46. Tyke
46
TYKE
"Two months of planting," Terry says, sweeping his arm to gesture toward the saplings spaced at intervals across the hill's steep slope. "They said a project this size would normally take four to five weeks, but the terrain made it difficult."
He talks as though we’re old friends. As though I give a shit about his re-forestation project.
A few hundred trees putting oxygen into the atmosphere don’t make up for the people you took out to do the same. The squirrel who now has a home doesn’t give a shit about how or why the tree got there.
But the woman whose right to sleep through the night was torn from her the moment he decided to bury her husband does.
A tree doesn't fix her pain. A tree doesn't return children to their mothers or put men back in their homes. A goddamn budding branch won't cure a junkie of his addiction. And the timber milled from these trees will barely put a dent in the number of coffins required to bury those affected by Terry's business.
Nature doesn’t wash away one’s sin.
Nothing does.
A man must choose not to sin to begin with.
Thing is, there ain’t a single perfect soul among us. The basic requirements of humanity mean that we're forced to snub God's morals at least once in our lifetime. The only difference is that those who make peace with this fact are usually the ones most tormented by the guilt.
It's the delusional fuckers like this one who believe they're above that reproach. Who think a goddamn forest plot will wash the bloodstains from their hands.
That it’ll change the trajectory of their future.
Small stones dislodge beneath my heavy boots, skittering down the hillside track before us. My cut absorbs the winter sun, warming my back, yet my bare hands, face, and neck sting with the bite of the cold mountain air.
It wouldn’t surprise me if we get snow before the month is out.
"If you won't sign over the lot, why are you here?" Terry asks, pivoting the conversation to the elephant bumbling down the track with us.
“What are your plans for Connor?”
I need to get this done. Finish it and be back home with my family—the ones I love.
With Rae.
But curiosity has me need some questions answered before Terry can no longer do so. I'll kick myself if he takes secrets to his grave.
“How do you mean?” He shunts his fists in the oversized pockets stitched to the front of his cardigan and shrugs it closer to his body.
The weirdo is still barefoot. My mind trips over Jesus, over flagellants, and all the other crazy shit religious nuts do to prove their devotion. Terry doesn't strike me as a man of the church. But then, nothing about the man makes sense.
“I mean,” I say, rubbing my palms together to get feeling into my fingers. “Does he take over from you? What’s his role in your business?”
“You worried Connor will take your newest fuck toy back if he works too closely with you on the road?”
“There is no road.”
“Not yet.”
“Answer my fuckin’ question.”
Terry peeks at me in my periphery, a wry grin on his lips. “My son isn’t book smart, Tyke, as I’m sure you’re aware. He has passion, that’s true. But he’d be too easily manipulated. He wouldn’t see a coup or a takedown coming until it was too late.”
"You think he's stupid." Impulsive. Irrational. Sure. But the kid's smart. Terry needs to know how to tap it.
"I think his brain doesn't work like ours." Terry sighs. "He lacks logic and foresight."
Considering the kid guessed his father would never trust him with a leadership role in the business, the guy's foresight seems fucking on point to me. But what would I know?
Didn't predict being here, pretending we're friendly enemies before I end this cold war, did I?
"Again," Terry says, pausing to pluck a leaf off an overhanging branch. "You're not here because you're concerned for my son's future. Get to the point." He crushes the leaf's drying form between his fingers, sprinkling the pieces on the track.
I glance ahead, keen my hearing to Ronan following a respectful distance behind, and measure the distance to the bend in the track before us.
I had no solid idea on how this would happen—just knew I couldn’t let the mafia take the honor from me. Call it improv, but how the fuck was I to know we'd end up out here? Terry could have turned me away. He might have insisted we stay indoors. Hence, the plans.
The lost sleep.
Staring at the ceiling of my bedroom while my brother and my lover slept beside me, I plotted, schemed, ran scenarios, and, most of all, prayed.
For a victory. For the ones I love to understand why I need to do this.
I fucking dug into my abandoned faith and threw the whole kit and caboodle at this day.
“I need you to leave the Reapers the fuck alone,” I say.
Terry grinds to a halt, feet biting into the ground with a scratch and a swish, then laughs—loud and condescending. "No way. Really?"
"Never wanted anythin' to do with the shit you pedal and still don't. Never wanted it in Red River. It's bad enough having you as close as you are, but that's our land. Our grounds. And we take care of what's ours."
“Guilt eating at you for your failures?” He starts walking again, chin down as he matches my pace.
I calculate the steps to the bend and the seconds it'd take Ronan to catch up to us in a crisis. Terry's fucking pause to cackle at my frustration fucked us up. Shit. I lengthen my strides a little. Not so much that they’re noticeable, but enough that I get a few more yards between Ronan and us.
