Chapter 22
Brynn
I stood there, looking at Diesel and thinking back to the decisions I’d made. Poor decisions I’d made that now had me within Rex’s grasp. I closed my eyes like he told me to, knowing damn good and well this wouldn’t end without someone’s death.
The only thing I could hope was that it didn’t end with his.
When the shootout began, I inched the door open of my room. I knew Diesel had seen me. I watched as his friend alerted him to my presence. The flashlight had been bright, and the illumination in the room had caught someone’s attention. I heard them screaming and calling out for Rex as I ducked down, and I crawled back behind the door with my stick in my hand.
I heard their footsteps. I heard their gunfire. And slowly, I inched myself out of the room. I watched bullets fly down the hallway as shadows turned down the wrong way. Holy hell, I had only been a few feet away from the back exit. But there was one figure that turned the right way down the hallway.
And I knew exactly who it was.
I listened as Diesel called out for me, but I was paralyzed with fear. The first rule my father ever taught me was to keep still. To not run out to voices that called for me. Why? Because danger that couldn’t see me meant I had the upper hand. Running to Diesel meant I would expose myself and put myself in more danger. At least if I was curled up behind a door, I had the advantage of sneak attacks. I wouldn’t have that if I ran out into the hallway and fell into Diesel’s arms. I’d still be vulnerable, even if I had the illusion of safety.
So, I stayed put.
I heard a scuffle going on before Diesel started growling. And I knew that sound very well. I stalked out from behind the door and peeked around, watching as he physically lifted the man off his feet. He was choking the life of out one of the Black Saddles, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the spectacle. Off the raw anger and strength bleeding through him. Gunshots rained down in the background, but all I could digest was Diesel.
He was standing. Breathing.
Alive when I thought he was dead.
I knew it didn’t compare to what he had gone through with me, but it gave me a glimpse. A small taste of what my funeral and burial had put him through all these years. Tears rushed my eyes as the body dropped to the floor and I heard another man’s voice.
“Come on. We need all the help we can get,” the man said.
“Brynn’s around here somewhere. I saw her through the window,” Diesel said.
“And we’ll find her. But right now, we have to eliminate the threat. You know this. Don’t go stupid because a woman is involved.”
“She isn’t any woman.”
My heart soared at those words as a smile crossed my cheeks.
“Trust me, I know that. I know that more than any one of you. But that doesn’t change the order in which we do things. We get rid of the threat, then we go looking for the survivor,” the man said.
He was right. He was absolutely right, and D needed to listen to him. I watched him turn around and take one last look down the hallway, and for a second, I thought he wasn’t going to listen. And if he ran down that hallway, I’d step out and catch his running form. I didn’t know these hallways well, but I knew them better than he did. There were so many places for so many other people to be hiding, and the last thing Diesel needed to be doing was losing his head in all this.
His mind was his greatest asset, and he had to keep it in the game.
“Come on,” Diesel said. “Let’s go.”
I watched the two men disappear around the corner before I looked both ways down the hallway. I rushed over to the dead body and pulled his gun off his hip, then dug around in his pockets for more ammunition. I dropped my stick in favor of the cold gunmetal, and the second I whipped around I saw a body barreling for me.
“I found you,” the man said.
I raised my gun and pulled the trigger, watching him stumble backwards. I pulled the trigger again, listening to him groan before he sputtered on his own blood. My eyes widened as the man sank to his knees. Even in the darkness of the corridor, I saw the whites of his eyes. How scared he was. How petrified he had become of bleeding out onto the floor. He fell face-first into the dust as his limbs twitched as tears of fear ran down my cheeks.
The gunfire on the other side of the building was heavy. Thick. I heard bullets bouncing around and I fell to the ground, hoping none of them would pierce me. Sounds were muddling together and my fear was getting the best of me. The rational part of me that was still alive and breathing tucked the gun into my pocket. I needed to get away. Hell, I needed to get out. If I could get to the back of that truck, I could keep myself safe until all of the guys made it back.
I was minutes away from being in Diesel’s arms again.
Until a hand came down onto my back.
“There you are,” Rex said.
“D!” I called out.
“Shut up, bitch.”
“Daddy! Help!”
Rex’s hand twirled into the fabric of my shirt as he wrenched me off the ground. He held me to him and pressed his lips disgustingly against mine. I opened my mouth and bit down onto his lip, drawing blood as he pulled back and hissed. He slammed me against the wall and I tightened my arm against the gun I had taken off his man, praying and hoping he wouldn’t find it.
“Rex! Stop it!” I yelled.
“You stupid bitch. Did you really think you could kill one of my men and get away with it!?”
He ripped me from the wall as I scrambled to cover the gun with my shirt.
“Did you do this?” he asked as he thrust my face into the dead body.
I whimpered as blood smeared across my cheek.
“Huh!? Did you!?” he roared.
I didn’t even try to hold back my tears any longer.
“Stop it, please,” I said between my sobs.
He rose me up and cracked his hand against my cheek. Again. I wailed out in pain as blood trickled along the tip of my tongue. I didn’t even know whose it was, that was how bad everything had gotten. I didn’t know whose life force filled my mouth as he pulled me away from the body. I whimpered as he pulled me down the hallway. We turned left and right. My arms and legs bashed against metal corners as his hand tugged at my hair. At my shirt. He grabbed onto anything he could in order to force me to go where he wanted me to be.
Then, we spilled into a cavernous room that seemed all too familiar.
Shit, I was back to where I had started.
“Brynn!”
The sound of Diesel’s voice ripped me from my tears. He sounded so close.
“D! I’m in here!” I called out.
“Can you find us?” Rex asked. “Can you find your way through the maze?”
“Stop taunting him. Just stop all this. Why are you doing this? Why are you--?”
Rex tried to bring my lips to his again, but I shoved him away. I stumbled onto my feet, trying to run and get away from him. My hand fell to the gun in under my shirt as I stumbled forward, tripping over something before I fell to my ass.
Rex started laughing maniacally as I looked down at what I had stumbled over.
Oh my gosh, it was the man I’d clocked with the nail-pierced stick.
Two.
I had killed two people that night.
“Stop it. Just stop,” I said.
“I’ll never stop when it comes to you,” he said as he gripped my shirt.
“Stop it, Rex! No!”
The second bullets started roaring through the wall, he threw himself on top of me on the ground. There I was, crushed between a dead body and Rex as his breath pulsed against my neck. It was disgusting. I wanted to throw up all over him. Bullets filled the room as I tried to catch my breath, my body filling itself with panic.
And that was how I had gotten to that point. To a point where Diesel stood in front of me and Rex stood there with a gun pressed to my temple. So many things swirled through my mind. The men I had killed. The trouble I had caused. The heartache I had inevitably brought down onto the heads of the men I cared for. I looked into Diesel’s eyes, searching for any sign that we would all get out of this.
But his gaze stayed locked on the man beside me. The insane lunatic with a gun to my head and a hand trembling so hard I figured he’d probably kill me by accident.
If we all made it out of this alive, I’d never waste my chance. If we all made it out of this intact, I’d live my life to the fullest. I wouldn’t doubt myself for a second and I’d never actively try to hold myself back from anything. I’d start opening my own business and settle down in Redding and never stop chasing Diesel until he agreed to be mine and mine alone.
If we all got out of this alive, I’d tell him none of this was fake. That I wanted the engagement to be real and I wanted to marry him.
If we all made it out of this alive, I’d even tell him I wanted to carry his child.