Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
DREW
Sunday was turning into the longest day of my sorry fucking life.
I had a headache on top of my headache, and I knew that would only go away the moment I took Owen’s last breath from his slimy little body.
Pete was dead. Harry, too. Clint, a man I’d not known but was mourning anyway, had lost his life because of the club—because of Owen.
Who next? Me? Sutton?
“Ayda,” the word fell from my lips in a breath as we walked up the steps of the porch to the safe house. I hadn’t realized I’d said it aloud until I felt her pause on the steps, her eyes meeting mine with a look of concern that I brushed off with a shake of the head.
“You guys ready?” I asked Eric, Ayda, and Sutton. The only one to respond was Sutton, and he didn’t seem all that thrilled about having to be here with us or the fact that he was now on the wrong side of the law again.
“Lord help me in my next life,” he muttered.
“You’ll need his help in this life now,” Eric said smugly.
I pushed the door open and led them inside. Helen was sitting upright on her bed, her face passive and unconcerned as she watched me walk in, followed by Ayda, Eric, and lastly, the chief.
She was about to look back down into her lap when she did a double take at Sutton, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open.
“Howard?” she breathed.
I turned to look at Sutton, who was mirroring her surprise. “Helen?” he croaked, glancing at us with confusion all over his face as he stepped forward. “Helen Baker?”
I frowned hard. “This is Helen Taylor. Jon Taylor’s wife.”
Howard glanced back at Helen before he began to walk towards her, his movements steady and slow.
“You’re with them?” Helen asked the chief, her eyes frantically searching his face. “You?”
Taking a look at Eric and Ayda, I saw they were just as confused with this whole exchange as I was. I rolled my eyes, seeing another impending kink in the plan before I held up my hand and looked back at Sutton and Helen. “You two know each other?”
“Untie her right now,” Sutton demanded roughly.
“Chief…”
“I said now, Tucker!” he yelled, his tone full of authority as he spun around and glared at me like I was no longer a friend.
“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I swear to God, Drew, if you don’t untie her from this bed and set her free, I’ll…” Howard reached for the gun in his holster, the heel of his palm resting there as he stared straight at me with nothing but a promise of death if I didn’t comply.
Raising both hands in the air in surrender, I took a step closer. “We’re here to release her anyway. You know that. It’s what we discussed, right?”
Sutton stared at me, unblinking as he waited for me to go on.
Helen sighed, her free hand rising to rest carefully on Sutton’s forearm. He flinched and looked down at her, the two of them staring into each other’s eyes with nothing but familiarity. Whatever the hell was going on, I wasn’t privy to it, which really pissed me off.
“We went to high school together,” Helen told us all, her eyes fixed on Sutton as she spoke. “We haven’t seen each other in… years.”
“What the hell have you got yourself tangled up in, Helen?” Sutton asked softly.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“You don’t want to know what mistakes I’ve made since I last saw you.”
I glanced back at Ayda, my eyes wide with what the fuck? If I was picking up the right vibes, and admittedly, I was shit at that, Helen and Sutton weren’t just familiar with one another—they’d been fond of each other at one point, too.
Ayda made a shrugging motion, her face holding as much surprise as my own. She nodded toward Helen’s bound hand and took a slow step forward, trying not to startle anyone.
“Helen?” she said quietly, pulling the woman’s attention from Sutton. “Like Drew said, we’re letting you go, but we have some new information and a couple of questions for you first, is that okay?”
“What questions? I’ve told you everything I suspected.”
“Did Jon ever…” she trailed off, unsure how to ask it delicately. “I assume Jon met people at your home while you were there?”
Helen looked between all of us, the panic growing in her eyes. “What’s this about?” she asked quietly.
I was done with fucking games. Stepping forward, ignoring the way Sutton tensed, I stood close enough and looked down on her.
“It’s about the rat in my club that I think you know about.
The one I think your husband Jon was cozying up to while I was serving time inside, trying to protect my club and that rat’s ass. ”
Helen blinked slowly, staring right at me. “You know about Owen,” she whispered.
“Sounds like you do, too,” I ground out through gritted teeth, folding my arms over my chest. “Which would have been real fucking good to hear about when you gave us all that other information just the other day.”
I was pissed, and she knew it. Everyone in this safe house knew it. If Sutton hadn’t been glaring at me like he was ready to put a bullet in my leg, I was pretty certain I’d have been reaching out to Helen and shaking some fucking sense into her.
Her breathing picked up as she watched me.
“You have to understand my position here. You’re keeping me hostage.
You put a bullet in my shoulder because of who I’d been married to.
I’ve had to use a metal bucket as my toilet when you haven’t been around.
Forgive me if I had to work out if I could trust you as much as you had to work out if you could trust me.
” Her voice was timid, but there was a fight there—a fight I had to admire, even in the midst of the dark cloud and storm that was lurking overhead.
“You knew Owen was betraying us,” I growled.
“But not because Jon told me. I was never given that information. We don’t live in Babylon.
Owen was a face I’d never seen before he turned up at my house one day, wearing normal clothes.
There was no cut in sight. He didn’t even show up on a bike.
He looked normal, but they always did, and when Jon asked me to leave the kitchen so he could talk to guests, I always did. Always. The less I knew, the better.”
“Owen was at your home?”
She nodded weakly, looking at Sutton for guidance but seeing nothing but confusion and concern shining back at her.
I must have been the easier pair of eyes to stare into because her attention was soon back on me.
“I heard them sometimes, and they sounded like good friends. Their conversations seemed light. One day, he stayed longer than any of Jon’s guests usually stayed.
I thought he was long gone when I stumbled into the kitchen, not realizing he was still there.
