Chapter 35
“Xayden!”Oh my God. I must be dreaming.
I’m locked away in my own head, because there is no way the three of them are standing here.
“Rory!” The guys face me and take a step in my direction. But that’s when I hear a clicking of a gun and all three of them stop.
The coldness from the barrel that is suddenly pressed to my head reminds me that I am, in fact, not dreaming. Damien digs the gun into the side of my head, and my heart is practically ready to beat out of my chest.
If he pulls the trigger, there will be no beating of my heart.
“You need to listen to me, and listen to every word I say. I am not who you think, and I’m going to get you out of here…”
The words roll around in my head. Did he really say that? Is this all a trick?
I mean, he has a loaded gun digging into the side of my head.
The tears start to fall as I watch the guys process the scene in front of them.
“Damien.” Dekker narrows his eyes at him. I can see his jaw clenching.
“Hello, boys. Any last words to say to Rory before we put bullets in your heads?” Damien taunts them.
“No!” I scream out. “Please don’t!” I try to pull away from Damien, but his arm has a vice grip around my waist.
“Aw, we won’t do that, Aurora.” I watch as David comes around the corner from what looks to be a room of some sort in the back.
“Who the fuck are you?” Seven spits out.
“Well, I’m Aurora’s family. Her uncle, to be specific. Her dad’s long-lost twin brother. God, it’s so good to have her back in my life.” He hums and smiles.
“Fuck you! We are not fucking family, you sick fuck!”
David’s mouth drops open for a moment. “I’m hurt. After all, I’m the only family you have left.” He looks over his shoulder at my mom, bored. My eyes dart there, and my heart squeezes in my chest. I let out a whimper as I see her slumped body.
My stomach turns at the sight. I will never get to hug her again, never get to hear her voice. She’s gone. My heart squeezes, the pain in my chest almost unbearable.
“You killed the only family I had left. You can go kick fucking rocks down the fucking middle of Interstate 15.” I struggle against Damien.
“Well, I didn’t kill your mom. That was all Ledger.” David lifts his shoulders and then crosses his arms in front of him.
“You killed her?” Dekker’s voice booms out as he turns toward his father.
His dad just shrugs and laughs. “She was annoying me.”
Silence fills the room at his answer. The carelessness in which he took a life stuns the guys. They are fortunate enough to not have it burned into their mind. The image of my mother as the life leaves her eyes, it’s something I will never be able to unsee.
“You boys should have just stayed home. None of this concerned you,” Aaron sticks his hands in his pockets.
“Dad…” Xayden’s voice trembles, his eyes are still wide in disbelief. “June… She’s dead. How are you not hurting right now?”
“Because he never loved my mother,” I fill in, the words foul on my tongue. “This was an elaborate game to get back at my father for crumbling their empire of shit.”
“Dad?” Xayden looks back at his dad, who just smiles. “What the ever-loving fuck?”
“My father turned them in. They want the money I have, which I was going to give them, until they killed my mother. Now they will never get it.” I narrow my eyes at David. “If I had my hands free, you would be getting the middle finger, fucker.”
David lets out a laugh. “That’s cute. And good speech, by the way. But we will get that money. Because here’s the thing, you have two choices as I see it. Choice one is to give us the money. Duh! I mean that’s the easy choice in all this. You still won’t walk away, but it will be way simpler.
“Now choice two is where things get a little, what’s the word I’m looking for, more serious. See, I will kill these three where they stand and then have every single guy on our payroll have their wicked way with you. They will defile you, destroy you, ruin you until you are nothing but a shell of a person.
“And then and only then will you just give up and sign it over. But you will still just be a used fuck toy for them all, just without money.” David crosses his arms over his chest.
“If you touch her—” The sound of another gun in the room clicks and cuts Dekker off.
“Son, we will do whatever the fuck we want with her. You will either be breathing or not. So, I would suggest you not try to play the hero today,” Ledger says as he points his gun at Dekker.
“You gonna kill me, Dad?”
Ledger shrugs while keeping the gun on Dekker. “Whether or not you’re breathing doesn’t matter to me. You were already a disappointment. Turned out to be a pussy, not the son I needed. I should have had you killed the night we kidnapped her from the house and then dropped her back off. It would have saved a lot of this bullshit.”
My heart sinks at the words he spits, but Dekker’s face remains unchanged.
“You took her? How the fuck did you get in?” A growl emanates from him.
