15. Bullwhip
15
BULLWHIP
“Suicide?” Grizzly doesn’t even look at us. “That’s not like Paul.”
I walk into the clubhouse and blow out a breath. I’ve officially reached peak exhaustion. Last night, I didn’t even sleep for a minute. Even the bed my foster parents bought for me as a kid had more cushioning.
“Sounds like they got the better of him,” says Wrangler. “That thing thirteen months ago must’ve been bad for him to have?—”
“He wouldn’t have.” Grizzly turns around, revealing red eyes. “No. Paul never runs away. He’s always had this power complex thing about him. He wouldn’t run away from his life like that.”
We each take a seat and twiddle our thumbs. I check my phone by default to see if there’s anything from Zoe, but of course she never gave us her number out of fear of Felix finding out.
Rain thrashes at the window, wind howling through the eaves. Glad they released us from the station before the storm started—it would’ve been a nasty drive out to the clubhouse in gale force winds and harsh rain. Gray clouds roll by in the sky, and the wind throws grains of sand at the window. Nothing usually makes me jump out of my skin, but the sound of sand hitting the glass does, strangely.
Uneasiness sickens my stomach. It’s like I’m constantly on the edge of my seat, waiting for something to happen. But it never does. And that, in turn, leaves me even more paranoid. It’s Zoe. The not knowing where she is, and if she’s OK. Alive, even. Either it’s that, or the fatty steak and soggy carrots meal they served through the window in my cell last night that soured my stomach.
I wish it was the latter.
It’s not.
The memory of fingering Zoe to orgasm in the bathroom makes it tempting to ride the full way with her again. I only need to come inside of her once. Feel her hot, wet walls squeeze around the length of my cock, just once . That’ll get her out of my system.
But it didn’t the first time.
I fear fucking her this time around will be worse.
The universe is against us. She’s married to Felix, and it’ll worsen things for me. God put me on this path to be the villain. To destroy. Not to rebuild and create, and enjoy all of earth’s pleasures. Those are for people like Poet and Wrangler, people with feelings. Those guys hesitate when it comes to killing, and do so only when necessary. I consider no feelings, and chase the adrenaline that comes with pulling that trigger. Damn, there’s nothing quite like vibrations from the gunshot fizzling through bone marrow.
There’s also nothing quite like Zoe Fernando.
Felix Fernando’s wife.
She circles around my head like a never-ending carousel.
And I don’t want it to end.
Things would be much simpler if I could phase her out of my life, and honestly, with Paul dead, I could in a heartbeat.
But it’s like the laws of physics don’t want that.
They want us together.
Even though I don’t want that myself.
I disrespected Felix, but the truth is—the man has no idea I exist. I’m in one photo. That’s it. He knows my face, but that’s about the extent of it. He’s the only person in the world who gets it, who grew up with bullying and neglect.
But Zoe isn’t safe. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but the fact that she’s nowhere to be found is a sign that Felix has seen the photo and initiated lockdown.
“I know things didn’t work out in our favor, but thanks anyway, boys.” Grizzly heads to the door, eyes teary for the first time in…I can’t even remember when he last cried. “You win some, you lose some.”
He exits after that, and it leaves me with an even bigger hole in my chest.
Do we win or lose Zoe?
At the moment, it’s looking like a loss.
I uncross my arms and dangle them in the space between my legs. “What now?”
Wrangler runs a hand through his silver hair. “We continue searching for Zoe.”
Poet’s eyes remain on the floor.
“We need to get her out of there,” I say.
Two heads turn my way.
Poet frowns. “First time you’ve said that . Does she really mean that much to you?”
I shrug. No word in the English dictionary, I don’t think, can accurately describe the way this girl shakes my being. She did it once at the masquerade, and she’s doing it again.
I could be a good person.
For her.
“More than I’d like to admit.” I sniff a laugh.
“What’s the deal with you and Felix, anyway?” asks Wrangler. “You met before?”
“Never.”
“Then…what?”
“I dunno.” Now’s not the time to go full Wrangler and deliver my life story. I suppose the boys deserve something, though, since we’re all in this together. “Sometimes, you see yourself in someone. Felix and I don’t know one another, but we have the same pasts. He gets it.”
Poet narrows his eyes. “Gets what?”
“What it’s like to grow up second best.” I turn my body around to face them. “I had a brother, you know. We were twins. That’s all I know about him. Our parents were too drugged up to care for us, so when we were a few months old, child services removed us and placed us into the foster system, separately.”
“Separately seems harsh,” says Wrangler.
“Apparently, according to my foster parents, it’s harder to adopt siblings. I don’t know logistically how it all works. All I know is how it feels to be second best. Michael was my foster parents’ biological son, and he was royalty.”
“It sucks,” says Poet, “that you didn’t get to grow up with your real brother.”
“You win some, you lose some,” I say, wise words from the Prez himself.
But I only won once, and it was at that goddamn masquerade.
God sees how many times I enforce the whip. He sees how I deal with anger when it surfaces, and how quickly my finger curls to pull the trigger. He’s not gonna deliver me another win.
But I can try to get Zoe out of Felix’s trap and score a win for all four of us.
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s fighting.
“Alright.” Poet claps his hands together and jumps up. “Action plan.” He tosses an empty can of stout into the trash and dusts off his hands. The yeasty smell lingers. “How do we plan to take down Nevada’s most powerful man?”
“We break into his house,” proposes Wrangler.
“Not this again.”
“I’m serious,” he insists. “We failed last time. Well… not entirely, but we didn’t leave with answers.”
I grit my teeth. Felix knows our faces now since the media very kindly plastered them all over Google. “We can’t get caught. It’ll go back to Venom Vultures, and Grizzly has enough to deal with. And , we risk getting Zoe in even more shit.”
“We’ll just be super cautious, then.”
My blood clots with anxiety. This could be the biggest risk we’ve ever taken.
Wrangler stands up. “First, let’s ride over there and see if any cars are parked in the drive before we take any action. I’m going nowhere near the property if he’s home.”
“True,” says Poet. “Plus, if Zoe’s home, and there’s a big chance she will be if Felix has forbidden her to leave, she’ll be able to disable the facial recognition camera and save our asses like before.”
“OK.” I stand and clap my hands. “It’s game time. Let’s break into Felix’s office, find something scandal-worthy, and feed it to the sharks.”
“Yes,” says Poet.
Rain continues to pour, and lightning zigzags across the sky. Today, the weather sides with Venom Vultures Motorcycle Club.
Operation Save Zoe: commence.