Chapter 47 #2
Raff slides into the passenger seat.
Then I pull out of the driveway and onto the road.
Raff twists in his seat, arm over the headrest, and fixes the fucker with a cold, hard stare.
Milo keeps his eyes on the ceiling.
"Why'd you do it?" Raff asks.
Milo’s eyes drop to Raff's face. He's quiet for a moment, his mouth working, as if he's trying to decide how honest to be, or how much we plan on hurting him.
"I was a junkie," he finally says.
"Was?" Raff snorts loudly. "You’re sweating through a denim jacket in ninety-degree heat with pupils the size of dinner plates. Try again."
He doesn't deny it. He looks back at the ceiling.
I turn onto the main highway, the shop’s about fifteen minutes out. The road is quiet at this time of night, nothing but headlights, the tree line, and the hum of the engine.
"You killed her mother," Raff says. "And you killed her father. And then you went home." He lets that sit for a second. "She stayed. She stayed in that pharmacy until the ambulance came. All alone with their dead bodies." He tilts his head. "But sure. You didn't mean to. That makes it fine."
I check Milo’s expression in the rearview, watching him desperately try not to cry.
“I didn't mean to kill anyone,” he whispers.
"But you did."
Milo closes his eyes.
"Look at me!" Raff barks, and the fucker's eyes snap back open.
Raff holds his gaze. Doesn't say anything for a long moment, he looks at him with those cold gray eyes, and I watch Milo's throat move as he swallows.
"You're a piece of shit," Raff says quietly. Then he turns back around in his seat and faces the road.
I hear the fucker sniffle a few times before he faintly whispers, "Haven't you ever done something you regret?"
"Not much," Raff says to the windshield. "And what I have regretted, I've owned with my whole fucking chest." He turns his head, glaring at Milo out of the corner of his eye. "I don't go crying to the people I hurt and ask them to make me feel better about it."
The car is quiet for a moment.
"Who covered it up?" I ask, keeping my eyes on the road.
Milo says nothing.
"Hey!" I glance at him in the rearview mirror. "Who paid off the cops?"
He looks at his hands. "Does it matter?"
"Yes," I say firmly.
There’s another beat of silence, and I’m worried I might have to hit him to get the answers I want. I don’t want to break my promise to Elle, but I will if I have to.
Finally, Milo shifts in his seat, his shoulders pulling inward. "My aunt," he says quietly. "She handles things like that."
"Who's your aunt?" Raff asks.
Milo looks out the window. "Angelica."
Shock slams into me, but I manage not to react. I look at Milo in the mirror, taking him in properly for the first time. There’s a faint resemblance if you’re really looking for it, but barely. He has the same dark hair and pointed chin, but that’s it.”
“Afterwards, she forced me to go to rehab,” Milo says as he stares out the window. "She was furious. Called me an idiot." He lets out a short, hollow sound that isn't quite a laugh. "She wasn't wrong." He looks back at his hands. "When I got out, she put me to work in the pharmacy unit."
"That's a stupid job to give a junkie," Raff says.
"That was the point," Milo says quietly. "She wanted me to look at those medications every single day and remember exactly what I did to get them."
The road hums under the tires.
Milo looks at me in the rearview mirror, his blown-out eyes wide and slightly unfocused as he tries to hold my gaze.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asks softly. He sounds shockingly calm, despite the tears still dripping down his face.
But neither one of us answer.
"You promised her you wouldn't touch me," he says.
"I know what I told her," I say.
He swallows. His eyes stay on mine in the mirror for another second, trying to read something in my face, then he looks away.
The shop comes into view at the end of the road, and I hit the gas.
I turn the wheel, pulling around the back of the building, and park. The back lot is dark except for the security light above the bay door, and in the glow of it I can see the four cars. Brand new. Black and expensive, sitting in a neat row, their paint still showroom perfect.
Raff lets out a low breath. "We can't let those sit too long."
I look out at the shop. "This won't take long."
Then I slip out of the car, letting Raff pull the fucker out. Milo’s legs buckle, and Raff steadies him, which is the kindest thing either of us is going to do for him tonight.
“Let’s go.” Raff grabs a fistful of his hair.
