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Chapter One
Midge sat at the kitchen table having her coffee as she remembered the day when she and Silas got together. No one had been shocked more than her. Yet, here they were, married and running this farm together.
Getting up, she felt ready for the day, she rinsed her cup then went through the back door. The first stop would be the barn where she kept the chicken coop. She frowned as she didn’t see any of her girls outside pecking at the grass, looking for corn they might have missed the day before.
Entering the coop area, she opened the top and looked down, then gasped.
Every single chicken she had in the coop was dead. They were not torn apart by an animal. No, each one was sitting in their nest but had their necks broken. Blood had also been splattered all over the coop. Midge stepped back a bit and let the cover slam down hard. She stared at the coop for another moment then raised her head and looked around the farm very carefully.
She shivered as she hurried to the area where her goats were. When she stepped into the cavernous building, she rushed to the pens that held her goats. She felt relieved to see them looking back at her. She fed them then went back to the house.
The first thing she did was get Cloe out and began cleaning the shotgun.
Now she thought about this last week. Off and on, she had a feeling someone was watching her. She couldn’t see anyone but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Silas was over at the Lost Sons compound and she had stayed home to do her chores but now, she no longer felt safe here alone. At least not until she knew who was out there watching her and why.
Just then, she heard a vehicle coming up the drive. Standing from the chair, she paused to load Chloe before she walked to the front door and peeked outside.
Lola got out of her vehicle and hurried to the front door. She went to press the doorbell.
Midge opened the door, grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside.
Lola cried out in surprise as she stumbled into the house.
Midge looked around then shut the door. She turned the lock and a switch then slid the bar on the dead bolt. Turning to Lola, she growled, “What the hell are you doing here, sugar?”
Lola looked at Midge then she stared at Chloe and shook her head. “You got someone watching you too?” she whispered. With her body shaking, she walked over to the sofa and sat down.
Midge studied her for a moment then noticed how pale she was. Walking over to her, she sat down. Putting Chloe on the coffee table, she wrapped her small arm around Lola and asked softly, “What do you mean do I have someone watching me too?”
Lola shook her head. “I can feel eyes on me even if I can’t see who those eyes belong to.”
“How long has this been going on?” Midge wanted to know.
“Bout a week now. Then today, I found this.” She opened her hand and showed Midge a gold button.
Midge took it from her to study it for a moment, then she shook her head and put it back in Lola’s hand. “Do you know who it belongs to?”
Lola nodded. “I’ve seen it before. It belongs to a man who called himself Hector Gratis. He turned out to be Manny Gola, the son of a very prominent Cartel, south of the border.”
Midge nodded. “I’ve seen it before too honey. My daughter in law, John’s mother, used to wear one of these buttons on a chain around her neck, before she died.” Midge stood from the chair, picked up Chloe and walked around the room going from window to window looking outside. The yard was empty as far as she knew it but when she looked out the last window toward the barn, she felt something or someone watching her and she shivered. Glancing at Lola, she asked, “Where is your sweet son today, honey?”
Lola smiled. “Cletas is with his daddy, grandpa and great grandpa. Silas said something about teaching him the laws of the land? Whatever that means.”
Midge smiled. “He’s gonna teach that boy about being a man. What to do and what never to do.” Shaking her head she said, “The boy is only a baby, but my man says that’s when you start teaching them. When they’re young and you keep telling them the law until it's stuck in their brains and they know the rules.”
Lola smiled. “That’s not the worst thing I’ve heard. More boys could use a man like Silas in their lives.”
Midge nodded. “That’s true enough. Maybe there would be more real men around, not all these boys who think women are theirs for a taking.” She made her way back over to the sofa and asked, “Ok, tell me what you know and why did you come all the way out here to find me?”
Lola swallowed hard and gazed down at her lap for a moment then looked up at Midge. “Well, I was out watering my flowers this morning and I found footprints in the flowerbed. Then I found this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She handed it to Midge and her fingers were shaking.
Midge stared at the paper then raised her gaze to Lola’s face. She saw her fear. Midge took the paper from her and unfolded it...she gasped. It was a print out of a wanted poster. A poster that read, Wanted Dead Or Alive and it had a photo of Lola on it. Turning it over, she could see something had been written on the other side. Midge Rawling. Looking up at Lola, she asked, “What does this mean?”
Lola stared down at it and told her, “That poster went over the net when I first met Creed and his family. I’d been on the run from my bosses and they ran me down in Beaumont. That’s when we found the poster. I was accused of being a thief and the people I worked with were running drugs for the cartel. What they didn’t know was they had a rat close by and that rat was willing to take out one of the cartel’s own and start a war that would make the streets run red with blood of the innocents. We were able to warn the cartel about the danger to their inside guy which was one of the cartel’s own sons and they got him out before he caught a bullet in the back. So the feds took down the two gangs that would have gone to war. I wondered why your name was on the back though, so I brought it to you.”
“Who was the cartel he belonged to?” Midge asked.
“The Gola cartel,” Lola told her.
