Chapter Thirteen
E than
Since killing Gael and two of his men, I have been watching Tristan watch me. Both of us are on edge but he seems to be going on with business just like normal. It has been a month since I made my statement to him and he hasn’t reacted yet. But I know it’s coming. It must be coming.
All this waiting and watching is driving me crazy and I know it’s doing the same to Jenn even though she hasn’t said anything. I can see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch. She is nervous and on edge and will be until whatever is going to happen happens.
Tristan is smart and calculated—he won’t make his move until he knows he will win. I have to say it will be fun fucking up his plans. Again.
The community is watching us, and we are watching Tristan, a dangerous game of cat and mouse. But this time we aren’t the mouse. We are not the ones being hunted, Tristan is. This time he will be the one caught off guard. He will be the one to fear what happens next.
He wanted to play this game. And I am willing to play because I know I will win.
Jenn has given me all of herself. And I know how badly Tristan wants what I have.
He hates me for loving Jenn. He is angry knowing that I am the one that touches her, kisses her, holds her, whispers soft things into her ear.
I am what he will never be, at least when it comes to her.
Tristan is a dangerous man, I’ll give him that much.
I have been watching what circles he runs in and the men that are his clients are not a joke.
Which just reminds us how many fucked up men there are in our community.
Our community deserves to be free from all these pricks and their dirty business, if you can even call it a business.
I was hoping Tristan would shut down the studio when Gael died, but he didn’t, he just took it over. And I fear that what he is doing behind closed doors to those girls is worse than anything Gael could have done to them. Gael was a child compared to Tristan.
I sit back in my seat and watch Tristan smoking and talking to a few of his guys in the alley.
I don’t even try to hide that I am watching him anymore.
And he doesn’t try to hide what he is doing.
He shows pride in what he does which pisses me off even more.
He is rich and powerful because of the pain and suffering he inflicts on others.
He would be nothing if it wasn’t for his clients feeding into his fucked-up ego.
He hasn’t said anything to me, and I haven’t said shit to him.
I stay in my car, and he watches me until he goes back inside that fucking studio.
Inside the walls of the place that made Jenn scream and cry.
The walls are soundproof—the screams will never leave that building.
No one really knows what goes on inside those walls.
But soon everyone will fucking know what this studio is and what kind of man Tristan really is.
Tonight, the studio will change. For tonight we are going in and will fucking destroy it.
Burn it to the ground. I am sick and tired of waiting for him to make the next move.
Emory wants to get the girls out and get them settled in and Shawn has been on edge waiting for the right time to go inside and take them.
We need to make sure we get all of the girls, or this will be for nothing. Without the girls, they have no business. They will have nothing to stand on anymore. We need to save those girls before it’s too late. Before they are too far gone.
I have seen it happen when you save someone too far gone.
I know the look in their eyes because it’s the same look I had when Shawn offered me his hand and helped me start a new life.
I know that if Shawn hadn’t come when he did, I would have been lost in the life I had created for myself and there would be no one in the world that could have gotten me out.
The look is simple yet chilling—the look of I am done .
I accept my fate and there is no reason to keep trying to escape my fate.
Fate is a bitch and once she has you in her arms she will never let go.
And the harder you try to escape the tighter her grip on you becomes, sucking the fucking life out of you.
I have been watching Tristan so closely that I know tonight is the best night to do it.
I haven’t seen more than a few guys at once going inside.
I can only imagine what they are doing to the girls.
But it’s time I send another fucking message.
Because right now Tristan acts as if he is not afraid of me and I need to change that.
He needs to fear my name. fear my touch. He needs to understand that he is no longer the king in this city.
He still thinks he will get Jenn back. It’s well past his threat of within one week, but he never did anything about it. This fucking prick is all talk and no action. He’ll learn tonight that I mean what I say.
I started a war. And it is time I remind him just who the fuck I am. It is time he learns that he can’t just take whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. It’s time he learns that this town doesn’t belong to him and his fucking pricks.
