Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
CALLIE
“Wes!”
I was still screaming, as if I could wake him up.
My voice had gone hoarse, and two of the men in the room had already yelled at me to shut the fuck up, but I wouldn’t.
There was so much blood. There was no way he was alive. I needed to get closer to him to see if his chest was rising, or if there was a pulse. The cracking sound was still rattling around inside my head, making me relive that moment when his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell over.
My dad had continued to pull me away, and my legs were kicking at thin air but there wasn’t anything else I could say. Nothing else I wanted to say. It was just Wesley’s name on my tongue, crying until he answered me back.
“All right, Dirk, let’s talk terms,” my dad said over my screaming.
Dirk gave me a salacious smile, all teeth and venom. “Marriage, and a truce.”
I spat on the ground, my voice a wobbly whisper. “I’m not fucking marrying you.”
Silas was silent as he hung in the background, but I wanted to hit him. I wanted to take that bat and bash his disloyal brains in.
“Wait, I changed my mind.” Dirk suddenly snapped his meaty fingers together. “Let me burn his house down, while she watches, and I won’t need to marry her. Afterall, I still want the freedom to fuck whoever I want without worrying about defiling the marital bed.”
Seething angry, I reached for something, anything to keep them from torching this place while Wesley was unconscious inside it. Please just be unconscious.
“This isn’t even his house, so it’s a waste of your time, and I saw cameras. The owners have already seen you.”
Silas and Dirk laughed at me, and not for the first time, I felt foolish and like I was the butt of the joke.
Dirk jumped, sliding his butt on the counter, looking like an oversized toddler. “Stone, don’t you have a way of provin’ it to her?”
My dad relaxed his hold the smallest bit and cleared his throat. “Honey, you still have that key you used to carry around everywhere with you? When I asked all those years ago, you said it was for the house Wes was going to get for you one day.”
I felt sick.
He didn’t. Wes would have told me. He would have brought me up here and shown me and asked me to marry him.
Would it make a difference?
He’d asked me that when I asked if he wanted me to stay.
Silas poured the contents of my purse on the ground, adding to the reasons why I wanted to murder him.
“Here it is.”
He plucked it up and walked to the front door.
“How did his little promise go?” Silas asked my dad, giving me a mocking smile.
“Shoot, they were so young, I think if it unlocks the front door, then that means this is the house he wanted for them to live in when they were ready to settle down.”
They laughed, and when Silas locked himself out on the front porch then used the key to open the door, they both teased with a sigh.
I couldn’t breathe.
“So fucking sweet, and how fitting he’ll burn alive in the home he had built for you.”
No, it wouldn’t end like this. It couldn’t. We didn’t get this far to have it end like this.
“Dad, why are you doing this?” Tears burned my nose, clouding my vision.
I heard him laugh, and while Silas and Dirk joked to one another, he whispered in my ear, “just trust me, honey.”
Louder, he explained.
“That day I made a deal for you, I also made a deal for Sasha. If I back out on this now, I lose her. Dirk will kill all three of you. This is war, honey, and sometimes there’s hard choices in war so people stay alive.”
My gaze moved to Silas, and my mind reeled as I watched him begin to pull pieces together as well.
“Where’s Sasha now?” I asked, keeping my gaze on her son.
My gut told me he needed to know, and maybe that was why he was here. If my dad was playing an angle, perhaps Silas was too. It gave me a modicum of hope. Maybe that hit wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Or maybe I was already delusional, and this was just me grasping at straws.
“My favorite place, blossom.” Dirk drew closer to me, casually caressing my face.
I wrestled with my dad’s hold on me. “The beef shack?”
Not even a real place, but Dirk laughed the same.
“No, baby. It’s your new place of employment.
Strip club in Pyle called Strings. Sasha works the pole there when I tell her to.
I have someone making sure she doesn’t leave until we get this sorted out.
Don’t be jealous. She hasn’t warmed my bed in a long time.
I don’t like sharing, which is why Wesley here is going to have to die.
I can’t run the risk that you’ll go back to him. ”
I had to keep them here and talking and give Wes time to wake up. Because he had to wake up. He had to. There was so much I still had to say to him, and still so much I had to do. I couldn’t lose him.
My dad finally released me, and I dove for Wes on the floor, but Dirk grabbed my wrist and roughly pulled me away.
“The terms, Dirk. Two years. You can’t hurt her, and she doesn’t work the pole if she doesn’t want to. She’s an ink slinger; let her work at one of your tattoo shops.”
