Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The hospital doors slide shut behind me with a soft mechanical hiss. Too soft when everything inside my head is still so loud.
The scent of antiseptic clings to my clothes. Her blood is still under my nails no matter how hard I scrubbed. The fluorescent lights fade behind me as the cold night air hits my face, sharp and immediate. It doesn’t calm anything. If anything, it makes it worse.
Maverick leans against the hood of my Camaro at the edge of the lot, arms folded, watching me the way men watch storms they know they can't stop. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t ask how she is. He already knows.
I don’t slow as I approach. He pushes off the car and walks over to the passenger side without a word, and we both settle inside. The engine turns over, rumbling deep inside my bones, waking my demons.
The city falls away fast.
For a while, neither of us say anything. The early morning sun tries to peek out behind thick, gray clouds, and the shadows bounce off the windshield. The highway hums beneath my tires. My right hand rests loosely on the gear shift, but every muscle in my body is coiled tight enough to snap bone.
“Cole’s got him secured.” Maverick’s voice cuts through the silence, cold and detached.
I nod once. “Anyone else?”
“No.”
Good.
That makes this simple.
The warehouse sits an hour away from Perdition, past the edge of anything that pretends to be civilized.
No neighbors. No cameras. No witnesses. Just concrete, charred wood and silence.
The kind of place where answers get pulled out of people one way or another.
The kind of place Owen should have never ended up.
The tension in my shoulders eases slightly at the familiar sight as I drive through the overgrown weeds.
My playground.
Pulling the car to a stop, I kill the engine. Neither of us move right away. Because this is the moment before things become permanent. I crack my neck once, then reach for the door.
The warehouse is damp and musty, with a faint smell of smoke that still lingers, even after so many years.
The overhead lights hum as Maverick and I step inside, the heavy door shutting behind us with a dull thud.
Passing the old boxing ring, we make our way down the hallway. Cole’s voice carries before I see him.
“He’s still breathing,” he calls lazily, stepping out of one of the rooms. “Figured you’d want that part intact.”
He leads us a little further down the hall into another open space. And then I see him.
Owen sits in a chair, his wrists tightly bound to the arms, and ankles secured to the legs. His head is tipped forward just enough that his chin rests against his chest. He’s still, but not broken. Not yet.
His head lifts as we get closer and our eyes meet.
His left one is swollen shut and there’s a good sized gash on his forehead.
Blood coats the side of his face, starting to dry along his hairline.
There’s no panic in his gaze. No scrambling or desperation.
The corner of his mouth tips in a disgusting smirk, and something cold spreads through my chest.
Cole leans against the back wall, arms crossed over his chest. “I gotta say,” he muses, pushing off and strolling closer, “being on this side of the chair is a nice change of pace.”
Maverick snorts beside me quietly. Cole gestures toward Owen.
“Way more comfortable than when you had me tied to one.”
“My my how things have changed,” Maverick chuckles.
For a split second, the memory flickers. Cole beaten, tied to a chair similar to this one, Maverick’s helmet kissing the side of his face.
Then it’s gone. And all that’s left is Owen.
I step forward. Cole’s humor dies the second I move past him. No more jokes. No more pleasantries. I want fucking answers. And then I want his life.
“You tried to take something from me,” I say quietly. Owen’s grin deepens. Not wide or dramatic, but just enough. Like he’s been waiting for this moment.
“Yeah,” he says softly. Like he’s proud of it. He leans forward in his seat as best as he can, his gaze sliding to Mav. “You took something from me.”
Maverick stills next to me. Cole goes quiet. My jaw tightens.
What the fuck is he talking about?
I don’t let him see the confusion as I step closer. Owen watches me like he’s studying something he’s already solved.
“You don’t remember,” he says, almost amused. “Figures. You guys don’t remember anyone unless they’re of use to you.”
Cole steps to the back of the chair. His hand fists tightly in Owen’s hair then he wrenches his head back.
“Get on with it,” he growls lowly, before he shoves Owen’s head forward again. Owen lets out a laugh, then licks some blood from the corner of his lips.
“Last year. A little shit hole bar in the middle of nowhere. You killed our cousin,” he spits on the floor at Maverick’s feet, saliva mixed with a little tinge of blood.
“Alex?” Maverick asks without hesitation. “He aided in the kidnapping of my wife. He had it coming.” He shrugs.
“Hold on,” I snap. Cole’s expression mirrors the confusion I feel. Something he said so quickly, I almost didn’t catch it. I glare at Owen.
“Our?”