Ledger laughs. “Boy, we made that house what it is. There are ways in and out of there you would never know of. Well, now you will never know because we burnt it to the ground. Besides, we technically didn’t kidnap her; she technically never left. She was there the whole time.” He shrugs. “But we could get in and out of there in a blink of a fucking eye. At least I get the chance to see the light in your eyes go out in person.”
“What do you mean she was there the whole time?” Xayden yells.
“Are you stupid? It means what it means. We had her in the house the entire time. There are dungeons and hidden rooms all over that place. Fuck, I thought you three would have at least done some digging. Man, we really fucked up with you.” Ledger shakes his head.
“Fuck you, old man,” Dekker growls.
“You really do deserve a bullet between the eyes, boy. Can’t believe you are the sperm that won out,” Ledger sighs as he keeps the gun on Dekker.
“Take the money!” I scream, my heart racing with each passing second. “Just don’t hurt them, please.” I feel Damien’s arm tighten around me, and I freeze.
“Aw, so sweet that your little girlfriend is sticking up for you.” Ledger looks at me. “Thanks for the money, but honestly, I should have killed my son the day he was born.”
In a matter of seconds, time stands still and everything I had been trying to avoid unfolds right in front of my eyes. I watch as Dekker takes a step back, Xayden screams at his dad, and Seven gets shoved behind Dekker.
Ledger realigns his shot at Dekker, and I let out a scream as a gunshot rings out.
There’s a ringing in my ears as I am thrown to the ground. I can’t break the fall with my arms handcuffed behind my back, so I try to twist to the side and land on my side.
“FBI! Fucking don’t fucking move or I’ll put a fucking hole in your head too!” I look up at the sound of Damien’s voice and then see his gun is pointed to Ledger who now is laying on his back, dead as a can be. My eyes dart to the guys who are crouched on the floor looking at the situation with confusion.
“Drop the fucking gun, Brooks. Don’t make me kill you in front of your son. And if you move a fucking muscle, Grey, there’s a bullet for you in here too.” Damien doesn’t even turn toward David, but he seems keenly aware of him.
“No, I can’t.” Aaron starts shaking his head. “Do you know what they will do to me in prison?”
“Dad! Stop! Just put it down,” Xayden begs his father. “Whatever is going on, we can fix it”
Aaron shakes his head. “I’m not the man you think I am. I’m not a good man.” He tips the gun to the side of his head.
“Dad, I love you. Please put the gun down,” Xayden begs his father with a sense of urgency. “Dad! Don’t! We can fix this. Please!”
I am frozen on the ground, watching the man I thought loved my mother hold a gun to his head. Watching my stepbrother beg his father to not kill himself in front of us.
“Your mother was the only good thing I did, Xayden.”
“Put the gun down, Brooks,” Damien orders him. “Just drop the gun. We can talk this out okay? But let’s put the gun down. No one else has to get hurt.”
“I’m sorry about your mother, Rory.” He looks at Xayden. “I love you, son.” And in an instant, he takes his gun off his head and points it at Damien.
Screams echo in the room as a shot fires off. My ears start ringing from the shot of the gun. My eyes fling to Damien and then back to Aaron, just as I watch Aaron drop to his knees with a shot to the head.
A yell comes at my left and I catch David charging Damien, who doesn’t have enough time to bring the gun around to level it at David. Instead, Damien goes down and the gun goes flying off into a different direction.
With David on top of Damien, his fists land punches against his face. Damien is completely overpowered at the moment. I turn and look at the guys who are standing there in shock at the scene before them. So, I do the only thing I can think of with hands handcuffed behind my back.
Rolling to my knees, I quickly sit up on them. I watch the two of them wrestle with each other and when I see an opportunity, I take it. With Damien under him, David’s hands wrap around his neck as Damien struggles to remove them. Within a second, I am up and off the floor. With as much speed and force as I can get, I run toward David.
“No! Rory!” I hear Seven yelling behind me as he realizes what I’m about to do. The other two pick up my intention and I hear my name being screamed from their mouths. But I couldn’t give a flying fuck. This asshole doesn’t get to win.
Not after he’s taken my parents from me.
With a grunt and the full force of my weight, I plow into David and knock him off of Damien. We both fall to the ground, and I let out a pained yell as my body hits the hard floor.
“Fuck!” My wrists hurt, and I’m pretty sure the handcuffs are digging into me. My shoulders and arms are sore from being pulled back for so long. And now I have a pain radiating from my shoulder from falling to the floor.
