Chapter 41 #2
Cars were slowing as they passed to get around us because we were blocking the road, but then they took off at high speed, likely upon seeing the gun. The sirens grew louder in the distance, and I willed them to hurry.
“Talk to me, Walker.”
“Talk to him. Who the fuck is he?” Walker’s breaths sounded shallow. Too shallow.
For his sake, I held my composure as I demanded of the man, “Take off the mask.”
“Fuck you.” He spat on the ground between us.
I lowered the gun and shot him in the thigh. He screamed and fell to the road, clutching at his leg and cursing me with every foul name under the sun.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Walker wheezed, and I looked at him. He was on his ass, trying to stay upright as he held the wound that was gushing too much blood. “Remind me … remind me never to piss you off.”
I couldn’t laugh as I strode toward the man I’d shot and aimed. “The man I love is bleeding out right now, so believe me when I tell you I will shoot you in the face if you don’t take off your mask.”
A glimmer of fear shone in his dark eyes, and he raised a bloody hand to whip off the mask.
I stumbled back a step. “Brix?”
Nathan’s best friend sneered at me. “I should have shot you in the fucking head on the street … but I promised Nate I’d make it last a while.”
“You’re doing this for Nathan?” I asked in disbelief. “You were going to murder me for Nathan?”
“I was going to torture you for Nate.” He winced as he grabbed at his bleeding thigh again. He was making a lot less fuss than Nathan had when I’d shot him in the leg. “I was going to kill you for the money.”
Confusion was a cold bucket of water. I shivered with foreboding. “What money?”
Brix smirked. “Nate didn’t just come here for revenge. He came because he was getting paid a lot of dough to take you out. When he failed, I stepped up. Been hard to get near you with that big fucker everywhere you go, so I had to take my shot.”
Glancing at Walker, I noted how sickeningly pale he was now, but he was listening. I aimed the gun between Brix’s legs. “Unless you want to lose your dick, you’ll tell me what you’re talking about.”
The sirens were close.
Brix laughed cruelly. “Your dear old dad is dead, bitch, and it seems he left all his dough to you. Guess your stepmommy didn’t like that so much, so she called Nate and made a deal. Take you out for a million bucks.”
His words slammed through me. Like brutal punches pummeling the air out of my lungs. Panic suffused me, and my cheeks tingled with the oncoming warning of an anxiety attack. My vision blurred.
Not now, not now.
Walker’s murmur of my name reached through the stifling, crushing sensation gripping me, and I straightened my gun arm on Brix. “You’re lying.”
He shook his head, enjoying my distress. “I got receipts. Bitch thought we were two stupid thugs she could manipulate, but we got evidence she set this up. If I go down with Nate on this, I’m taking that cunt with me.”
“Why?” I demanded. Brix would really try to kill me for a lousy million dollars?
Nathan, sure. I could see it.
But Brix?
He understood and curled his lip in disgust at me.
“Nate is the only family I got, and you betrayed him. Then your asshole boyfriend”—he glowered at Walker—“had some guys fuck me up for information. I’m ashamed to admit, I talked.
Like a little bitch. So I had to come here.
I had to do this for Nate. For me. The million dollars was just the cherry on the fucking top. ”
The news that Walker had Brix assaulted for information wasn’t surprising.
He’d told me he’d had guys talk to Brix and I’d heard the implication that they’d worked him over to get to the truth about Nathan’s whereabouts.
Walker was desperate to protect me from Nathan, no matter the cost. He loved me.
He’d do whatever it took. And I loved him.
He was the only man I’d ever truly trusted.
He’d taken a bullet in the gut, and it hadn’t stopped him from racing after me.
Feeling revulsion and hatred for the people who had brought this on us, I heard Walker’s breaths come faster and sharper as the police vehicles and an ambulance pulled up behind our cars.
“You and Nathan are two stupid thugs. Neither of you could beat me. And if anything happens to Walker, I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never walk free again.”
Orders were suddenly barked at me to drop the gun.
I held up my hands a second later and then lowered the gun to the ground as police officers surrounded us.
“My boyfriend first,” I pleaded with them. “He’s shot. Badly.” The paramedics hurried toward Walker as the police ordered me to turn around. “Walker!”
He opened his eyes, groaning, and then rage flared in them when he saw they were arresting me. “No!”
“It’s okay!” I called to him. “Please,” I begged the officer arresting me. “Let me go with him. I was the one who was kidnapped! That bastard”—I kicked my leg toward Brix—“shot my man!”
“We’ll sort it out at the station.” The officer prodded me toward the car.
“I need to know he’s okay.” Hearing Walker call my name, I tried to turn around. “I need to know he’s okay!”
But they weren’t listening, and I found myself shoved into the back of the police vehicle, torn away from the man I loved as he bled out for me.