“I’m going with you,” Raylan declared.
Holly’s youngest brother Lee pushed out of the chair he’d been sitting in. “Me too.”
“Oh, there’s no way in hell I’m missing this,” Rhodes added.
I nodded in agreement. If they wanted to watch as I made sure Peggy Bradbury never darkened their doorsteps again, that was fine with me.
The roadside motelthirty minutes outside of Hope Valley where Holly’s mother was staying looked like it should have been condemned years ago. We drove past a drug deal in progress as I guided my Range Rover into a parking spot, and a few yards away, a woman I was fairly certain was a prostitute was leading a man into one of the other rooms.
“Christ, this place is a goddamn dump,” Rhodes grunted from the passenger seat. “Could probably get hepatitis just by touching any surface.”
As I killed the engine, the door to the room directly in front of us opened and a woman who looked at least a decade and ahalf older than she actually was stepped outside. She tucked a cigarette between her lips and lit it up, staring at us through the windshield.
“That’s her.” I looked over at Rhodes as he glared at the woman, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he clenched his teeth together.
“Jesus.” Lee’s lip curled up in disgust. “I can’t believe that’s the woman we came from.”
“Neither can I,” Raylan muttered, letting out a resigned sigh. “We’ve already been here longer than I want to be. Let’s get this shit over with.”
We climbed out of the car, and as I rounded the hood, I kept my eyes locked on the woman who looked like life had chewed her up and spit her out. I couldn’t help but wonder what was so tempting about the way she was living that she’d choose it over her own children. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Holly and her siblings were better off without her.
As her gaze bounced over her sons, I wondered if she realized that she’d have been better off if she stayed. In the end, it didn’t matter, though. Because they had managed to thrive without her.
“That’s one fancy-ass ride you got there,” she said to me, blowing out a puff of noxious smoke through her stained teeth. “You obviously got some money to throw around.”
I didn’t bother denying it. “That I do. A whole lot of it, actually.”
She looked over my shoulder, and for a brief moment I thought I caught a flash of sorrow in her eyes as she looked at her sons, but it was there and gone before I could be sure. “And I see you brought my sons with you.” She sneered, turning her attention back to me. “What? You afraid you needed backup or somethin’?”
“We aren’t your sons,” Rhodes stated definitively. “You don’t have any sons or daughters. You’re all alone, Peggy.”
That flash returned, and I watched as she shook it off, taking another puff of her cigarette. She was trying to play it off that she didn’t care, but it didn’t work. That blow from Rhodes had landed, and it did some real damage. “I didn’t agree to no family reunion. I got shit to do, so just give me my money, and you can be on your way.”
My lips curled up in a smile that felt downright feral as I pulled the check out of my pocket and handed it over.
She snatched it out of my had, greed carved into every line on her face. At least until she unfolded it and saw the amount.
“The fuck is this?” she demanded, waving the check in the air.
“That’s a thousand dollars,” I stated simply.
Her cheeks grew red with anger. “This some kind of fuckin’ joke? You tryin’ to play me? I said two hundred grand.”
I took a step closer. I wasn’t above using my size to intimidate when the situation called for it. And in this case, it was definitely called for. Whatever she saw on my face made her step back. Her bravado fell away, replaced with uncertainty and a little bit of fear.
“That’s all you’re going to get. Ever. I came here to tell you that your well’s dried up.”
Her face pinched up in a glare. She was trying to come off as threatening, but she only looked pathetic. “That’s not how this works. You give me what I want, or I’ll make your life miserable. You hear me?”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever hated anyone before, but looking at Peggy Bradbury, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I hated this woman. “That thousand dollars is the last you’ll ever see from any person with the last name Bradbury,” I gritted through clenched teeth. “I came here today to tell you that you just playedyour last card. And you lost. You fucked up when you decided to threaten my woman.”
I moved closer, the blood in my veins reaching a full boil. “I protect the people I care about. That check you have in your hand right now is barely a drop in the bucket for me. I havemillions. More than you could ever dream of having, and if you come anywhere near Holly or her siblings ever again, if you reach out in any way, I will use every goddamn dime I have to my name to destroy what little you have left of your pathetic life.”
I curled my lips, baring my teeth. “I will make sure every single day of your sad existence is a misery. The difference between me and you, I have the means to back up my threats. You want to test me on that? Fuck around and find out. I actually think I’d enjoy ruining you.”
Her body was shaking so bad I thought her knees were going to give out, but somehow she managed to stay standing. “What happens now is you’re going to disappear. You’re going to get as far away from Hope Valley as that thousand will take you, and you’re going to forget any of these people exist. Doyouhearme?” I hissed, throwing her own words back at her.
She swallowed thickly as her head moved in a jerky nod.
