Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“I didn’t fully cut the brake line, just jacked it up enough, but the way Roman drove that car, he really crashed the shit out of it,” Kane adds to Rick’s horror story—still alarmingly calm to be chiming in on a conversation with the man that just shot him in the stomach. And I’m the dumb one in the room?
“I want my money, Tinsley. It’s the money you took from me, so don’t get it twisted; you set all of this in motion when you cut me out and took away what’s mine.
And then you had to go and be Safety Sally with the seatbelt, so of course you didn’t die in the crash, yet again preventing me from getting my money.
” In typical Rick fashion, he slams his fist against the counter hard enough that it makes me and Kane jump—and had Debbie Jo been conscious, I’m sure she would have as well.
“You should have been roadkill and gone, but no, the beloved country star rises from the ashes. It’s too bad you won’t get to do that comeback tour, Tinsley.
We would’ve made a damn mint—or at least, I would have off of you.
I would’ve been a king. But you had to go and ruin everything, didn’t you?
” My heartbeat is racing so fast I might give myself a heart attack from the panic coursing through my body right now.
Rick leans in, and I can smell the faint hint of vodka on his breath, ironic after him going on about my mother being drunk all the time. “And now? Well, now, you’re worth more to me dead than alive.”
This … this is bad.
Really fucking bad.
I have no idea how I’m going to get out of this. But my newfound panic at being shot point-blank is short-lived … until, for the second time today, the elevator chimes unexpectedly, announcing someone’s arrival. Rick straightens and points his gun at the doors before they open.
Please do not let that be Jack or Allie.
Please.
I don’t know who it is, but please do not let someone else I love get hurt because of me.
Please do not let my darkness swallow up someone else.
The sob that escapes me is covered by Rick’s manic laughter as my brother steps off the elevator as though he’s out for a stroll in the park.
If he’s aware that Kane is bleeding all over Jack’s floor, Debbie Jo is knocked out, or that I was being held against my will, he is covering it exceptionally well.
But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, and for the first time in the last hour or so since Rick, Debbie Jo, and Kane walked into the penthouse—the smallest seed of hope starts to grow within me.
I don’t know how, or what will happen next, but I suspect that Wells being here is anything but coincidental—and I don’t think he’s as alone as he appears to be.
“Well, goodness, gracious, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, Rick?
We’ve been trying to get a hold of you, man.
What have you been up to?” Wells strolls in, stepping around Kane as though he’s a pile of rubbish on the street without acknowledging the man bleeding on the floor, which is kind of iconic and would make me laugh if the action wouldn’t hurt like hell with my newly injured left ribs.
He dismissively glances at Debbie Jo on the floor with a hum as he looks at me, ignoring the gun in Rick’s hand.
“Hey, sissy, whatcha doing on the floor?” Wells cocks his head.
Sissy?
Wells has never ever called me sissy in my life.
I know for a fact that he loathes that term of endearment because he heard too many people use it as an insult on the playground growing up and never understood why people would use it when talking about a loved one.
“I was stopping by to see if…” He glances over at Rick and smiles before looking back to me and continuing.
“?Quieres ir a ver las estrellas?” And then he winks at me.
“What the hell are you doing here, Wells? And both of you know I hate when you talk to each other in Spanish in front of me. What are you talking about Australia for in Spanish? Fucking random bullshit. It’s fucking rude when you know I don’t understand it.
Your mom always thought it was so funny when you two shits did that, but guess what?
I fucking don’t. Your dad used to think it was funny to talk Spanish around me too, but who’s laughing now, huh?
” He jabs his gun in my brother’s direction and Wells raises his hands innocently.
Australia? Wells didn’t say anything about Australia … oh! The words las estrellas probably sounded similar to Australia to Rick, but that’s not at all what Wells asked.
Why did Wells just ask me if I wanted to see the stars?
Jack.
Wells knows that Jack and I have snuggled on the rooftop a few times to watch the stars together, and he even sat with us for a couple of minutes after he finished a run in the gym the other night.
