OZZY
We’re sitting in a circle, debating options, tactics, and the best way to go about this, but I feel like I’m going to throw up.
The day has come, and we need to take care of Journey before we leave for Missouri in the morning. Max is finally on board after Journey confessed and told him that he should vote in our favor. He’s all but given up, behaving like a kicked dog and moping around, accepting his fate. It doesn’t make this any easier, though, as nobody wants to be the one to do it, besides Fallon.
I know our rules, and he messed with her again, meaning she has free rein to do as she pleases, but I don’t think she should take this head on.
Raz and Steven were people who hurt her, but Journey is someone she’s spent a significant amount of time around, and I don’t want it to destroy her.
Of course, convincing her of that is like pulling teeth, and everyone else is fully on her side.
In a moment that felt shameful, but was her way of checking on me, Fallon questioned if I’d been taking my antidepressants, afraid that I’d been slipping since she’s been back.
I haven’t missed a day, and I don’t plan on it.
Now that I have her again, nothing will jeopardize that, especially not my mental health. I need my head on straight as we move through these next phases, considering how bloody things are likely going to get.
“So, once we get far enough away from here we’ll make it happen,” she concludes, and when the guys all nod in agreement, my heart drops out of my chest.
It’s not worth it to have another conversation with her, we’ve been through it in circles. I’ve given her my thoughts, and at this point, there’s no changing her mind.
All I can do now is coach her through it, and be there for her afterward.
“Do you know what to do, once you have the gun pointed in his face?”
“Aim, squeeze, and keep my hands firm,” she answers, like she’s reciting from a book.
“I mean, yes. But what if you miss?” I ask, handing her my shirts as she packs our bags.
“I won’t miss.”
She’s in full business mode, that carefree version of my girl from last night being replaced by that hardened exterior, the one she uses to mask her true emotions.
There’s no getting through to her when she’s like this, so I leave her to pack, searching for the dead man walking. I owe him one more conversation, and although I want to strangle him, we have history. I admired how Fallon handled her goodbye to Cami, and I’m going to steal a page from her book, ending things on civil terms.
I knock on his door, but there’s no answer. Sometimes, when he’s stressed, he loses himself in music, so instead of banging on the door, I let myself in.
My jaw drops to the floor, and I’m so taken aback by what I’m seeing, I fall to my knees. I try to call out to someone, to get help, but the words don’t come out. I’m frozen, staring at one of the most horrific things I’ve ever witnessed, but once the shock wears off, I realize I need to go in there.
I need to check if he’s still breathing.
Journey’s body is dangling from the ceiling fan, a leather belt wrapped around his neck, and his head is cocked to the side. I slip my finger onto his wrist, but his body is ice cold. He’s in the same clothes he was wearing last night, and then, it hits me. He hung himself after we all called it a night.
He’s gone.
It shouldn’t feel like a relief, but it does. Now, Fallon won’t have to take his life, and we can move forward without his blood on her conscience.
“Max! Oliver! Get in here,” I call out, my ability to speak finally coming back.
They come racing in, but stop dead in their tracks at the doorway, just like I did. Their faces are a mix of shock, disgust, and sadness.
“Help me get him down,” I say, grabbing his legs, while Oliver uses a knife to cut through the leather.
He slumps into my arms, knocking me back a few steps as I try to keep my footing.
“Jesus Christ,” Max mutters, helping me lay the body on the bed.
“What the fuck are we going to do now?” Oliver says, dropping onto the floor with his head in his hands.
“Well, we can’t leave him here. We need to think of something,” I explain, just as Fallon walks into the room.
“Ozzy, where –” She pauses, her eyes scanning the room slowly as she tries to process the scene she stumbled upon.
“Did he … did he kill himself?”
“Yeah, last night.”
She turns on her heel, sprinting toward the bathroom, and I run after her. Just as I get to the door, she pukes into the toilet, and I slowly wrap up her hair, rubbing a hand along her shoulder.
“I didn’t want you to see that,” I whisper, but she just shakes her head.
“It’s not that. Seeing his body like that reminded me of my mom. When I found her, she was face down on the mattress, and I don’t know, it just brought me back to that day,” she sniffles, and I help her off the floor with my hand on her lower back.
“I’m so sorry, Fallon. Is there anything I can do, anything I can get you?”
“No, I’m okay. I just want to get out of here,” she says, and I give her space while she cleans herself up.
