Page 43 of Outlawed

“Fuck you. It was my home⁠—”

“No. It was mine. Just like it was my mother’s and her mother’s before that. You tried to take it from us, but the house refused to recognize you. You put all that time and effort into a foolhardy plan, and yet you still can’t seem to accept defeat. The house kept you out the whole time I was gone. If that doesn’t tell you who it belongs to, nothing will.”

He struggles against the shackle again, making me grin.

“You keep trying to escape, but you’re not going anywhere.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

“I know.”

He relaxes a little at that, my words acting as a light at the end of a dark tunnel.

“I’m going to kill you and dump your body. And then I’m going to watch as the state scrambles to apologize and offer me restitution for stealing my life. I’d say thanks for making me a very rich girl. But then, I’m already a very rich girl, what with the ranch and my secondary inheritance.”

“What?” Porter snaps, momentarily distracted from his plight. Money always did have that effect on him.

“Oh, didn’t you know? I inherited twenty-two point two million the day I turned thirty. A little safety net from my ancestors, one I wouldn’t have needed if it weren’t for men like you.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Did you know he planned to marry me off to Andy?”

Austin’s mouth drops open in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I am. At a guess, I’d say those pages came from Porter here as an incentive.”

Austin turns to look at Porter. “You planted those seeds into his head. He was a fucking kid, just like your daughter. You and your fucking games turned one into a victim and the other into a monster.”

I look at my dad and have to swallow down the vomit rushing up the back of my throat. “I think Porter planned to get to me first.” I can’t say the word dad while contemplating if he planned to rape me. “He likely spun Andy a yarn. Something along the lines of keeping his hands off me until my powers came in at eighteen. And if he waited, it would make him immune to my gifts and maybe give him some kind of power over me. Andy would have loved getting one over on me, if nothing else. All along, though, you were going to break me in first because there is no way you’d risk me having power over you.”

“You’d have blamed her, too, right? When Andy realized he’d held out for nothing, you would have painted her as a whore. But you underestimated Andy because of his age. He was a born hunter. He knew about witches. Hell, we had the Hart family grimoire. He would have recognized her powers coming in and known she was prime for the taking. I saw the change in her birthmark that day. I bet you Andy did too.”

“And when I dragged myself home, blood staining my thighs, you knew what had happened. You thought Andy was going to upstage you somehow, and with a witch in his pocket, he’d be unstoppable. You were so pissed at me. You couldn’t kill me, because you’d lose the ranch, but you couldn’t let me stay either. Well, joke’s on you, Andy wasn’t interested in you or me. He was a fucking kid who hated me. Hell, he hated the world, but Austin apparently held the top spot,” I snap at him.

Austin inspects Porter as if he were a bug. “You really thought I’d agree to Andy marrying Calliope?” Austin laughs loudly. “She’s right, you’re a fucking dumbass.”

“Right?” I nod before I sigh. “None of it matters now. If you’d have just stayed away, I’d have let it go, you know.”

“Bullshit. You killed Dale.”

“Only when he broke into my home and became a threat to me. What exactly did I do to you other than take back what was mine?”

“You took my wife⁠—”

“I helped liberate a victim from her abuser. And she came to me. You cannot think I would stand by and watch you do to her what you did to me, and then move on to my little sister. Not on my fucking watch. You could have moved on with your life, but you just couldn’t let it go, could you? Now a beautiful woman is dead, and you’ll burn in hell because of it.”

“I didn’t kill Dawn. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true. I have an alibi for when she was shot. You think I’d risk losing Hannah? Fuck that.”

I rub my jaw in thought. “And your alibi?”

“I was in Buxon. I went to a bar, stayed in a hotel with a woman. I’d have been caught on dozens of cameras.”

“How convenient.”