WE’VE BEEN WAITING IN BLAINE’S truck for an hour now and my patience is really fucking starting to run thin. Any second now I’m going to lose my shit and drag him out of the bar my damn self.
“Any word from Cole yet?” I ask stiffly, while staring at the rain through the window.
Blaine shakes his head. “Nah, not yet.” He looks up from twirling his phone. “You still want to do this, man? His death is going be another weight on your shoulders that will never fucking go away. I’m not sure if you can come back from this.” He pauses for a second and reaches for a cigarette. “I can do it and you can go about living your life and move on with Avalon. You two could have a life together. She’s good for you.”
“It’s not that fucking simple,” I grind out. “He took my family from me. There’s already no way to move on from that. Having that fucker pay is just a small step closer to the relief that I will never fully get. I’m fucked up, Blaine. You know that shit. Too fucked up already to care.”
“He took my family from me too, brother,” he points out. “I know how much that shit hurts. I know how it fucking eats at you, making you feel empty inside and full of rage. I’ve been here through it all, and it kills me every fucking day.”
I swallow hard and look over at him. I can see the pain swallowing him whole, just as much as it is me. It only gives me more reason to kill that fucking cunt: for all of us. “I know, man. I’m sorry.” I grip his shoulder and squeeze it. “You’re my brother, Blaine. You don’t need this shit on your hands. Got it? This is on me to do. It always has been.”
He shakes his head and grips the steering wheel. “Fuck! This shit . . . It’s so fucked up.” His eyes widen as his phone goes off in his lap. He reads the message and then turns to me, his amber eyes dark with rage. “This couldn’t be anymore fucking perfect.” He throws his phone down and starts his truck. “Cole overheard dumb-fuck say that he’s headed to that old warehouse off Twentieth and Teasdale to pick up a drop. No one in their right mind goes over that way after dark. Looks like the devil is on our side tonight.”
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and anxiously run a hand through my sweaty hair as he takes off in the direction of the warehouse.
This is the fucking moment I’ve waited almost two years for. It’s happening, and I can finally find peace knowing that Brian is rotting in the fucking ground. Right where his wrong doings put Olivia and my unborn child. He’s going to feel my wrath tonight and understand the pain he’s brought to my family.
When we reach the warehouse, Blaine turns off his headlights and parks in the alley out of sight. It’s hard to see through the rain, but there are two vehicles parked out back and three men standing around talking. One of those fuckers is Brian. I’ve only ever seen him in a photo, but as soon as my eyes seek out his tattooed face in the small lighting and crooked ass nose, I know that it’s him. My heart will never let me forget that fucker’s face. It’s been haunting my dreams for far too long.
They talk for a few minutes, before the other two guys jump into a red car and pull off. Brian waits after they leave, and then jumps into his dump as their taillights disappear, turning on the light and just sitting there, most likely testing out his shit.
“Get out of the truck,” I demand, keeping my eyes straight ahead.
“What? Are you serious?”
“I’m dead serious. I’ll buy you a new one. Now out.”
Blaine shakes his head, but doesn’t say another word as he jumps out of his truck and softly closes the door behind him, being careful not to alarm Brian.
I crack my neck, start the engine, and slam on the fucking gas, driving right into the side of Brian’s car.
The impact causes me to slam my head into the windshield, but with my adrenaline pumping I don’t feel shit. I shake it off and focus on what I came here to do, to finish this.
Kicking the door open as hard as I can, I jump out of the truck and rush over to Brian’s side of the car. “You fucking piece of shit.” I punch my fist through his window, watching him jump back and cover his face as the glass shatters around him.
“What the fuck!” He screams. “Take my shit. You can have it. Please.”
I reach through the broken window and grab him by his hair, slamming the side of his head into what’s left of the window. Then I pull his head up so that he can look into my eyes. “I’m here to take much more than that.”
With both hands, I yank him out through the window and throw him down onto the ground, before yanking him up to his knees.
I lean in close to his face as he grabs at his wounded flesh, trying to stop the blood from his cuts. “You took everything from me!”
“Royal,” he stammers.
I raise a brow and choke him up against the side of his car. “You were stupid for coming back here. You know that, right?” I squeeze his neck tighter and slam him against the car again. “Answer me!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He grips my arm with both hands. “I didn’t know he would come after you and your family. You have to believe that.”
Releasing his throat, I punch him across the face, causing him to fall over and grab at his busted mouth. “You think that shit matters to me? Huh!” I place my boot on his back and force him flat down on the gravel. “I lost my world that night. Those fuckers came into my home and raped and murdered my wife . . . and my child. They were fucking innocent. Do you know what I did to them when I walked in and had to watch that? I saw it with my own fucking eyes! Did you know that?”
He shakes his head and grips at the gravel, as if it’s going to somehow save him. He’s wrong. Nothing will now. “No. No. No,” he says quickly. “I didn’t know!”
With my boot on his back, I pull out my knife and kneel down close to his face. “Well, good thing you’re here so I can tell you then.”
