Chapter 33
I sit in my truck and stare at the veterinary surgery that Caleb owns.
I can’t count how many cigarettes I’ve smoked, and I’m ignoring my phone because I can’t lie to my brothers.
If I tell them where I am or what I’m gonna do then Garrett, for sure, will try and talk me out of it.
I have my plan, I know exactly how this is gonna go down, and nothin’ or no one is gonna change my mind.
I just have to wait for my chance to strike.
The slimy, little sucker comes through the front door and pulls out his pack of cigarettes, and I watch as he heads for the alley between the surgery and the funeral directors, so he can smoke it.
Starting my engine, I drive toward him, not giving a fuck as I curb the truck and block any chance of him escaping me.
He looks up from lighting his smoke in shock when he sees me, and knowing I have to work fast, I get out, slam my door, and grab the cunt by the back of his neck.
I smash him face first onto the hood of my truck, over and over until his lights go out and his body goes limp.
Then hauling him over my shoulder, I carry him to the passenger side, throw him in, and head for the line camp.
Caleb starts coming back around when I pull up outside the cabin and after taking him out, I drag him across the ground and drop him on the porch step.
“Watch him!” I yell at Tate and Dalton who are here on lookout. They both watch me in confusion as I leave him there and head inside to get what I need. When I come back out Caleb is exactly where I left him, clutching his head and moaning like a little bitch while Tate stands guard over him.
“What you doin’, Carson?” he asks, looking up at me and blocking the sun from his eyes. I ignore his question, taking his arm and stretching it out so it’s palm down, across the porch step.
“Hold him here,” I order them both, and despite looking confused they don’t question me. Caleb struggles against Dalton when he grabs his body, and Tate presses his boot onto his arm so it stays where I want it. And when I pull the hammer outta my jeans pocket, Caleb looks real fuckin’ scared.
“W-w-w…what ya doing with that?” he asks as Tate keeps his arm stretched out and his palm flat against the step.
“It ain’t this that ya need to worry about.
” I wave the hammer, then snigger as I take a 6-inch nail from my other pocket and line it up with the center of his hand.
I watch him shake his head and let him beg a little, before I smash it through his flesh with the hammer, and nail him to the porch step.
His screams of agony pierce my ears and I watch his face turn purple as he stares between me and his hand, in shock.
“Now, we wait.” I step back and light a smoke, watching him struggle to try and pull himself free. Now I got him where I want him, it’s time for that family meeting.
I pull out my phone and when I see all the missed calls from Garrett, I immediately worry about Maisie and I waste no time calling him back.
“Wade, where the fuck are you?” He sounds frantic.
“I’m at the line camp.”
“Well, get home, we need ya here.”
“Maisie?” I check, knowing those babies could come any time.
“No, this is… We gotta talk.”
“I was gonna say the same thing. Come here and make sure you bring Cole.” I hang up before he can try and argue.
“Your lookout’s over, boys, you can head back to the ranch,” I tell the others, taking a seat on the log by the fire and listening to Caleb moan, while I wait for my brothers to join me.
It doesn’t take ‘em long to get here and when they do, Garrett slams his truck door and marches at me like he’s gonna swing for me.
“Where the fuck have you been…?” He stops and does a double-take when he notices Caleb on the porch.
Cole follows, heading on over to check out how I’m keeping him there, then he looks back at me and nods his head like he’s impressed.
He makes the fucker howl again when he crushes his boot into the hand he’s got pinned down.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Garrett looks beyond furious.
“He’s here because this cunt …” I stand up and head back toward him. “…is the piece of shit that knocked up our sister.” I kick Caleb in his face when he starts to shake it back at me, and when I notice the strange look that passes between Garrett and Cole, I know straight away something is off.
“Wade.” Garrett places his hand on my shoulder and eases me away, stepping in front of me and scrubbing his hand over his face like he’s trying to find words for me.
“There is no fuckin’ way you’re pinning this on me. I was not the father of that kid!” Caleb calls out from behind him.
Straining against my brother, I point my finger at him. “You shut your damn mouth or I swear to god I will nail down your fuckin’ balls,” I warn him, losing my patience.
“He’s right,” Garrett whispers to me, trying to be discreet.
“ What? Ya can’t tell me you believe him? He’s a fuckin’ snake!” I yell over him.
“Just back down, let me explain somethin’ to ya,” he tells me, waiting for me to stop straining against him before he relaxes.
‘Garrett, you gotta believe me. I didn’t lay a finger on your sister.” Caleb looks so scared I almost believe him.
“Oh yeah, then why d’ya have a picture of her in your wallet?
” I never thought to check it before, Leia has no reason to lie to me, but just to prove to my brothers that I haven't gone crazy, I march over and search his pockets. Finding what I’m looking for, I open it up to find a photo of Bree, right there, inside it. I hold it up in Cole’s face.
“There! all the fuckin’ evidence we need.” I look up at the sky and rub at my own face when I think of all the ways I’m gonna make this bastard pay for what he did. I don’t care about the shit it might cause. He’s gonna die, slowly and very fuckin’ painfully.