It sounds like Pepper and Lex have made the discovery, considering Pepper’s blood-curdling scream echoes throughout the entire house. She’s an inconsolable mess, and Lex apologizes before taking her back to their room. His patience with her is incredible, I’ll give him that.
“Alright, we have a plan,” Oliver says, and I’m all ears.
“There’s a woodsy area a few miles down the road, we’ll drop him there. There’s not really another option, and it’s not like he had any family.”
It’s cruel, just dumping his body like trash, but Olly is right, there isn’t much else we can do. If we call it in, we’ll all be questioned, and it’s not the right time to have law enforcement looking our way.
“Alright, let’s do it.”
We handle the scene like something you’d see on TV, wrapping his body in black bags and duct tape. It’s not pretty, but luckily, he chose a way out that didn’t require much clean up.
Finally, the sun goes down, and it’s time to make moves. Everyone loads up their suitcases, and the van is lighter, now that there’s one less person inside. Lex has stepped up to ride shotgun with Max, claiming he needs to catch up on some work anyways. That leaves me and Fallon in the back, Pepper and Oliver in the middle, and much more room to breathe.
First things first, we find the secluded area where we plan to leave Journey, and the girls choose to stay behind. The four of us carry his body until we’re certain it’s deep enough into the woods to stay hidden, and we say our goodbyes. Keeping it short and sweet, we all say a few words, and thank him for being a part of our family. It’s sad, but he chose to take the coward's way out, and he committed some seriously dirty crimes that led to the end of his life story.
Now, we look to the future, and it’s time to get back to work.
Lex bought us a few days with Mr. A., but I know he’s going to make us pay for delaying his precious schedule. All that aside, I have Fallon, and she’s proudly wearing the ring I sent Pepper and Lex to buy while she was cooking dinner last night. It was sneaky, but they pulled it off flawlessly. I had called the store, putting down a deposit and having them hold it, and Fallon had no idea. Her face was priceless, and having her say yes was one of the best moments in my life.
As we move forward with our revenge tour, it feels good to be a united front. Nothing can get between us now, and we’ve always been stronger together.
* * *
It’s been a long week, and our workload has doubled since arriving in Missouri, playing catch up on the days we missed.
Fallon has been burning it at both ends, staring at Lex’s laptop all day long trying to get a handle on this client list. She’s a machine, and when she’s got a goal in mind, there’s no stopping her. So far, tracking down this guy has been a blackhole, considering he used an alias when signing up for the website, but, the photo is him, and that’s what we’re basing our search off of.
“Hey, Bambi. Take a break, take a walk with me?” I ask, breaking her focus from the screen in front of her.
“Sure, give me five minutes,” she says, holding her hand up to me while she finishes her notes.
Her notebooks are so organized, decorated with pretty pens and very methodical categories separated by lines on every page. I don’t understand it, but she does, and that’s what matters.
When she joins me, she tosses her hair up into a messy bun, and throws on one of my sweatshirts.
God, she always looks so perfect in my clothes.
“How’d it go with the routes today?” She asks, lacing her fingers into mine as we walk through the parking lot of the hotel.
“Same as usual, nothing new on that front,” I say, leading her toward the quiet side road that turns into a cute neighborhood.
We’ve been taking these walks every chance we get, and we love looking at these cookie cutter houses, imagining what kind of families live on the other side of those doors.
“Any word on where we’re going next?”
“Not yet. I assume we’ll be here for a while, there seems to be a lot of work,” I tell her, and she nods along, listening as I explain what happened the last time we stayed in one place for a while.
“I’m so tired of hotels,” she groans, and I feel terrible that this is the life we’re tied to.
She deserves a home, like the place we rented, and it’s very frustrating that I can’t give that to her right now.
Before I can say anything, her phone rings, and it’s Lex. We have a new email, and according to him, it’s urgent.
“Jesus, what could it be now? We’ve been low key, and you have been doing the work.” She rolls her eyes, following me as we head back toward the dirty motel.
This is one of the shittier ones, with smoke stains on the walls, and some kind of strange odor coming from the carpet. We both hate it, and I’m secretly hoping this email has a way for us to move onto a new place.
“Alright, the gang’s all here. What is it, Lex?” Fallon stands beside his desk, waiting for him to read the message aloud.
It catches us all completely off-guard, and Fallon’s been holding her breath since Lex finished, unsure of what it all means.
