Chapter 20 Ledger
LEDGER
Violent thuds batter my ears, syncing with the erratic rhythm of my heartbeat as I dive toward Dee’s abandoned handgun that I’ve been eyeing since it skidded across the floor.
I clasp the cold metal, my body slamming into the dirt-streaked ground. Mayhem erupts around me in full force: gunshots, shrieks, and frantic motion blurring in the corners of my eyes. Antonio ran after Aria. I need to go after them.
Before it’s too late.
“Tanner, don’t!” Frankie shrieks, her voice cutting in several inches away.
I snap my gaze up. Frankie’s beside Tanner, his arm locked around her. I instantly raise my newly acquired pistol, aiming it at him. “Get away from her,” I growl, seething. When the hell did she even get that close to him? She was next to me just seconds ago.
His barrel points back at me, brows drawn tight. “Don’t,” he pants, sweat beading along his forehead. A spreading pool of blood seeps through the side of his navy sweatpants, darkening them. “Don’t move.”
Neither of us lowers our guns.
Frankie starts to sob again, pleading with him to stop. “Why are you doing this?” she cries, voice cracking. “Why?”
His jaw flexes. “Aria was a liability. You’ve always known that,” he says, his eyes locked on mine, ignoring Frankie trembling in his arms.
Was. Aria was a liability.
My fingers twitch around the trigger, anxiety building, crawling up my spine then spilling from my mouth in a sharp snap. “What the fuck, Tanner? I mean, seriously, what the fuck?”
“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.” His voice wavers. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please. Don’t make me.”
My eye catches the faint quiver in his fingers, the way concern twists through them like he’s already regretting his next move. He doesn’t want this.
A knot rises in my throat, heat surging through my chest as I wrestle to get myself together.
“You’d hurt me? Hurt her?”
“No.” He swallows thickly. “We won’t let it go that far.”
Frankie tries to lean away, but his hold tightens around her. Nerves spark in my veins at the gesture, hardly recognizing the man in front of me.
“What does he have on you?” I ask, because there’s no way he’s doing this without Antonio twisting his wrist. “Whatever it is, I’ll get you out of it, and if there are others coming—”
“No,” he says, steeling his voice. “Nobody’s coming.
I made sure of it.” His eyes plead with me, a flicker of the friend I once knew surfacing in their depths.
My chest tightens. “Do you realize what it took for me to pull this off with Antonio?” he asks.
“Come on. This is our only chance to fix this.”
“I could’ve gotten you out. It didn’t have to be like this. You should’ve waited for me.”
The friendly, familiar glimmer vanishes from his eyes as his glare hardens again. Cold. Unrelenting. My arm grows stiff from holding the aim too long, but I don’t lower it. Neither does he.
Shaking his head, he lets out a choked, bitter laugh. “I can’t leave The Ringer, Ledger.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“They’re family,” he clips. “We’ve pledged our loyalty to them.”
Frankie whips her head toward him, tears streaking down her cheeks. “No, no, we’re your family, Tanner.”
A dangerous glint flashes behind his eyes, nostrils flaring, as if something in her words struck a nerve in him. He jerks her higher against his chest. “Shut up, Frankie—God, just please stay out of this.” His voice is taut. Strained.
She lets out a sob, and he immediately loosens his grip on her, but it’s too late.
I fire at him, jerking my aim slightly off to his side so I don’t hit Frankie. The bullet grazes just inches from his ribs, and the anticipation alone makes him flinch back.
Frankie’s shoulders hitch.
Shouts erupt, nearly swallowed by the sharp crack of the gun tearing through the air. She slips away from his arms, using the chaos to break into a sprint toward me.
She slams into my chest, her tears soaking through the thick fabric of my shirt. She clutches the hem like it’s a lifeline, gasping, chin quivering into me. “H-He has her.”
I taste ash on my tongue.
My blood boils, the heat rushing straight to my ears, like pressure building in a kettle.
I tear away from her, heart ripping open. Antonio has a gun. He ran after her the moment she made a break for it. I have to get to her. She needs me before it’s too late.
It might already be too late.
A sharp click echoes between us, stopping me cold.
I glance up, bracing for the end of Tanner’s barrel to be aimed at either Frankie or me, but it’s pointed at his own head.
I freeze. My breath catches in my lungs.
“What are you doing?” Frankie cries, her hands flying to cover her mouth.
“I don’t want to hurt either of you,” he says, his voice thinner now, fragile in a way it hadn’t been moments ago.
