20. Wrangler
20
WRANGLER
Footsteps pound upstairs, so I curve myself into an even tighter ball and hope they disappear. All three of us piled into Zoe’s walk-in closet the second the front door sprung open downstairs. We’ve now been in here for an hour.
Bullwhip could be dead.
My phone light illuminates the inside of the closet, exposing Zoe’s worried face.
“It’s gonna be okay.” I run a hand up her back.
“But you don’t know that.” She snaps around. “He’s got Bullwhip. He could be dead .”
I push past the weighty feeling of dread and pray she’s wrong.
“He knows you’re here. He knows that we?—”
The door bursts open, and all three of us hold our breaths.
God, since when did we become such pussies?
I kick open the closet door and prepare to duel Felix. Instead, relief swims through me.
“Bullwhip?” I snap. “Where the fuck have you?—?”
“You need to get out. Now .”
Poet emerges. “Were you with Felix?”
Zoe steps out. “Oh my god, what did he say?”
Bullwhip’s snarl overrides us all. “There’s no time to chat. Just get out. He’s downstairs. Use the library window.”
I laugh. “Why are we running away like pussies?”
Poet stands beside me. “Exactly. Escaping shames the whole club, and all the members that came before us. No. We’re going nowhere. Where the fuck is he?—?”
“Ah.” Felix’s voice silences us all. “You managed to find Zoe’s bedroom alright, and your two lesser friends.”
Two lesser friends?
I can’t help but scowl.
That’s when Poet launches himself at Felix, swinging an arm around his neck to bring him into a headlock. The man barks out an animalistic sound, grits his teeth, and tears the arm away.
“You want to hug, do you?” Felix snarls.
Zoe loiters behind the closet door, green eyes alive with fright.
Felix turns on her. “You just can’t help yourself, can you? No self-control. You should be ashamed.” This make Zoe back even further into the closet. “You’re nothing but a whore.”
Fire explodes inside of me, driving me forward to press the son of a bitch against the wall. He hisses. Even canines have prettier faces.
Poet then takes the opportunity to close his hand into a fist and punch.
Felix’s lopsided head crashes into the wall.
To be honest, cracking his nose and jaw might even straighten the features out for him, and pretty him up a little. With millions stashed away, he could afford the best plastic surgeon in the world…but he doesn’t.
He must enjoy looking like a freak.
“Venom Vultures. I’ve heard whispers of you. You think hiding away in the desert keeps you safe, right?” He frowns, seeming unaffected by the punches. Blood drizzles down his face, but he doesn’t even wince. “You pay whores to fuck you, don’t you? Can you not get any action for free? Zoe here would fit right in at the clubhouse. You three have proved what I always thought to be true—that she has zero standards. That whore will widen her legs for anyone who gives her a sliver of attention.”
Poet and I throw a punch at the same time.
Felix continues laughing. “You’ve wrangled yourself a good deal, I must say. She is very beautiful, and I know what you bikers are like about taking advantage. Maybe you all can fuck her right now and let me watch so I can take pleasure in seeing how much of an easy slut she is.”
I say nothing. Just wrap my hand around Felix’s dick and pull.
Small, as expected. I’m surprised he even sports a penis and set of balls.
“He doesn’t have working testicles,” laughs Poet. “That’s not gonna work.” He turns to Bullwhip who, strangely, just stands and stares. He’s the killer between us three. We’re not playing musical statues—what the fuck is he doing? He has a gun.
“Bullwhip?!” hisses Poet.
No response.
“BULLWHIP?” Poet gestures to the inside of his jacket as I continue punching. “Now!”
Rigidly, Bullwhip slips a hand beneath his jacket to wrap his hand around the weapon stored there, but he doesn’t shoot immediately like he normally does.
He just furrows his brows and thinks.
I grimace. Did Felix sedate him or something? What’s going on? He holds enemies at gunpoint quicker than drowning people draw their first breath. Something’s gotten into him.
“Bullwhip?” I snap again.
He looks at me with uncertainty.
What the fuck is there to be uncertain about?
“Just leave it,” he murmurs. “It’s pointless.”
I toss him a questioning glance.
“He’s too powerful. We’re never gonna beat him. Even if we kill him, he’ll find a way to win.”
I narrow my eyes. Bullwhip’s seen something. He was in that office for an hour. What exactly did he uncover?
Poet and I share a glance.
