The Man Who Loved Cole Flores (Dig Two Graves 1)

Ned sniggered so hard some smoke escaped through his nose, but he was one of many onlookers, and Scotch wouldn’t spot him. The bastard was too drunk and too furious to look Ned’s way.

Scotch threw himself at the madam and managed to shove her at the wooden steps of the brothel before the big man next to her could act. “I wouldn’t put a bottle in your dry old cunt, let alone my cock, you hag!”

Mildred screeched when she fell, and two girls ran to her aid. She didn’t have to order her man to act. The walking boulder was on Scotch in the blink of an eye, and he pushed the drunk into the dirt.

Even Ned flinched at the nasty crack in one of Scotch’s bones, but that wasn’t the end of it, because the elegant man who’d spoken earlier approached and took the gun from Scotch just as he was about to grab it.

“Don’t you fucking dare in my town!”

Only then did Ned spot the glint of a tin star on the man’s lapel.

Shit. What if the sheriff knew that there was a bounty of five hundred dollars on Scotch’s head and that he was a member of the infamous Gotham Boys? The town folk would rightfully assume his cronies were somewhere nearby, and a posse of less than half the men populating the street might prove devastating.

The giant glanced at the madam, who squeezed his trunk-thick arm, and then he spun around, swinging his fist between Scotch’s eyes with a force that could have smashed all the bones in his face.

“How dare you touch my wife?”

Ned’s fingers twitched, longing for the revolver holstered at his hip, but he did nothing. Scotch’s behavior wasn’t his responsibility. Were they really brothers, were this Cole, Ned would have acted in any capacity available to him, even taken hostages. But the tattoo on his forearm didn’t mean anything to him. It was only the sign of his determination to bring down the Gotham Boys, and Scotch among them.

He retreated behind the backs of several men standing on the porch of a small saloon that reeked of cheapest moonshine and watched as the street turned into a stage to entertain the men and satisfy the town’s sense of justice.

“You’ve got no idea what you’re starting here!” Scotch rasped, spitting blood at the big man, and in a testament to the prowess he used to have back in the day, he grabbed a blade from the man’s hip and slung it forward, slashing through the shirt and opening a shallow gash in his stomach.

“You motherfucker!” the human boulder roared. He didn’t need to fight Scotch on his own. The sheriff grabbed Scotch’s arms from behind and kicked him in the back of the knees with such force the knife dropped to the dirt.

“Murder!” a short man standing in front of Ned roared, with several others following his example until the street echoed with calls.

The sheriff looked around, his face shadowed. “You all saw it. Attempted murder.”

“Murder!” the men and women shrieked, their thirst sending shivers down Ned’s spine.

“This man is a danger to us all. To all of civilized society,” the sheriff continued in a booming voice.

“Do you know who I am?” Scotch yelled right before the man with blood dripping from his stomach grabbed his head and dunked it into one of the troughs standing in front of each building for the benefit of horses.

Ned flinched when the cigarette he forgot about nipped at his fingers. He threw it to the ground and crushed it into dirt with the front of his boot. He didn’t rejoice nor mourn and just enjoyed seeing Scotch’s body thrash for everyone’s amusement.

Ned used to think he’d want to see Scotch hang, but this was what the bastard deserved. His other crimes didn’t have to be acknowledged. He’d die the way he lived— like an animal that needed to be put down. Unless the madam’s husband found compassion in his heart, Scotch would soon be dead, snuffed out like the cigarette under Ned’s boot.

The cold night air reeked of blood, even though very little of it had been spilled, and the town’s inhabitants cheered a swift end to vermin that came into their town to spoil their community.

If Tom, or any other member of the gang had seen Ned stand by, they’d have carried his head back to camp on a pike. But they weren’t here, and with no one to aid him, Scotch got what he deserved—a coward’s death that came for him far later than it should have.

The giant held his gray, sweaty head underwater for a long time after Scotch stopped fighting, but when he finally dropped the corpse into the dirt and kicked it to boot, it seemed that the entirety of Three Stones roared their satisfaction.