“It was a distraction to get you off the ranch.” His voice was so small I almost had to strain to hear it.
“That’s a shame.” Remy shook his head as he straightened out of the chair, making the guy shrink back into the one he was tied to.
“You can’t hurt me. I-I-I’ve got rights.”
When we’d first entered the stables, the guy had thrown around threats and been a cocky motherfucker. He’d tried to intimidate us by telling us his name was Skull, and he was the head of a gang in Kissimmee none of us had ever heard of.
We’d all kept quiet, and the ranch hands had taken up their positions around the room. No one had said a word or made a noise until we saw and heard the guy crack, as he’d yelled out it was all Marni’s fault.
Yeah, he’d gone from a ‘hard ass’ to someone who ‘had rights.’ And this, kids, was why we didn’t do dumb shit like join gangs who thought they were invincible. Every man cracked—we all had a point of weakness that broke the fragile hold we had on how strong we felt we were. Even the hardest man had a weak point, regardless of who he was.
This man, Skull, had cracked, and we hadn’t even said or done anything. Normally I’d pity him, but at that moment, the reason for my existence was in a hospital bed, waiting to find out if there was any permanent damage to her brain and central nervous system because of this pathetic fucker. I was holding myself back from beating the shit out of him.
Tapping Remy on the shoulder, I let him know I was taking over.
“You do have rights, that’s correct, but so did my woman. Where were her rights when you put her in the trunk of your car and drove away, forgetting she needed oxygen and that the sun would make the small, enclosed space heat up dangerously?”
His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but he didn’t say anything, as his eyes danced to whoever was standing behind me.
“Tell me, Skull. I’d like to know where her rights were.” Sitting back, I stretched my legs out in front of me.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to reply, I shrugged. “Okay, then, tell me why we should be the ones to pay the money Marni promised you. It was an agreement between you both, and we had no part in it, so why would we foot the bill?”
His chin tilted, like he was trying to look imperious. “Because you have the money. Those horses are worth thousands.”
“Did you plan to sell the ones you stole?” When his chin dropped, I knew I’d hit the nail on the head. “What about their papers? To sell them and get their true value, you’d need to have their paperwork.”
“Everyone has a price,” he muttered. “I don’t know shit about horses, but there are people who’d want them without the papers.”
He had a point. Papers were meaningless to many people, but without them, they couldn’t do the jobs we did with them or use them for significant racing events.
“All you do is make them fuck other horses for money anyway. Who the fuck cares?” he muttered, and the red haze I had going on got worse.
Before I could say anything, though, Remy took over. “You’re out of your mind if you think that. Those horses are protected from people trying to extort them like you were planning to. One of them is a breed with only roughly eight thousand left because of fuckers like you. Yeah, they breed, but the owners of the mares are decent people who care about their horses. We make sure of that.”
Leaning in closer to him, Remy hissed, “People like you who don’t see them as living creatures and as just money are the reason why we do our job. Then again, I wouldn’t have hurt one of them and then hurt an innocent woman because I got greedy.”
The guy’s head snapped up, and he glared at my best friend. “Fuck you! I didn’t hurt that horse, Marni did. I didn’t even tell her to fucking do it because all I wanted was the money. And I didn’t hurt her. It’s not my fault the piece of shit car broke down.”
Realizing the fragile hold I had on my anger was close to snapping, I got up and moved closer to Gus, the only guy big enough to hold me back by himself if I let go. “Get him the fuck out of here.”
Elijah and Remy moved at the same time to untie the fuck from the chair, then they shoved him outside and turned right, taking them out of my line of sight.
“You did good, man, not fucking him up,” Gus rumbled in my ear, clapping his hand down on my shoulder and almost taking me to my knees.