WYATT
THIRTY-THREE
Iblinked. Everything was blurry. A sliver of light caught my eyes just right, blinding me momentarily and making my vision even worse.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them next, I found figures, dark figures standing in front of me.
My arms throbbed. I tried to move them, but they were wound tight behind me.
I was pressed firmly against a wooden beam that dug into my back between my shoulder blades, but I was alive. For now.
“You couldn’t let it go, could you?” someone said.
They sounded familiar, but even when I looked up, I couldn’t see very well. The two figures standing in front of me parted to the sides, one of them caught the light that shot through the ceiling, and I recognized him as Stretchy. Which must mean the other guy was Shorty.
A third man walked between them, approaching me. He looked rather short and a little round in the midsection, but still I couldn’t tell who he was.
I blinked again.
“You had to make a scene. You had to be the good guy, didn’t you?” said the middle guy, and this time I caught a bit of his accent and tone and flicked my eyes open as wide as possible, leaning in closer.
He helped me by taking one more step from total darkness to dim light, and my heart stilled for a second. My entire body froze as I looked back at the familiar figure. A man I’d known all my life. A man I called a friend.
“Hank?” I asked, still in disbelief, and he frowned.
“You’re a stubborn old man,” the police captain said and crouched down to eye level, making himself more visible in my worn eyes.
“Wh-what are you doing here? Why are you here?”
I looked around me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was still dreaming.
Maybe I was in the station and the rest was all in my head.
Hank Mitchell couldn’t be working with the enemy.
He was supposed to be one of the good guys.
He was the head of the police department for crying out loud. He wasn’t a bad guy.
“You kept digging and digging, poking the bear like some sort of superhero. Are you happy now? You’ve gone ahead and pissed him off,” he said, ignoring my question, but he’d only gone and confirmed my worst fear.
I always knew there might be more dirty cops, more uniforms in Wilson’s pocket than just Bennet, the guy I had supposedly killed, but I never imagined it’d be the captain.
“How could you?” I shouted. “How could you work for that man? Have you no dignity? No morals?”
He scoffed. “Dignity? Morals? When was the last time they paid the bills, huh? Twenty? Thirty years ago?”
Bile rose in my throat, and its bitter taste in my mouth made me wince. “So you turn to crime? Really? How’s that going for you?”
Hank shrugged. “It’s going a lot better than you think. Or it was, until you came back and started digging your nose in our business.”
I shook my head. He might have confirmed himself a criminal, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails out of any of it.
“Your business was—is—hurting people. How could you go into business with a man like that? How?”
“You wouldn’t understand. We’re not all holy, like you, Wyatt. We don’t all have a cushy life—”
“Cushy? What the fuck are you talking about, idiot! I was in the Navy. You think I made millions saving your asses from foreign threats? I had nothing. And thanks to you, anything I did manage to get is gone now.”
“So now you know how it feels to hit rock bottom.” He smirked.
“Rock bottom? You? You live in a fucking mansion. You’ve lost your mind.”
He shook his head and sighed. “And how do you think I keep the lights on? How am I supposed to support my family? You think it’s easy?”
“Your family are all adults with their own jobs, and you are crazy if you think I’m going to have any sympathy for you getting into bed with the devil.”
This was preposterous. Hank Mitchell and his family were something akin to a founding family in Mayberry, coming from a long line of police officers and community workers who’d helped build this place up into the island it was today.
To think Hank desecrated that history with his connections and accomplices was nothing short of blasphemy.
“What about Dakota? Is he part of your little mafia or is he ignorant to his father’s side gig?”
Hank rolled his eyes. “He’s far too good to get involved in this. I, on the other hand, am not so conscientious.”
I shelved that information for later and focused on the man of the hour.
“So what’s the endgame here, Hank? Why did you bring me here?”
“Oh, I didn’t.” He laughed. “The big guy did.”
“Wilson,” I said.
“Did you have to cause a scene? He was happy to let you run your little group of pathetic retired heroes and no one needed to get hurt. But you had to ruin it.”
I spat in front of him, making Hank stand up and take a step back. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t willing to let him destroy everyone’s lives while he runs this island. That’s not me.”
Hank sighed. “Well then, my friend, I’m afraid you deserve what’s coming,” Hank said, and I braced myself for a punch, but he didn’t touch me.
No.
He simply stepped to the side as another tall man walked up to me, and this time my eyesight was much better to know it was Salieri. Wilson. The mayor. The devil.
He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, turning from the goody two-shoes mayor into a threat.
“I don’t appreciate people coming to my office and shouting at me. Especially your kind,” he said.
