Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
NATTY
PRESENT DAY
I had texted Pen what I was doing so she could fill in Jameson and Killian. It wasn’t really their fight now that I was recovered, and Killian’s mother was safe. I wanted them to stay out of this, knowing Fable was only coming for me.
Alec and Silas could handle things from here on out, but I still wanted someone to know what I was doing and considering Giles was Jameson’s cousin, it was a good idea to make sure he was aware since it was technically considered his territory.
I was pacing around the front of the shed, trying to keep warm when Alec finally shoved the metal door open and started toward me. He used a rag to wipe off his face and sling. He had dark smudges all along his shirt and jeans that I had to turn away from him.
“The old mill in Gundry.”
Hope soared as Alec walked to the bike and Giles began heading inside the shack. I waved goodbye to him as he yelled back at me, “We’re square, Natty!”
I jogged to catch up with Alec’s long stride.
“We have to go back to the Stone Riders and get them, my club and The Death Raiders all ready to ride over there; it’s the only way to ensure we can defeat his Destroyers.”
I thought back to what Rachel had said and shook my head. “We go now before he has a chance to realize he’s been compromised.”
Alec paused, inspecting me with his lips turned down. “His army will—”
“Not be a problem.” I grabbed my helmet and pulled it on. Alec’s hand was at my waist as he gently pulled me toward him.
“Natty, I know you’re worried and even nervous but we’re going to catch him. We will, I promise you, but we have to do it right.”
I pulled away from him so he wasn’t holding my hip, then flipped my visor up.
“We go now.”
He let out a sigh, clenching his teeth. I continued to stare at him while he crawled on the back, leaving his hand on the side of the seat, as if he were ready for me to sit between his thighs again.
“What about Silas?” he whispered in my ear after I straddled the bike and placed my hands over the gears. His hand continued to cup my hip while we sat there.
My chest tightened while guilt prodded around for entry. I didn’t want him behind me, touching me, and I didn’t want to do this without Silas…but I wanted my life back. I wanted my future back, so I would go with my husband’s brother and make this work.
“We’re going to handle this without him,” I said over my shoulder, then started the bike.
Alec’s arm came around me, engulfing my stomach and holding me tight to his chest. I inhaled a shaky breath and silently hoped Silas would forgive me for this and all my other failures later when we finally had a chance at starting over.
It took us forty-five minutes to get to the old mill and nearly a mile out, I shut off the engine and parked the bike out of sight, so we wouldn’t alert anyone to our approach.
There was nothing but corn fields around for miles, which made me think back to not very long ago when Silas fucked me in one.
I missed him.
I needed him, but I’d already ruined him by omitting the biggest secret of my life; I had to let him process that.
I wore my property patch, in the form of my leather jacket that fit snugly over my shoulders, and concealed the handgun I had strapped to my ribs. There were many things I wasn’t very good at, but shooting and accuracy was actually something I excelled at…when I didn’t freeze.
“We need to get off the gravel path,” Alec murmured close to my ear, gently pulling my hip off to the side.
My boots sank into soft soil but removed the loud echoing sound of gravel crunching.
Carefully and quietly, we moved through the corn toward the large silo and lumber yard.
There were no lights, no cars or bikes that I could see, and my stomach began to twist with worry over this being a trap.
Fable always seemed to be one step ahead of us…
and I was hoping that just once we’d be able to have the drop on him.
Alec took my hand in his, keeping me close behind him, and I knew it wasn’t the time to fight him.
The cicadas sang and a few distant frogs bellowed as the stars began to appear and then the silo was directly in front of us, looming to blot out any light.
We snuck through the grounds, which were eerily silent and deserted. The reality that Fable was really alone gave me some hope, especially as we snuck in through a side door to the main part of the mill and there wasn’t a single person in sight.
There was sawdust on the floor as we walked in and suddenly a large overhead light flicked on, making us both freeze.
Tied to a metal chair in the middle of the floor, with his head hanging lifelessly, was Silas. I immediately started running for him, but Alec pulled me back.
“Wait…this is a trap.”
I didn’t care. That was my fucking husband tied to a chair. Was he unconscious?
“Silas!”
Alec continued to pull me behind him.
Silas’s dark hair, soft as feathers, didn’t shift even the slightest. His head just hung there.
