Chapter 30 #2
Andrew pulls back his arm and lands a single solid punch to my cheek.
It’ll bruise, but it barely affects me. Nothing can pull me from this haze of vengeance.
My head snaps to the side as another punch lands on my chin.
I throw all my weight forward, pushing him to the ground and feeling my body fall on top of his, slamming hard onto the concrete sidewalk.
“Fuck!” he screams out just as I pin him under me and throw punch after punch. His nose cracks under one of them; I don’t know how many I get in. I can’t stop.
“Evan!” Mason cries out, his fingers prying into my shoulders then my chest, desperately pulling me backward, but I get one more hit in that snaps Andrew’s head to the side and for a moment, I think he’s dead.
He lies there nearly lifeless. Blood’s covering his face and soaking into my knuckles. Red lays in streaks everywhere.
Andrew spits blood onto the street next to him and coughs it up as I attempt to rein in my heaving breaths.
“Snap out of it. It’s not the plan.” Mason repeats, “It’s not the plan. This isn’t the plan.” There’s a ringing in my ears that won’t quit. One that balances out my tunnel vision and the stinging pain that shoots from the split knuckles on my hand.
When I finally catch my breath, Mason is on top of him on the ground, pinning him down. Andrew knees Mason in the stomach, desperately trying to win a losing fight. But I’m too quick, grabbing his own gun and shooting him once in his thigh.
I don’t want to kill him. That’s not my job to do.
He’s not for me. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t love beating the piss out of him.
Andrew screams out in agony and Mason, still wincing and holding his gut, socks him right in the mouth.
Mason catches his breath as he slowly stands up and Andrew stares up at us, begging for mercy.
“Are you Andrew Jones?” I ask him and he hesitates to answer, so I fire a shot off right next to him.
“Yes!” he screams. “Fuck! Yes!”
I crouch down in front of him, gun still in my hand.
“The same Andrew Jones that left those messages for Samantha? The ones convincing her to murder her husband?” The blood drains from his face as I talk.
I’m not some dealer looking to get more turf.
I’m not a cop. True fear permeates the air as the fool shakes his head.
“The same Andrew Jones that gave her tainted coke so she could end his life and pay you half of what the insurance company was going to give her?”
“I don’t know any Samantha …” he tries to lie, and I shoot off the gun again, feeling the shockwaves run up my arm. It’s closer to him this time and Andrew screams out.
“He pissed himself,” Mason comments and when I look, sure enough, his sweats have a dark wet ring around him. He’s pathetic.
“That Andrew Jones?” I ask him.
“She wanted him dead!” he yells. “She was going to do it whether I helped her or not.”
“You can tell her husband that; I’m sure he’ll understand,” Mason says and then tosses handcuffs at his feet. “Put those on. First your feet, then your hands.”
“Please,” he begs. But there’s no mercy for what he’s done.
It takes a good fifteen minutes to tie him up. The gagging was the hardest part.
The trunk slams shut, and the dark night seems so empty. Empty is what I needed, though. It’s done and over.
Mason turns the car on, the keys jingling in the ignition before it roars to life and we leave in silence, listening to the fucker in the back.
It’s already starting to snow. They’re calling for ten inches and that will wash away any evidence of us being here.
Not that anyone will come looking for a while.
Like he told us, he doesn’t do meets here.
My heartbeat slows, and the end feels so fucking close. Every loose end is finally being resolved.
“Thanks for doing this,” I tell Mason, ignoring Andrew’s muted thumps in the trunk as we go over a speed bump and then another.
“No problem.” His nonchalant response is as if I’ve only thanked him for picking up milk on the way home.
“I just needed to do something about it all.” I feel the need to explain. We could have let Mason’s guy take care of him. I needed some kind of part in seeing this through, even if I promised Kat I’d stay out of it. It’s the last secret and I’m done. One last deal to see through.
“It’s not like he doesn’t have it coming to him.”
I nod at Mason’s comment and listen to Andrew’s muffled screams.
“You sure he’s going to be here?” Mason asks me as we pull up to a vacant lot.
Even as the car slows, I can see James inside, moving aside a curtain in the bedroom.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I tell him.
I know James is here. He’s waiting for sentencing and not going anywhere near the city. He’s hiding.
I know what that’s like.
“You ready?” Mason asks me, and I nod once again. “Let’s do this.”
We’ll leave Andrew bound and gagged on James’s porch. And the hard copy photos James kept of me are already in my possession.
It’s a truce of sorts. I give him his final piece, he gives me mine.
More than likely he won’t see a day in jail and half his charges were already dismissed. His wife is sentenced to prison for life, his worries behind him. All but the drug dealer. He was foaming at the mouth to get him.
It was an easy call to make.
Andrew’s slamming every which way, but it’s 4:00 a.m. in the suburbs. There isn’t another house for nearly half a mile. Even if I took the gag out of his lying mouth, there’s no one here but us and James.
James is right there in the doorway, rifle ready.
“Just leave him here,” I tell Mason and we let Andrew drop to the ground with a muffled scream piercing the air. “James will take him from here.”
With the cold air blowing in my face and the city skyline lighting up the dark night, I finally relax into the leather seat. The bite of pain that hovers over every cracked knuckle is all that’s left of what happened. It’ll heal and my life will go on.
I’m done now. It’s all done.
It’s just me and Kat now. Just the two of us.
No. The three of us.