Chapter 8
Another loud thump almost made me jump out of my skin. For the last thirty minutes of our ride, my dad had been yelling and bumping like hell, trying to get out of the trunk. Tears sprang to my eyes as the terror of seeing my dad after all these years settled in to stay.
For so long, I thought I was safe from Zachariah, when he was manipulating the situation from afar. I had been a fool to think it was remotely safe to stay in a place where he could easily get to me. As long as I was under his command, he was satisfied. My only concern was trying not to upend Anthony’s current reality.
He had already lost the only father he ever knew and his home. I figured keeping him in his school and our church was a small risk to take. I knew, eventually, I would have to move. Deep down, I knew that it was a matter of time before he would make his presence known. I just thought I had more time. It was stupid of me to underestimate him.
Tears streamed down my face as I sat in the passenger seat of the car and watched Amaze talking to his mom at her front door. He held Anthony against him and rubbed his head like he was five years old instead of fifteen. It warmed my heart every time I saw Maze interact with my baby boy. Amaze showed him the love I always dreamed he would give him.
After a couple of minutes, Maze kissed and hugged his mother before doing the same to Anthony. I wanted to talk to my son. I at least wanted to say something to explain what was going on, but I barely knew what was going on myself. As bad as I wanted to get out of the car, I was frozen by anxiety and fear. Zachariah thumping in the trunk didn’t do anything to settle my nerves.
I didn’t take my eyes off Maze as I strolled back to the car as if there wasn’t a mad man in the trunk. I hadn’t even begun to process the potential trauma Ant would face just driving this car. It was all too much to bear. All I could do was sit there in a ball of emotions and wait for Maze to make things right. The sympathy in his eyes as he joined me in the car finished breaking my heart.
“Don’t cry, Wes. This is almost over. The nightmare is almost over, my love. Don’t waste your tears on him.”
“Promise me, Maze. Promise that we will live happily ever after when this is all done.”
“I would have ended it back at the wreck if I didn’t know you needed closure. I figure you have some things to get off your chest or even some questions that I can’t answer for you. The only reason that he’s still alive is for you. Once this is over, you can cry all you want to. I’ll be right here to dry every one of your tears.”
“I’m ready to end this,” I said, shaking my head.
“Let’s get to a private location first, baby. We can put all of this to an end as soon as we get to the club.”
With that said, Amaze turned the radio up to the max and tore out of his mom’s driveway. The blasting of his radio didn’t do much to settle my nerves as we drove for hours trying to get to the club. I liked how secluded it was but didn’t care for the distance from everything, especially due to the circumstances of having someone in the trunk.
We had been living scattered out for far too long. Amaze’s place was even a long way from his mom’s. We were running each other ragged, trying to maintain relationships at such a long distance apart. After far too long, we finally made it to the club. There appeared to be no one else there as Maze pulled around to the back of the building. I was sure that he had made sure no one else was there.
I had been in such a daze that I hadn’t paid attention to a word he said on the couple of phone calls he made and answered on our way here. All I cared about was getting some level of justice.
I had been having mixed feelings about what I thought, about Amaze saying he was going to kill my dad. I knew he would become a huge problem if left unchecked, but part of me hoped that we could come to some kind of agreement.
Now I knew that was out of the question. We could run. We could even go into hiding for a while and hope he found some new project to obsess over to no end, but Zachariah was relentless. We would never know peace as long as he was in the picture. We would have to look over our shoulders as long as he knew we were together. That was no way to live.
We parked right in front of the back entrance to the club. To my surprise, AJ opened the door and walked out once we pulled up. Maze didn’t say a word as he got out of the car and followed his brother to the trunk.
I didn’t bother to move, not that I could if I wanted to. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Maze mentioned thinking that I needed closure. Closure would be knowing that he could no longer haunt my family.
Father or not, he was better off dead if you asked me. Trying to take my son, for whatever reason, had been the final straw. I would do whatever it took to protect my son. He meant everything to me. Amaze had already proven the lengths that he would go to for our son. I felt no different. That didn’t make things any easier on me.
As evil as he was, Zachariah was still my father. Some part of me still cared about him. Although he didn’t deserve it, there were still some remnants of love for him deep down inside me. I winced when they popped the trunk. The car started to rock as Amaze and AJ pulled my dad out.
With as much noise as he made while he was in the trunk, I was surprised to see that he was still hog-tied as they carried him into the building. He was putting up as much of a fight as he could but between those big strong jokers and the rope securing his hands and feet, there was no use.
After a quick debate, I took the keys out of the cupholder and stuffed them in my pocket before getting out of the car and following the men inside. Maybe there were some things I needed to get off my chest.
Zachariah had caused me a lifetime of pain. He had let me suffer at the hands of a man he knew didn’t mean me any good and kept me hidden from the man I truly loved, and for what? Just to maintain control of the situation.
I would never forgive him for the things that I had gone through due to his manipulation. I lingered by the door while Maze and his brother positioned my dad in a chair. AJ went through the motions of zip-tying his legs to the chair.
Zachariah was livid, bucking like a wild animal in an attempt to free himself from the restraints, but there was no use. The car drying towel stuffed and strapped into his mouth was doing little to nothing to quiet his screams. It didn’t matter because once he was secured to the chair, Amaze yanked the gag down and stooped down so that they were eye to eye.
