8:56 P.m.
“Here’s a tip. Lock picks work better than a crowbar.”
“What?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Friend of your daughter’s.”
Gus didn’t like that one bit. “Right. The ‘Hammertime’ wrestler guy, I reckon?”
“You know, it’s really quite simple. ‘Hammerhead.’ Not ‘Hammerman,’ not ‘Hammertime.’ Although I will say this, Gus. I’ve been told the rapper and I do have one thing in common.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“We’re both too legit to quit.”
Gus didn’t respond, but his scowl made it clear he did not appreciate my taunts. I took a step toward him but he didn’t even flinch. If he was at all intimidated, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, he just kept squeezing his crowbar, waiting for me to make my next move.
“That money doesn’t belong to you.”
“It does now.”
“Is that why you killed Jasper?”
“That stupid son of a bitch had it coming,” he replied, without hesitation. “And after all we did to help him out.”
“Axe to the back of the head doesn’t seem very generous.”
“That—it wasn’t supposed to go down that way.”
“Right. I turn down bribes and accidentally split my head open on blades all the time.”
“You got a real mouth on you, don’t you?”
“Yeah, well, unlike Jasper, at least mine still works.”
“All he had to do was take the money and run off with his faggot friend and that overgrown, stupid knuckle-dragger!” snapped Gus. “Could have had a nice little life on a farm suckin’ dick whenever he wanted with enough money to eat fried chicken all week long. I wasn’t trying to be greedy. I just wanted to keep my rodeo. McGraw gets the STIHL sponsorship, and one way or the other he ensures we stay in business. Everybody wins. But, oh no, that wasn’t good enough for Jasper. Not Mr. My-Granddaddy-worked-on-the-green-chain. He was too honourable for that, and had to go make things harder than putting socks on a rooster. Which is why he got what was coming to him.”
I stood there for a long moment, glaring at this pathetic excuse of a man. I realized that my cousin and father were right. There was evil out there. Men like Cassian Cullen and Gus Tibbs who not only evaded the law, but almost certainly would have gotten away with snuffing out the lives of innocents—unless there was intervention by somebody who could stop them after they slipped through the cracks of the traditional justice system.
Somebody willing to pay the price that others wouldn’t.
Somebody like me.
“Save your sad story for the cops,” I said, before lunging forward, closing the gap between us.
Gus swung the crowbar, but was too slow. I blocked his strike with my left forearm, then delivered a thunderous blow to his stomach. He lurched forward, gasping and wheezing, but still held onto the crowbar in his right hand.
“It’s over, Gus,” I said with certainty.
I reached out for the iron bar in his grip when suddenly the noose from a lasso encircled my hands. Before I knew what was happening, it was cinched tight around my wrists and yanked me forward so hard I fell to my knees. By the time I had realized what had happened to me I looked up, only to see Annie standing over me with a frown on her face.
“I told you I could lasso just about anything, Sugar.”
Just then I caught a glimpse of Gus standing up behind me. A moment later searing pain shot through my back as the crowbar connected so hard across my shoulder blades I hit the floor of the locker room., my cheek pressed against the cold concrete.