“Ah, you fucking cunt!” David yells.
Looking up I see the three guys running toward me. Damien is still on the floor groaning.
“Rory! What the fuck were you thinking?” Seven says as he drops down to his knees and slides over to me. His arms wrap around me, and he pulls me up into a sitting position. “You are fucking insane.”
“Are you okay?” Xayden drops down next to me, Dekker next to him.
“Get the gun,” I urge into Seven’s chest.
“What?” Seven pushes me slightly away and tips my head back.
“She said get the gun, you fucking dickwads.” David stands there with Damien in front of him with the gun pressed against his head.
All three guys stand up, with Seven helping me up off the floor as he stands. Damien looks beat to hell, and his eyes meet mine. There is sorrow in them, a pain I can’t begin to describe.
“Let him go, David,” I plead.
“Let him go? This fucker? This asshole who was a fucking Fed inside this place? Who has been lying to us this entire time? No. No, the only way I let him go is with a fucking bullet in his head.”
“This place is probably getting ready to be raided by the Feds and you want to kill one of them? Man, you are not the brains of the operation,” Xayden taunts.
“Yeah, man. Just cut the loss and get out of here while you can. Because even if you do kill him, you’re not gonna make it far before a bullet finds you,” Seven steps in.
I beg him, “Don’t, David. Please. We are supposed to be family, right? So, I am asking as your niece.”
David lets out a howl of a laugh. “Family? Let me make it clear: The only reason I need you is the money. But even that is a fucking pipe dream now. Because you fucking ruined it!”
Spit flies from his mouth as he yells.
“Your fucking father and mother ruined it the first time, and now here you fucking stand dismantling everything I have worked all these years to keep afloat! There’s a fucking bullet in here for you too. But first, this traitor needs to die.”
He presses the gun firmer against the Damien’s head.
Time stops as I watch his finger pull the trigger. The four of us are about to witness the impending death of the man who infiltrated all of this and tried to save me.
But nothing happens.
David pulls the trigger over and over, but nothing happens. “Fuck!” he yells.
And then hell breaks loose.
Xayden, Dekker and Seven charge forward toward David as his eyes go wide. He throws the gun off to the side and tosses Damien down. Then he sprints toward the door to make an escape, but Xayden is right behind him. Xayden grabs the collar of his shirt and yanks him back as David falls on his ass.
Immediately, Xayden is on top of him, his fists flying in the air. Blood splatters everywhere as he mercilessly pounds flesh against flesh.
“Xayden! Stop!” I scream. I look back at Dekker and Seven, who are helping Damien. “One of you do something, he is going to kill him.”
Dekker gets up and rushes over there. He pulls Xayden off David, who just lies there.
“You got him killed! You son of a bitch!” Xayden yells at the lifeless body before him. “He was all I had! He didn’t deserve it! He’s gone! He’s dead.” His voice ends on a sob, and I watch him turn into Dekker, who pulls him close.
And my heart shatters. He’s hurting so bad. The extent of what he knows is just a drop in the water compared to the truth.
“Freeze! Hands where we can see them!” booms across the room, and all of us go rigid.
“Hands up! Let me see those hands!” another voice commands.
“She’s in cuffs!” Damien groans. “I’m Agent Caden Bradley. I need medical assistance, please.”
I watch as the place is swarmed with Feds. A couple of them come toward me and another runs toward Damien. Or, actually, Agent Bradley.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” an older guy asks me as he takes off the cuffs. “We need medical assistance over here too. Her wrists are pretty bad.”
“What?” My face scrunches as I move my arms once they are released. The soreness and pain radiate through me.
“We need to get you seen. Your wrists are badly cut,” a second younger guy in a Feds vest informs me.
Ignoring them, my eyes flit toward the guys, and I see them being put in handcuffs. “No! They’re innocent! They came to look for me!” I scream and run toward them.
The younger agent pulls me back. “Miss. Stop. Let them do their job. Once we know who is who, they will be let go.”
“But they were trying to save me,” I insist.
He nods. “I get that. But we need to clear the scene first. I promise, if they are truly innocent, they will be freed.”
I watch as they cuff David, who is somehow still alive. Then they help Agent Bradley, while others cover the bodies of Aaron and Ledger. I watch as they walk toward the body of my mother.
And I drop to my knees and let out a blood-curdling scream.