Chapter 32
Rex
When we eventually find the room where he’s holding Lena we’re met with a sight I wasn’t expecting.
She’s standing over Zeke’s dead body, half naked and covered in his blood, her eyes wild as she brandishes the small knife in her hand.
She looks like some sort of mythical creature, some fearsome thing of nightmares, but I feel no fear, only relief.
We blink at each other, both rendered momentarily speechless with surprise and shock.
I can’t quite believe my eyes. Lena killed Zeke.
“Rex?” Lena says, dazed, as if wondering if I’m a mirage, some figment of her imagination.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I say, slowly stepping closer, as if she’s a wild animal that’s been spooked. My hand reaches out to take the knife from her. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”
Her eyes flick to mine, searching, like she’s waking from a dream—or, more accurately, a nightmare—and then she slowly lowers the weapon. She falls into my arms, and I can feel her trembling. She’s in shock, I think. “Rex, you came for me,” she breathes, her voice filled with love and adoration.
In that moment, everything else falls away.
The fear I had that Lena didn’t love me, that she’d betrayed us, that I’m not good enough, that the relationship is too complex, too unusual, just a fling, an experiment to her, every single thing that’s been holding me back, disintegrates to dust. I realize then that the guys were right, everything she said, everything she did, was to try to protect us.
She wasn’t on Zeke’s side, was never his. She’s ours, mine.
Remorse washes over me, and I feel like the worst boyfriend ever for even doubting her for a second.
She was going through hell and was simply doing what she thought she needed to do to stay alive, to protect her daughter, and us, before killing Zeke and trying to rescue us—my brave, fearless, incredible Lena.
I hold her in my arms, needing to hold her to believe she’s real. I don’t want to ever let go.
“How are you here? Where are the others? Are they okay?” Lena asks, her words coming out in a rush as she looks up to me with trusting eyes.
“It’s a long story, right now we’ve gotta get out of here,” I reply. We don’t have much time, Zeke’s men could discover us at any second.
At that moment, Doc and Judge appear, their faces transforming from grim and determined into delighted and concerned.
“Lena,” they exclaim, coming over to embrace her.
“Are you okay?” Doc says, checking her body for injuries.
“Yes. It’s not my blood,” Lena replies, her voice monotone from shock as if she’s only now noticing she’s covered from head to toe in Zeke’s blood.
Doc registers Lena’s reply and takes in the carnage of the room and Zeke’s multiple wounds with a low whistle as he fully realizes that Lena was the one who killed Zeke, not me or anyone else.
“And here we were thinking you needed rescuing. We should have known you were going to find a way to rescue us,” he says proudly.
Lena offers the ghost of a smile, though the spark in her eyes isn’t there yet.
I’m not surprised. She just killed a man.
She took a life, even if the life was an evil man, the enemy.
It still takes something from you. It irreparably changes you forever.
The moment will haunt her, leave its mark; it isn’t something that can be easily erased.
She’s been through too much—we all have.
But I have to remain hopeful that we can bring her back to us one day.
A frown of concern flickers across Lena’s face. The moment of our reunion is not quite perfect, given the glaring absences. “Where’s Cole? Is he getting Mia?” she adds hopefully, a tremor in her voice giving away the fear that lies beneath.
“Yes, Mia and Cole are safe. They’ve gone ahead with the others.” A lie by omission, but I’m not sure she could handle hearing how grave Cole’s situation is right now. Not until we’re safely out of this place.
Our backup just arrived, the remaining Soaring Eagles who were fit enough to fight, and some who weren’t but came anyway.
I feel assured that Mia and Cole have been taken to safety, that Cole is being rushed to the hospital as we speak, and that our men are handling the last of Zeke’s men. The nightmare is almost over.
Lena nods, her faith in me so great that she doesn’t question it.
“Thank god they’re safe.” She breathes, her expression becoming far calmer.
The relief is so overwhelming. She looks between us in wonderment.
“I can’t believe you’re here, that you came for me instead of running after everything I did, everything he said.
” Her voice is thick with emotion as tears fill her eyes.
She doesn’t need to say Zeke’s name, she never needs to utter it again.
“Nothing could keep us away,” Doc replies.
“We’ll always come for you,” Judge adds.
“I thought that maybe you’d believed Zeke’s lies, believed them because I had to pretend they were true, that I didn’t care.
I had to. If he knew the truth, he would have killed us all on the spot.
It was the only way I could buy us time.
I thought I’d lost you forever by trying to protect you.
” She looks between us, her expression pleading for us to believe her.
“We know, we never doubted you,” Doc says. I’m grateful for my friend’s lie, that he isn’t telling her that I believed it all.
“We love you, Lena. I love you,” I tell her, finally embracing it. “Nothing could change that.”
“I love you too,’ she says, and my heart soars. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing that. Lena looks at me with such sorrow that I don’t want to hear what she’s about to say next. I know that look. “But…”
She’s going to leave us. Despite everything, despite her love, she wants to go.
“I can’t stay in town, in the state, I have to take Mia and run, and I can’t expect you all to leave your home, or the Soaring Eagles, to come with me. I killed a man tonight in cold blood. I’ll go to jail for what I’ve done. I can’t abandon Mia to grow up without her mom.”
Relief floods me. Is that all she’s worried about? It isn’t because of us she wants to run. “Lena, it was self-defense,” I assure her.
She shakes her head firmly. “No one will see it that way. I planned it by bringing the knife with me. I wanted him to die, and I killed him. They’ll lock me up and throw away the key.”
