Chapter 12 #2
“Good. He needs to pay for his crimes. Rainey wasn’t his only victim.
Jason was released from jail two years after the accident with Rainey.
The system’s revolving door keeps spinning him back onto the streets, despite what he does to those kids.
They say my world is corrupt, but I serve justice the right way with a bullet to the head.
On the other hand, the government doesn’t.
” Daniel rips the tape off Jason’s mouth.
“Help, please.”
My laugh bubbles up from somewhere dark, a sound I barely recognize. My knuckles connect with his face, the bone beneath his eye yielding with a crunch. His head snaps sideways, a strand of saliva arcing through the air.
“Take your pick.” Enzo, Daniel’s right-hand man, gestures to the torture devices laid out. As much as I want to use them, I’d rather use my fists.
“Untie him,” I order, and Enzo looks over to Daniel.
He nods.
I spit on his face. “Remember me?”
“No…no,” Jason stutters.
“Max Cano. I know you know who I am, and I’m going to beat the shit out of you until you’re bleeding out.
You’re going to pay for what you did to her and the other kids.
When you leave here, you’ll be unrecognizable.
” I grab him from his collared shirt and land my knuckles on his jaw, then his ribs.
He flies across the room. Every hit is for my Sunshine, the fear she had every time he was around.
I’ll never forget that day at the pool. The blood spilling from her tiny frame haunts me still.
The pain in my chest was unbearable. It was like the air was sucked right out of me.
I thought she died right in front of me.
I reach for Jason and drag him on the floor toward Drake. He cries like a little bitch and tries to run. “Here, brother, hold him while I fuck him up.”
Drake wears an unhinged smile. “Save some for me. I want some clean flesh to damage.”
One of Jason’s eyes is already swollen shut, a purple-black plum against his ashen face.
He yells for help, his voice cracking on every syllable, wasting his miserable breath as if anyone is going to save him.
Drake grips Jason’s collar, knuckles white with rage, lifting until the toes of Jason’s leather shoes barely scrape against the cracked concrete below.
I take my anger out on this asshole, blow after blow. Every hit to Jason’s gut and to his face is for Sol, my Sol. My Rainey. Not for me because those marks on my back were to protect her, and I’d do it over and over again for her.
I’m heaving now. Blood spills down his face as he hunches, wrapping his arm around his stomach. Daniel and his men watch as if they were at the theater.
“My turn.” Drake’s lips turn into a smirk as he drags him back to the chair he was in.
He runs his fingers through his hair, excitement visible on his face.
He then pulls out his pocketknife and makes a deep cut on the side of Jason’s chin.
Daniel watches Drake with curiosity. It shouldn’t surprise me that Drake does it as if he were slicing into a ribeye steak like he’s done this a million times. He’s a lot more unhinged than I am.
“Please stop!” Jason begs.
“Did you stop when you beat us? How about Sol?” Drake kicks the chair, and Jason falls back.
“Please let me go. I’m s…s-sorry.”
“Nah, dickhead, remember when she screamed for you to stop?” I seethe with fury.
When blood coats his head, I pull Drake away. As much as I want the fucker dead, I won’t have him croak on my watch. I don’t trust Daniel not to use it to blackmail me.
“He’s all yours,” I tell the Underground boss. “Thanks, man.”
Daniel nods. “I hope this is your redemption, that moment when the weight lifts from your shoulders.” His eyes hold mine, earnest and warm—and I know his world too well to trust either.
“It does,” I admit, and Drake gives him a nod as we shut the door behind us.
The second the door clicks shut, gunshots ricochet inside—three sharp cracks that sound like firecrackers in a tin can.
My body tenses, waiting for the instinct to flee to kick in, but instead, I find myself walking away with measured steps, shoulders relaxed, knowing he’s sprawled on that grimy floor, blood pooling under him.
He won’t hurt another soul now. Satisfaction spreads through me like warm whiskey—I finally fucked him up for what he did to Sol. He took her from me—her memory.
Drake whistles like a fucking psycho while walking to the car. “How about we go back to my place and go for a ride on the bikes?”
I laugh, opening the driver’s door. “Bikes?” The engine purrs, giving me a hard-on. I have a pickup, but I’d rather drive my restored Nova. “What are we, like, ten again?”
He shuts the door, and man-spreads his long legs, hitting the glove compartment. It jerks open. “Motorcycle. Just like the old days, remember? Only we had dirt bikes. The neighbor three houses down lent them to us.”
I knew what he was talking about. I just enjoyed fucking with him.
How could I not remember? Drake taught me how to ride.
It was easy. I took Sol with me a couple of times.
Her giggles lit my heart like a wildfire.
Her hands wrapped around my waist as we rode.
I wanted to bottle that warmth and keep it forever. “I’m not riding, bitch.”
He laughs, looking through my glove compartment, still as nosy as he was then. He pulls out the packages of condoms. “I have more than one motorcycle, kiddo.” He waves the condoms at me. “Damn, you’re always prepared. I haven’t had sex in a car in a long time.”
“Thanks for the unneeded info on your sex life, and yes, with Rainey, I always have to be prepared; she’s fucking hot.”
We’re speeding on the highway, the traffic tailing like a snake. It never eases up.
“I’d just rather fuck elsewhere. Car sex reminds me of a certain someone,” he says bitterly.
“Why call her Rainey? She knows and remembers who she is. I think you need to normalize it more for her. I completely understand how weird and freaked out she is to have a previous life she doesn’t recall.
If someone said my name was Peter, I’d freak out as well.
How is she ever going to accept and feel comfortable in her own skin if you keep calling her Rainey?
Her adoptive parents might have kept her safe physically, but mentally, they fucked her. ”
That they did. They left her in the dark for so many years.
“I understand all you’re saying, but it’s not that easy when you’re staring at the woman who means everything to you, and she has a wall so high you can’t reach the top of it.
I’ve called her Sol a couple of times. The expression she gives me is as if I’m longing for the person she used to be.
She was a child then, but as a woman, I know her as Rainey.
I was forced to know her with that name—that person, and I love every part of her.
If she gives us a chance again, I’ll call her whatever she wants.
Deep down, I know she will choose to be Sol.
I just don’t want to force it on her.” If she gives us a chance again.
It’s been two months without her. I can’t bear the pain in my chest.
I can’t breathe without her. I can’t function without her.