Wyatt clears his throat. "Said he couldn't make it."
"Couldn'tmake it?" Cash's voice rises. "This is family. This is Savannah."
"He's been... different lately." Wyatt's voice is measured, careful. "Past few months, he's barely at the ranch. Misses meetings. Doesn't answer calls."
"That's not like him."
"No," Wyatt agrees. "It's not."
A pause stretches between them, loaded with something I can't quite name.
I keep my face slack, storing this away. Something's off with the brother. Something they don't understand yet.
Cash's head snaps toward me, eyes narrowing like he's just realized the prey he thought was dead is still breathing.
"Well, look who decided to wake up." He crosses the room in three strides, crouches until his face is level with mine. His breath smells like whiskey and entitlement. "You think I don't see what this is? What you're doing?"
I stare back, let my silence fill the space between us.
"Savannah Ashby doesn't belong to you." He says her name like it's property with a deed attached. "She never did. She never will. That girl was born for something better than some ex-con's come stain on her family name."
The rope burns against my wrists as I work it, but my face stays still. Dead-eyed. Prison-calm.
"You think I don't know?" Cash's voice drops lower. "You've been circling our family since you were a kid. My mother—" He stops, jaw working. "Eleanor saw something in you. God knows what. Took all those pictures."
My pulse quickens, but I don't give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Just keep breathing through the blood in my mouth.
The rope gives another quarter inch. I keep working.
"You think those pictures meant something, Kane?" Cash laughs, but it sounds hollow. "That you meant something to her? You were just another one of her projects. Like those fucking coffee table books. 'Montana Wildlife: Trailer Park Edition. That's all you were. Trailer blood doesn't get to rewrite legacy. Doesn't get to touch what's been Ashby since before Montana was a state." He's preaching now, to himself more than me. "You're just a footnote. A phase. The mistake Savannah needed to make before finding what's real."
I say nothing. Let my silence hum with defiance. With the knowledge that Savannah came tome. That she choseme.
Cash leans in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper like we're sharing a secret.
"She's with Marcus now," he says, each word measured, precise. "Where she belongs. With a man who can keep her name clean."
My jaw locks. Something hot and black swells behind my eyes.
"Had to drug her, you know. Just a little something to calm her down. You make her crazy." He tilts his head, studying me like I'm something under glass. "She was hysterical. Screaming. Scratching. Not herself."
I focus on the rope, on the slow give of fibers.
"Marcus had to wash her down." Cash's lips curl slightly. "Your filth was all over her thighs. Inside her. Had to clean that out, too."
The demon rises in me—not some fairy tale bullshit, but the thing I've carried since I was a boy. The thing that knows exactly how to break a man's neck with a quarter-turn more than necessary.
"She's sleeping now. When she wakes up, we're gonna cut the memory of Legion Kane out of her. She'll never think about you again. Won't ever miss fucking her trailer-boy in that silo. You think I didn't know, all growing up, that's where you two met? Shit… Eleanor had pictures of that too. Sick fuck, that's what you are. Did you tell my mother that you were fucking her daughter at the silo? Is that why she was there?" Cash's voice has the rhythm of scripture, like he's practiced these words.
Privately, I am a bit stunned at this news. I had no idea Eleanor ever took pictures of Savannah and me out at the silo. Never even suspected it.
Is Cash lying?
I stop listening. Just watch his mouth move.
He better be lying.
Because if Eleanor was taking pictures of Savannah and me… well… that paints a pretty sick picture in my mind. And to be honest, I was just barely coming to terms with the sickness I already knew about.