I asked Jenn to marry me, and she said yes. She moaned it, her body melting against mine as I took her from behind giving her all of me, letting her feel my love, desire, and overwhelming need to have her.
The fear of losing her now is more consuming than ever before.
Several hours later, I pull the car into the forest and put it in “park.” Emory wanted to come, but Shawn asked her to please stay back with Jenn. The last thing Shawn and I wanted was for them to come and have to worry about them. We need to be able to get in and out as fast as we can.
Emory was upset that Shawn asked her to stay back but she understood in the end.
Jenn was distant with me, a distance I haven’t seen from her since I first met her. But I know she is scared. She is scared and wants me to come back. I made a promise to her that I would always come back, and I plan on keeping that promise.
“Are you ready, brother?” Shawn asks me in a low dark voice.
All I can do is nod.
We slowly get out of the car and close the doors. We’re not that far away from the studio—I can still see it from the trees. We had to move. If we hadn’t, Tristan would have never left. He finally left the studio about an hour ago.
He was watching and looking around trying to make sure that it was all clear. He didn’t see us watching him, the prick. He still thinks he has everything in control. Well, after tonight he will know that he has nothing under control.
There are only two men inside the studio from what I counted. I fucking hope there isn’t more. We just want to go in grab the girls, burn the place down, and leave.
I don’t want to kill more men if I don’t have to.
Shawn and I make our way through the trees and out into the alley. Our club is closed tonight. Shawn made sure to make it clear to everyone to stay clear of the club. We don’t want anyone to get hurt from the fire.
We have the insurance in place with the club because we know it will burn as well, but it has to.
We have to make it look like the studio wasn’t the target, but the community will know it was.
We haven’t been hiding our feelings toward the studio or Tristan.
We all have been pretty loud about what is going on, which is odd because normally we keep everything quiet.
But with Tristan I am learning nothing stays quiet. We had to get ahead of him and state our side before he stated his.
The city knows we are at war with Tristan and most of them are on our side but there are some that want what he is doing to continue. I will never understand why a man would want to force a woman to be with him.
I take a deep breath as I reach behind my back and grab the gun from the back of my pants. I look at Shawn doing the same as we walk up the steps to the back door.
Shawn kicks in the door and leans down, placing the liquor bottle against the brick wall.
They are stupid to not have a metal door.
But Tristan has remodeled the studio since Gael died and he made some big mistakes when he made the changes.
I walk through the doorway, Shawn on my heels as we make our way down the hallway.
Shawn and I both start kicking in each door.
Each girl is passed out from substances—it looks like Tristan decided to continue what Gael was doing to them, drugging them to make it easier to control them.
I quickly gather one of the girls in my arms and make my way out of the sex room and down the hallway, out the broken door and down the stairs.
Shawn has been getting as many as he can—he is a fucking beast right now.
I make my way to the car and place the girl in the back seat. We have only found four.
“We have to go back inside,” Shawn says, catching his breath.
I nod and we both take off running back through the trees and back into the studio. We pass the broken-down doors, kicking in every fucking door we find. But no more girls.
“I think we got them all,” I whisper as I lift my gun. I can feel my heart starting to race as we stand still and listen, listen for anything or anyone.
But the place is silent, so fucking silent. Too fucking silent.
I turn and look at Shawn, his breathing steady, his body still as he holds his gun pointing down the hallway.
He turns and looks at me his eyes searching mine.
I turn back to the sound I know we both heard. I look down the hallway and see a cracked door. “Ethan,” Shawn whispers in a worried voice.
“I know.”
“Let’s go.” Shawn is trying to convince me. I know we should. I know the plan is going the way we have hoped. But there is a strong part of me that wants to go through that door and kill whoever the fuck is in there.
They would never show us mercy. They never showed any of these women mercy, or Jenn, so why the fuck should I?