37. Wyatt
THIRTY-SEVEN
WYATT
Something stirred beside me. I turned around to embrace Ari. We must have separated during the night when all I’d wanted was to sleep in each other’s arms. But it was okay. As long as he was here, right next to me, it was going to be okay.
My hand landed on the covers.
Hm.
I patted around searching for an inch of his body but didn’t find him. He must have gotten up to go to the bathroom.
“Mmmfffmmm.”
What was that? It sounded like an animal.
When I heard it again, I opened my eyes. A chill ran down my spine.
He hadn’t gone to the bathroom. Ari was right here, kneeling on the floor, a piece of cloth around his mouth and a gun to his head.
Wilson stood beside him with a cocky expression and a pair of deranged eyes.
“What are you doing?” I said, having no idea how any articulation was even possible under the circumstances.
“I’m here to ruin your life like you ruined mine. Not gonna lie. I’ll take great joy in that. I didn’t peg you for a fag, but I should have seen it coming considering all those other fags you brought here to ruin my operation.”
A knot formed in my throat, but I didn’t swallow it. I focused on him and only him. If I looked at Ari even for a second I feared I’d break down, and I couldn’t break down. Not right now.
“Wh-what are you talking about? How are you here? You should be locked up.” I gritted my teeth.
He laughed. “Did you think you were going to get rid of me that easily? Did you think I could be kept behind bars? You’re a stupid, stupid man.
Though I can’t lie. It was a pretty smart plan of yours.
Where did you hide that camera? Nevertheless, it will take much more than a little footage to stop me.
Did you really think that was the end? Did you think I wouldn’t come back? ”
He glanced at Ari, and I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. He was staring at me over Wilson. It was killing me that I couldn’t stare back, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the target right now. I couldn’t let him put an end to the love of my life now that I’d found it.
“Whatever you think you need to do to punish me, you don’t. Take me, not him. Please.”
I didn’t know if begging would work, but I had to try. I had to fucking try something.
I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I should have known this wouldn’t be the end. I was better than that. We all were. Obviously he was going to escape. There was only one way to stop this man and that was to put him six feet under.
“Oh, your time will come. Don’t worry. But I want to see you suffer first. Clearly I didn’t take enough from you to break your spirit. But I think it,” he said, looking to the side at Ari, “will do.”
Bile filled my mouth. My chest filled with air and my gut twisted. I was losing my patience, but I couldn’t. Not if it meant Ari’s demise.
“You think that would stop me? If anything, I’d go after you harder. I’d kill you with my bare hands. I will kill you if you hurt him. You’ve taken enough from me, and I stood back and dealt with the pain, but this? This, killing him, would be your end. And that’s a promise.”
Wilson dropped his arm for a moment as he laughed, though I couldn’t see the humor in my statement.
He was maniacal. Spittle flew from his mouth as he laughed and laughed and laughed. I tried to get to my feet, but as soon as I moved an inch, he returned the gun to Ari’s head, grinning from ear to ear.
He had clearly lost it. It had been pretty obvious before, but now it was undeniable.
I had to think of something—anything—to distract him long enough and take him out before he put a bullet through…
I couldn’t even begin to contemplate that happening. I wasn’t going to let it happen. I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to fucking lose him. He wasn’t going to die because he’d chosen to be with me.
“Maybe we can come to an agreement,” I said, my mind going a hundred miles an hour.
He scoffed. “An agreement? We both know how well you keep those.”
“This is different,” I said and put my hands in the air. “This is important. He is important to me, and to this world, and I will do anything to make you not hurt him. So what is it? Name your price.”
Wilson laughed again and took a step closer to me and a step away from Ari.
“You think you can buy my mercy? You took everything from me. Everything. There’s nothing you can give me to make up for it. So, I’ll do my fucking best to make sure you get to live to see what it means to lose everything too.”
Before I could respond, before I could try to reason with him or to throw myself at him, Ari brought his hands to his front and launched himself at Wilson’s side.
Bang!
The gun went off as Wilson fell to the side and Ari in front of the bed. I pushed myself off and jumped over him and onto Wilson, crashing my body onto his.
We were inches away from each other and I could look into those big, evil, brown eyes of his and see my own reflection in them. See the light that kept him going even at his lowest.
I growled and headbutted him. My hands searched for his, but before I could pin them to the ground, he landed a punch at my throat. The oxygen left my body and I fell to the side.
