15. Colin
Chapter Fifteen
COLIN
Exhaustion, stress, and frustration are a bad mix. Even after a night like tonight, I can’t sleep due to the thoughts churning through my brain. Despite months of digging around and searching, we couldn’t pin down why The Skulls are going after Wisteria. What are they looking for? Who’s the mole? It drives me up a fucking wall that we can’t keep her safe—even on a secure compound.
If I’m awake, I may as well check on our security team and the perimeter of the compound. Cain and I interrogated every single person on staff that night while Jude was getting patched up, and we still don’t know who let The Skulls in.
On my walk to the bathroom, I step on something sharp, and pain slices through the sole of my foot. I hop up, and frown when I see Wisteria’s charm bracelet on the floor. The big sun charm is cracked, and I see a shiny metal object glinting in the dark. After picking apart the rest of the charm, I realize it’s a micro flash drive.
Running on pure adrenaline and gut instinct, I plug it into Jude’s laptop in his office, and my stomach bottoms out. There are pages and pages of documents detailing shipments back to the mid 2000’s…right around the time Crystal married Father Mannix.
The drive includes dozens of pictures of deals, shipments, and merchandise too. There’s enough evidence here to blow our cover and destroy us.
There’s a file for someone named Greg Altman—an agent that was posing as a member of The Skulls. He must have been Crystal’s and Norma’s contact. The last thing I see is the kicker, though. It’s a phone number, with no name or contact connected to it.
This is way too much information. Were Wisteria’s mom and aunt in on this? Did the plant in The Skulls aim to take out two gangs at once? Is he even still there?
I wake up the others and catch them up, showing them everything on Jude’s laptop.
“If the phone is still active, we can locate it,” Cain runs to his room, where his computer rig is set up.
“If we find them, we should give them the flash drive,” Wisteria deadpans.
“What?” Jude and I reply, in varying levels of confusion.
“We doctor the information on the drive so they don’t have anything concrete, and give them false shipment details, so they use the pattern to ambush us. Then we take them out.”
“Offense as a defense. I like it,” I comment.
“That may not solve the issue long term,” Jude muses, “But it’s a good start.”
Cain comes back, armed and ready to roll. “It’s coming from the far side of the farm, near the corn fields. Get ready, we can catch them off guard this late at night.”
I help Wisteria put a holster and vest on and give her a quick lesson on gun safety. “Please promise me you won’t shoot unless necessary. I don’t want that on your conscience, okay?”
“I won’t shoot unless I have to,” she promises.
We follow Cain out the back door, through the farm on foot. As soon as we get close, we take cover behind a tractor.
“Mason Judd’s home,” Jude seethes. “How much do you want to bet that Mandy and her father are the moles?”
“She was such a bitch to me when we were kids. And she practically stalked you, Jude,” Wisteria laments.
“You don’t even know the half of it.” Jude leaves it at that.
Cain breaks the door down with a swift kick. Jude grabs Mason, who’s sleeping on the couch in the living room, and ties him to a kitchen chair with zip ties from his pocket. Mandy and her mother run down in their pajamas when they hear Mason shouting.
“Don’t fuck around and waste my time,” Jude growls, shoving the butt of a hun under Mason’s chin. “How do you contact The Skulls?”
The wife cries while his daughter’s face goes white. She doesn’t seem nearly as upset as her mother, or surprised. She looks plain guilty, caught red-handed.
Mason’s face turns red, and he stutters his denial. “I-I-I would never do that to you, Father Jude.”
“I will end you, your wife, and your pathetic excuse for a daughter and feel zero remorse, Judd. Don’t make me.” Jude cocks the trigger with a cool, unbothered expression on his face. He truly doesn’t care if he ends their lives today. Mason pisses himself in fear.
“Some guy named Greg!” Mandy screams. “After Norma left he paid Dad and I to give him information.”