“Glad to hear one third of you are waking up,” laughs Felix. He pushes off the wall, a shadow elongating in front of him. The light perfectly outlines his lopsided face. This man is truly the face of evil.
And then Bullwhip and Felix exchange a glance that stirs worry through me.
Did they talk?
“Come on out, Zoe, no point hiding back there anymore,” Felix chuckles. “In life, you must own up to your mistakes and face the music. That is the consequence of sin, unfortunately.”
This catches Bullwhip’s attention.
Zoe, unballing herself from the closet, stands on two feet and stares her so-called husband dead in the eye. He kills more of her every single day. She tenses her jaw to stop the quivering, but I see the shakes. The face behind the mask. Credits to her, she puts on a brave face—the media has taught her well—but cracks of her true, petrified self slip through. Felix warned Zoe that if she saw us again, her sister would bear the consequences.
We told her we’d never let that happen.
But now I worry it might…
I side-eye Bullwhip and examine the placement of his hands—they rest by his side. If he’s not gonna pull the trigger and save Zoe, then I’m left with no choice but to do so myself.
I launch myself onto Felix, sliding a hand into his leather jacket and wrapping my hand around his weapon just as I receive a kick to the head that plummets me to the floor of Zoe’s bedroom.
Poet dives next, but reaches the same fate.
I look up and see Felix towering over me. Scrambling up, I ask, “What’s going on?”
“Do that again, and you might leave here with a malfunctioning brain.” Felix cross-examines me. “That is if you’re lucky enough to leave.” He turns around and heads toward the door. “You know,” he says, “if you wanted to pay my wife a visit, all you needed to do is ask.” His hand clutches the doorknob, and he steps out into the corridor. “You keep leaving dirty marks on my sandstone wall every time you climb up.”
He closes the door behind him, leaving all four of us in silence.
“ What the fuck ?” Zoe mouths as the tension loosens from our shoulders.
“Bullwhip?!” I grab him by the jacket, and he turns my way with eyes sharper than a machete knife. “What was that ?”
“What was what?”
Poet folds his arms. “You could’ve ended it.”
“Don’t you want to save Zoe?” I ask.
“Like I said before.” He keeps his voice monotone. “There’s no way.”
“You were optimistic before. What changed?” Poet asks.
“Everything’s changed.”
Zoe enters the conversation. “What exactly did you see in his office?”
Radio silence.
“Bullwhip?” I press. “Answer the question. What?—?”
“He’s a serial killer.”
Zoe backtracks from the door like Felix is gonna burst back through and finish us off when we least expect it—something we can’t rule out.
“It’s no surprise,” I say. “I always knew there was something off about him.”
“He’s a psycho,” adds Poet. “And that gives us even more reason to finish him. He’s dangerous.”
Bullwhip flickers his eyes between both of us, and then Zoe.
“Bully? What do you think?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“About this. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be…here.”
Bodies crash through the door before we have time to respond. Several. Three of them, and the door falls back out into the corridor, landing with a crash as it tears from the hinges. Bullet vests strap across their chests, embroidered with the dreaded label: FBI.
Not fucking again.
Guns point our way—three. They instruct us to raise our hands. I do so immediately.
“Sir.” I raise my voice over the shouting. “Excuse us, but before you chain us up, there’s something you need to know.” The three armed men, guns still angled at our chests, pause to hear me out. “It’s about Felix Fernando.”
“Felix called us here because you broke in to rape his wife, Zoe Fernando,” one of them says.
“What?” Zoe jumps forward. “No.” She shakes her head. “That’s bullshit. Oh my god.” She stands between the guns and Bullwhip, Poet, and me, her palm inches from one of the muzzles.
“Zoe, I’m going to have to ask you to stand aside.”
“He’s a serial killer!” I shout out. It’s the only thing I’ve got, but it’s worth a shot.
The feds turn to one another and break out into laughter.
FBI: fucking bastard investigators.
“You’re under arrest, gentlemen.”
“Bully?!” Poet elbows him in the side. “Tell them what you found.”
Bully continues standing like a statue.
“Bully!” Now it’s my turn to try and draw blood from the stone among us. “For Zoe.”
This tenses his jaw.
Nothing.
“Zoe,” says one of the feds. “Please move aside.”
She doesn’t.
So they barge past her instead, and each bring out a pair of handcuffs.
I sigh, disappointed. This isn’t how it ends, it can’t be, but the iron cuffs lock around my wrists anyway, and I’m escorted off the estate.