His request will be denied. There’s no chance in hell that I’ll let him get close to us, especially Fallon. He wants to set a meeting with her, somehow decoding the fact that she’s here, and that we’ve let her take charge.
It has to be face-to-face, and he’s demanded that it happens within the next forty-eight hours.
She’s probably considering it, that element of danger sending a fire through her, but it’s so reckless and risky, I can’t back her up if she’s willing to go through with it.
“Set it up for tomorrow,” she says, and all eyes flick to her.
She’s standing in the center of the room, and everyone is hanging onto her every word, waiting with bated breath to hear her plan.
“Fallon, you can’t be serious,” I interject, but she just shakes her head.
“He’s feeling the pressure, or he wants to end this. The man we’ve been chasing wants to come to us, and there’s no way in hell we can say no, Ozzy.”
“What if he tries something?” Oliver asks, reading my exact thoughts.
“If he wanted to kill me, he would've done so months ago. He knows we’re on his trail, and we have to go. Besides, maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll make a mistake.”
She has a point, she always does, which is why arguing with her usually ends with me conceding.
“Fine. But you’re not going alone, I’m coming,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Absolutely not, Ozzy. Your anger will only make it harder for me to have a discussion with him. When we spoke under … different circumstances, he was very easy to talk to. I need the same version of him, where he’s open and comfortable, not defensive,” she tells me matter-of-factly, but it doesn’t change my mind.
She can’t just waltz over to him with no backup, not after what happened last time we left her alone.
“Oliver goes, then.”
We’re in a standoff, with everyone’s eyes on us, but I won’t break. Not on this. I’ve given her a lot, and I’d gladly die to keep her alive, but my protectiveness has to take over, at least about this.
Her brown eyes are darkened, piercing a hole through me, but she has to understand that my love for her transcends all else, even in these moments of chaotic, life or death choices. It’ll always come first.
“Fine.” She folds, tearing her glare off me, and turning it onto Oliver.
“Whoa, what if Oliver doesn’t want to sit at the table with a blackmailing asshole?” He speaks up, his eyes darting between the two of us before he bursts out laughing. “I’m kidding, of course I’m going. I’d never let you go alone, little sis.”
That’s why she chose him as her second, and I have nothing but the utmost trust that he’ll do everything in his power to keep her safe.
Just like that, it’s settled. We’re setting up a meeting with the devil, and I can’t say I’m not terrified that one of us won’t be coming back.
“You won’t be dark. Oliver will have an earpiece, and a camera. We’ll watch and hear everything from a few blocks away,” Lex says, hoping to ease some of the tension in the room.
“And he brings a gun. Non-negotiable,” I add, which everyone easily agrees with.
That way, if anything happens, he’ll have the means to protect them, or fight back.
The routes are canceled, everything on hold until after tomorrow’s meeting, so everyone fans out to enjoy a little free time.
I don’t want to argue, but I have a feeling we’re going to be talking about this for the rest of the night, so I’d rather make it somewhat fun.
“Come on, Bambi. Let’s go to the store,” I say, and she takes her place beside me, walking in sync as we cross the street.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Never. I know how important this is to you, and to us, so I understand why you want to do it. You also love the danger,” I explain, and she shrugs, knowing I’m right.
“I think it’s our best shot at getting the upper hand,” she says, walking through the door of the gas station, the bell jingling over our heads as we cross the threshold.
“I know, I get it. I’m just worried, that’s all. Pick out your favorite wine.” I smile, and her eyes light up, scanning the shelves until she lands on a white wine.
“This one.” She grabs the extra-large bottle, and I’m content with whatever it is she chooses.
I take her hand, leading us to the register, where they have a small box full of decks of cards. I toss one on the counter, adding it to our purchase, deciding that we need something to keep us busy while we drink and work through this little bump in the road.
By the time we get back to our room, it’s dark, and we lock up for the night. I pour both of us a plastic cup full of wine and lay on the bed, patting the spot next to me and wiggling a finger at my girl.
“I’m not scared of him, you know. He won’t hurt me, Ozzy,” she says, sighing as she slides next to me, resting her head on my chest.
“I’m confident in you, Bambi. You know what you’re doing, but I also can’t fathom the idea of something happening to you,” I confess, and I feel her nod against my skin.
“Nothing’s going to happen, and I’m demanding that we get better living conditions than these fucking hotels. That rental house was such a tease, and I’m tired of slumming it.” She laughs, but she’s dead serious.