“You know how long I’ve been waiting to do this, old man?” he quizzed.
“Fuck you!” my father shouted right before he spit in Amaze’s face.
I didn’t even have the chance to blink before Amaze’s fist connected with Zachariah’s face. Over and over, he punched him until the chair toppled over.
“Sit this muthafucka back up!” Amaze demanded.
Blood streamed from Zach’s mouth and a cut over his eye. He spit again, causing blood to spatter on the floor. Amaze’s chest heaved as he stood there watching my dad. Placing his hands on his hips, he began to pace back and forth.
“Fifteen fucking years. You stole fifteen years of my life, fifteen years that I could have been spending loving your daughter and raising our son. You robbed me of fifteen happy years. Instead, I spent my life hunting down my wife’s killer, only to find that she wasn’t dead. No, she was very much alive and married to the man you hired to kill me. Were you surprised to find out I had tracked them down?”
“It took you fifteen fucking years to find her, and you wonder why I knew you weren’t competent to be her husband. You were raised by that imbecile Amar Johnson. You would never be good enough for my daughter. I had plans for her. She was to marry into wealth and influence. Not some college student running from his own destiny. You are a coward!”
Whap!
This time, Amaze knocked him over with one blow. When the chair crashed onto the floor, Amaze kicked Zachariah in the stomach. The second kick was to his face. As he kicked and stomped him, I started to consider that he might beat him to death before I made a decision about if I wanted to talk to him or what I would even say.
“Wait!” I called. Amaze seemed to be in a daze as he continued to stomp Zachariah in his stomach and ribs. I knew this was my last chance to hear the truth, so I ran over to Amaze and grabbed his arm. “Amaze, wait.”
Amaze’s chest heaved wildly as he turned to me with glazed over eyes. It took a couple of seconds for him to come back to me, but eventually his eyes focused on me.
“What are you doing, Wes?”
“I just… Let me talk to him.”
Swiping his hand over his face, Maze looked down at my dad as he took a few steps back to give me what I asked for.
“Dad?” My voice shook as I tried to gather my thoughts. After all these years, my dad still terrified me. Even lying on the floor in the fetal position, he triggered something in me that I couldn’t explain with any other word than fear.
“This is all your fault. You did this. You ungrateful little bitch!” He snarled through bloody teeth.
“That’s all you have to say to me after all this time?”
“What the hell do you want me to say? You know how much money you cost me with that stunt you pulled? All the grooming and training just to make you suitable enough for the best match, and you run off with pure garbage. You knew that boy was the enemy. You knew I was making arrangements to select a husband for you, but you chose to defy me. You cost me millions, you ungrateful whore.”
“That’s enough!” Amaze barked, moving to stand beside me.
“No.” I shook my head and held up my hand.
“I’m not letting him talk to you like that, Wes. Fuck him. You’re not going to get what you’re looking for from this half dead muthafucka.”
After spitting a wad of blood on the floor, Zachariah snapped. “Johnson, you are a joke! You try to pretend to be so noble because you walked away from a multimillion-dollar operation to be a fucking teacher. You think you are better than Amar, but in reality, you are just a joke.”
“Shut the hell up, Dad! You won’t get the last laugh this time. You thought you had it all figured out. Instead of appreciating my ability to make a sound decision on my own, you tried to beat and threaten my individuality out of me. Instead of appreciating my intelligence, you resented my independence. You didn’t want a daughter. You wanted a showpiece that you could trade to the highest bidder.”
“Jokes on me. I thought I had a trophy, and you were just trash. I had to play clean up and settle for that no account dummy I sent over to get you. He was the only one that wanted your ass after you were tainted by mud blood. You ruined your future because some fool wanted to play between your legs. You better hope that bastard son of yours doesn’t turn out to be like his no-good daddy. Lord knows he don’t stand a chance in hell after being raised by you and Galvin. I should have left you at the fucking hospital. I never wanted a fucking daughter. Look at the shit storm you’ve caused, you whore. You women are weak. You’re no better than your whore of a mama. Look how she left?—”
His words were cut off by a bullet to the chest. Squeezing the trigger, I fired another shot for good measure. Nothing he said was worth hearing, so I took us all out of our misery and ended his life once and for all. It was better that way.
“God damn, Quick Draw McGraw,” Maze said in a low chuckle.
After growing tired of listening to his bullshit, I snatched Maze’s gun from his waistband and shot my dad myself. Part of me hoped that he would be apologetic once he finally faced me. Instead, he doubled down on his treachery. He was the worst kind of evil. He couldn’t see past his own agenda enough to consider someone else’s happiness.
“I didn’t want to put the burden on you of having to kill my dad then face me every day for the rest of our lives. You would never forgive yourself.”
“But can you? I’m not worried about forgiving myself. I just realized that I never have to forgive him. The problem is you killed him too fast. I wanted to fuck you on that pool table while he watched. Seeing you in action turned me the fuck on.”
“It might be too late for him to watch, but the pool table’s still there.”
“Come here, girl.” Amaze winked as he pulled me in for a kiss.