The Ruthless Heir

Judge’s [POV]

A few days later, I’m stepping out of the shower when my phone rings. It’s Santiago. I wrap a towel around my hips and pick it up.

“Santiago.”

Silence on the other end.

“How is Ivy?” I ask.

“Stable. But no change. Nothing. She won’t wake up.”

I hear the agony in my friend’s voice. Hear the torment of guilt and powerlessness.

“Nothing,” he says more quietly.

“It’s early yet. Her body has been under a great deal of stress. I’m sure-”

“Nothing is sure, Judge. Nothing.”

It’s despair now.

“Give her time.”

“My sister. I can’t come right now. I know it’s been a long time, but I can’t.”

“I told Mercedes what happened. She’s worried about you. About Ivy.”

He snorts.

“It’s true, Santiago. And she’ll understand if you can’t visit. She’s doing well. Be reassured in that.”

“Thank you. I need…” He trails off. I’ve never heard him so distracted. Never seen him so beside himself as he was the night I saw him at the hospital beside his comatose wife.

“You go take care of your wife now. I’ll take care of Mercedes. Call me if there’s any change.”

We disconnect and I set the phone aside to dry off. Abel ran his sister down. His pregnant sister. I think about my own family. My brother. Would he do the same to me? To Mercedes? To an extent he did. He hurt her to punish me. The only difference between Theron’s and Abel’s actions is that Abel hates his sister as much as he hates Santiago. I don’t think Mercedes matters much to Theron.

Is one of those things worse than the other?

I step out of the bathroom and am surprised to find Mercedes sitting on my bed dressed to ride texting someone on her new phone.

“Do you knock?” I ask, remembering her very question.

She wraps up what she’s typing out, smiles at whatever the response is probably from fucking Georgie then deigns to look up at me.

“I did. You didn’t hear.”

“That so?” I walk past her, not missing how her eyes drop to the line of hair that disappears beneath the towel at my stomach. I grin. She’s not immune to me, no matter how much she wants to believe she is. I make my way to the closet.

“You took a long shower. What were you doing in there?”

I pull on a pair of briefs, then my riding pants, take a button-down off the hanger, and put it on. I approach her as I fold the cuffs. “Jerking my dick to thoughts of you on your knees sucking me off.” I brush past her. Her nipples scrape my arm through her blouse, and I suppress a groan of need.

I’ve eaten her pussy out night after night, and I’m not complaining, but jerking myself off in the shower is getting a little old. She’s trying to prove a point and make me believe it’s only about getting off. Like a man, she’s quick to get dressed when she’s done without giving a fucking thought to me or the state I might be in.

But I see how she looks at the swell of my neglected dick in my riding pants. It’s just a matter of time.

“I will never kneel for you again, Judge,” she says too late.

I push silver links through my cuffs, then turn to button my shirt as I study her. “Never say never, Mercedes. You don’t want to tempt the gods.”

“I mean it. Never is. It’ll just be you and your hand for the foreseeable future. Until you give me away that is.”

I grit my jaw. She knows exactly which buttons to push.

“And when I fail a virginity test-”

“You won’t fail. I’ll see to that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Like you’ll pay someone off? And what do I do on my wedding night? Squeeze ketchup on the sheets?”

I stop listening on the wedding night and pull on my boots. She’s trying to provoke me. I look her over and nod. She’s almost back to herself. She still jumps at sudden loud noises, and there are moments I witness her panic when we’re alone, and she deems me a threat. We’ll get there, though.

I have noted how she hasn’t worn makeup apart from a little lip gloss since the night her friends were over. I haven’t taken her makeup away, but she just hasn’t put it on.

“Ready?”

She purses her lips in irritation but nods and slips her phone into her pocket. I set my hand on her lower back and guide her out of my room and through the house. We walk side by side to the stables. The morning air is crisp. A fog has settled over the grounds, making for strange but beautiful views.

“Was that Santi you were talking to?” she asks too casually. She’s worried, though. I hear it.

I nod.

“Any change?”

“No.”

We reach the stables, and she goes to Temperance’s stall. She keeps her back to me as she greets the horse, her high ponytail swinging. “Does he blame me?”

“Of course not. You had nothing to do with what happened to Ivy.”

I go to her and saddle her horse. I know she hates that I help her, but she’s going to have to get used to it. While I secure the saddle, she bridles Temperance. When she doesn’t respond, I turn her to face me and tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes.

“What happened to Ivy wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

She shrugs a shoulder but can’t quite hold my gaze.

“Mercedes.”

“Judge.” She rolls her eyes and pushes past me to mount her horse. She moves with ease and assurance, and it helps that the horse likes her. “Can we go already?”

I nod and glance at the horse I’d bought for Theron. She’s smaller than Temperance. I think of my brother. Of the calls, my mother has been receiving they are disconnected almost as soon as they connect. And I don’t tell Mercedes that when I think of him, I think of the boy I knew before his twenty-fifth birthday. Because he’s in trouble. The things Ezra has turned up leave no doubt.

“I’ll go without you if you can’t be bothered,” Mercedes says.

“You’ll do no such thing.” I get Kentucky Lightning ready, and we ride for a long time that morning. Long enough to watch the sun burn off the fog racing each other, testing each other’s skill. And despite herself, I do see Mercedes smile. She even laughs before she catches herself. I don’t comment.

“Are you trying not to take me by that outbuilding?” she asks me as we circle back to the stables the long way around.

“Are you in a hurry to get to the house? I thought you’d enjoy more time outside.”

“Tell me the truth, Judge.”

“I don’t want you upset.”

“I won’t be upset. You all have to stop treating me with kid gloves. I’m stronger for what happened.”