Gone was the composed and well-mannered front he put on in his daily life as a philanthropist and mayor. This was a sinister man with a bone to pick.
“My kind?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
What did he know? What was he talking about? Did he know about me? Did he know about Ari?
My heart started racing, and he put me out of my misery by landing his first punch straight at my nose.
“Heroes,” he snarled.
Pain ruptured through my head. Hot blood poured from my nose, wetting my moustache, lips, and beard, but I held strong. I’d been through worse. I could put up with more. I had to.
“You think you can save everyone, but you’re always getting someone killed,” he continued, and his foot connected with my stomach.
For a moment, I froze, unable to breathe or function. When the moment was gone, I coughed. I inhaled. Nothing worked.
“You think I wanted to kill Mr. Rogers? He did nothing to me. He never hurt me. But you and your stupid men—” He punched me on the side of the face and the top part of my body turned sideways, as much as it could considering how tightly I was bound.
Before I did anything else, I straightened myself so I was facing him and gritted my teeth through the pain.
“—wouldn’t drop it. You kept stalking my guys.
Stalking me. I thought a saint like Wyatt Goodman would honor his word, but no.
You wouldn’t fucking drop it.” His next punch found me in the ear, and everything started ringing.
I could barely hear Wilson anymore. “You’d think with a murder pinned on you you’d be more careful, but even that didn’t work.
You are a pest, Goodman. You and your little faggy group are a pest, and I’m going to get rid of you.
One. By. One.” Each word was accompanied by another blow.
And another. And another, until I could taste copper in my mouth.
“You can try,” I groaned. “But you’ll never get rid of all of us,” I said.
“Someone else will come and take down your cells, and your drug mules, and your trafficking rings. You’re a nobody, Wilson.
Or should I call you Raymond Salieri? You never actually told me? Which came first? Wilson or Salieri?”
“My identities don’t matter to you, Goodman,” he said. “And if you think your men can take me and my organization down, you must be crazy as well as an idiot.”
I glared at the man beloved by an entire island, and all I could do was breathe in and out and tap my foot on the ground.
“You think making me disappear now, after storming into your office, won’t put the spotlight on you?” I asked, and despite my state, I tried to present as much confidence as possible.
“Don’t worry. Mitchell will take care of that, and no one is ever going to find your body. As far as everyone else is concerned, you simply ran so you didn’t have to face the consequences of what you did to Bennet. You’ll be a fugitive. Six. Feet. Under.”
His foot rammed into my stomach again, and I let out a groan. Wilson turned his back to me and Hank stepped up with a gun in his hand, which there was no doubt he was about to aim at me.
Bang.
Crash.
Before he could get rid of me once and for all, the door came crashing down, the window was smashed, and bullets flew through the air.
One found its home in Hank’s arm. The others landed on Shorty and Stretchy’s chest. One zipped right past Wilson’s head before he turned his gun and shot at the man responsible for almost killing him. Dare.
Dare ducked away before he was harmed as Teddy barged through the door and took a shot at Wilson, but he was already walking backwards, into the shadows, and he was replaced by other men.
I should have known there’d be more around. That he’d have more backup in case things went south. All I could hope for was that my guys knew too. If they’d done their job right, they should have known, and my guys were good at their job.
Teddy approached Hank who dropped to the ground, putting his hands up, and Azrael came right behind him, surrounding Hank. Last, Dare entered and started untying me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and I nodded.
Dare’s face contorted, and he let out a hiss that told me I looked more the worse for wear than I thought.
“Is that Captain Mitchell?” Azrael asked.
Hank looked at Azrael, full of rage and hatred.
“Fucking hell,” Azrael replied when he’d taken a good look at Hank.
“Let’s get out of here.” Dare stood back up, and I realized my hands were free.
Thankfully, Dare took pity on me and helped me up too, because as soon as I was off the floor, everything started spinning. Everything went blurry again.
I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them again Ari was in front of me, holding a light in one hand and a cloth in the other.
“A-Ari,” I groaned.
As I spoke his name, he took the light off my eyes and I could focus on his gaze. His eyebrows were knotted in worry, and he used both hands to wipe my face with the clean cloth.
“Wyatt. Are you okay? Do you know where you are?”
“Uhm…” I hummed and tried to look around, but things started spinning again.
“Do you know what happened?” Ari continued.
“Y-yeah. Wilson. Hank,” I muttered.
Ari nodded and cupped my face for a moment, focusing his eyes on me, and despite the haze that clouded my vision, I saw him.
I really, truly saw him.
I saw him as the man I’d been waiting for all my life. The man I was in love with and who was in love with me. The man I wanted to spend the rest of my days—however numbered—with.