Fable suddenly walked out from the side, where a wall had concealed him.
His silver hair nearly matched Alec’s in texture, and his eyes were so similar to the man in front of me.
But tonight, he held that similar ghost-like glare that I’d witnessed so many times in his oldest son’s gaze.
That gaze landed on me, severely, as he made his way to the center of the room, clapping his hands in a slow, menacing way.
“Thank you, Natty, for being so zealous about locating me. This was exhilarating for me. It really was. Getting to watch how close you got, and when you thought you’d found me on your own.
You don’t think I planted that information in those men, knowing you’d go out of your way to dig this little hole you’re in?
And my sons, the puppy dogs obsessed with protecting you and ensuring you’re safe. I taught them better than this.”
My hands shook as I watched him walk to Silas and grab his hair, lifting his face. Blood poured from his nose and lip, but otherwise, he seemed to be okay.
“You’ve reduced them to this, Natty.”
I saw Silas open his eyes, and then it felt like two blue moons inspected every inch of me, then ever so slowly they moved to his brother and froze.
“It was you all those years that kept Silas from truly focusing on the vision I had. You that had come between the brothers, and why Alec refused to join the Death Raiders when I asked him to take Silas’ spot. You have single handedly ruined everything.” Fable yelled.
My stomach dropped like I’d fallen off a rollercoaster, barreling out of the car and plunging to my death.
Alec pushed me again, until I was completely behind him.
“Oh what Alec, you don’t want me to play with the toy you’re hoping to get to keep?”
Alec didn’t reply, which was probably best because Fable was just provoking us.
But I couldn’t stop my mouth from opening and questions spilling out. “What do you want?” I wasn’t even sure why I asked it. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me and to punish his sons.
He pointed at me, smiling as if I were a student who just asked the right question.
“You. I want my sons to watch as you breathe your last breath, cry your last tear and say your last words. Will you save them for Silas or Alec?”
Alec shifted the smallest bit on his feet, as if he were preparing to fight. I tried to focus on that instead of the fear braiding itself around my limbs, freezing me in place.
Silas started laughing and the eerie way it slid through my rib cage had me moving again. Even shifting back to avoid whatever was coming next. I’d never heard this sort of laugh come out of him.
Fable glared at his son, then swung his gaze back to me.
“You think this is funny, Silas? Is it hilarious to think that I’m about to murder your wife?”
Alec scowled over at his brother, the two of them seemed to speak without using words.
Fable still held onto Silas’s hair, bending at the waist to scream in his face.
Silas just continued to laugh, manically so, as if this was all so funny. But I knew…deep down, I knew this was the madness that his father had sewn into him, stitch by stitch all those years he forced Silas to do his dark bidding.
“You touch her and you die,” Alec warned, reaching for my hand but coming empty because I’d folded them across my chest.
Fable let Silas’s head go, and I saw the thick column of his throat, covered in black ink, glisten under the lights.
“Don’t start acting like you’re her savior, Alec. It wasn’t long ago you had her cuffed to you, sleeping in your bed. You coveted your brother’s wife, and now you assume if you step in and play hero, she’ll want you?”
Alec’s jaw flexed, but that’s when Silas stopped laughing and the air in the room seemed to shift. “Never assume your enemy’s weakness.”
Fable’s focus swung over right as Silas stood from the chair, as if no rope had bound him there to begin with. It forced Fable to stumble back a few steps, being caught off guard while Silas advanced with a murderous expression on his face.
“Never take your surroundings for granted,” Silas yelled, dipping down to grab something from the ground. It was a metal rod.
Fable’s eyes grew wide, and while he was so focused on his son, I slipped my hand into my jacket and pulled out my gun. Alec noticed and shook his head.
I ignored him and aimed at Fable.
Silas continued to move toward his father, now flipping the metal object around in his hand, as if he’d wielded it a thousand times before.
“Never show mercy.”
Fable tripped and was now on the ground.
Silas was only a few feet from his father, and while I knew he needed to be the one to kill Fable, I couldn’t bring myself to lower the gun.
And that’s when everything seemed to shatter, like a piece of glass under too much pressure.
Silas lunged forward and shoved the rod into Fable’s chest, muttering a few incoherent things that Alec and I couldn’t hear.