I flip him over on his back and kneel over his shaking body, shivering from the cold rain and fear of what’s about to happen to him. “I shot them each in the dick.” I bring my knife down to his dick, putting pressure on it. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Then I shot them in the head.” I bring the knife up to the side of his skull and pierce the skin with the tip. “And I watched as they bled out.”
“Shit! No! Please,” he begs. “I have a baby girl. She’s almost two!”
My heart stops from his confession and my throat feels as if it’s closing up. I’m losing it. I’m fucking losing it.
“That’s why I did it. I needed money to get my wife out of here and somewhere safe. She was already nine months pregnant and I did what I had to do to get the money. It wasn’t safe here for my family.”
I lean my head back and shake it, letting the cold rain drip down my face. “Shut up!” I bring the knife down to his throat and slightly puncture the flesh, twisting it. “Don’t fucking talk! I don’t want to hear that shit.”
“Please! She’s sick and she needs her father. She has leukemia. Her name is–”
“Stop!” I quickly stand to my feet and kick him back over to his stomach, not wanting to hear another word from his mouth. I place my boot on the back of his head and shove it into the dirt, pissed as fuck about what I’ve just learned. “Fuck! What did I say? One more word and I’ll cut your fucking throat out!”
I drop to my knees and grip at my hair, before running a hand down my face. So much shit is running through my head that I can’t decide what to do next. This is not how the fuck I planned this.
“Please don’t kill me. I only came here to visit my mother and get some more money for my daughter’s treatments. She’s so sick,” he cries. “Please. Her mother can’t work. It’s only me.”
Guilt overwhelms me to the point of suffocation. I feel like ripping his fucking heart out the more he talks, but the thought of Hadley being here, sick and losing her father, eats at me, making me vulnerable and sick to my stomach. I would die for my family.
“I’m sorry! If I could take back what I did I would.” He crawls up to his knees and laces his hands together, begging me. “Please don’t take her father away from her. She’s just a little girl.”
“Fuck!” I scream out. “Shut the fuck up!”
We both look over as Blaine comes rushing over, soaking wet and out of breath. “Shit, man. I got a message from Jax. Some shit went down.”
Fear consumes me at the thought of anything bad happening to Avalon, and suddenly all I can think about is rushing to her. I can’t fucking let anyone hurt her. The thought has me quickly rising to my feet. “Fucking hell!”
My eyes land on Brian on his knees pleading. All I can see when I look at him is a man begging and doing anything in his power to provide for his child. I’d do the same thing.
Walking over to him, I take my knife and cut his shirt open, before placing the knife to his fast rising chest. “Never fucking forget the lives that were lost because of you. Every time you take off your shirt and look in the mirror, you will remember them. It will fucking haunt you like it does me.”
Grabbing his neck, I dig my knife into his flesh, causing him to close his eyes and scream out as I slowly carve an O on the left of his chest and then move over to carve an H onto the right side. It’s so deep that there’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll be hurting for a while, before scar tissue forms making it permanent.
When I’m done, I stand back and look at his bleeding chest as the rain mixed with his tears runs down his grateful face. “If you do anything to fuck up that little girl’s life, I will come after you and I will fucking kill you. I will carve your fucking heart out and watch as your life slowly drains from your lifeless eyes. That is a promise.”
He nods his head and falls forward, gripping the ground as I walk away.
“Let’s go,” I say, while brushing past Blaine.
Blaine nods his head. “Give me one sec.”
I nod my head in understanding and jump into Blaine’s truck. Worried about Avalon, I power my phone back on. I turned it off to get rid of any distractions. I usually do that when I need to keep my head together.
When it finally turns on, multiple messages and missed calls pop up from Avalon, making my chest fucking hurt in fear. I feel like fucking exploding as I call her phone and it goes straight to voicemail.
Blaine hops in the truck, grabbing at his fist. I grab him by the shirt and shake him. “What the fuck did Jax say? Where is she?”
He releases a breath. “Your brother practically fucking kidnapped her. Jax got her out of the car, but she has a pretty bad bump on her head that is causing her some pain. They’re at the hospital about thirty minutes away from town.”
“Fucking bastard. He finally grew some fucking balls all of a sudden.” I quickly back away from Brian’s car and hit the road, with my hands shaking and my heart racing out of control.
All I can think about is getting to her and making sure that she’s safe in my arms; no one else’s.
My brother will be seeing my ass later . . .
MY BLOOD IS FUCKING BOILING the whole way to the hospital. Between thoughts of letting Brian live for the sake of a precious little girl and thoughts of choking my brother out, my mind has been consumed the whole thirty-minute drive.
That piece of shit will learn to never fuck with my girl again. He was lucky as shit to even get his chance with her when he did, but she’s over him now and has moved on with me. I have no problem with beating that info into his pretty little head.
“What floor is she on?”
I pull into the hospital and hurriedly search for an empty space to park. There’s so many damn parking spots here that it’s making me anxious. She could be anywhere in that fucking building.
Why in the fuck are there so many cars here?