Page 15 of Roped

Unknown number: Proof?

I exit the app to go to the camera folder. I select the picture I want, the one I took while she was still out: tied up to the tree, her head slumped to the side, her blond hair framing her face, cheeks dirt-streaked. And I send it off.

Again, the reply is instant.

Unknown number: Stand by for time and place of delivery.

I clench my jaw as I type my reply.

Me: Your turn.

Unknown number: You know that’s not how this works.

Unknown number: Wait for the text.

I keep staring at the screen, even though I know it’s not going to light up again. I’m not going to get the text I want. I also know if I call the number back, it’ll show as disconnected. I almost crush the screen in anger. But I know that’s not going to give me what I want either. The only thing that can give me what I want is her.

I look up and lock eyes with her through the window. Sitting inside my truck, she looks like a vision. The Turner Princess.

Seething blue eyes, the shade of which matches the sky over the ranch on a cloudless day; sunflower hair thick and long, strewn about her face haphazardly; fair skin flushed and those little tits jerking under her torn dress with every angry breath she takes. Her wrists are bound behind her back—still with hemp and still with the knot only I know how to untie—and her pretty pink mouth is gagged with my bandanna because she doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up.

I’m not going to lie; it does something to me, seeing her like this. Roped and at my mercy.

It fucks with my head. It fucks with my body, makes me hard and hungry. Harder and hungrier than I’ve ever been for anything in my godforsaken life. The only thing missing from this picture is her tears. Her genuine fear, the kind I saw in her eyes, making the blue in them even darker, only a few moments ago when I gagged her mouth. Maybe it really makes me what people call me: a monster. But then again, I never claimed to be a man, let alone a good one.

She isn’t for me, though. Never was; never will be. That’s not to say she isn’t useful.

In the coming days, she’s going to hear a lot about why she was taken, why I’m bringing her to a place her daddy probably taught her to think of as hell. But none of those things are going to be true. It’s not about her father like she thinks, or about some piece of land.

It’s about me. It’s about what I want, and she’s the key to me getting it.

Again, maybe I should be more regretful, feel remorse. That I’m dragging her into my shit when she doesn’t even know the half of it. But I’m a hunter. I’m the best goddamn hunter in these mountains, and now that I’ve got her, I’m not letting her go until I get what I want.

CHAPTER FIVE

MY EYES BLINK open, and I realize I’d fallen asleep.

My head is resting against the window of the truck and my shoulders are almost smooshed between the seat and the door. There’s a crick in my neck and my shoulders are throbbing with pain. I’m still tied up, but at least my gag is gone. Makes sense; it was there to shut me up and I can’t talk when I’m sleeping so there’s no need for it. I will acknowledge, though, that being gagged somehow felt worse than being tied up. Maybe because as horrific as taking away my freedom to move is, it’s even more violating to take away my ability to use my voice. In any case, I’m relieved I can speak again if I want to.

Lifting my eyes, I glance out. We’re driving on a lonely stretch of road with open fields on both sides, mountains on the far horizon. Out in the distance, I notice a herd of cows in a pasture. Classic Montana and everything that I hate about it. I don’t know how much time has passed but the sun is strong, making me think we’re well into the morning as opposed to just after dawn when I’d woken up before.

As I watch the fields go by, I know I need a plan. If this is about my father and his long list of enemies, then I’m going to need one. Especially if my best friend has somehow gotten caught up in all this. I need to make sure the sins of my father don’t touch my best friend. I won’t let him ruin another life. He’s already taken too much from too many people, from me. Just then the truck takes a turn onto a dirt road. I see a sign up ahead, and all my thoughts, all my determination, disintegrates just like that.

It’s an arched sign, made of wood, old in appearance, weathered and splintered. That’s because it is. I know that for a fact. This sign has been around for decades, for over a century. It reads “Rawhide Ranch.” It’s the biggest ranch in the town of Black Rock; the biggest ranch in the whole of Montana. Rawhide is the only ranch that’s bigger than Wildfire, my family’s ranch, and it’s owned by the Graysons.

I’ve heard stories about this place, see. I’ve heard stories about the Graysons. The kind that made them and Rawhide seem like a part of some other world. A world where bad things happened and cruel men lived. Men who killed and destroyed. Who made things, people, disappear without a trace, without repercussions. Danger follows the Graysons everywhere. Danger and power and money and influence. They’re the richest family in the state. They may be the richest family in the whole of the Wild West. These men are ruthless. They have no morals. They live by their own code, and… Jesus Christ, it all makes sense now.

Why I’m here. A Turner. I knew it was about my father, but dear God, this is so much worse.

My father has many enemies. He has business rivals, competitors, foes; people out to destroy his empire, steal it, take it over, kill him even. But none of them are like the Graysons. They are our family’s biggest enemies, mortal enemies, and have been for generations. Given the chance, a Grayson would kill a Turner without hesitation, without remorse, and they have. I know that, too, because in addition to telling me stories about the angels, my mom would also tell me about the Grayson–Turner feud. She’d tell me how the Graysons were the bad guys, the devils, the heathens. They wanted our land. They wanted to steal it from us and keep it for themselves. And the Turners did everything they could to defend their territory, their birthright.

But then I grew up.

And I saw with my own eyes what a Turner was capable of—what my own father was capable of—and I realized my mother had lied to me. Either she didn’t want me to know or she was protecting herself by making the Turners the good guys. But the truth is that both the Graysons and the Turners are the same. They’re both bad people. Both families want each other’s land, and they’re willing to do anything for it. They’re willing to fight for it, argue, go to court, shed each other’s blood, even kill each other, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.

We’re quickly approaching the sign marking the start of the Grayson territory, and I tear my eyes away from it to look at the man beside me. My heart slams in my chest as I stare at him, at his thick and muscular body. That black leather Stetson on his head with dark hair curling from under it. I don’t know when he put the hat on, but somehow it makes him look even more sinister. A cowboy who’s a hunter too. He’s so tall and large that he dwarfs the interior of his own truck. He’s so strong that he could take this machine apart with his bare hands. It wouldn’t even matter that one of his hands is injured and his makeshift bandage is completely soaked with his blood now. It wouldn’t matter if I somehow found a way to run from him, if I somehow got myself untied and jumped out of this truck right this second. He’d catch me. He’d rope me again and drag me to the place of my nightmares, kicking and screaming.

How could he be anyone other than a Grayson? Cold and beautiful, ruthless.