Asher's on his knees in the dust with his broken wrist cradled against his chest and he's looking up at Phantom with what could be resignation in his eyes. "Phantom."
"Kane."
"Phantom—listen?—"
"You came for my daughter," Phantom says.
"I—"
"You stalked her. You photographed her. You cut her saddle. You wanted her to come down off a horse at twenty-five miles an hour with a thousand pounds of animal on top of her."
"Phantom, you don't understand?—"
"I understandexactlywhat you did. You held a grudge against me for years. I can respect a grudge. I can't respect a man who comes at a woman to get to her father."
Asher tries to stand. I put my boot on his chest and shove him back down on the concrete. He stays down.
Roan walks across the barn floor and stops next to Phantom. He looks down at the man who used to be his friend. "Kane."
Asher looks up at him. "Roan. Tell him. Tell your brother."
"Tell him what?"
"Tell him I was your friend. Tell him I never meant?—"
"You came at my niece," Roan says.
"Roan—"
"You came at my fuckin’ niece, Kane. There isnoversion of this where you walk out of this barn."
Asher closes his eyes. When he opens them he looks at me. "You're the one who marked her."
"Yes."
"She told me about you. Seventeen years old at junior nationals and said her father's club had a prospect in it she was going to marry someday. I laughed at her then. Thought she was a kid."
I don't answer.
"You were the one she meant."
"Yes, I sure the fuck was."
He laughs. It comes out wet. There's blood at the corner of his mouth from where his teeth cut his lip when he went down. "All these years."
"All these years," I tell him.
Phantom looks at me. "Spur."
"Yes, Prez."
"Whenever you're ready."
I look at Asher.
I think about the photo on Dakota's phone of me kissing the top of her head on the porch of her father's house. I think about the cinch cut three-quarters through.
I think about her coming around the third barrel bareback at twenty-five miles an hour because this man wanted her to die in the dirt.
