Page 97 of The Outlaw and the Heir

I expected us to be marched deeper into the building, but instead, I saw the main room was finally lit with lanterns and candles. There were the missing men I’d been wondering about, with the elder Isaiah on his knees, his head still held high. Curiously, Joseph was seated. His teeth gritted as he avoided looking at everyone. There were three other men, one of whom stood in between the two Isaiahs, and I stiffened.

"Elias?" I hissed in surprise before I remembered I needed to keep my composure.

Elias grinned, and while I’d once thought his wide smile was attractively feral, now it just looked rabid. "Sammy, didn't expectto see you again. Heard someone matching your description was around here, but it wasn't until you killed poor Merv and Charlie that I knew it had to be you. Only you could be cornered and come out in one piece."

"All things considered, that's not a compliment at the moment," I said, looking around. "Or comforting, for that matter."

The escorts pushed us down to our knees. Ambrose looked at me. “You know him?"

"Do you?" I wondered.

"Looks just like his daddy," Ambrose growled. "Didn't know he had a son."

"Oh, great. Amazing. So Elias is the son of the leader of the group that was stirring up shit around here years ago. And your dad ended up killing his dad, and now he's here."

"You always could take a complex situation and reduce it to its finer components," Elias said with that same grin.

"Still didn't answermyquestion," Ambrose muttered.

"That answer isn't relevant to the situation at hand," I muttered back. "He's here because of you and your family. My knowing him is...purely coincidental. Though so goddamn coincidental, I have to wonder if I need to reevaluate whether there’s a God and whether his sense of humor is sick and twisted."

Elias chuckled, stepping forward and waving away the men behind Ambrose, Elizabeth, and me. I grimaced when he stopped before me, reaching down to take hold of my chin and force my head up to look up at him. "C'mon, Sammy, maybe the good Lord just wanted us to see one another again. I’ve missed you since you snuck off in the dead of night with a good chunk of my money."

I didn't bother trying to pull my face out of his tight grip, glaring up at him. "I told you if you attacked that caravan, youweren't going to like the results. So here we are, me proved right, and you mad."

"I guess there's no point asking where the money is. You wouldn't be stuck at this ranch if you had it, now would you?"

"I...got rid of it."

Elias' smirk was playful, in the same way a cat would smirk right before it bit the head off a bird. “You always were a softy despite all that talk. Who'd you give that money to? An orphanage? A family down on its luck?"

"You aren't getting it back, so what does it matter?" I snapped, hating the position I was in right now.

"Well, I'm sure we can figure out a way to help you pay back what you owe," he said, and I could tell from the look in his eye exactly what he had in mind. Of course, it didn't help that we were in a position both of us were intimately familiar with.

"Stop touching him," Ambrose snarled, fighting against the ropes around his wrists despite knowing there was nothing he could do. His eyes were flashing with a rage I’d never seen, no matter how much I got on his nerves.

That amused Elias even more because clearly, if there was one thing that hadn't changed about him, it was that having control wasn't just a love of his but a need. And if there was one thing that made him more arrogant and crueler, it was watching someone struggle to get out from under his control. That was precisely why I’d left the way I had; it had ripped all sense of control he'd felt from under his feet and given him nothing to grasp.

Now, he was standing in front of me with his goons everywhere, and I was helpless. It was not the best exit I could have chosen.

"Oh," Elias said in a way that sounded like he was stroking the word. "Sammy, did you find yourself a new toy?"

"Don't be disgusting," Joseph spoke up, sitting up in his chair. "My brother?—"

"Knows Sammy...intimately," Elias said as he stared at Ambrose, his eyes glittering with pleasure. "You don't get that mad over someone touching someone else unless that someone is considered yours, isn't that right?"

Ambrose's face lost some of its color, but his expression never changed. “I'll kill you."

"That would be something to see," Elias said, and I wasn't surprised when his hand lashed out, slamming the back of his closed fist into Ambrose's jaw and sending him crashing to the floor. Of course, Ambrose was hard-headed, so it would take a lot more than that to knock him out. Not that that mattered, Elias was proving a point, not trying to take Ambrose out of the picture.

"If you could quit playing games with everyone and get to what you want," Elizabeth said, pressing against my left side as if trying to keep me still. Not that I needed to be kept still. I wasn't going to let my emotions get the better of me while there was so much danger. My emotions had always got me into trouble before. I needed to be as clearheaded as possible and hope Ambrose didn't rile anyone up enough to get him or anyone else killed. "That would be better for all of us."

"Well, that's easy," he said, eyeing her. "Originally, I was going to say your daddy would make sure no one touched us as we left. We take him, and we'll be out of your hair."

"Likehell," Ambrose growled from the ground.

"Come on," I coaxed. "What else?"

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