“I can’t hurt either of you,” he adds, his voice sharpening as his eyes turn to her.
“But I can’t let you go after them, either.
This ends here, Wilson.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Choose. Her or me.”
My eyes flick from him to the metal door ahead. Aria has seconds left, if that. She needs me.
Damn him.
“Why?” I ask, swallowing through the knot in my throat. My eyes sting, already wet, because I know who I’d pick. And so does he.
His eyes go lifeless, all traces of his soul gone.
He shakes his head slowly, broken. “They took me in when I had nowhere else to go. I thought you of all people would’ve understood that.
But I guess not.” He exhales, slow and heavy.
“I guess your attachments just never ran as deep. But that’s okay. We had a good run.”
His voice is a tight rasp, but his eyes carry a thin shine, mirroring my own. “I don’t expect you to understand. Just know that choosing that girl will weaken you, Ledger. Eventually, it’ll get you killed.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His voice sinks lower. “She’s ruined things between us. She’s ruined everything.”
“No,” I bite out, gritting my teeth. “No, we’ve had problems for a while. Long before Aria. We just pretended not to notice.”
My stomach coils, resistance and dread crashing together. “Whatever you do, the choice is on you, Tanner. Not me.”
With that, I snap my focus to the exit, my heart hammering as I sprint toward it, leaving what’s left of my old friendship behind.
Gunfire explodes behind me, echoing through the cavernous warehouse, twisting through Frankie’s cry.
For a moment, I stall, grief clawing at my insides. I force a quick glance back, swallowing against the permanent swell in my throat as I catch sight of him sprawled on the ground, blood pooling around him.
A breath hitches. My knees threaten to give out, but I clamp down on the emotion and whip back around, bursting out of the building.
He’s made his choice. The flood of emotions is too much to carry, so I shove it down and focus forward.
Aria needs me now.
My chest clenches. Pain blooms behind my ribs as I drag in ragged breaths. I snap my head around, searching. God, I hope I’m not too late.
Please don’t let it be too late.
Or else this would’ve all been for nothing.
My heart stills. Then spikes as I spot them.
Off in the distance, they both stumble, then drop. I sprint toward them, my gaze locked on the blur of movement. I fist my own hand tighter around Dee’s pistol as Antonio forces her beneath him.
She screams.
The sound slices through my chest, piercing straight to my heart and nearly knocking the breath from my lungs.
Visions of the assault from the cabin pop into my mind as I close in behind them. I’ll fucking kill him.
He’s too consumed by rage to hear my pounding footsteps behind him. By the time he notices, it’s too late.
I press my gun to the back of his head, digging into the thinning gray patch of hair at his scalp. He jerks once, hands still gripping Aria’s neck, but loosening just enough that she coughs, gasping for air.
He laughs. Manic and unhinged. “I knew I liked you.”
“Shut up,” I snarl, cocking the gun in my hand.
Antonio lets out a breath, half laugh, half surrender. “I guess this is it,” he mutters, dropping his head.
Even now, he doesn’t beg for his life. Antonio never begs.
“What’d you do to Tanner?” I growl, jamming the barrel deeper into his skull.
A rush of fury slams through me as the image of Tanner dropping, hitting the floor, flashes through my mind. The shot. The hollowness in his eyes.
Tears burn behind mine. Teeth clenched, I shout again, “Tell me!”
He just shakes his head. It doesn’t matter.
My finger twitches on the trigger, seconds away from blowing his brains out. Shooting him is too quick. Too merciful.
Anguish sears my chest as I’m reminded that Tanner chose to remain loyal to him over me. The reality of that has me second guessing if I ever really knew him. Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I should’ve fought for him, for us. For our decade-long friendship.
I’ll come back for you. I promise.
My knuckles blanch around the gun, close to pulling the trigger, before he speaks again. “I’ve known Tanner since he was a baby,” Antonio says, wheezing, the words strained as they fight to come out. “He’s my son.”
I freeze. Even the air around me goes still.
Son? My brows pull forward, straining against the tension growing across my face.
He’s my son.
“No,” I find myself saying, my jaw stiff from prolonged teeth grinding. “I knew his parents.”
“His adoptive parents,” he corrects, his voice low and strained.
I stare into the back of his head, unable to read into his eyes. Why’s he telling me this? Tanner’s dad…It can’t be true. He’s manipulating me. That’s all this is.
My mind spins as I think back to the Scotts and their lineage, wondering why Tanner didn’t mention Antonio back inside if it were true. It could all be a lie. A ploy to draw out empathy so I won’t shoot him.