“Rex is right, Zeke kidnapped you and your daughter, and us, he made you watch as he tortured us, and god knows what else he did to you. How could anyone convict you of murder for protecting yourself to try to escape?” Doc reasons.
“I could have stopped. After I stabbed him in the neck the first time, I could have gotten away, even when he grabbed me, I could have, but I didn’t. I wanted him dead for what he did.” Her eyes are cold and filled with the rage she must have felt during the attack.
Fear drops like a stone into the pit of my gut as Doc voices what I’m thinking. “Lena’s right. Sure, some people might see it our way as self-defense, but there’s bound to be others who don’t. It could easily go to trial, and if she got the wrong jury, that would be it.”
“Then we’ll run together, fuck everything else, you and Mia are all that matter to me,” I insist, taking Lena’s hands in mine, willing her to believe me.
Doc sighs. “We can’t leave our brothers behind. Cole and many others are in the hospital; the police are probably already asking questions. We can’t pretend we weren’t here.”
Lena’s face fills with worry at the news that our loved ones are injured. Her only concern is never for herself, always for others.
“Then we’ll say I was the one who killed him,” I insist.
“No way. I’m not letting you take the fall for what I did. If you tell the police it was you, so will I, the evidence will prove it was me,” Lena stubbornly declares, pulling away from me and folding her arms to punctuate her point.
“Then what do we do?” I ask exasperatedly. I refuse to accept this. I refuse to accept a world where Lena goes to prison because of Zeke, the monster who is still ruining her life even in death.
Judge, standing sentinel as he guarded the doorway this whole time, has, as always, been silently listening and taking everything in before voicing his opinion. “We blow this place sky high.”
We turn to look at him in disbelief, wondering how he proposes to pull this off. Before I even have a chance to ask, he presents his plan.
“I spotted in a room, just down the corridor, a homemade bomb that they’ve been making here, just like the one they used at our clubhouse.
I say we drag Zeke’s body in there and rig the bomb to blow once we leave.
The house is old, and there are old gas lines.
This place will light up like a bonfire.
It will look like a bomb went off by accident and hide a lot of evidence. ”
Doc snaps his fingers and smiles. “You’re a genius, Judge, that just might work!”
I consider it for a moment, running through all of the possibilities in my mind. “I think you’re right. Even if there’s evidence of us here, we can say that we escaped when the bomb went off.”
We all turn to look at Lena, her say is what counts here. Her brow is furrowed as she debates our plan internally. We don’t have much time, we all know that we need to act fast before it’s too late. Slowly, she nods.
“Alright, let’s do it, let’s blow these assholes sky high.”
There’s my girl, I think.
We waste no more time getting to work and letting the others know the plan, using the pilfered mobiles we took from the guards.
Our men confirm that the guards have all been neutralized and the house cleared.
Some of the men ran when they realized, some surrendered, and others paid with their lives.
Spike, Zeke’s VP, wasn’t here and is nowhere to be seen.
Neither are the two guards that we interacted with. But we’ll deal with them eventually.
“Get out, get to safety, we’ll be out soon and meet you at the hospital,” I tell them.
“Lena, we’ll take care of the body, wash as much of the blood off as you can, and get dressed,” I tell her. She nods numbly and does as I say.
Watching her walk away, so small and vulnerable in her bloodstained bra and panties, I feel a fresh surge of anger against Zeke.
There’s only one reason why Lena is wearing lingerie.
If that bastard laid a finger on him, I’d kill him all over again if I could.
I hope for Lena’s sake he didn’t. But if he did, if he took what wasn’t given and wasn’t his to take, it won’t change my feelings for Lena.
I’ll do whatever I can to help her move past it and to prove that there are still some good men left in the world.
***
“Alright, it’s showtime,” Doc says, the remote detonator in his hand.
We’re outside of the complex, standing a safe distance away, ready to watch and see if our plan has worked.
If it hasn’t, we’re screwed. If this doesn’t work, I don’t care what the others say —I’m taking Lena and Mia, and we’re moving to Mexico, or someplace safe without extradition.
Whatever it takes to keep them safe and together.
Even if it means leaving the Soaring Eagles and my brothers behind.
They’re welcome to come, and I think they might; they can’t give Lena up any more than I can, and I know it would break her heart to lose them, too.
But I won’t ask it of them, nor will I judge if they choose to be bigger men than me and remain with our loyal men and women.
However, I’ve made up my mind. Lena and Mia come first. They will always come first.
“Press it,” I tell Doc, ready to face whatever fate has in store for us.
Doc presses the detonator, and there’s a collective intake of breath as we all brace ourselves for the explosion, followed by a moment of sheer panic when nothing happens.
But then, like fireworks on the fourth of July, the blast rips through the building, setting off a chain of other explosions as the old gas pipes blow, engulfing the mansion in a fiery inferno.
I look at Lena, watching her face as the flames dance in her eyes.
I see the steely determination, the fiercely independent woman, full of vulnerabilities and contradictions, who stole my heart and holds it still, and I know that she’s going to be alright, that she’s strong enough to not only survive this, but to thrive and grow because of it.
She pulls her cardigan close around her, and I move closer to wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her to me.
She snuggles into my chest for comfort as we watch Zeke’s false empire burn.
We should go. I know she’s desperate to see Mia and Cole.
But for a moment, we bask in the flames of our victory, safe in the knowledge that everything will be okay.
We survived. We made it out stronger and closer than ever before.
Nothing can stop us now.