Chapter Ryan #2
“Ryan, call Harley. Tell her to fucking hide, then call your dad, my Dad, Uncle Mort, Diesel, one of them, all of them and tell them to get here ASAP.” He was wasting fucking time, giving those directions, but if Nardo was there then chances were high his fuckhead father was too. “Get Rory and my brothers.”
“I will call security,” Ms. Flotsam said indignantly.
“Ma’am, do whatever the fuck you want, except call the cops or security. Trust me on that. You don’t want that fucking smoke.”
With that last order, CJ climbed out of the window and took off running, dramatic shouts like, motherfucker, you’re dead and I’m going to kill you running through his head.
But he was aware of his surroundings, so he held those words in.
A fight was one thing. Death threats and disappearances were another.
Nardo bought CJ some time because he walked to the portico, paused and looked over his shoulder before he opened one of the auditorium’s side doors.
“Don’t take another fucking step,” CJ said, closing the distance between him and that motherfucker, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs.
“Fuck you,” Nardo said, flipping him off. “I’m here to get my grade. You can’t do nothing about it.”
Hopefully, Harley was hiding or escaping and calling Uncle Mort herself.
Protecting Harley was the most important thing. Even if CJ was at a disadvantage, not knowing the location of Nardo’s father or if Nardo was armed.
The door Nardo stood next to opened.
“I got a bone to pick with you, motherfucker,” Axel said, protected from view because he was tucked into the shadows of the columns. “You wanted to slam me to the ground.”
Rolling his eyes, Nardo turned. CJ intended to knock him the fuck out, but the motherfucker’s head jerked back and he dropped to the fucking ground along with the rock from Axel’s slingshot.
Fuck. Him. CJ glanced over his shoulder. Thankfully, Ms. Flotsam probably threatened Jaleena, Skye, and the rest of the class to stay away from the fucking window.
Axel opened the door wider and leaned against it. Ryder and Ransom darted out and used their fucking jackets to tie Nardo’s wrists and ankles.
Axel grinned at CJ and stuck his slingshot in his pocket. “Diesel said always innovise.”
“Improvise,” CJ said stupidly, in shock that his brothers didn’t care that they could be caught at any moment.
“Let’s move him, men,” Axel ordered.
“No!” CJ cried. “We can’t take this fuckhead as a hostage in fucking view of everyone!”
Ryder frowned. “Why not, C?”
“No one’s around,” Ransom said. “And we’re in the shadows of the portico.”
“Besides,” Ryder went on, “we’re practicing for the play.”
“Yeah,” Axel said innocently. “I didn’t mean to use no real rock.”
“Well, his fucking father might have real bullets. I don’t know where he’s at.” CJ walked to where Nardo lay. “We have to move him, so I can check on Harley.”
“Rory’s with her,” Ransom said, sticking his head out the door.
“Ryan’s looking for Nardo’s daddy around the athletic center.”
“Alone?” CJ said.
“Uh-huh,” Axel answered.
“Has that fuckhead lost his fucking mind?”
“We couldn’t talk him out of it, CJ,” Ryder said. “I think he wants to sacrifice himself to make amends for what he did.”
“Come with me.” CJ regretted throwing Nardo over his shoulder, the moment the heavy motherfucker was there. At first, he wavered, staggering under Nardo’s weight, but he grunted and forced himself to continue.
He wouldn’t make it to a bathroom. At least, the door had opened to the back of the auditorium and not the hallway.
Dropping Nardo on the ground, CJ leaned against the wall, sweat pouring from him.
When he could fucking breathe again, he shrugged out of his coat and held it out to Ransom. “Gag him.”
“We can smother him with it,” Axel offered.
“No! Fuck. Call Dad. I have to find Ryan.”
As mad as he was at that motherfucker, he didn’t want him to die unless he fucked him up.
Ryan had spent most of the past hours reliving every moment of yesterday evening after the girls arrived at the clubhouse. He was ashamed and regretful, and scared he no longer had friends. His cousins would once again look at him as that freak who didn’t deserve their time.
Just when he’d began to feel like one of them, this happened.
His mother was suspicious, because his father could barely look at him. On top of that hell, Ryan couldn’t get the screams of that Gnome out of his head, the smell of a burning body. Diesel’s viciousness, only turned away from Ryan at Uncle Christopher’s decree.
But Diesel wasn’t a motherfucker to let shit go. Uncle Christopher cosigned his crazy because it was easier than displacing CJ on his pedestal.
Once Ryan accepted the role he had among his family, especially around the Caldwell boys, his life was easier. No one could upend Uncle Christopher’s vision for his eldest son.
Very few people picked up on the subtle differences that their father showed CJ and Diesel. As much as Uncle Christopher tried, he still treated Diesel like a ward and not an actual Caldwell boy.
Ryan knew how that felt. To be a Caldwell boy was to be the alpha and the omega. They were the golden boys, especially CJ.
