Page 4 of Brutal Heir

“It? It?” I glare at him.

His eyes go wide. “She,” he switches quickly, realizing how pissed off I am.

Sage, the security lead, steps in front of me, back straight and head held high. Even then, she barely reaches my chin. Still, now I have little choice but to acknowledge her.

“Ezequiel,” she says, her voice steady. “I understand you’re upset, but we need to handle this properly.” She looks up, her eyes meeting mine.

“Upset.” I scowl down at her. To her credit, she stands her ground despite the fact her face is still pale as hell.

“Bill said—”

I lean toward her. “NothingBill saidis going to bring back that animal.” She clearly saw me put the animal out of her misery. “And nothing’s going to take away the suffering she endured at the end.”

“I realize that,” she says carefully. “Kelly Oil & Gas will take responsibility for this.” She waves a hand toward the grass. “Let me just get a report down—”

“What the hell good is a report going to do?” I challenge, my stance aggressive.

“It’s standard procedure,” she explains, overly calm.

“And then what?” I spit. “This fucker gets off scot-free?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “But we need to follow proper procedure and make sure everything is documented. Then wecan see about getting the ranch compensated for the loss,” she says firmly, her gaze unwavering. “Let me just take some pictures and we’ll get these guys out of here. I’ll work on getting an incident report together.”

“Fine.” I glance over at the crew, my chest heaving with barely contained rage. But as much as I hate to admit it, I know there are rules to follow. I just don’t like that they’re notmyrules.

“Thank you.” She nods, quickly turning away and reaching down to stick her hand in her back pocket. She brings out her phone, turns it on its side, and aims at the front of the truck. After several pictures, including some of the crew, she moves into the grass—without even checking the surroundings.

What in the hell? While I was there a few minutes ago, an animal could have slithered out of a hiding place while we were looking away. Doing my own sweep, I make sure she’s relatively safe as she continues to take pictures without looking down around her feet.

I glance at her hip. There’s no side arm, only a damn radio. Like that’s gonna help when she’s out in the middle of nowhere on her own. She heads back to the road. Well, at least she has sense enough to be wearing steel-toe boots.

Turning back to the truck, I check the bumper and headlight. There’s no damage. With no sign of an accident, he has to have been going slow, like he said. And yeah, he wouldn’t have seen her over the hood of that truck.

My anger dissipates as I stare at the kid again. By the look of him, he’s torn up inside with fear and guilt. Okay, I believe him. He isn’t doing well with being the reason for a life ending.

Still, he shouldn’t have been in this area.

“How did you get in here?” I ask.

The kid swallows. “The guard said it was the first left. The gate was open, so I thought it was here.”

That’s not right. “The gate was open?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sage lowers her phone. “It was open when I turned in here.”

“Damn it.” I run my hand over my forehead. It was probably one of the other idiots coming in for the rig move. I bet they came in and realized they were in the wrong place. When they left, they didn’t bother to close the gate behind them.

“We can put locks on the gates,” Sage suggests.

That annoys me even more. “So I have to lock the gates inside the ranch because one of your people can’t leave shit like they found it?”

She inhales deeply. “We’ll notify the vendors that they have to close the gates behind them, if they have to open one.” Her tongue comes out to wet her bottom lip. “We can also set up some cones in front of the gates when we have these many vendors on the move.”

“Hell of a lotta good that’ll do me now.”

“I’ll get these guys going and make sure the driver’s escorted off the ranch.” She looks over at the kid. His shoulders slump when he hears her.

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