Ever since we got to this motel, she’s been dying to stay anywhere but here, and I don’t blame her. That small taste of freedom, and her creativity in the kitchen, is something she’s desperate to hang onto.
“You’re fearless, Fallon.”
“Don’t you forget it, baby.” She smiles, scrunching her nose while taking a big sip of wine as she sits up in the bed. “Play poker with me?”
“Do you even know how to play?” I raise an eyebrow at her, and she shakes her head.
I’ve got a feeling she’s a shark, but I play along, teaching her the basics and demonstrating what hands are winners, or considered the best.
We’re playing for candy, a pile of M&M’s in front of us as I deal cards.
“We should buy a farm. Get a shit ton of animals and a nice chunk of land to do whatever we want,” I propose, and she’s watching me with a certain softness in her eyes that I rarely get to see anymore.
It’s her signature look when she’s in deep thought, or feeling vulnerable, and I soak it in, loving how her mood can be judged just by her eyes.
“We need a space for Oliver. I have a feeling he’ll be with us for a long time.” She giggles, a sweet laugh that’s music to my ears.
“You’re right. We’ll get him an attic apartment or something.”
“Call, raise, or fold, baby,” she says, mounting the pressure, and now I’m certain she’s a shark.
“Call.” I toss six pieces of candy into the pot, waiting for her to reveal her cards.
“It’s a flush, baby, read ‘em and weep.” Her head tips back in a fit of glory, and she tosses her cards down on the bed, revealing her hand.
She’s got five cards of the club suit, and I’m obsessed with how big she’s smiling that I don’t even care if she wins every hand.
“You got me. Two of a kind,” I reveal, my weak ass hand only having two matching sixes.
“Next stop, Vegas!”
“Yeah, alright miss gambler. Beginners luck,” I tease, shooting her a playful smile as I refill our cups.
“Nothing lucky about it, I’m a master strategist.” She winks, and now I’m wondering just how hard I’ve been played.
“Are you counting cards, you little sneak?”
“No!” She gasps, unable to keep the smile from creeping over her face. “Come on, it’s so easy! It took me four hands to figure it out. We could be rich with this brain of mine.”
“Yeah, or beaten to a pulp in the basement of some casino. Those guys don’t mess around, Bambi,” I tell her, but that doesn’t seem to phase her.
“Fine. I’ll just play Olly and Max. They’ll never see it coming.”
I pull her into my arms, making a mess of the candy and cards, but unable to keep my hands off her when she’s in this good of a mood. Light, bubbly, and utterly fascinating. Her mind will always be more beautiful than her body, simply because of how wonderfully it works.
I can’t imagine always having numbers, or equations, running through my head, but she thrives off it.
I bring her lips to mine, solidifying how I’m feeling at the moment, and she tangles her hands in my hair, drawing me even closer to her. Soon enough, we’ve stripped each other down, and we make love right on top of the cards, not even bothering to shove them off the bed. Our passion and desperation for each other is the highest a person can get, I’m sure of it.
She’s my alpha, omega, and everything in between.
I swore Greek mythology was the most boring thing a person could learn about, or consume, but I was completely wrong. It’s completely captivated me and reminds me so much of Fallon that I can’t stop studying the Gods, Goddesses, their powers, and even the damn letters of their alphabet.
Once we’re cleaned up, she falls asleep in my arms, her snoring the only sound in the room, and although I’m terrified, absolutely fucking scared shitless , to let her go to this meeting tomorrow, she’s unstoppable.
She’s right that Mr. A. won’t hurt her, he’ll be mesmerized by her, just as I am. The second she opens her mouth, he’ll bow to her, if he hasn’t already. Fallon is so confident that she can make this man bend and break to her will, and I believe in her . If I were him, I’d immediately fold in her presence, but I may be biased.
I’m learning how to give her the freedom she needs to lead this crew, and although it’s very difficult, I have the utmost faith in her, and her ability to lead.
We’re going to slay this monster and build the life we’re constantly adding dreams to. One day, we’ll have it, that much I’m confident in. Once we close this chapter, and get our revenge, we’ll be unstoppable, achieving things that people only dream of. This meeting is the first step toward us being free, and we’re taking no prisoners. If you come at us, or in between us, you’ll be handled.
It’s Fallon and Ozzy against the entire world, and we’re out for fucking blood .