“It’s okay to be fragile sometimes.”

“You mean weak.”

“I mean fragile. It’ll take time for the trauma-”

“There’s no fucking trauma,” she snaps and clicks her tongue. Temperance gallops off as Mercedes guides her in exactly the direction I was trying to avoid.

“For fuck’s sake.” I go after her, catching up and leaning over to take her reins and at least slow Temperance down. “Take it easy.”

She snatches the reins back into her gloved hands, and we ride in tense silence toward the outbuilding that houses the punishment room. Once we reach it, she dismounts.

“I want to see it.”

“It’s locked. I don’t have the key.”

“Liar. Besides, there was no lock. He broke it.”

“And you think I didn’t fix it?”

She walks to the mouth of the building and enters. I dismount and follow her, using the flashlight on my phone to guide us. I show her the padlocked door.

“Satisfied?” I ask.

She looks up at me, her face mostly hidden in the shadows. “What was it? Before?”

I study her. Remember the trust she’d talked about what feels like an eternity ago. When she trusted me with her secret.

“We called it the punishment room.”

Worry creases her forehead.

“My grandfather. He was, well, let’s just say he ruled with an iron fist.”

“Not your father?”

“No. My father was gentle. Which Grandfather found weak.” I move to walk out of the cave, but she puts a hand on my arm to stop me. I turn to her, and in the light of my phone’s flashlight, her eyes shift to the scar Theron left on my cheek. She reaches a hand up to touch it, fingers light. It’s the first time she’s touched me in, fuck, I can’t remember how long. Apart from pulling my hair when my face is buried between her legs, she avoids my touch.

“Theron said something.”

I swallow because I don’t trust myself to speak. Not the way my heart is beating as her fingers makes their way down my cheek and to my mouth, hovering there before she drops her arm to her side.

“When I cried out, he said that it could always be worse. He said that he was not the monster. That I have no idea what you’re capable of.”

I draw in a tight breath. The air in here seems thinner. I need to burn it down and leave only ashes. Because this building, it’s like a fucking black hole of time that still manages to trap me and reach its claws into my present.

“What did he mean, Judge?”

I open my mouth to answer but my phone rings then, interrupting us, and breaking into the moment. I see that it’s Ezra. “I need to take this.” I walk out toward the sunlight and answer, grateful for the call because I’m not sure I’m ready to answer that question.

“Judge, you need to come.”

“What?” My heart thuds.

“I’m sending you my location now.”

“You found him.”

“He’s in bad shape. They’re working on him now, but you need to hurry.”

I look at Mercedes, who is watching me. “I’ll be right there.”

Mercedes rolls her eyes as I disconnect. “Saved by the bell. Who’s Ezra Moore?” she asks. She must have read my phone’s screen.

“Come-”

“Who did he find?” she asks tightly.

“I’ll get you back to the house.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but I continue.

“Raul will take you to visit your friends for lunch,” I say, deciding it on the spot. Because she knows exactly who he found, and I need a distraction.

Not bothering to wait for her permission, I grip her by the waist and hoist her up onto Temperance’s back before mounting my horse and riding back, anxious as my phone dings with the location, which, at a glance, tells me is a motel about two hours out of town.

“Judge,” Mercedes says when I leave her once we’re in the house.

“I need to go, Mercedes.”

“It’s your brother. You’re going to see him.”

“It’s not like you think.”

“No? How is it then?”

“We’ll talk later. I need to go.”

“I won’t talk later.”

I sigh, but I can’t fix this now. If Ezra said it’s bad, it’s bad.

I drive myself to the address Ezra sent, and when I pull up to the door, I see Ezra’s car and one other. Neither looks like they belong here. Someone peers out of their motel room as I park my Audi and hurry to knock on the door. I didn’t want to bring the Rolls in case anyone recognized it.

“Judge,” Ezra says, opening it right away and stepping aside to let me take in the scene.

“Jesus.” The room has been destroyed. Every glass surface shattered. Every piece of furniture splintered. The bed leans on broken legs. And on the disgusting blanket lying in a stain, I’m sure his blood is my brother’s. My almost unrecognizable and barely conscious brother. His face has been beaten so badly that both eyes are slits, the skin around them black and blue. His lip is cut, and blood has dried on his chin. His neck. His shirt has been ripped open, and what looks like cigarette burns mark almost the entirety of his chest. His feet are bare, and I’m pretty sure that dark spot on his jeans is dried piss.

The doctor who is cleaning a wound gives some instructions to his assistant. She nods and gets what he needs out of the medical bag. Theron already has an IV in his arm.

On the broken nightstand and lying on the floor are traces of white powder and a used needle.

“Is that…?” I start, but Ezra answers before I can finish.

“Cocaine.”

It’s what I suspected the night I found him in the punishment room. He was high.

“We’ve managed to stabilize him,” Ezra says. “He’s lucky we got here when we did.”

“What the fuck happened?” I snap.

Theron groans at the sound of my voice. He turns his head, and I see how much it costs him.

“He was overdosing. The hotel manager called the local police. Luckily, I know the woman manning the desk there. She recognized his description. I sent my doctor over. He was able to reverse the overdose.”

“He’ll be okay?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” I say, more relieved than I expect to feel.

“And I’ve already paid the manager. It’ll all be kept quiet.”

I nod, but that’s not what I’m thinking about now. I step closer to the bed. “Who beat him?” Because I didn’t do this.

The nurse working with the doctor cuts away his jeans. Theron hisses through his teeth. I see why. Because as the denim is pulled away from his thighs, the sliced, shredded skin comes into view. Whoever did this wanted to deliver maximum pain.