“Did you let them onto the compound?” Cain’s voice is eerily calm, like some fucking traitor isn’t about to get his head blown off. He may have golden retriever energy, but Cain can turn into a rabid dog when you fuck around with the people he cares about.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Mandy cries. She throws her hands in the air as she screams, “You let her back here, and I had to do something before she cast a spell on you again!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jude snaps.
“You were obviously obsessed with her when we were kids. You never noticed me, no matter how hard I tried to get your attention, because you were paying attention to Wisteria Jean! Always watching her, lurking around her, guarding her. It’s disgusting—she’s your stepsister . I did you a favor when I told Father Mannix I saw Wisteria’s whore mother meeting some stranger on the far end of the compound. It was the only way we could end up together!”
“You ratted out my mom?” Wisteria guffaws, laughing hysterically as she raises her gun.
“Little flower…” I call her, trying to get her attention.
“I thought he would excommunicate her for cheating on him, and she’d take you with her. I didn’t know she’d have a heart attack and die from the stress of it all. It didn’t make much of a difference anyway— you stayed behind ,” Mandy snarked.
Wisteria cocks the trigger, aiming right for Mandy’s face.
“Wisteria, please don’t take her life. You’ll have that on your conscience for the rest of your life,” I remind her. “Killing someone changes you.”
She ignores me. I can see her anger reaching the breaking point as tears stream down her face. “She was a traitor, and she betrayed her brothers and sisters, but I loved my mom.”
“We know, baby girl. But guess what? If you don’t kill Mandy now…we can torture her later. We can rip all her pink fingernails off and cut her a thousand times if you want,” Cain promises.
“Really?”
“Yeah, we can do it as a family. They’re the reason The Skulls came onto this compound and put my father in a coma. They put our woman in danger, and they betrayed Harvest Farms. They’ll be screaming and begging for death by the time we’re done with them.”
“No, no please!” Mason begs. “I’ll do anything.”
Jude shakes his head and hands Cain more zip ties. “Let’s call some of the guys around, and get these two into one of the holding cells. You’ll repent by contacting The Skulls and setting up a meeting. Then you’ll regret ever crossing me in the first place.”
“So you got them to meet you in the mountains, and ambushed them?” Father Mannix asks, astounded at how quickly we took The Skulls out.
“Yes, we had Mason Judd tell them we were meeting a buyer out there and emptying our supply, because we got attention from the ATF. They were dumb enough to raid a big payout,” Cain answers. “We used high vantage points and picked them off pretty fast.”
“It was actually Wisteria’s idea.” Jude holds her hand, and the light catches her engagement ring just right, making it sparkle like a star. “Colin and Cain planned the actual attack.”
Father Mannix swings his gaze to her, and she tries to smile, despite her nerves. It took a few weeks of planning to decimate The Skulls, and Father Mannix woke up a month after that. He’ll have serious mobility complications from shrapnel for the rest of his life, and will need intense physical therapy. We’re all relieved he’s on the mend. Jude, Cain, and I caught him up on the time he missed gradually, and she’s visiting him for the first time today.
“I’m glad you came back, Jeanie,” he says, taking her other hand and giving it a firm squeeze. “I shouldn’t have banished you in the first place—I broke these boys’ hearts.”
“Mine too, but it’s okay. I’m glad to be back.” She smiles at him, and I can tell she means it. Wisteria truly thought of Father Mannix as a father, and I know she missed him. I’m happy she’s able to forgive him and move on.
“I’ve had time to think since I woke up. I inherited my position when your grandfather died. He inherited it when his father died. You’re receiving your position because you’ve earned it, Jude. You all have. I can spend my days resting easy knowing Harvest Farms is in good hands.”
Father Mannix is the only father I have. Hearing such a compliment from him makes me feel like less of a monster. So does the love and support I get from my family.
Jude gets up, and walks to his father’s bedside, then leans over and hugs him gently. “Thank you so much, father. We won’t let you down.”