I grabbed my neck and tried to breathe, but it was hard. Lying on my back like that I could see Ari. He’d crawled to the bedside table in a matter of seconds and his phone was in his hand.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” said a muffled voice on the other end.
“Game over, bitch,” Ari told Wilson, staring him dead in the eyes, and I noticed at the last second Wilson’s hand rising in front of him with the gun still in his hand.
Breathing or not, I threw myself onto Wilson.
Bang!
This time the shot deafened me momentarily, and I flinched back to the past, to missions in the desert, to the deadly silence of the night, to the fire raining all around us. To teammates falling to the ground, bullets through their heads.
My temples throbbed. My body ached. But I couldn’t give up. Not now. Not yet.
I trapped his wrist around my fingers and slammed his hand to the floor trying to loosen his grip on the Glock.
He didn’t budge. He squirmed under me, his legs flailing, desperate to get away from under me.
With each passing second, my body strained more and more and my muscles weakened. And what was worse was that I didn’t know if Ari was okay. If he’d been shot. If he was…
No. I couldn’t stop now. I didn’t care if my muscles tore and my bones broke. I needed to fight. To keep going. For him. For my Ari.
I punched Wilson over and over again. In the stomach, in the chest, in the face. I did everything to immobilize him. To get that Glock off him and into my hands.
How was he so strong? Or was it my aging body failing me? I should have done a better job keeping my physical routine after retirement, but with the bar and everything going on, it had taken a backseat.
If I lost Ari because of my stupid old body, I couldn’t live with myself.
I had to kill this motherfucker before he killed Ari. If he hadn’t already.
“Yes, hi! This is Dr. Ari. Mayor Wilson is in my house and trying to kill me and my boyfriend. The address is…”
His voice was like a lullaby in the dark. It gave me strength and even more motivation to get this motherfucker down.
It was now or never.
“You hear that? They’re coming for you,” I snarled. “They’re coming for you.”
He went very still and pierced me with his evil gaze. “Look how that turned out last time.” He laughed.
He jerked. I lost my grip on him. I’d been foolish enough to let my guard down, even if momentarily, and he used that to gain one up on me.
He fired behind me. I pushed his hand away too late. And pinned him back under me.
I turned around.
Ari was still crouched in the corner between bed and bedside table, but the phone had dropped from his hands to the floor and plumes of feathers floated around him.
There was a hole on the side of the bed and a mere few inches from his neck.
His eyes were bigger than I’d ever seen before, and the color drained from his face right in front of me.
Something snapped in me.
I’d wasted too long feeling sorry for this motherfucker and I’d come this close to losing Ari. I had run out of words. Run out of compassion.
I snarled.
I whacked his hand back with all my strength and bashed my forehead at his nose. When the gun slipped from his hand, I snatched it right up, sat up, and pointed it at his head.
“You’re right. Last time didn’t work out,” I spat and pulled the trigger before he could react.
No more retorts. No more arrogance. No more Wilson.
It was almost cathartic, being splashed with his brains and blood. It was something primal and so satisfying.
I’d killed a lot of people in my life, but I knew this one wouldn’t haunt me. Ever.
This man, who had destroyed this island, who had taken everything from me and from my family, and who had come so close to killing the love of my life, deserved to die, and I wouldn’t spend one moment mourning him.
I pushed myself off his limp body and crawled to Ari who took me in his arms without question, without hesitation.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded and leaned his forehead on mine. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Are you?”
I slid my hand down to his chest, placed it over his heart, and waited to hear its beat. It was probably silly but I needed to feel it, to know there was no doubt in my mind he was still here, with me, in the land of the living, and that I wasn’t hallucinating.
Thump. Thump.
There it was. And yet still, I held my breath.
“Wyatt? Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer. I waited.
Thump. Thump.
The beat thundered against my fingertips, and I felt an electric current blast up my arm, leaving goosebumps in its path.
Thump. Thump.
He was okay. Wilson was dead, and all of this pain…it was over.
I looked up, right into his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Eyes,” I whispered. “Van. Sunset.”
“What?” Ari mumbled, searching my eyes for an explanation, but I just repeated those three words.
The three words that would let him know I was okay. That we were okay. And the more I said them, the more I realized it was over.
This nightmare that had haunted us all for some two years was well and truly over.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, the panic still visible in his eyes.
I cupped his face and breathed in.
“Eyes, beautiful as yours. Van, like the one we’re in. Sunset, like the thousands I wish to see with you in my arms,” I said, and it was only then that he smiled.
And kissed me.
And hopefully, from here on out, he would never stop.