Chapter 25
Brewer
I peeked out from the closet as I heard a stampede of people enter my home. The second I heard the motorcycles roaring up the road, I knew something wasn’t right. I explicitly told the guys I would need tonight to get my affairs in order and take care of some things. I looked at the bed I had made up. I’d hopped off it and grabbed my gun and extra ammunition from my bedside drawer before heading to the closet. I’d made up my bed to look like I was underneath the covers so I could find a way to distract them. Going downstairs wasn’t a good idea, but staying upstairs meant I could funnel them in and pop them off from the crack in my closet door.
For the first time since Makenna left, I was glad she was gone.
I heard my front door come busting in and I cringed. Shit. I’d have to get that fixed before we enacted our plan. I held my gun at my side and listened as they started yelling across the house.
“Hey! Where the hell are you?”
“You thought you could get the jump on one of us?”
“Did you think we wouldn’t figure out about your little plan, mother fucker?”
I furrowed my brow as I listened to them fan out along my home. The plan? How the fuck did they know about our plan? I bit back my want to charge them in full-blooded anger.
The fucking rat in our group.
Whoever the hell it was, I was going to wring his fucking neck.
I heard three pairs of footsteps come up the stairs. They were clearing the rooms on the top level of my home as I held my breath. I needed to be as quiet as I could. But I leveled my gun and propped it up through the crack in my closet door. My gun didn’t have a glossed finish for a reason. The black gun metal blended in with the darkness of my home, making me almost undetectable as they funneled into my room like idiots.
Easy prey I could pick off one by one.
Then, one of them shot the bed before feathers flew everywhere.
“Shit.”
“Pillows.”
“Where the hell is he?”
“Don’t leave any fucking door unopened in this damn house. They need to be taught a lesson.”
I watched one of them creeping towards the closet door and I started forming a plan. Because the second I popped off my gun, they would all come running upstairs. If I put a bullet between his eyes and quickly shot out the knees of the two other guys in the room, there were at least two others that would make their way upstairs. I could run across the hall, throw open the window, and get out onto my roof while trying to defend myself from bullets that would fly. But I only had the magazine in my gun and the magazine in my pajama pants pocket, so I had to make sure I was conservative with my shots.
But the dull roar of motorcycles off in the distance caught my ear.
As well as theirs.
“Shit.”
“Did someone get a call out?”
“You think that’s his club?”
“Find that son of a bitch before they get here. Now!”
I hoped to fuck that was my club. Though I had no idea how the hell they’d know to come check up on me. A stampede of feet fell onto all floors of my home as they quickly looked around for me. The man in front of me lunged for the closet door and I squeezed the trigger, landing one straight between his eyes.
“He’s up here!”
“Get your asses up here now!”
I leveled my gun at the man next to my bed and put two in his chest. He fell against my wall and slumped to the floor, leaving stains I knew I’d never get out of my wall and carpets. The roar of the motorcycles got louder as I turned and put another bullet between the eyes of one of the men in the hallway, then I rushed across the hall and looked out the window.
Relief flooded my system when I saw the guys pull up.
Gunshots rang out on my front lawn and my eyes darted over to Makenna’s house. Was it possible? Could she have been the one that called the guys? Was she okay? My heart raced with fear as I ducked down behind my guest bed, then checked my magazine. I had four rounds left in the one I had. And with the gunshots ringing out downstairs, even the extra magazine wouldn’t be enough to get me out of there. I steadied my breathing and closed my eyes, paying attention to my surroundings. Footsteps. Trigger fingers. I zoned in on every sound I could identify around me.
Until I heard boot steps falling on the carpet of my hallway.
“Brewer!”
I heard Rock’s voice yelling for me downstairs as I laid down onto the floor.
“Where the fuck are you!?”
I aimed my gun underneath the bed at the doorway as the footsteps grew closer.
“Damn it, Brewer! Come on! This isn’t funny!”
Then, I saw the shadow appear around the corner of the door. The footsteps stopped and I held my breath. Despite the chaos happening in my home and the irreparable damage I’d never be able to fix; my mind was trained on one thing. The man standing in the hallway staring into my guest bedroom. He wasn’t saying anything, nor was he moving. Just staying there with his feet pointed towards me. I looked over to the side and saw a dim reflection in a shoddy mirror I had in the room, and the man was looking straight at me. Staring at me through the mirror’s reflection with a damn mask over his face.
Then I heard him move.
I shot one bullet at his left ankle, grazing it, and he caved. Then I stood up from the floor and shot him again in his left thigh. He stumbled out of the room and I heard him tripping down the stairs as I stood there, listening to everything happening around me. My mind still rushed back to Makenna. I turned around and looked out my window over at her house. I saw lights on. I saw shadowed movement behind the drawn curtains.
Even in the gunfire raining down in my home, my body still longed to be next to hers.
I shook my head as I stormed out of my house. I wanted that masked little fucker in the palm of my hand. I crept down the stairs as the gunfire slowed to a grinding halt, but everywhere I looked, that man was nowhere to be found.
“Brewer?”
I turned my head to Rock’s voice before another gunshot rang out. And the searing pain that ripped through my shoulder made me nauseous.
“Fuck!”
I’d been shot four times in my life. One grazed my torso, one grazed my thigh, and two found themselves in my left leg at one point. But the sheer amount of pain that coursed through my shoulder left me breathless. I stumbled into Rock’s arms as he held his gun out, shooting whoever the hell was behind me.
“Mask?” I asked.
“What?” Rock asked. “Brewer, you’re fine.”
“The guy with the mask. Where is he?” I asked.
“What mask? The hell are you talking about? He needs a doctor, guys! Brewer’s been shot!”
“Mask,” I said. “Where… is he?”
I hit my knees as Rock continued to shoot behind me. I heard a chorus of footsteps rush up to me as the guys began to pull me in all directions. I heard people busting out glass and running over grass. I heard motorcycles strike up before they roared off into the distance. My stomach rolled with nausea. The room began to tilt. All I could see in my mind’s eye was that mask. The cover of a pussy that didn’t want to look into the eyes of the man he’d meant to kill.
Those assholes had come to kill me.
“Brewer. Stay with me. Can you hear me?” Rock asked.
“Get him to his car,” Diesel said.
“He needs an ambulance,” Grave said.
“Get him to his damn car!” Diesel exclaimed.
“We’ve got bodies upstairs,” Knox said.
“That’s what happens when you come for Brewer,” Rock said. “Don’t close your fucking eyes, okay?”
I felt him tap my cheek, but the pain was too much. It felt like someone was attempting to rip my arm from its socket. I felt blood pouring down my skin and dripping onto the linoleum floor beneath me. All of the strength I worked hard to keep in my bones and my muscles drained from me in seconds. My head fell back and I looked up at the ceiling of my home as Rock stood with me. He tossed my good arm around his neck while someone else grabbed my waist, hoisting me out the front door.
Then, the masked man in my mind morphed into Makenna. My sweet, beautiful Makenna. With her gorgeous brown hair and her entrancing blue eyes. She swung Ana around in her arms before the two of them smiled at me. I reached out for them, wanting to pull both of them to me so I could hold them in my arms.
My two girls.
The two most important women to me.
“Makenna,” I said with a whisper.
“Stop that shit, Brewer. Stay with me,” Rock said.
And then? The world faded to black.