Dirk let out a sigh, inspecting me from head to toe.
“How long ago you fuck him? I can’t risk you being pregnant.”
“We’ve been fucking like bunnies since I came back, barely stopped to drive up here.” I spat at his feet, resulting in a slap to my cheek.
“Hey!” my dad yelled, pulling me back from Dirk, but the leader pulled a gun out, holding it to my dad’s face.
“I want her for ten years, and if she is pregnant, she gets rid of it. No argument.”
My dad faltered with his hands up, and my chest felt like a fire had been lit inside it. I was hyperventilating. My dad couldn’t make a trade. I didn’t belong to him to trade.
Dirk tilted his head, and with his firearm swaying to the side as if he were inspecting the house, he said, “Fires take too long. Why don’t I just put a bullet—”
A gun went off, and my eyes slammed shut. The echo from the shot was still ringing in my ears as I slowly blinked, realizing it wasn’t Dirk’s gun that had fired.
Something wet landed on my face and arm, but I didn’t want to look down to see the color. Dirk’s body slumped to the floor a moment later. Silas stood there with his arm outstretched, glaring down at the body.
“That was taking too long.”
My dad moved first. “Help me get Wes up. He needs ice. You hit him the way we talked about, right?”
Silas ran over, crouching to help assess Wesley’s injury.
“Of course. I used the set kit from the drama club at the high school. I hit him in the back, knocking the wind out of him. I think when he fell, it may have knocked him out, but he should be fine.”
I searched Wesley’s chest and head, trying to piece together what Silas was saying.
“There’s so much blood.” My voice wobbled, along with my lip, from trying to hold in a sob.
Silas held up a plastic bag. “All part of the set—I think it’s corn syrup and red food dye.”
Relief swelled in my chest as I moved, pulling Wes’s head into my lap, stroking along his hairline. I was a mess now, but I didn’t care.
“Wes?” I said, lightly slapping his cheek.
“I’ll help them, and I’ll make sure they get out of here, just go get my mom.” Silas locked his eyes with my dad, who seemed torn on what to do.
“Callie, I’m so sorry about this, honey. You were never going to go with him, but I know you were scared. I can explain everything, I just—”
I was too angry to even hear him speak. “Just go get Sasha.”
With one more pause, and a streak of remorse in his gaze, he ran outside. The sound of his bike reverberated through the house before dying off down the road.
It was just Silas and me with an unconscious Wes.
“If we can carry him to the truck, I’ll drive him down and I’ll take him to the emergency room.”
Silas grunted, slapping at Wesley’s face.
“He should wake up here in a few.”
The silence in the room stretched and then Silas let out a heavy sigh.
“Look, before he wakes up, I need you to promise me something.”
I examined him, seeing how tired he looked, with his pale blue eyes rimmed with red and bags under his sooty lashes.
“Why would I help you?”
His jaw clenched before letting his head hang forward.
“I deserve that. I have my own reason for being upset with your father and his club. But I shouldn’t have taken them out on you.
I don’t know what Wes is planning, but I know after this, he’s going to step down.
I know where he lives, and where he plans to raise his family.
If he considers me an enemy, he’ll wage war on me, and as of right now, he’ll have the backing of the club to do it. I need time, and I need an ally.”
“So why not just explain this to him?” I asked, adjusting Wes in my lap. His eyes were still closed, his breathing even.
Silas stared down at him. “It won’t matter. I put you in danger. If it were me, and someone did this to my woman, I’d kill first and ask questions later.”
My mind went to Natty, for some reason, still curious if there was more to their connection.
“So you want me to speak on your behalf?”
Silas nodded slowly.
“I’m about to become the president of the Death Raiders. I need Killian to see me as an ally.”
I opened my mouth to ask how he knew it would be Killian who took over when he beat me to it.
“Your dad is going to disappear with my mom. He doesn’t have a lot of time left—that part was true about his little act.
They want to get away from all of this while they can.
Once the other clubs realize Dirk is dead, they’ll start circling.
I need allies. I know Wes is getting out, but I also know he loves Killian like a brother and so do you.
You guys will stick close enough to the club to help him transition. ”
I considered my words carefully as I traced a line down Wesley’s forehead.
“Assuming he wakes up and everything is okay, then you have my word. But”—I made sure I had his attention before saying—“only if you swear not to ever hurt her.”
Silas dropped his brows into a shelf, shaking his head.