Jack’s on the rooftop.
I look up at my brother and he winks again before turning back to walk toward Kane, taking Rick’s focus with him.
Rick obviously views Wells as a bigger threat, and his gun stays focused on my brother.
He takes a few steps into the space connecting the kitchen and foyer to follow Wells but keeps me in his line of sight.
This new position also puts Rick’s back to the wall of windows that look out to the terrace, but Rick can see the kitchen where I am, as well as the foyer where Kane is on the floor near the powder room.
He also has a direct site of the elevator at the end of the foyer.
“Does someone want to catch me up as to why this bleeding piece of shit is a part of this very special family reunion?” Wells makes a circle motion with his finger that could apply to what he just said, but it doesn’t quite fit as he continues to take a few more steps closer to Kane, with Rick matching him step for step.
I don’t know what’s going on, or if I just hit my head too hard on the floor with that last round of kicks from Rick, but if I trust any two people on this entire earth it’s my brother and Jack.
“This piece of shit? That’s rich! You’re the one that screwed me over in the first place!
” Kane snivels from the floor. It looks like Kane is trying to pull himself up using one of the barstools at the kitchen counter, but his bullet wound is making it increasingly difficult to move.
“You ruined … you ruined my life! When Rick approached me about working together, it was the first good thing that had happened since you assholes set me up and fired me.”
“Well, that’s extremely interesting, please, do go on.
If you aren’t too busy bleeding all over my best friend’s floor, that is.
I’d offer you a band-aid, but it looks a bit more extensive than that, Kane.
However, I wouldn’t want our stepfather to call me rude again.
” Wells tilts his head to Rick, whose vein is starting to throb again.
“I already had the connections from my time at Lux and those I cultivated after, he just needed the information—it really wasn’t that hard.” Once again, Kane is proving he does not know how to read Rick and his anger.
“You talk too fucking much,” Rick mutters as he walks over to Kane and raises his right hand that’s holding the gun.
I flinch on instinct as his arm flies down, connecting the butt of the gun with Kane’s face.
Judging by the thud, Rick pistol whipped him hard enough to knock him out, collapsing onto the floor near the barstool he was just trying to use to pull himself up. “He never shuts up.”
Wells seizes the opportunity of Rick’s focus shifting and launches himself at him, pivoting as he tackles him.
He shoves Rick’s body across the foyer space and over the back of the large sectional that separates the kitchen and dining area from the living room as all hell breaks loose.
The two men land on the other side of the couch, but as soon as they’re up on their feet, I watch in horror as Rick punches my brother in the jaw and Wells collapses to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
“Wells!” I shriek for my brother in panic, scrambling to stand and get to him, which unfortunately draws Rick’s attention and rage back to me.
“You cause so much fucking trouble!” Rick screams—actually screams—at me before the all too familiar move of him raising his left hand and striking me across my face sends me back to the ground. He didn’t hit me with the hand that held the pistol and that choice ended up making all the difference.
Out of nowhere, Jack leaps around the corner from his office area and takes a fighting stance in the living room.
I hadn’t even heard Jack enter from the terrace, his appearance all but confirming that the hand gesture Wells made was some type of signal, letting whomever know that Rick could no longer see the entire length of the terrace—including the spiral staircase or the door that’s near Jack’s office area on the other side of the terrace.
Jack moves so quickly on his feet as though he possesses a strange mix of the power of a lion tracking his prey with the grace of a balanced gazelle that is completely centered and in control.
The juxtaposition of the power and grace in his movements is simultaneously breathtaking and incredibly intimidating.
Rick initially doesn’t see Jack approach from behind him until Jack grabs hold of Rick’s right wrist, swiftly twisting it, trying to get him to drop the gun, causing Rick to simultaneously cry out in agony, and unfortunately, turning to throw a solid punch to Jack’s jaw with his left hand.
Rick’s punch lands square to the side of Jack’s jaw, which causes Jack’s head to be thrown back as his body staggers momentarily, but he doesn’t let go of Rick’s other wrist holding the gun.