Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bennett
June
My grip on Felix wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever feel like enough to keep him safe from the man in front of us. Ally stood next to me, facing the bar door. Wyatt stood next to her, on alert, already in cop mode as he assessed the scene in front of us. I didn’t need to be a cop to know it was bad.
Ryder.
Gun.
My mate.
Reid stepped closer to me on my other side and spoke quietly. “I’m going to sneak around back and call Donovan.”
“Thank you,” Wyatt said in a low voice. “Take Ally with you. Get her out of here, please.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Ally said, turning toward Wyatt.
“Now!” Wyatt barked.
She glared at him. He so rarely commanded her I’d almost forgotten how much she hated it.
“Please, Ally” I said. “Give me one less person to worry about right now.”
“They’re right,” Reid said, grabbing her elbow. “You don’t need to be here. It’ll distract them both.”
Ally was strong enough to shake him off, but she didn’t, following Reid willingly around the corner of her bar and away from where Ryder stood looking up at the sky. He must have known we were all here, but he’d yet to look at us, making his presence even more terrifying.
I gently set Felix down on the ground. “Stay behind me, handsome,” I whispered.
Wyatt took a cautious step closer to Ryder and stopped suddenly as Ryder’s entire body stiffened. He stood up straight and pointed the gun at us. “Stay there. All of you.”
Wyatt lifted his hands in surrender. “Ryder, we’ve been wanting to talk to you since the accident. We know you weren’t the one who tried to kill Felix.”
“I remember you tried to stop Calvin,” Felix said, my body still blocking him.
“Calvin?” Ryder asked. “You mean Silver?”
Felix stepped out from behind me and I growled, holding my arm out in front of him. “Felix,” I hissed.
He ignored me, answering Ryder anyway, “Calvin. He works for Bennett at the garage. He’s the one who injected me with the second dose. You weren’t going to kill me. I remember almost everything that happened.”
“Do you remember rejecting me for him?” Ryder snarled, gesturing at me with his gun.
Felix nodded. “I’m sorry, Ryder. I never wanted this to be painful for you.”
“Well it is fucking painful!” he yelled. “But you know what’s worse than a bond being severed? Wondering when you’re going to get murdered for being too weak to kill the man who was willing to cut you out of his life in the first place.”
I looked at Wyatt and he shook his head slightly, giving me the impression that he didn’t know what Ryder was talking about either. “Do you mean Calvin?” Wyatt asked. “Did Calvin want you to murder Felix?”
Ryder scoffed. “You are all so blind to what’s going on in your town. And Crescent River. And Harvest Cove! Do you think Silver is the mastermind behind this operation? He’s a pawn just like me!”
“Why do you keep calling him that?” I asked.
“Every one of the higher-ups has a code name. It’s how they refer to each other. And then when we’re walking down the street, they all act like they don’t know each other. It’s psychotic. Vargkung is a fucking nutjob, but he attracts loyalty like a goddamn cult leader.”
Reid appeared at my side. “Where’s Ally?” I asked.
“Well, she shifted, bit me, and then took off,” Reid said, holding up his bloody forearm. “She really does not like being told what to do.”
I sighed. She’s such a fucking biter.
“Is Vargkung the one who wants me dead?” Felix asked.
Ryder groaned and stepped closer. “You don’t get it. He doesn’t care about you. He cares about his operation. My bond to you was a liability so he told me to get rid of you. But I couldn’t. I can’t, Felix. You’re a part of me.”
“Ryder, why don’t you put the gun down and come inside. We can talk about everything,” Felix said. He pushed my arm out of his way and stepped closer to Ryder.
“Trust me, Ben,” he said silently through the bond.
I swallowed my fear and let Felix go.
“I know this is complicated,” Felix said, “but let’s just talk about what happened and maybe Wyatt can help with the charges against you.”
Ryder scoffed. “Yeah, right. There are probably so many I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Ryder held up the gun again and bright blue eyes appeared behind his calves. I breathed a sigh of relief, watching Ally box him in from the back. He hadn’t noticed her yet, his eyes still locked on Felix.
“I don’t want help, Felix. That’s the thing you’ve never understood about me,” Ryder said, crying as he bit his fist, the gun shaking in his other hand.
“I thought I could fill the void you left behind three years ago with more drugs, work my way up with Vargkung, but it was all a waste. I never had what it takes.”
“You can still make a different choice,” Felix said.
Ryder raised the gun and pointed it at Felix, who froze with his arms in the air.
“I don’t want to make a different choice.
It’s you or me. That’s always been the ultimatum, and I chose you over and over again.
I should have just done what you wanted and broken the bond.
We wouldn’t be in this mess at all. But I loved you. I don’t want to erase what we had.”
“We’re not erasing anything, Ryder. We’re moving on with our lives. That doesn’t mean we forget who we were or what we meant to each other at the time.”
Ryder cocked the gun and pointed it at me. “Just tell me the truth. Did you ever love me?”
Felix’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and I could feel his hesitation. “Yes,” he lied. “We loved each other. I loved you.”
Even without the bond I would have been able to spot the lie. Ryder must have known him well enough too because he shook his head. “You’re lying to me.”
“No,” Felix said, “I’m not. I loved you in the only way I knew how at the time.”
Ryder looked up at the sky, then stared at me with hatred. “And now that you have him, you know it wasn’t real love. Right?”
“Ryder,” Felix said, stepping closer again. “You’re making me really nervous with the gun. Can we please put that down to talk about this?”
“There’s no point. You’ll never come back to me as long as he’s around,” Ryder said, staring into my eyes. I saw the resolve in them. He was going to the pull the trigger and there was nothing I could do about it. “He has to go.”
A gunshot rang through the night, and Felix screamed “No” at the top of his lungs, panic and terror flowing through the bond as he raced to my side.
“Bennett!” Felix yelled, grabbing my shoulders.