“Cole, you gotta believe me. I know how this looks but if you just let me explain.”
Cole stares back at Caleb blankly, while Garrett steps up and crouches down to his level.
“Then ya better start explaining,” he tells him.
“Okay… okay. I ain’t gonna say I didn’t have some affection for Breanna.”
“Don’t you dare say her name,” I hiss through my teeth, at the sick son of a bitch. Caleb’s older than me, he was far too old to even be looking at a sixteen-year-old girl.
“She was beautiful.” Tears spill out of his eyes and mix with the blood on his face.
“I knew it was wrong, but the age gap wouldn’t have even mattered after a few years, and like I said, I never laid a finger on her.
” He glances between us all, trying to reassure us.
We hit him back with stone-cold silence, and he’s forced to give us more.
“That didn’t mean I didn’t let it be known how I felt.” He looks at the ground like he’s ashamed. “There were some letters that I wrote, and yeah, I took that picture. But my feelings weren’t reciprocated. Carsons hate Masons, right?” He looks back up at me and smiles sadly.
“So, you expect us to believe you had nothin’ to do with this? Were ya harassing her, is that why she jumped off that—”
“Your sister didn’t jump.” He looks Garrett straight in the eye and shakes his head, and suddenly I feel all the oxygen get sucked from the air around me. My muscles go stiff and Cole’s do exactly the same.
“ What did you just say? ” Garrett tips his head and tries to focus.
“I said your sister didn’t jump. She was pushed,” he informs us all, and I notice the shake in Garrett’s hand as he straightens up and turns his back.
“You tell us, right now, what fuckin’ happened. Start to fuckin’ finish.” Cole takes over the interrogation while Garrett collects himself, and I just stare at thin air in shock, thinking about how scared she must’ve been.
“I liked her, I told ya that. I lived for those times that she would come over and visit Aubrey.” I notice a flash of pain in Cole’s eyes when she gets dragged into this fuckin’ mess. “Well, I was interested in her, I wanted to know everything about her.”
I try forgetting how sick all this sounds as I listen.
“Sometimes when she’d visit Aubrey, I’d sneak to the back of Joe’s place and listen in, she always opened up to her. Told her all kindsa things. She even told her about me. But on that day, when I heard her tell Aubrey she was pregnant, I heard how scared she was and I wanted to help her.”
Cole buries his head in his hands, while Garrett kicks at one of the logs where we usually sit.
“She was scared to tell any of you, or your father. She didn’t want to get the father of her kid in any trouble because she was in love with him.”
“So why didn't he step up?” I ask the question that's been spinning ‘round in my head, ever since I found out she was pregnant when she died.
“Because he couldn’t.” Cole looks at me as he breathes his rage out through his nostrils.
“What the fuck is goin’ on here?” I yell, feeling like I’m missing something major.
“I drove after her when she left that morning, picked her up on the road and I gave her a choice. I told her that I’d take responsibility for it. Even if it meant me getting a pounding.” I wanna punch his lights out, but at the same time, I need this information.
“Or, I offered to drive her outta town and get the situation dealt with in another way. She took that second option.”
“No, she didn’t. She was pregnant when she died.” I point my finger back at him and hit him with some facts.
“Yeah, I know that too. Because despite me driving her to the clinic, she couldn’t go through with it.
She was convinced the baby’s father loved her enough to understand and that they’d find a way to be together.
She called him on the way home and told him to meet her later that night at Blackdrop Point.
” Caleb closes his eyes and takes a breath.
“Then what?” I shove Cole out of the way and grab Caleb by his shoulders.
“ What fuckin’ happened? ” I shake him fiercely and he cries out in pain when it tears more flesh around the nail.
“I got there way before the time she arranged to meet him. I had to know who it was. So I hid, and I waited it out until eventually, he showed up.”
“Who? Who showed up? Who fuckin’ was it?” I shake his body again, and Garrett steps in and drags me off. “Stop it, Wade,” he warns, lookin’ real worried.
“Garrett, we need to fuckin’ know this1” I scream at him, losing all my patience.
“What happened?” Garrett ignores me and looks back toward Caleb.
“I listened to her tell him she couldn’t go through with it.
She told him how much she loved him and even suggested they run away together.
But he wasn’t having it. He had too much to lose.
Far too much. They got into a fight, and after she told him that there was no way she was getting rid of their baby, he shoved her real hard.
Then he shoved her again, and again until she fell.
” I hear the pain in Caleb’s voice and it proves that he really did feel something for her, even if that thing was all kindsa wrong.
“ Who? Who pushed her?” I ask again, sensing that I’m the only person here who doesn’t know who this fucker is.
And despite the pain he’s in, Caleb finds enough strength to sit up tall and scowl.
“You boys asked both my brothers the wrong question. You asked what my father had on Mayor Walker, when what you should’ve been asking, is what I had on that fucker.”
Reality of what he’s telling me feels like I’ve been punched in the guts, and when I suddenly realize what I’m facing, I slam my fist into his face and knock the fucker out for the second time today.