It Begins
Jason
There was no use in fortifying the house.
There really wasn’t time and when Ricci came, they wouldn’t be fighting on the inside. No, Jason already knew Ricci would draw them out. It was better that they were prepared to do battle from the inside until they were forced to go out and face the man head on.
He didn’t bother boarding up the windows. If they wanted to come through them, he’d give them hell. That or Andy would.
Jason had never seen so much anger in a man before, especially not one as young as Andy. He figured the guy was around twenty-three if that. He had a murderous intent deeply entrenched into him. He had to wonder how many guys Andy had killed in the ring and just what he’d done to Ricci’s guards who had tried to stop him from leaving.
He felt a little safer having Andy at his side, but it was like the equivalent of having a mad dog to protect you. He knew Andy would never turn on him, but when it came to what Amanda said, about not killing anyone, he knew Andy hadn’t heard. He didn’t care. For him, life wasn’t sacred. It had been beaten into him long ago that it was kill or be killed.
Ricci tried to teach Jason the same lesson, but he’d always refused to end it in the ring. He’d never put a man in the grave. He’d been careful and he’d been merciful and when he was in the ring and the fight was won, not even Ricci could force him to take a guy’s life.
“We’ll stick together.” Andy looked up from his casual seat on the couch, where he sat polishing one of the twelve guns Jason retrieved from hiding places around the cabin and the yard. Amanda never knew there was more than the one he hung on the peg above the door. The floor was a mess of boxes of ammo and gun parts, taken apart for cleaning.
Andy was shockingly adept at the task, even more so than Jason himself. It inspired confidence, a confidence Jason never wanted to have.
“Yes. There isn’t another way. Why’d you come to warn me anyway? You could have easily gone off, disappeared, saved yourself a hell of a lot of trouble.”
Andy shrugged hard. “Mutual hatred, I guess. You were the reason I survived in that cage. You taught me how. It was your words that always rang through my thick fuckin’ head. I guess I was just returnin’ the favor.” He paused for a minute. “Your wife and kid make it safe?”
“They have the ID’s. Got them a couple hours ago. She hasn’t called yet, but I told her not to until she was across the border. I think it will be hours yet, depending on where she crosses.”
“I never thought you of all people would take a wife. Have kids. Guys like us don’t live normal lives after what we’ve done.”
“I should have learned my lesson the first time,” Jason admitted. He dipped his head, concentrating on the gun in his own lap.
“I know what happened to your woman. We all did. There wasn’t one of us, including guys that didn’t even fight for him, that doesn’t want to kill Ricci.”
Jason looked up, into the hard, flinty dark eyes of a natural born killer. That’s what Andy was, he realized. He was born into fighting, like Jason was, but he was baptized in blood and fire and death; a step Jason never could take. He couldn’t go that far. He knew there was no coming back from it. The minute he took a life, his soul would be forfeit and his soul was the only thing he had left.
“She’s not my wife.”
“What?” Andy’s hand continued methodically cleaning and putting back together. Cleaning. Assemble. Disassemble. Clean. Assemble. It was a sick rhythm that remained unbroken by conversation or eye contact.
“She’s not my wife. Amanda.”
“Sure looked that way.”
“She’s not. I never asked her to marry me.”
Andy paused for a second. His hands kept right on working. Eventually he cleared his throat. “You gonna rectify that mistake when we get out of this?”
“If we get out of it?”
“When.”
“I gave her my word I’d find her.” Jason swore softly under his breath. “I’m damn well going to keep that promise. No matter what happens, I have to get back to her.”
“I get it. Believe me. I’ll get them. You can cover me. I know she told you not to kill anyone, but what happens here, it never leaves here. We both know there ain’t gonna be no prison or court hearings.”
“I can’t do it, Andy. I can’t live with it. Amanda would know. It would ruin us. If I kill Ricci or one of his men, I might as well die too. I swore to myself a long time ago that I would never go down that road.”
Andy just nodded once. “Smart man. Myself, I never lived by that code of honor. To me, if a guy is stupid enough to get in the ring with me, he’s a dead man if it comes to it. When Ricci’s goons tried to stop me from leaving, six of them died. I know it’s me or them and I’d rather it be them.”
Jason’s stomach clenched hard. His chest ached. He saw Andy as a young man, the man he’d trained. It felt like a lifetime ago. He’d seen Andy as young and innocent, but he realized that Andy was hardened long before he’d ever started fighting.
That could be me.
After everything he’d lived through he knew he could be sitting there, methodically polishing guns, heart like a stone.
Somehow it wasn’t. By some mercy, he’d been spared that fate. The fate of the unfeeling.
