27. One Last Call
27
One Last Call
WINTER
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I can’t help you. These are the doctor’s orders.”
“Doctor’s orders? I haven’t been able to see my husband in two days! Two days ! This has to be a misunderstanding,” I hear my mother yell from all the way across the hall. I turn the corner and a highly satisfying scene comes into view.
“I’m afraid it’s not. Your husband specifically said he doesn’t want to see you, and we respect our patients’ wishes.” The poor nurse glances around in hope of catching the eye of a coworker who could possibly swoop in and save her from my psycho mother.
“My husband would’ve never said that!” Lauren shakes her head in disbelief. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Bring me someone with a brain. Right now!”
Sitting with his head buried in his hands, Jaden eyes the floor and impatiently waits for this moment to be over. My dad made the decision of letting Jay hear the recording. He said he was old enough and deserved to know. We made him promise not to tell Lauren about my father’s plans to divorce her just yet.
When he looks up and sees me, he rises from his seat and walks over to me with a “ Thank God .” I give him a quick hug, which attracts my mother’s attention.
“They won’t let me see him! What the hell is this? Did he tell you anything?” She strides to me.
“I’m sorry, Mother, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say calmly.
Light bulbs blink in her eyes.
“You. You did this. Your moron of a boyfriend told him something, didn’t he? He fed your father a bunch of lies.”
“A bunch of lies?” I feign confusion. “We didn’t feed him anything.” The fire in her stare decreases. Until I hit her with the cold hard facts. “We showed him.”
Her face decomposes.
“Isn’t technology amazing? With just the touch of a finger, you can record anything these days.” I’ve never been so cruel to my mother in my whole life. For the first time, I’m treating her the way she’s always treated me. “Now I don’t think I have to tell you what this means. He knows everything . He knows about the affair, he knows you never loved him, and he knows you’re an awful mother. Well, guess what, dear Mom? He’s divorcing you.”
That’s her snapping point.
She slaps me so hard tears fall on cue. A wave of gasps runs around the room. This slap contained years of hatred. She couldn’t do it before, but now that she’s lost everything—or if she hasn’t yet, she will soon—she’s finally revealing her true colors.
“You psychopath,” Jay shouts. The pain is there, but it seems sheer compared to the satisfaction of seeing her fall.
“You fucking brat. How dare you?” she spits through gritted teeth. “I could’ve given you up. I would’ve if it wasn’t for Harry coming in at the right time. The only person who ever wanted you was that stupid boyfriend of yours. Oh no, wait, he also realized how worthless you were in the end, didn’t he?”
My confidence deflates. She’s not wrong though.
“You should probably empty your stuff from the house.” I fling my arm around Jay’s shoulder, and her fists roll into white-knuckled balls.
“You can’t do that. You have no right to kick me out!”
“Oh, I know I have no right to kick you, but Dad can. And everything’s in his name.” I attempt to ignore the burning of my cheek. A security guard who witnessed the scene decides now is a good time to get involved.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. We’re going to have to ask you to leave,” he tells her. Dude, you couldn’t do that before I got slapped?
Infuriated, yet helpless, Lauren glares at me one last time and rushes toward the exit. Sure, this isn’t over. My father has to file for full custody of Maika, and the process might take years, but with the recording, we may stand a chance. Nothing is going my way these days: Haze’s left me again, I don’t have the slightest idea of what I want to do with the rest of my life, but this is the one thing no one can ever take away from me. In the evil mother department?
I won.
HAZE
Delivering a truck full of cocaine to a warehouse in a ghost town. Not exactly my idea of a fun night. “ Be at this address at ten. We’ll have a truck waiting for you.” This is the last thing their new errand boy said to me. They didn’t even have the decency to tell me who I’d meet there, who I’m delivering to. Told me the strict minimum and sent me on my way.
One thing’s certain: we’re far from delivering weed to low lives. A full truck? This could be prison for me. But I don’t have a choice. Go big or go home, they said.
How ironic that I’m doing this specifically to go home.
To her.
To the love of my goddamn life.
The instructions were clear: deliver the merchandise to destination, don’t get caught, and get the hell out of there. I can’t help thinking that this sounds too easy. There’s a reason they called it my “final” job. A reason they’re willing to let me go if I make it out alive. Something bad is waiting for me down this path, I’m sure of it, yet, here I am, driving toward disaster.
Shortly after I called them to accept the job, I grabbed the first pen I could find and wrote two letters. One for Winter. The other for the police.
Winter’s letter contains everything I wish I’d told her, including the goodbye I won’t be able to give her if something happens to me tonight. I stopped by Vic’s job and told him to deliver both letters if I don’t make it home. If tonight goes south, who knows if anyone will ever find my body. I doubt the people I’m meeting will deliver it to the authorities and send flowers to the funeral.
If this goes wrong, I need Winter to know why I did this. So that I won’t be an asshole in her eyes.
Well, I’ll still be an asshole, but I’ll be an asshole with a purpose.
