Chapter 20 #2
Brave’s fighting style is all energy, throwing his fists wildly, kicking and even clawing.
Brave is overcome by a fit of rage, but Jinx fights like the sergeant-at-arms he is.
His movements are more well thought out, powerful and absolutely merciless.
Jinx eventually subdues Brave, forcing him face-down on the ground.
Jinx wrenches one arm up behind Brave’s back and plants a knee in his back for good measure.
“The fight’s over,” I tell Morgan. “Jinx has him down on the ground.”
Morgan responds, “I figured that wouldn’t last long.”
Jinx jerks his chin at me. “Bring a zip tie from my saddlebag. A couple of the big ones.”
I slip his phone into my back pocket with the call still connected and the speaker facing out. I need to free up my hands to dig through his bag again.
“You broke the fuckin’ agreement your brother signed with our club. Do you know what that means?”
I’m approaching with the zip ties as he asks the question. Handing them to Jinx, I answer when my brother doesn’t. “He said he didn’t care about the agreement. He pulled a knife on me and said he needed to punish me for getting our dad killed.”
Jinx wraps the zip tie around his wrists and jerks them tight. “You just keep makin’ one piss-poor decision after another, don’t ya?
“They’re my mistakes to make,” Brave flings back.
“You can’t quite be stupid enough to come to my house to kill my old lady and think I’m gonna let you walk out of here without consequences. Tell me you fuckin’ understand that much,” Jinx says in disgust while looking down at my brother.
I hear the sound of approaching sirens.
Brave snorts a laugh, trying unsuccessfully to break the zip ties around his wrists. “You called the cops like a pussy.”
Jinx slaps the back of his head. “You should pray Detective Morgan gets here before I decide to fuckin’ finish you myself.”
Brave just laughs, like sitting there in the grass, restrained and going to jail is the best day. I frown at him. This is clearly what going insane looks like. Our father’s death broke him. I squat down to look my brother in the eyes. “Where did you bury our old man, Brave?”
Swinging back and forth between furious and happy, he grins at me again. “No one will ever fuckin’ know. You got him killed and Spark didn’t care enough to help me put him in the ground. Fuck both of you.”
Morgan pulls in with the lights flashing and the siren blaring.
He’s an older man, maybe in his late forties.
With the casual indifference of an experienced lawman, he cuffs my hapless brother and puts him in the back of his vehicle.
It’s equipped like a police car but it’s an SUV.
Morgan locks his cuffed hands to a bar that runs along the back seats.
After slamming the door shut, he pulls out an electronic tablet and starts taking our statements.
“Tell me what happened here,” Morgan says.
Jinx shows him the hunting knife lying in the grass. Morgan takes pictures of it with his cell phone. “I’ll have a crime scene unit out to process the scene. Don’t touch anything.”
I go into detail about what Brave did in the house, how he slashed the furniture with his knife and spray-painted juvenile insults on the walls. “I knew I was no match for him, so I ran.” My hand comes up to lay flat against my stomach. “I’m pregnant and didn’t want to take any chances.”
“You did the right thing by running, ma’am,” Morgan assures me.
We walk inside and Jinx’s arm comes out to drape loosely around my shoulders. He sees the extent of the damage at the same time Detective Morgan does. “This is pretty extreme. Do you know what prompted it?”
Jinx shoots me a look and says, “We ran his entire club out of town a few days ago. I guess he’s angry about it.”
So, we’re apparently not mentioning my father’s death. I know from growing up in an MC that’s not all that unusual.
Detective Morgan says, “We’re gonna need all your electronic devices, including phones, tablets, laptops and whatever else you’re actively using.”
I gather up everything and start charging my phone. The second it clicks on, I realize my brother has been texting me. I show it to Jinx first and Morgan second.
“Did you read these? Did you know he was making blatant threats?” he asks showing me one of the more horrid messages. “He says he’s going to choke the life out of you.”
I swallow thickly because I can’t believe my brother would say that.
“I’ve had a lot going on in my life and haven’t really been keeping up with my messages.
” I quickly realize the message came in over the last three days from Brave’s number.
The fool didn’t even try to hide his contact information.
I never opened the thread. I read it now, and it makes my stomach turn.
I know where you are. I’m going to put you in the ground where you belong. I’m going to make you suffer before you die because that’s exactly what you deserve. See you soon, Sis.
“That message is the last nail in your brother’s coffin,” Morgan explains quietly, “This is not just vandalism and trespassing. It’s stalking and attempted murder, in his own text message. That means it was premeditated. He was caught at the scene, chasing down the victim while holding the weapon.”
“What are you saying, that this is irrefutable evidence?” I ask.
“Yeah, pretty much. Your brother just wrote himself a long prison sentence.” He bags the phone, seals the bag and writes the date and location across the seal, before signing his name.
Jinx manages to hold it together until the police are gone. Then he pulls out his phone and calls Spark, and he puts it on speaker, so I can hear.
“What do you want, Rager? This better not be a call to tell me something bad happened to my sister. You promised to take good care of her and I’m holding you to that.”
“Nora is fine, no thanks to your fuckin’ brother.”
Spark’s voice turns worried. “What the hell are you talking about, Jinx?”
“Brave showed up here when I was at a club meeting, vandalized our home and chased your sister with a fuckin’ ten-inch hunting knife.”
Spark makes a strangled sound of surprise. “No. He wouldn’t do something like that.”
Jinx immediately sends images of all the damage and the knife. “He’s sittin’ in a Cedar Falls jail cell right now,” Jinx spits out. “He violated our agreement. You know what this means, right?”
It clearly means he needs a good beat down and maybe some time to deal with our father being gunned down by you.” After a brief pause, he asks grimly. “Please tell me that my sister is okay, and the baby too.”
“They’re fine,” Jinx says grudgingly. “I came home in time to take him down. If I’d arrived a few minutes later, he might have killed her. That brother of yours has lost his damn mind.”
I speak up. “He blames me for our father’s death and told me that I had to pay.” I try to steady my trembling voice. “Spark, I think he truly meant to kill me. I’ve never seen him like this.”
A long string of curses comes from Spark, then he explains, “I told him to let it go. I swear to God, I sat him down and told him it was over, that going back to Cedar Falls for any reason was off the table. He said he understood, that he would steer clear of it. He lied to my face.”
“Then you’ve got a big problem on your hands,” Jinx says bluntly.
“We signed a surrender with you in good faith, Spark. Three days later your own brother breaks it. That’s on you now. Calling the police department rather than resorting to club justice was a mercy. You either get your house in order, or I don’t dispense mercy twice for the same offense.”
A short silence spins out and then my brother states quietly, “I understand. Brave made his bed and almost took our whole club down with him. I won’t bail him out, and I’ll make damn sure nobody else does either. You have my word,” he vows.
After taking a deep breath, he adds, “Nora, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about everything. For all the years I backed our old man up, for helping him control you and not fightin’ harder to keep him from trafficking you to Stripe. If I had it to do over again, I’d do things differently.”
Before we can answer, Spark hangs up.
We both stand there for a brief moment absorbing the closest thing I’m ever likely to get to an apology from my family.
“I owe you an apology as well,” Jinx says, putting his phone away. “I can’t believe that ignorant fuckin’ brother of yours came into our house, the one goddamn place I thought was safe to leave you alone.”
“You got to me in time. No one could have anticipated that Brave would lose his mind that way. I knew he was angry but even I didn’t see this coming.”
“C’mere,” he says roughly. “I need to hold you.”
I step closer and let him wrap me up in his arms. This time neither of us let go for a long time.