Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
It was a long time before Bohannon let up. The big guy wasn’t even winded.
Cain waited several minutes, letting Poppy catch his breath. “You still with me, Marshall?” Poppy spat in response. “Good. I’ll ask again. How many of your people are on the way for the Maybach?”
“You go’ta hell!”
“This is going to get tiresome,” Cain sighed, scratching above his eyebrow with his thumb. This time, he nodded at Sword. Instead of beating him, Sword started removing fingernails. Then toenails.
He was getting to the third toenail when Poppy finally broke down and answered. “My second eldest! He’s supposed to follow us here in a day or so if he don’t hear from us. But we wasn’t expectin’ no trouble!”
“Good,” Cain said. “That’s good. Now. Tell me how you knew where to find us.”
Pappy flashed me a hate-filled look. “Put a tracker in her backpack when she started showin’ interest in that other Hatfield bastard. Knew she’d try to fuck me over. Figured she had somethin’ to do with the car up and disappearin’, too. We had security all over the fuckin’ place, and she’s the only one who knew anythin’ ’bout it.” Even as beat up as he was, Poppy still managed to spit in my direction. He hated me that much.
“Didn’t know nothin’ ’bout your stupid security,” I muttered. “You just assumed I did ’cause you didn’t think no one else knew ’bout that car.”
“Unfortunately,” Styx said, taking Poppy’s attention from me and putting it squarely on him. “You can’t steal a car like that and no one notice.” He shrugged. “Well, unless you can replace the VIN number and reprogram the computer with new FOBs.”
Poppy snorted. “Well, good luck, then. You got a car you can’t sell, neither.”
“Never said we couldn’t do it.” Styx gave him a chuckle and a grin. “This is our bread and butter, McCoy. The car’s already reprogrammed. Got a new identity and a new pink slip. ’Cause, unlike some dumb hicks, we know what the fuck we’re doin’.”
Pappy yelled, struggling against his bonds. Sword just tsked and took another toenail. My pap was screaming now. And, Lord help me, I wasn’t torn up about it.
As the Bones men continued to torture my Pap, I thought about my childhood. Never once did he offer a kind word to me growing up. Nothing was ever good enough. How many times did he backhand me for no other reason than I was in the wrong place at the wrong time? When I got accepted to Marshall University, he had his thugs make just enough of a ruckus they got me kicked out of school. Why? Because he didn’t want any girl of his getting too uppity by going to a school that would let her make a living away from him. He needed every member of his family under his thumb, and I bucked that control. Which made me his enemy. Truth was, he was probably looking for a reason to kill me. He’d almost succeeded, too.
“When he shot at me.”
Instantly, Styx turned to me. “Baby?”
“He’d been looking for a reason to get rid of me, Styx. All these years. He was just too chickenshit to do it. Claimin’ I’d broken into his house. Stolen stuff from him. Maybe even that I’d threatened his daughter. That was his excuse.” Saying it didn’t hurt like I thought it would. But it was terrifying. “He didn’t just shoot at me trying to scare me off. He really intended to kill me.” I turned my gaze to my father. Or rather, the man who’d fucked my mom and gotten her pregnant. “Gettin’ Mom pregnant was just an ego thing for you. To stake your claim. Having a girl must have galled you.”
“Fuckin’ useless,” he muttered. “Only good for fuckin’ and none of the dumbasses I threw your way could get the job done. No one wanted you. Too skinny. Too cold. Worthless to me.” Marshall McCoy was barely conscious, but he kept talking. Like he was dreaming or in some kind of trance. “You always were smarter’n my boys.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t have that. You’d’a destroyed everything I built. Taken it all away and given it up.”
“You didn’t build nothin’,” I said softly. “That was all Grandpa. Grandma told him he should set up a scholarship fund for kids in the area to go to college. Give them an incentive to keep their talent in Williamson. Grow the town. She said it could make the McCoy legacy in West Virginia one of buildin’ up. Not tearin’ down. But all’a’yas too blinded by hate. Even Grandpa didn’t want to do it if it meant he had to help Hatfields. But he was gonna do it. ’Cause he loved Grandma.”
My Poppy looked up at me and gave me a bloody smile. “Yeah. So I kilt the old man and the bitch. Wudd’n my kin anyway. Just your mama’s. They wudd’n McCoys.”