He walks Milo through the back lot, steering him between the parked cars. I walk alongside them with my hands in my pockets. The security light throws long shadows across the gravel, and the air smells like dirt, rusted metal, and cut grass.
Milo starts crying again.
"Are you going to kill me?" His voice comes out small and wet.
"I want to rip your fucking throat out.” I keep my voice completely even. "But my omega asked me not to."
Raff makes a sound beside me that says he has feelings about that, but is keeping them to himself.
"Then what are you—" He stops, swallowing hard. "What are you going to do to me?"
I don't answer. I make my way to the old beater at the far end of the lot.
There’s rust along the wheel wells, a cracked windshield, and the driver's side door has been ripped clean off the hinges. I reach inside and pop the trunk.
It opens with a groan.
Milo‘s eyes go wide, and his body locks up.
Raff's fist tightens in his hair and walks him forward.
"No." Milo's feet drag against the gravel. "No, no, no. Please. Please, you said—"
"Get in," I say.
"You promised El—"
"I promised her I wouldn't touch you," I say. "Get. In."
Milo looks at the trunk. Then at me. Then at Raff. His eyes are wild and darting, and his whole body is shaking. I watch his mind turn over, desperately trying to figure out how to get out of this, but there’s no escape.
“Go!” Raff shoves him forward.
Milo grabs the lip of the trunk with both hands, his knuckles white. "Please." His voice has dropped to almost nothing. "Please don't let me starve in here. Please!"
"You're not going to starve," I say with a quick laugh.
But Milo doesn't believe me. I can see it in his face, the way his eyes keep moving, still looking for the exit that isn't there.
"You didn't even tie me up," he says, holding up his hands, looking at his own wrists like he's surprised. "Why didn't you tie me up?"
I look at him for a second.
Junkies are so fucking stupid.
Raff lets out a sharp laugh, beside me, agreeing, as he turns and walks away across the lot, shaking his head.
"Do you want to be tied up?" I say as I turn back to Milo.
His face crumples, and he starts to cry again. "No."
"Do you want to starve to death?" I ask even louder.
"No."
"Then get the fuck in, and think about what you did."
Milo looks at me for one more second. Then he slowly climbs in, folding himself into the trunk.
It smells like burnt rubber and mildew. There’s grit and broken glass and what looks like an old shop rag turned black with age.
“Get comfortable,” I say as he lies down on his side in the middle of it all.
I wait until he's still, then I slam the lid shut, and I turn and look at Raff.
He's already in the forklift.
I give him the signal, pointing once toward the beater.
Raff gives me a single nod from the cab, his hands on the controls, and I step back and watch.
The forklift's arms slide under the beater with a grinding scrape of metal. The car jerks, then lifts off the ground.
I hear Milo start to scream from inside the trunk, muffled and distant, his weight making the car shift slightly to one side as Raff drives the forklift slowly across the back lot toward the mobile crusher sitting in the far corner.
I think about Elowen being forced to clean up her parent’s blood.
I think about three years of lies and isolation and deep, horrible fear.
I think about the nightmares she will probably have for the rest of her life.
Raff positions the car over the crusher's platform, then lowers it down with a heavy, resonant clang that echoes across the lot.
I wait until he backs the forklift up, then I walk over and press the button.
The mobile crusher roars to life, its hydraulic arms closing inward with a groan of machinery and pressure.
For exactly two seconds, I can hear Milo's muffled screaming over the sound of it. His voice cuts sharp, then it fades, and I smell the quick rush of blood.
Then I can't hear anything except the crusher.
That stops too.
And everything goes quiet.
I stand there for a moment in the silence, looking at what's left.
The beater is a fraction of what it was, compressed into something flat and unrecognizable, and I look at it for a long moment with my hands in my pockets and feel nothing except a quiet, settled certainty that this fucker will never upset our omega again.
It's done.
Raff climbs down from the forklift, hitching his jeans up as he walks. He stops beside me and looks at the crusher, then at me.
"I wish we got to beat the shit out of him first," he says.
"Yeah," I agree, then I pat his back. "Let's get those trackers."
Raff rolls his neck once, cracks his knuckles, and follows me across the lot. "You think Angelica will come looking for him?"
"I think Angelica has bigger problems than a junkie nephew," I say. "But yeah. Maybe."
Raff nods slowly. "Good."