said. “Equipment too.”

I scrutinized the table. Our employees were waiting, playing cards, talking amongst themselves, zoning out on their phones.

“One of the new hires,” I said.

“Has to be,” Forrest said.

“Could be your wife,” Sawyer said.

I rubbed my jaw. “Maisie wanders the pastures. She doesn’t go through the barns.”

“Are you helping her, then?” Sawyer asked.

Maisie had stolen from me the first night I met her, money that I had offered her and she had refused out of pride. At the time, I had found it amusing. Money hungry, but not so much that she’d take someone’s pity cash, and yet, willing to lower herself to steal it from others, as if theft gave her that much more power.

“It’s not her,” I said. But there was a big chance it was her. My father nodded, but Sawyer examined me. Read more than what I let on. I wasn’t defending her. I just didn’t want him or my father on my case. If they thought my wife was stealing, neither of them would leave me alone, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.

So why didn’t I get rid of her myself?

“Go on. Find the thief,” Forrest said.

The new hires were seated at the far end, still finding their place in our world. Once you had developed our trust working with the cow-calf pairs, we graduated the men to hunting, then later, to ranching in the Dairy Barn. These men were still on the pairs.

Forrest had taught me how to find traitors.

I opened a folding chair onto the hard ground. One of them glimpsed at me, then tapped his fingers against the table, his black hair ruffled. The next one wouldn’t look away from the deck of cards, shuffling them back and forth like a pendulum. The third man had dead eyes. He tipped his chair. They had to act tough. To prove themselves worthy of the Dairy Barn. There was more money in ranching for our other business.

I punched the table, and the three of them startled, finally looking at me. Card Shuffler flicked his wrist, then looked off into space again. Dead Eyes stared at me, not seeing a thing. Black Hair sniffed, then wiped his nose, not backing down from my gaze, until his eyes twitched.

He thought he could beat us.

Instinct surged inside of me. I went back to my family.

“The one with the black hair,” I said. Forrest gestured to Sawyer, signaling for him to begin.

“Daniels,” Sawyer said, motioning with his hand. Black Hair sighed and stood, coming up to the three of us, trying hard to seem like he wasn’t the disrespectful little shit that he was. “The rest of you can go,” Sawyer added. Black Hair turned to Forrest, making small talk. The procession of employees left the barn. I got dressed, pulling on my black leather gloves.

The door closed, and Forrest instantly went from his charming bastard persona, to nothing, his face empty. I stepped forward.

“What’s this about?” Black Hair asked. “Am I being promoted to hunting?”

Sawyer grinned, then pulled out his gun. “You stole from our family.”

Black Hair lifted his hands in defense. “I didn’t steal any—”

I bashed a fist into his skull. He threw punches back at me, but within a few seconds, he was on the ground, grasping his bloody nose. I grabbed him by the throat, dragging him to the barn doors. Sawyer pulled down the gate in the back of the truck, and I jumped up, pulling Black Hair with me.

“Lay down,” I ordered. He didn’t move. I railed into him. He cowered, whimpering like a little bitch, then finally laid down. “Don’t move.”

I slid into the driver’s seat. Sawyer hit the back of the truck, then got out his gun, ready to keep Black Hair in line if he tried to escape. As we passed my house, I saw Maisie’s shadow standing at the edge of the yard. Waiting for me. She was following me again.

At that instant, Black Hair lunged out of the side, rolling onto the pasture. I slammed on the brakes, then ran after him. I pulled out my gun, holding it to his head, his body instantly freezing.

“Not another inch,” I growled, my dick bulging.

Grass shuffled behind us, the wind mixing with footsteps. How much could Maisie see?

Why was I letting her follow me?

I put Black Hair in a chokehold, dragging him to the Dairy Barn. He stomped his feet, trying to push off the ground to get away. The stars rose over the fields, the chirping crickets serenading the sleeping cattle. The Dairy Barn was silent. We had been lucky to have a break in livestock orders at the exact right moment to take care of one of our own.

I pulled Black Hair into the barn with me. Maisie hovered in the distance, stomping after us, faster now, knowing that I was about to disappear into the forbidden Dairy Barn. I left it unlocked. What would I do when she found me? Would I finally kill her? Or would that prove that I cared?

The lights flickered on, and the electricity hummed, waking up with the barn. I turned on the video cameras and put on the right clothes, keeping an eye on Black Hair’s panicking face.

If Maisie wanted to follow me so badly, then I would let her.