Once Ryan accepted that unerring truth, he realized his mother didn’t love him any less or see him as lesser. Diesel didn’t have anyone as a buffer. He looked to Uncle Christopher for validation and approval, so he rejected most of the emotional support Aunt Meggie tried to give.
Ryan understood. He’d rejected his own mother, too.
Since Diesel didn’t see himself as a true Caldwell boy, it was easy not to see Rebel as his sister. And if anyone could pick up on the nuances of the family dynamic, it was her.
Over the course of his long, miserable night after Diesel dropped him off, not caring that Ryan was in shock, he’d come out of his stupor. And thought, really thought, about Rebel, Mattie, and Harley. Diesel. Rebel and Diesel and the many recorded conversations she’d had about him and with him.
Rebel knew Diesel wasn’t good. She saw good in him, but that was so fucking different than how Aunt Meggie believed to her soul that Uncle Christopher was a good man who sometimes did bad things.
Rebel didn’t fear Diesel, look at him as someone to use for sex, money, or drugs, and she didn’t coddle him.
She treated him better than almost everyone. Except Axel.
It was unfortunate she was so fucking young. How ever Diesel saw her didn’t matter. Ryan had violated what he considered his. His sister. His to groom. His to whatever. In Diesel’s eyes, Ryan deserved to die.
In Pops’s eyes, too. And CJ’s. Everyone’s. For what he’d done to not only his cousins, but Molly as well.
Ryan couldn’t imagine living in that dark no man’s land as the black sheep of the family. He deserved punishment. Maybe he was a coward because the one punishment he didn’t want was his mother’s. Going after Nardo’s father, even if it meant sacrificing himself, would be justice for all four girls.
That was why he sent Rory, Ryder, Ransom, and Axel to the auditorium and he headed to the athletic center. The day Nardo’s old man attacked Harley, Ryan swore he’d seen him skulking near the fields, then he’d blinked and he was gone.
The fucking end of day bell would ring at any fucking minute. Those fuckheads knew what they were doing, invading the school so close to three.
Instead of entering the athletic center and putting innocent students at risk, he’d go to the practice field first. Maybe, walk beyond there and check the stadium with all the bleachers.
“Ryan!”
CJ’s call startled him. He thought he was imagining shit until it came again.
“Stop, fuckhead. Uncle Val’s on the fucking way.”
Annoyance surged into Ryan. He halted and turned to CJ as the motherfucker ran to him.
“As if you fucking care what the fuck happens to me, cuck.”
“Ryan, I swear to god, shut the fuck up or I will choke the fuck out of you. Let’s go to the fucking auditorium.”
“Fuck you, beta boy. You can’t fucking order me around.” Not if he didn’t want Ryan to punch his fucking face in. “The world has to bow down to your pansy ass or the sky will fall. Well, I’m not. I’m my own fucking man.”
CJ shoved him. That motherfucker was always as ready to fight as Diesel.
“I’m not fucking impressed by your fucking words.
I don’t fucking care what you have to say, Ryan.
You can’t fucking turn what your bitch ass did into a pity party.
You fucked over four, innocent girls, you flaming piece of shit.
Two of them are so fucking damaged, they might not ever recover.
The other two will be scarred by this for fucking life. ”
Ryan wouldn’t punch CJ. He’d already tried that and lost. He wouldn’t give that smug, self-righteous motherfucker the satisfaction of killing him. But all his anger seeped out of him. He wanted to cry and to die. “I didn’t have a choice,” he cried softly.
“You know why, fuckhead? Because you got Molly stolen in the first fucking place.”
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
“Until the next fucking time. Until you fuck up one thing and try to undo it by fucking up something else.”
“I’m trying to make it right!”
“By getting yourself killed, you selfish prick? What about Aunt Zoann and Uncle Val? Devon?”
“I like us being friends, CJ. I like being friends with Rebel, Harley, and Mattie. You all hate me. I just wanted to get Molly back.”
“I’m so fucking pissed with you, I can barely fucking see straight. I want to hate you,” CJ said.
“Why don’t you walk away, Ryan,” an older dude, who resembled Nardo, said, wrapping an arm around CJ’s neck and shoving a gun to his head.
Stumbling back, Ryan raised his hands.
“Go!” He pressed the gun harder into CJ. “Me and this motherfucker taking a little walk.”
CJ elbowed him. “Not if you want to know where the fuck your fucking son’s at.”
“Probably back in the van with that little bitch who think she better than my kid.”
“She is, but that’s the wrong answer,” CJ said.
The motherfucker didn’t seem to care he had a fucking gun to his head. If CJ was frightened, he didn’t show it, which low-key impressed Ryan.
The motherfucker turned and jerked CJ around, cocking the hammer of the gun.
Sunshine reflected off metal as Mortician stepped next to Ryan, jammed the gun in the back of Grevenberg’s head and pulled the fucking trigger.
He did it quickly, quietly, and efficiently, returned his gun to his holster and pulled CJ into his arms.
Ryan looked at the blood and brain on him and fainted.