The second letter holds all the information I’ve gathered on the organization: every place I went to, every person I met, every single job I did as their puppet, it’s all in there. If something happens to me, I won’t be able to protect Winter anymore. This is the police’s best chance at stopping them.
She’s been texting and calling all day. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up knowing there was a chance it’d be our last conversation. How do you tell the girl you love that you may not live to see another day? I’m doing this for us. Because there’s no way I can keep seeing her unless I end this once and for all. If there’s one thing Harry’s accident has taught me, it’s that this, them, it’s bigger than me.
I’ve been driving for a few hours now and racking my brain for a way out—didn’t find any. We could run. But for how long? And what’s to say they wouldn’t just take it out on everyone Winter loves instead? Jay, Allie, Kendrick, Maika?
Maybe we could go back to Florida, but just as many dangers are waiting for us there. I’ve got my share of enemies: Ian and his fighters, my ex-fighters… my own brother. Plus, something told me they’ll find us anywhere. The prefer their loose ends dead.
The GPS informs me that I’m less than ten minutes away, but the automated voice is muffled by my phone ringing on the passenger seat.
Unknown Caller.
Shit, they’re probably calling about a change of plan.
I pick up.
“What?” I snap.
Silence.
“Hey, little brother.”
I almost swerve off the fucking road. I know his voice. Even after all this time, I know it’s him.
“Tanner?” I can’t believe it.
It’s been months since I’ve had any contact with my family. We haven’t talked once since the night I discovered Jacob was his kid. I changed my number, tore down every possible bridge still linking us. I literally left the country for fuck’s sake. I doubt I could’ve made myself clearer.
“It’s quite a mess you got yourself into, Haze.”
“How do you know about that?”
A small laugh erupts down the line.
“What? You think because you move to Canada, I’m going to stop watching over my baby bro?”
I’m speechless.
“You may hate me, Haze, but we’re family. I’ve been trying to make sure you’re okay for months now. You haven’t exactly made it easy on me, by the way. You really need to let go of your Marcus fantasy and just be happy be with your girl, man.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop torturing yourself.”
I glance at the GPS.
Six minutes.
“Listen, I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m sorry I destroyed our relationship. If it was lonelybefore you were gone… let me tell you, family dinners are fucking miserable now. I messed up everything, I know that. With Riley, with Jacob, with you.”
“Don’t forget Winter.”
“Yeah, her too,” he admits.
“Do you have a point?”
Five minutes.
“My point, brother, is that you’re going to stop the car right now.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re going to pull over, get out of this car, and walk away before it’s too late.”
“Walk away?” I scoff. “Do you really think it’s that easy?”
“It is that easy. If you have the right people on your side.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I took care of it, Haze. You don’t owe them shit. No drug deliveries, no jobs, nothing. You’re free. You have a chance to be happy with Winter. Don’t waste it.”
Two minutes.
I hit the brakes and pull over on the side of the road.
Shock makes it hard to speak. “What did you do?”
No reply.
“Tanner, what did you promise them?”
“All you need to know is they will never bother you again. I made sure of it.”
“Why did you do that for me?”
“I’m not going to let my little brother ruin his life for a piece-of-shit murderer. There’s a train station ten minutes away. You’re going to get on a train, go home, and get your shit together, understood?”
“I’m not sure there’s even something to get back to…” I whisper.
“I don’t believe that for a second. You two will make it work. You always do. And you need to stop this crazy hunt for Marcus. Des wouldn’t want you to live like this. I promise your obsession with revenge will bring you nothing but pain.”
Images of Desiree invade my mind. Her toothless smile, her small body lying in a pool of her own blood…
“I… I don’t think I can.” I choke.
He sighs.
“Then, for what it’s worth, I looked deeper into it and I think you were on the right track at the motel.”
He doesn’t need to say more for me to know exactly what motel he’s referring to. I always had my doubts about the place but never went back to check.
“And just some brotherly advice…”
He’s not the same Tanner I left behind all those months ago. Even the way he talks is different.
“If you want to continue to hunt him, keep her out of it. She’s never going to be happy as long as you seek revenge. Let her go. She’s already been through hell and back. She should be enough, Haze. She deserves to be enough .”
His words hit me harder than I thought possible.
“And I know it might be difficult for you to believe but…” He pauses. “I do love you, brother. I hope you find everything you’re looking for.”
He ends the call.
His words haunt me as I walk away from the shittiest of trucks. She should be enough. Ironic that, in the end, my psycho brother turned out to be wiser than me.
He’s right. As long as Marcus is free, enjoying life after he stole Des’s, I can never give Winter Kingston the love she deserves. I can never treat her the way I should. She needs a man who can close his eyes without seeing a murder on replay. She needs someone who isn’t a threat to everyone she loves. Someone who would never be the reason for her father nearly losing his life. For the first time since I’ve met her, it dawns on me, really dawns on me. One day, I’m going to lose this girl. One day, I’ll have to let her go.
But that day…
Is not today.