30. Nick
Chapter 30
Nick
“How do you want to handle this?” Vox asked.
We were standing outside the warehouse where the shooter was being questioned. Balancing my lit cigarette between my lips, I stared at the building. There was only one way in or out, but I had no intention of getting myself killed. Gunnar forfeited his life the second he put a bullet in my brother’s back. I didn’t need a thing more—nothing other than his confession. I needed to hear him say the words, so that when I pulled the trigger, I would know that my vengeance was satisfied.
I retrieved the small Ruger .22 from my saddle bag, making sure it was loaded before tucking it into the front of my pants and settling my t-shirt over it. Next, I pulled out the Glock from the small of my back, checking it before setting it back into position.
Taking one final pull of my cigarette, I flicked the used butt onto the ground and stepped on the glowing end. “Make sure nobody else comes in until I’m done.”
“You got it.” His gray eyes tightened in the corners.
“What?”
“What if you’re wrong, man? You said yourself that you were falling in and out of consciousness.”
Yes, I’d been going in and out, but those words— his words—would stay with me for the rest of my life. Those words were tattooed on my brain. “I know what I heard.”
Vox paused for a beat, then replied, “Then I have your back.”
Holding out my hand to him, he clasped my forearm, and I pulled him in for a sharp, swift embrace. “Thank you.”
He nodded, but his eyes were still wary. I understood the apprehension. What I was about to do amounted to premeditated murder of a club brother. Gunnar wasn’t so high in the ranks that it would be a problem. There were quite a few members who could effectively take the position of enforcer after he was a corpse. What would be a problem is getting rid of the VP’s pet, but I couldn’t let this shit slide.
And that was what I repeated to myself as I strolled through the door, taking in the vast warehouse. It was empty except for a chair in the middle of the room—bolted to the concrete floor—and a rolling table that currently had a collection of tools laid out on the top. Gunnar’s body was blocking the view of the shooter, but I could see the other man’s feet twitching from the pain. A moment later, Gunnar flicked a piece of… something from the guy. It landed with a soft, fleshy squelch .
“Nobody is going to save you from me, you know,” he said in a low voice. “It’s just you, me, and my tools.”
I froze. Waiting. Wondering.
“Of course, they’ll ask me what you told me.” Gunnar picked up a pair of needle nose pliers and waved them in front of the guy’s face. “You understand that it’s not personal, right, Harrison? It’s simply… business.”
And there it is.
The shooter—Harrison, apparently—made a muffled sound of protest, but Gunnar gave a little hum of disapproval. “No, don’t clamp your mouth shut. You’ll just make things harder for yourself.” His admonishment was met with more muted objections before there was a grunt. Resting his knee in the space between the guy’s legs as he thrashed in his seat, Gunnar leaned forward and started to work.
“Gunnar!”
He turned around, eyes narrowing on my face. “What the fuck are you doing here, Nick?”
Knowing Gunnar was the last person to see my brother alive, had my hands clenching and unclenching. He was supposed to be my best friend—my oldest friend. He wasn’t like this before I went away. Kaash had twisted him—molded him—into something inherently opposite of what he was. Jesus, I was such a fucking idiot to believe that performance he served me when he came to tell me Dimitri was dead.
“I’ve come for the fucking man who killed my brother.”
He stilled, cocking his head to the side before a grin slid into place. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure it out.” His eyes dropped to my throat—to the bruises that had darkened—his grin turning feral. “I guess Kaash got tired of waiting.” Tossing the pliers haphazardly onto the rolling tray, he asked, “What did he tell you?”
“That you killed my brother.”
Gunnar looked back at Harrison then, his jaw working side to side. The other man’s eyes widened when without warning, Gunnar reached out to the rolling tray and snatched something off it, his eyes swimming with malice when he looked back at me. Suddenly, he slammed the flathead screwdriver into the side of the other man’s neck, a frenzy taking over. Blood pumped rhythmically from the wounds, spattering Gunnar’s hand, arm, and shoulders with crimson streaks. Ten, twenty, thirty times Gunnar struck, long after the life had drained from Harrison’s eyes.
Finally, Gunnar pitched forward, resting his hands on his knees as his exerted breath barreled from him. The thrill of the kill was still clearly tunneling through him, bolstering his blood lust. He turned to face me again, face blood spattered. Teeth bared.
