Chapter 21

Wilder

A few days later, a towel hung around my neck like a limp body. I had needed to get as far away from Maisie as possible, which was why I had gone to the pond, sitting at the bottom until my head pounded and my chest hurt. I jogged back through the pastures to my house. Sawyer was resting on the wooden railing outside of the Calving Barn, staring into my house’s windows. Maisie was on the other side, watching television.

“The fuck are you doing?” I asked.

Sawyer lifted a brow and I clenched my fists.

“Sensitive,” Sawyer said. “Dare I say, ‘protective.’”

I didn’t understand what was going on inside of me. But Sawyer staring into my house, seeing what was mine when Maisie was there? It made my blood boil. But it didn’t matter what I felt. I had to be stronger than that. Had to keep my emotions in check. Had to be stronger than everything. Including him.

“You know how Uncle Taylor died?” Sawyer asked. I didn’t care how our uncle died, nor did I want to play this game where I was expected to ask the right questions. I wasn’t going to fall for Sawyer’s bait. “The Feldman Trial ate him alive,” he said. “He died trying to get ahold of this farm. To take leadership of it.”

Leadership didn’t mean anything to me. Sawyer was the one who cared.

“Our father killed him,” he said. “It was the farm or nothing. And

Forrest did what he had to do. Just like I did.”

My stomach tightened. Why was he telling me this? We were both doing what we had to do. I was tired of hearing about how he had let his woman die for the Feldman Offering. Death came for everyone, not just his dead lover. And if I was expected to sacrifice, like Sawyer, then I would.

“Your point?” I asked.

“I’m down to the last few,” he said. “Once I kill these next two, it’ll be my last name. Then, I’m done.” He pinched his fingers together. “I’m this close.”

I glanced at the window. Maisie raised the remote, the television clicked off. She stretched, then walked through the hallway, down to her bedroom. Was she going to sleep, or would she follow me again?

That wasn’t a question worth answering.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“You still haven’t found Eileen Hathaway, have you?” Sawyer asked.

I gritted my teeth. The video footage of the woods had shown a few hints, but every time I had a chance to investigate, I had been distracted. I had been taking care of other tasks. Like Maisie.

“I’m going to laugh if I finish before you do,” he said.

I wanted to hurl him across the field so hard that when he hit the ground, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. But that would mean I cared. That would mean that his words had penetrated me. And they hadn’t. Yet, the urge boiled over, the desire to throw my fingers around his groomed neck and squeeze the life out of him—out of anyone, even her—as long as I could witness their power dissolving before me.

But I stayed stoic, never letting it show.

“I’ll complete my list,” I said, my voice even. “We’ll go along with the Feldman Trial as planned. But you can take the farm.”

“Forrest would never let that happen,” Sawyer laughed, turning back toward the main house. “We’re Feldmans. We destroy everything in our path.”

He proclaimed at every chance that he was a Feldman like it was something to be proud of, but there was no point. We lived. We died. And the Feldmans? We lived. We killed. And we died too. That was our purpose. It was another sequence in the pattern of life.

I took the side-by-side UTV across the pastures, heading to the Dairy Barn. One of the livestock orders was in a pen, naked, his Achilles tendons slashed, the wounds open, puffy, red, with greenish-gray pus. The cameras were rolling, the red light beaming, recording his every labored move. Some of our buyers were snuff-loving perverts who picked out their chosen jerk-off materials. And some of our buyers wanted revenge. But unless they ordered otherwise, every murder was recorded for their viewing pleasure.

I pulled on my black clothes, clutching the mask in my hand. ‘Livestock orders’ was an amusing term. In the end, we were animals. Meat to be butchered. Shipped off. Onto the next.

The livestock order pulled himself forward on his hands. Kyle had hunted him and started the ranching process, but it was mine to take over. And it was honestly a pity; I didn’t like it when they were so weak they could barely function. I wanted to engage their power, to endure their struggle, to experience the life leaving their bodies.

He tossed his head back, finally seeing me.

“You’ve got to help me, man. They—”

But when I pulled the mask over my face, he instantly fell silent, crawling forward, trying to get to the edge of the gate. Perhaps he thought he could climb over the pen and escape, but the poor bastard was getting nowhere. I grabbed the cleaver off of the table. The man was young, my age or younger. But he was here. And it honestly didn’t matter what he had done.

We didn’t ask questions. We fulfilled orders. It was how we worked. A business so competitive and controlled, we were sometimes called ‘The

Death Farm.’

“Please. I’ve got money. I can—”

I slammed the cleaver into his leg, amputating him at the thigh, all of my force in one clean cut. The knock of bone. The metal scraping the concrete. The loose red flesh. Limp arteries. He screamed in agony. Blood rushed to my head but I still couldn’t think straight. Violence was supposed to be my cure. It replenished me. Wiped my slate clean. But I rammed the blade into his arm. His other leg. Blood splattered across me, drenching me in warm red liquid. Even so, the fury erupted inside of me. All I could see was Maisie sitting on the couch, Sawyer’s eyes on her. Maisie with her back against the wall, Green’s hands on her, threatening to take her life.

Suddenly, it wasn’t the livestock order that I saw. It was the pimp. His green tie. His gangly arms. His blond hair. I smacked the blade into his neck. Into his chest. On the top of his head. Splitting him open, bit by bit, until finally, the rush of peace flowed through me. I imagined hanging Green by his throat, dangling on his scaffold for the world to see. The stupid bastard thought he could hurt Maisie. But she was a Feldman now.

A brush of cold air flickered over my shoulders, chilling me against the blood. The cleaver clattered to the floor. Then I sensed her—that sweet, pungent odor.

Maisie.

She was following me again, despite knowing what I was capable of.

She should have been running.

She might have been off with Green.

But I would never let that happen.

I turned off the video cameras. Then I slowly faced her, taking a deep breath. The two of us stared at each other. I cracked my neck from side to side. Even the mask on my face was clinging to my skin, soaked with sweat and blood.

There was a door. She could go now if she wanted.

But she didn’t move.

My boots pounded against the floor. Her faint scent filled my nose. My dick throbbed awake.

She had chosen to follow me.

She knew what would happen.

And still, I warned her again.

“If you know what’s best for you,” I said in a low voice, keeping my tone even, “you will leave and never look back.”

Each crash of my boot on the cement floor sent another gasp through her. She scooted back on the floor, hiding between two crates as if she could somehow evade me. But there was no escape. I grabbed her stringy yellow hair, twisting it in my fingers, dragging her across the floor, her bare arms scraping against the cement. Dust sprinkled the floor, collecting on her shirt. I shoved her into one of the empty pens.

“Wilder,” she whimpered. “I was just watching. I was just—”

I turned on the faucet, switched to the hose, then moved it so that it filled the trough. The water trickled in, pounding like rain at first, but as the liquid filled the trough, a soothing nirvana came over me. Maisie panted, knowing these were her last breaths. Each breath was quicker, shorter than the last. I fisted her hair and she sobbed.