Inside, I’m greeted with a thick scent. Something metallic and thick that is sweet in the back of my throat.
Blood.
Ace feels it too. I see it in the way his shoulders tense.
“Jesus,” he breathes.
The foyer is immaculate. No signs of struggle. No overturned furniture. No panic. Just a dark smear trailing across the hardwood like someone tried, and failed, to walk it off.
We follow it.
The study is at the back of the house.
Richard Masterson is slumped behind his desk, chair tipped back at an awkward angle, eyes staring sightless at the ceiling. His throat is opened ear to ear, clean and precise. No rage. No chaos.
Execution.
The blood has soaked into the rug beneath him, long enough now that it’s gone tacky and dark. He didn’t fight. Didn’t run. Whoever did this wanted him dead and wanted it quiet.
Ace swears under his breath. “Who the fuck?—”
“Laurel,” I say flatly. She’s the only one who could have done this. The only one he would have trusted to be at his back so openly.
John’s eyes widen as he looks at me. “You think she?—”
“It’s the only scenario that makes sense.” I crouch, scanning the room. No broken glass. NO shell casings. No forced entry. “He looks as if he was going about his normal business.”
My jaw tightens until it aches.
Richard Masteron was a weak man when it came to his wife, but he was loyal to my father. Loyal to the old ways. Loyalenough that he would’ve never moved against the family. It looks like whatever his wife is up to, she didn’t need him anymore.
I straighten slowly, rage coiling low and lethal in my chest.
“This isn’t panic, either,” I continue. “This is cleanup.”
John nods grimly.
“So, where the fuck is everyone?” Ace wonders.
“I’m guessing some of the ranch hands worked for her and those that didn’t were most likely sent home.”
Or worse.
My phone vibrates in my hand before I can finish the thought. One of my men outside.
“Boss,” the voice says tightly through the speakerphone. “I’ve got a barn full of bodies here.”
Worse it is.
Laurel Masterson doesn’t like to leave loose ends it seems.
“She’s accelerating,” Ace states as we head back onto the porch. “Richard dead means she’s cutting anyone who could slow her down.”
“She still needs something,” I growl. “This can’t all be purely to get to Peyton. She could have done that at anytime.”
Peyton.
Her name burns through me like a brand.