This was not the man I once knew.
This was a puppet that was being controlled by a vicious puppeteer.
A pawn being moved around a chess board.
“What are you waiting for?” Gunnar asked, his smirk twisting into a bloody sneer. “You want me to say it? You want me to say that I killed your brother?” Sick satisfaction vibrated through his words. He stepped closer until we were nose-to-nose. “I. Killed. Your. Brother.”
I didn’t react. No matter how badly I wanted to. Instead, I swallowed down all my anger, all my rage, and I waited. Drawing out more information. More evidence. Planning how I was going to make this fucker pay for what he did.
“Why?”
Gunnar shrugged. “It was part of my initiation into X.”
“What the fuck is X, and what does it have to do with my brother?”
“Nothing, but it has everything to do with you. We needed La Croix gone, and we figured pinning D’s murder on him would mean you’d go after him and get rid of the problem for us.”
“Why do you need La Croix gone?”
Still smirking, he said, “Call it a conflict of interests.”
Both Gunnar and Kaash had been pushing their own agendas even before the day I was released from prison. Setting up all the pieces on the board. I’d been an unknowing participant in their subterfuge, but if I’d been successful in taking La Croix out…
“Who was set to take over the Devils if La Croix was killed?”
“Someone sympathetic to Kaash’s very specific needs.”
“And you thought I could be the one to pull the trigger and take La Croix out of the game?”
“We were pretty confident your revenge would carry you through. And we both know what would’ve happened to you afterwards. The Devils would’ve gotten their revenge… along with a little help from Kaash.”
“Kaash wants to take over the Savage Hunt that badly?”
Gunnar flicked me an annoyed glare. “Kaash’s ambitions for the club have grown. He can earn this club more money than it could ever dream of seeing, but Rixon has held him back for years.”
And then I recalled how much animosity was between the pair of them. How there had been a number of occasions where their disagreement had spilled over in public, both in Church and outside of it. The skin trade.
“Kaash runs his stable through Muse,” I said, finally voicing my suspicions.
Gunnar replied, “Everything is nice and legit, too. The girls all get paid, and when one comes through that fits the description of an order, he funnels her out, ensuring all the severance forms are paid. The IRS could go through the books and never find a thing out of place. Kaash pays Maverick a big fucking bonus to make sure they’re scrubbed clean.”
Maverick was involved in this shit, too?
Oblivious to my inner thoughts, Gunnar droned on, and I let him, because all of this was adding fucking fuel to the fire. “Kaash is on his way to being the biggest sex trafficker in all of Michigan. Of course, Rixon didn’t want a piece of the pie, which is why he has to go. It’s also why you have to go, Nick. You’re Rixon’s strongest supporter. There’s no way a vote to remove him as president of the club would go ahead with you still around to support him.”
“Mol’s death?”
“The bullet was meant for you,” he confirmed. “As was the hit at the cemetery—except you hunkered down like a fucking pussy. Oh, so was Tatum Rios. It was supposed to be you shanked to death that day, not him.” He reached behind his back and pulled out his Glock, turning it on me. With that same satisfied smirk on his lips, he disarmed me of my primary weapon, motioning for me to get on my knees.
Outside, there was a loud bang, drawing Gunnar’s attention. Lifting up the front of my shirt, I felt for my other piece, pulling it out when Gunnar’s head was turned and holding it ready behind my back.
“Was any of it real?” I asked, the muscle in my jaw bulging with barely restrained fury.
Gunnar’s brows dipped in thought. “Our friendship? Fuck, Nick, it was real. We grew up together. I’ve known you my whole life, but Kaash was offering me something more. He was offering me an opportunity to move up in the club, something I would never be able to get with Rixon. He was happy to kill the club and let us all die with it.”
I heard Kaash’s words echoed in Gunnar’s. There was no coming back from this. He had killed my brother because my VP had managed to convince him he would get what he wanted if he did. He had turned his back on our friendship for his own greed and gain. He had betrayed me in the worst possible way. Friend or not, he would pay for what he did.
“I hope it was worth it, Gunnar.”
“Everything was worth it,” he replied.
And that was all I needed to know.
I raised my gun.
Aimed.
Fired.
And shot him point blank in the face.