“You took my son,” I say.
My voice is terrifyingly calm when all I want to do is tear my own brother's head off.
“I took what I needed to get your attention.”
“You took my fucking wife, brother. My fucking wife and son. Are you insane?” I almost choke out.
I can’t believe my own brother would do this to me. I fucking loved him. Only tried to do what’s right by him. And this is how he repays me? By trying to break me to nothing.
He laughs, and my finger twitches on the trigger. One shot. I could end this.
But, I ain’t taking that risk on Lola’s life.
“She’s fine. Little banged up.”
“You’re a cunt, Beau,” Ace spits beside me.
He shrugs.
“Why? What the fuck have I done to you that’s so bad that I deserve this? Trying to toss me in jail? Taking my boy?”
Something flickers across his face. The first crack. “The Greeks made you an offer you shouldn’t have refused, Hunter. I took it upon myself to secure it for the sake of our ranch. Our father's legacy.”
I shake my head. “Our father would be turning in his grave watching you now.”
He takes in a breath. “Well, I don’t give a fuck about the opinions of a dead man.”
He runs his hand over his face and stares off into the distance, almost zoning out.
“You murdered the mother of my child to take my ranch. That’s all this is, ain’t it? Greed.”
“Ourranch!” he snaps. “It was supposed to beourranch, Hunter! But you took it. Like you take everything!”
“Dad gave it to me.”
“Dad was wrong!” he bellows. The shotgun shifts in his grip. “I worked that land harder than you ever did! Every morning!Every season! And what did I get? Second. Always fucking second.”
For one horrible second, I understand him. The resentment. Watching me inherit what he thought should have been his.
I understand it. But I will never forgive it. “You could have talked to me, Beau.”
“You wouldn’t have listened.”
“You’re my brother. I would have?—”
He raises the shotgun and then points it dead at my chest, and every finger on every trigger behind me tightens.
“Don’t say brother to me,” he hisses. “You lost the right to call me that when you married some stranger and gave her a stake in our family’s legacy without asking a single one of us. You married that slut to make sure I never got it. You fucked my plans up. If you’d have just gone to jail, none of this would be happening.”
Jett moves in beside me, his rifle follows Beau’s chest.
“Put the gun down, Beau,” I say.
“No.”
“Put it down and we can?—”
“THERE IS NO WE!” he screams. At this range, he doesn’t need to be a good shot; he pulls the trigger, and I’ll be dead. “There hasn’t been awesince Dad died! There’s you, Hunter. There’s always just been you. And I am done standing in your shadow.”