Page 73 of Montana Falls
Now?
Now she wasgone.
My hands curled into fists, the bedsheets crumpling beneath my grip. I should’ve said something, but the words wouldn’t come. My throat felt tight, my heart a dead weight in my chest.
Ruby was sobbing harder now, and she reached for me, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t sit here being useless and in an agony I could never begin to comprehend. So I swung my legs out of bed, ignoring the pain that shot up my side.
With a heaving breath, I stood, shaky at first, but determined. I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all. My body moved on its own, mechanical, like I was in survival mode. I went to the closet, pulling out black trousers and shirt, a pair of polished shoes.
Ruby was still watching me, her eyes wide, like she didn’t know what to say or do.
“What are you doin’?” she asked, her voice trembling.
I didn’t answer. I moved to the painting on the wall, pulling it aside to reveal the weapons safe I had. Guns, blades, ammo—every piece of steel I owned found its place on my body. Until I was armored up more than I had ever been before, and I wasn’t the man who’d been lying in that bed minutes ago.
I was something else now. Something deadly.
Someone who would not forgive this world for taking the one thing from me, I vowed never to lose.
I turned around, fully dressed and armed. Ruby stood frozen by the bed, her tear-streaked face pale. “Beau, talk to me. What the hell are you doin’?”
I walked toward her, stopping just inches away. My fingers brushed her chin, lifting her face to meet mine. I could seethe fear there, the confusion, and maybe… just maybe, a flicker of something else. Something I couldn’t deal with right now. Something dark and wicked and prone to making my trauma scream at me far more than it ever had before.
So, I kissed her.
Hard. Fierce. Brutal. A moment of raw emotion, pouring all the things I couldn’t say into one act. I felt her stiffen, then melt into it, but I pulled back just as quickly, leaving her breathless. Confused. Probably wondering if I was having a breakdown of some kind.
“You’re staying here,” I said, my voice rough. “With Aiden. You don’t leave. Not until I say.”
Her eyes widened, panic flashing through them. “Why? What are you goin’ to do?”
I stared at her, my jaw tight, every muscle in my body coiled with rage.
“I’m going to burn this city to the ground.” I promised. “It’s taken far too much from me and I refuse to let it win.”
Without another word, I turned and left the room. The door clicked shut behind me, but my mind was already gone, lost in the thoughts of destruction and vengeance.
This wretched life I had been born into had killed my daughter. An enemy of ours that I should have taken out decades ago had slaughtered her without thought.
Now I was going to kill. Everyone. Everything. Until nobody that wished my family ill will was left standing, nobody that could ever be another threat was left to breathe.
I was going to turn Diamond Grove and all its nearby cities into nothing but flames, and then I was going to set myself ablaze in it.
Chapter Twenty Four
Maggie was dead.
A single bullet to her heart three days ago.
Bled out on the same stage as her bastard brother, before the men in her life that had failed her hid away in their house, pretending to mourn and grieve and be in agony.
Beau had turned Diamond Grove and all the cities near it into a bloodbath. Any gangster that didn’t wear Red Diamonds ink had been slaughtered, or in the case of a Cherry Hill gang called The Reapers, had been absorbed in the Red Diamonds, purely because Beau was friends with their leader.
The cities ran red, and Beau had no mercy with his violence and vengeance, regardless of the fact he was healing from wounds himself.
It was the only time I’d ever agreed with a Montana. The only time I’d ever respected the actions of one of them.
Other than Maggie.