“The only failure I had, when it comes to you, was staying neutral when you fucked with Monica.”
The explosion of air from his lungs creates an audacious croak. “You taking us all the way back there?”
“They say marijuana is a gateway drug,” I muse. “For you, I think date rape was a gateway crime.”
“How so?” He doesn’t deny it, and that’s what angers me most. Has my fucking blood heating until my goddamn face burns and my hands throb with the increased pressure.
“You got away with it,” I say. Straight facts. “And that encouraged you to try something else. Am I right?”
I chance a look at the fucker.
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Theft. Acquisition of narcotics. Dealing.” I narrow my gaze a little. “Murder.”
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Terry sighs.
"I ain't castin' stones. I'm painting a fucking timeline." I know I've done terrible shit. The difference is I never wanted to do it. I’ve killed, maimed, and manipulated to keep those I love safe. I’ve acted out of self-defense.
Terry acts out of boredom. Ego. Some need to prove himself to people who don't even look.
Like a kid stealing his first candy bar, he does it solely to test himself.
To see if he can .
"I should have stepped in," I say, returning to my teenage sweetheart. "Monica weren't mine anymore, sure. But she weren't yours, either."
He tips his head a little, jaw hardening. “She was happy with what I gave her until it came time to pay back what she owed,” he spits. “Flowers, jewelry, dinner—she’d take it all, and for what? Fucking prude took a month before she let me kiss her.”
"That's your goddamn problem, Terry," I exclaim. The bass of my words echoes off the hillside. "Women don't owe you for the things you choose to give them. Love isn’t a foregone transaction. You’re not guaranteed a return.”
“Who said I loved her?” he says matter of fact.
“ Sex isn’t a guaranteed return on investment, then. Fuck.” I scrub a hand over my head. “Why do I feel as though I’m talking to a goddamn child?”
He stops walking.
My heart rate picks up. Ronan is too close. This won’t work. I let emotion get the better of me, and now I’ve fucked it up.
"A child?" Terry nods as he speaks. "You come here," he hollers, pitch rising with each word. "To MY house, and goddamn insult me by calling me a child?”
There it is. There’s the crazy motherfucker.
"If you wanted to lament to me about your fucking broken heart over something that happened twenty years ago , then you could have written me a fucking letter, Tyke. Put little puffy heart stickers over it and doodled flowers in the corner.” His hands wave around in a flourish as he rants. “You’re wasting my goddamn time!”
I check Ronan and find him stoic, hands at his hips, as he watches the pocket rocket of insanity explode.
As fucked as I am having him so close, I have Terry right where I need him. Unhinged. Distracted.
His guard down.
“You’ve been wastin’ your own time,” I counter. “I’ll never give you that lot. I'll wrap the fuckin' title up in so much red tape that it'll take more years than you have left on this God-forsaken earth to bribe your way through the entangled bureaucracy."
"Then I'll take it from you by force." He takes a firm step forward, tilting his head back a little to maintain eye contact as he drops his voice to a menacing baritone. “I’ll fuck your daughter, use my goddamn fist to rape your old lady, and make your sons watch before I cut off their fucking dicks.”
“Careful,” I seethe, skin tingling with a rush of adrenalin. “Don’t want us knowin’ all your twisted fetishes.”
He bares his teeth, then shoots an arm toward Ronan, hand wide open as though expecting to receive.
I glance at his right-hand man and find the Irish Midnight with a Glock clutched in his fist. He tips his head back, swinging the gun a little in preparation, and drawls, “Head’s up.”
Terry moves back, grinning maniacally as he prepares to catch the weapon that spells my fate.
Out here. In the valley. Where nobody can hear a goddamn thing.
I assess my surroundings, my stomach sinking at the sick realization that I have no viable options. The drop-off beyond Terry is steep. I could shunt him toward it, yet he's likely to recover his footing with the width of the track here. Even if he didn't, there are far too many trees on the sharp decline; he could grapple his way back up.
Going right means past Ronan and into the line of fire.
Left is toward the bend, also in line of fire.
The only option is to drop, strafe, and hope like fuck I can reach my concealed boot knife in time to brawl my way through this.
The gun’s airborne, arcing toward our standoff.
Terry’s smile widens, and he tilts his head to receive the incoming weapon.
Yet it’s my lips that curl, splitting to show my teeth when I realize what’s happened.
The one scenario I didn’t account for in my hours of restless pondering.
In his hour of death, Terry will be truly alone. Nobody here who gives a fuck enough to help him.
The one man he trusts with his darkest secrets, the man he takes for granted, has turned.
I open my hand and snatch the pistol from the air to train it at his head.
“Fuck, this feels good.”