Owen rolls his eyes. “Yes. Our. Mine and yours. He was our fucking family and this prick blew his fucking head off like it was nothing,” he seethes.
I rush forward, slamming my fist into the side of Owen’s head.
“What the fuck do you mean our?!” I shout.
Owen laughs. “You mean to tell me I don’t look even a little bit familiar to you, brother?”
My fist slams into his jaw before he can say anything else. The crack echoes off the walls. The chair teeters with the force, but doesn’t fall. Owen’s head snaps to the side and blood hits the concrete floor.
“No,” I say coldly.
Another hit.
“You don’t.”
Cole straightens. “Okay,” he mutters under his breath, glancing between us. “That’s new.”
Maverick doesn’t move, but I can feel him staring. Thinking. Owen spits blood onto the floor again and laughs through it.
“You really don’t see it,” he says, his voice rough now.
I grab the front of his shirt and haul the chair forward, the legs screeching across the concrete. Leaning down, my head tilts as Owen lifts his chin.
“Say it again,” I growl.
Owen’s smile twists, split lip and all.
“Brother.”
My forehead slams into Owen’s face. His head snaps backward with the force. He curses under his breath, and I smirk.
Prick.
Releasing his shirt, I stand fully and wipe his blood from my face. For a second, something twists in my gut. Not recognition, not acceptance, but possibility. And I don’t like it. Maverick steps forward.
“Talk.” His voice stays level and controlled.
Owen leans back as far as the restraints allow, and he looks at me again.
“A few years before I was born, my mother had another child,” his eyes search mine.
“She wasn’t in a good place, and she gave that child up for adoption, then moved across the country.
There, she met my father and had me. Two years ago, she passed away.
But before she did, she told me about you.
I wanted to find you, and Alex came with me. ”
“What the fuck,” Cole mutters under his breath.
I snort and pull Owen by his shirt back into me. “The woman who gave birth to me was a drug addict who left me at a hospital. She did not put me up for adoption, she abandoned me. She was nothing.” I growl the last word close to his face.
Rage builds behind his eyes.
“She was our mother,” he seethes.
“There is no, our.”
Maverick taps me on the shoulder, and I shove Owen back into the chair before taking a step back running and drag a hand over my face.
I stare at him, looking for any resemblance, but find none.
Where my features are sharp, his are softer, his face a little more rounded.
His eyes are brown, not even any hint of gray. The shape isn’t even a match.
“What proof do you have that Karson is your brother, Owen?” Maverick asks calmly.
“I took a coffee cup he was drinking from out of a trash can and had a DNA test done, compared it to mine.”
The room grows quiet and I begin to pace.
Three steps. Turn. Three steps back.
Maverick nods, not dismissing the possibility before speaking again.
“Still. I’m the one who killed Alex, not Karson. Why not come after me?” he asks, straight to the point.
“You see,” Owen shifts in his chair. “I was going to. But after I ran the DNA test, I thought what better way to make you suffer. Take someone from you like you took from me.”
Cole steps forward now, lowering himself so he’s eye to eye with Owen.
“Except you beat a woman half to death who has nothing to do with any of this,” his head tips to the side. “What’s the angle there, Owen? You’ve had plenty of opportunities to take your shot at Karson.”
I’m getting impatient. I shove through Maverick and Cole, producing a pocket knife from my back pocket and flip the blade open. Thrusting it into his abs, I twist.
His head falls back as he lets out a scream. The sound blankets the room and I smile.
“You made a big mistake by going after her instead of me. You see,” I twist the blade again. Owen breathes heavily through clenched teeth, spit flying from his mouth. “If it was me you came for, I would have made this quick.”
Twist.
“But now, you’ll be begging for me to kill you long before I’m finished.”
Owen attempts to laugh through ragged breaths. He lowers his head to look me directly in the eye.
“I wanted you,” he gets out, barely. “Someone else wanted her.”
My blood runs cold.
“Win win.”
My hand stills on the knife. The room goes silent. Maverick steps forward first.
“Explain that,” he says flatly.
Owen’s grin spreads through blood and pain.
“I don’t have to.”
I rip the blade free. He gasps as blood pours from the gaping wound in his side. The sound barely registers. Because something colder than rage spreads through me now.
Understanding.
This wasn’t just him. This wasn’t just revenge.
Cole straightens slowly. “Karson…”
Owen laughs again, wet, broken and satisfied.
“I got what I wanted,” he rasps.
I stare at him, my fingers flexing around the blade before I move forward again.
“Looks like this is going to have to be quicker than I wanted,” I say with a grin, “too bad.” I step back into him, and with one final thrust, the blade lands on the side of his neck.