“I know what you’re thinking. That somewhere along the way I went real, fucking wrong.” Andy’s hands kept working furiously. Always working. “You’re right. Except maybe there was something wrong with me right from the start. Right from birth. My parents were loving. Tried to be. I went wrong anyway. Headed out on my own when I was sixteen. I loved it. The streets. The fighting. All of it. The thrill of not living life enslaved to the world like the rest of society. I never wanted to be a part of the system. Always thought I’d join the military, but they turned me down. I have asthma. Fuckin’ asthma. Never stopped me in the ring. For me, it don’t matter how many I kill when they come and mark my words, I will kill them all. Make up your mind right now that you ain’t never coming back to this place after today. You’ll go to Canada. Find that woman and make her your wife. Have a couple more kids with her. A daughter maybe, as beautiful as she is. That’s your fate.”
“And what’s yours, Andy? Hmmm? What’s yours after you leave here?”
“Don’t know. I guess I’ll just wander around until I find it. I’m already beyond redemption, so don’t worry about my soul. I don’t believe in any of that stuff. Never did, never will. I’m only handing out what these men came lookin’ for. If they didn’t want to die, they wouldn’t come lookin’ for it.”
“Were you born here?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you still have an accent then? Irish?”
Andy shrugged. “Cause I fuckin’ like it that way.” He cracked a sick parody of a smile through his split, still swollen lips.
The crunch of gravel outside alerted both men at the same time that their visitors had arrived.
Jason whirled, nearly dropping the gun in his lap. Andy was much calmer. He finished up what he was doing, slammed the gun back together and loaded it. He looked dangerous, bordering on the brink of insanity. That strange smile never left his face.
“Rock and roll. Broad daylight. They have balls, I’ll give ‘em that.”
“We’re so far away from anyone else that they know the gunshots won’t be heard.”
“I don’t think they plan on us tryin’ to defend ourselves.”
“Not with these at any rate.” Jason indicated the guns. “They’re overconfident, coming here like this. They’re far too sure of themselves.”
Both men stood and crept over to the windows, keeping far enough to the side that they couldn’t be seen. Jason peeked around once before he ducked back. The door was locked and bolted, braced with a board he had nailed across earlier.
“Black SUV. Probably six of them inside.”
He leaned over and dared another glance. The men who climbed out were not natural looking humans. They were more like robots, mountains, statues. Any one of those words would have easily applied. They were hulking beasts, hair cropped short, dressed in black, combat boots on, packing enough heat to easily light up the entire place.
And then, at last, the man he hated so very much, the man who had instilled so much terror in the underground world, the man who had tried, and nearly succeeded, to end Jason’s life, set foot in his driveway.
He’d recognize those polished shoes anywhere. The need rose in him, strong, so very strong, to fire through the window and put a bullet in the man’s skull.
I can’t. I can’t even think it. Not if I ever want to go back to Amanda again.
“Let me do it.” Andy grinned, eyes flashing with unadulterated black hatred. “Let me put a bullet, or twenty, in his fuckin’ head.”
Jason nearly agreed. Ricci was standing there, out in the open, hands at his sides, no gun in either one of them.
Something isn’t right.
His worst fears were confirmed a minute later when Ricci called out, voice echoing through the peaceful, quiet clearing. “We have your woman and your brat, Dallas. If you want to see them alive, you will come out of that cabin without firing a shot at us.”
Dallas. He hadn’t heard his real name spoken in a very, very long time.
“He’s fuckin’ lyin’.” Andy swiveled towards the window, gun raised.
“No!” Jason held out a hand. “It doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t come here like this unless he truly did have a bargaining tool. He doesn’t just want to see me dead. He wants to make an example of me. He wants to make me suffer. If we kill him now, his men, whatever men he has out there, will kill Amanda. He might be lying, but I can’t take the chance that he’s telling the truth.”
“Come out of the fucking cabin, Dallas,” Ricci spat. “You have one minute or your woman dies. She fucking dies as well as your kid. Don’t test me. You know very well what happens to those who disobey. You wouldn’t want your pretty little woman to end up like the last one? Or do you?”
A sick, maniacal laugh shattered the silence. Ricci’s goons closed in around him, putting themselves between their boss and any stray shots that Jason might be stupid enough to fire off.
“They don’t know I’m here,” Andy whispered, ducking away from the window. “You hid my car. They have no idea I made it ahead of them. They probably think this is the last place on earth I’d ever go.”
“You’re right.” Jason paused. “I’m going out there. I have to. If anything goes wrong, get out of here, Andy. You can still save yourself.”
“Ten to one, they don’t have your woman.”
“I can’t take that chance.”
Andy shrugged, shocking Jason. “If they have them, they ain’t here. We’ll find them and I’ll kill those guys as well. They’re hired. Just like these guys. They don’t give a shit where their money comes from and from now on it’s comin’ from me.”
Andy moved so fast, Jason was powerless to do anything but watch as the other man dove towards the window. There was a volley of gunfire and exploding glass as the nightmare Jason had always envisioned happening, finally begun.