Jon didn’t shout at me in front of Owen, but I could see the irritation in his eyes as I walked through the room, dropped a coffee by the sink, and then turned to walk away. That’s when I saw it…”
“Saw what?” I asked, not following.
“The tattoo on Owen’s arm. It looked like yours. The one I’d seen across your chest when I’d cared for you in prison.”
I looked up to find Ayda. I needed to look at something good when all I could hear was news that made me feel like shit.
Ayda was staring at Helen as though she wanted to throttle her with her bare hands. The only thing stopping her was her loyalty to Sutton. She swallowed hard, pressed her lips together, and spoke through her teeth.
“How often was he there?”
Helen’s gaze shot to Ayda, “I don’t know exactly, but I don’t think I’ve seen him since Drew was released.”
Ayda’s free hand balled at her side, her body leaning forward.
“You didn’t think that was important? You don’t think that should have been the first thing you told us?”
“I was protecting myself and my family.”
“And I’m protecting my family,” Ayda spat, her hand came up quickly, fist balled as she swung like she had every time we’d practiced together, but she hit nothing. Sutton already had her around the waist and was pulling her away before she got too close.
I didn’t move. Part of me wished Ayda had hit Helen, but another part knew that Ayda, once calm and rational, would hate herself for losing control that way. Plus, we had a bigger blow still yet to deliver. One that would show us where Helen stood once and for all.
“I never asked to be involved in all of this,” Helen said quietly, looking between us all. “I never wanted—”
“He’s dead, Helen,” I said coldly.
Her attention snapped back to me, her eyes wide as she stared into mine, waiting for me to go on.
“Jon’s gone.” I narrowed my eyes and curled my lip in disgust. “They killed him. Killed another innocent man, too. The people he’s been working with to get more power are the same ones who took it all away—stole his last breath.
” Tilting my head to the side, I leaned forward.
“They got to decide when the man who beat and abused you and made you a prisoner of your own life, died. Your family, the one you want to protect, has never been in more danger than it is right now.”
Her mouth hung slack, tears gathering in her eyes and her skin turning pale while the rest of her remained still.
“Your husband is dead.”
Eric’s hand came up to my shoulder, making me pull back but not look at him.
The squeeze of his fingers told me enough was enough, and I wanted to shrug him off and tell him to get the fuck away from me, but something inside me listened, and I stood tall again, doing nothing more than watching her as the news sank in.
Pushing away from Sutton and glaring up at him as though he’d betrayed her, Ayda crossed the room, stopping next to me and glancing over at Helen who seemed lost in her own mind now.
“You want to protect your kids, Helen? You need to tell us everything you know. What we don’t know could be what gets you all killed.”
But Helen’s head had dropped, and now she was just staring at the floor as the news of her husband’s death took over.
Sutton sighed, turning his attention to her and kneeling down beside her position on the bed. He placed a hand on her knee and waited until she looked up at him with sorrow in her eyes.
“Do you know anything else, besides what you’ve already told them about The Mayor, The Navarro Rifles, and now the news of Owen?”
“No,” she croaked, shaking her head. “I swear it.”
“Did you know why Jon was so hell-bent on destroying Drew while he was in prison?”
She swallowed loudly and sucked in a breath.
“Jon had this vision. He saw himself above the law, like some kind gatekeeper to Hell. The ones who caused the most trouble on the outside were the ones he liked to hurt the most.” Helen glanced up at me, my name clearly on the tip of her tongue before she focused on Sutton again.
“The Mayors around Texas liked the fact that he would hurt the criminals. If he hurt them, damaged them and made them weak, they wouldn’t be the same men they’d gone in as when they were finally released. ”
“That’s it? That’s the only reason?”
“I guess word got out about what Jon could do. Soon clubs and gangs were coming to him from the outside, asking him to hurt people who’d hurt them while they were under his watch.
He knew… everyone,” she breathed quietly.
“That meant he knew everyone’s secrets, too.
People will pay good money for those. It was a win-win situation for him. ”
Sutton’s breath caught in his throat as he watched her and waited patiently.
“There isn’t much I know for sure,” Helen went on. “But what I do know is that The Mayor of Babylon shouldn’t be trusted. Jon spoke about him the most when he was loose-lipped and drunk.”
“What did he say?”
Helen looked up at me then—her final words ready to strike.
“That he wanted to eradicate the MCs in and surrounding Babylon, and he’d do absolutely anything to make sure it happened while he was around, even if that meant working with one of them until he could figure out a way to destroy them all. ”
Eric cleared his throat behind me, and I spun around to look at him. His head was bowed, his hands behind his back as he stared down at his parted feet and rocked back and forth.
“What?” I asked him roughly.
Glancing up through the thickness of his brows, Eric held my gaze. “Time to let her go,” he said quietly.
I knew he was right.
Turning back, I focused on Sutton who was now rubbing Helen’s back with his free hand.
“Chief?”
He looked up at me and said nothing.
“You care about her?” I asked, not caring how awkward that made anyone.
With a small nod of his head, he gave me his answer.
“Then her safety is on you. Put her somewhere where we can’t find her. Make her disappear. Get her the hell out of here,” I ordered calmly.
I turned my attention to Helen, making sure she saw just how fucking angry I was in the hostile glare I gave her.
“And I don’t care who you were trying to protect along the way, but it ends here. Today. You ever even breathe my club’s name again in your life, and I’ll feel the wind of it, and when I do, I will hunt you down, and I will do what I should have done the first time.”
She blinked at me, her tears finally falling free.
“I’ll kill you, Helen. I’ll fucking kill everyone who gets in my way from now on if that’s what I have to do.”