Chapter 37 #2
Angry, bloody holes stood out against Owen’s pale skin.
His life on the bike was reflected from the dual tone on his flesh, sun-kissed versus patches of stark white against it.
Beneath his shirt was a weave of black ink, all of it tying to the club and the brethren he’d so easily betrayed.
There was a hound’s head on each shoulder, a reaper on his chest, and on his back was the standard Hounds’ patch.
Something that should have meant more to him than it had.
Blood pooled and trickled from the holes in his body as he struggled in an attempt to resist what was coming.
His eyes flickered around the room, as though looking for an escape, but all he found was Rubin and me.
His lip curled in disgust. Even this close to death, his anger was the only thing that mattered to him.
Drew followed Owen’s gaze to me, and just like that his fist swung again, even more violently this time, sending Owen’s face the other way and out of my focus.
Drew bent and reached for Owen’s face, squeezing it tight.
“Don’t you dare look at her. You don’t get to see something so fucking beautiful before you die.
Do you understand me?” His fingers pressed into Owen’s cheeks.
All Owen could do was scrunch his eyes shut and let his mouth pop open.
With his spare hand, Drew reached for the gun in his waistband, and he pushed it slowly into Owen’s mouth. “Do you… understand me?”
Owen could only open his eyes and blink, water pooling in them as Drew applied more pressure.
“My own fucking brother,” Drew breathed out, the hatred to one of his own evident.
“And here I am, thinking of ways I can cut the skin off his back just so he doesn’t get to die with the hounds and the reaper by his side.
Here I kneel, with a gun in my hand and my brother’s face in the other, at war with myself because a part of me just wants to blow your fucking throat out, while the other wants to bathe you in acid and watch your skin melt right the fuck off you.
How could you do this, you treacherous bastard? ”
Owen’s gargled grunt fought against the barrel of the gun in his mouth, making his eyes water even more.
Drew pushed it in farther, making Owen gag around it.
“You’re going to talk, Owen. When I pull this out, you’re going to tell me what I need to know to save my club. You’re going to tell me everything, or I swear to God, I’m going to make sure I fuck you up in more ways than one.”
Owen blinked again, desperate to swallow, and I watched as the giant Adam’s apple in his throat fought to fall and rise again.
“Good boy,” Drew whispered sarcastically before he slowly began to slide the gun out of Owen’s mouth. Owen gasped for air as soon as he could, his head rolling forward and backward as he tried to breathe. “Now talk.”
Drew released him, and Owen’s whole body fell forward, and he struggled to land on his hands, his limbs so shaken, sore, and unsteady.
“Marsh…” Owen spluttered, the word barely recognizable when more blood dripped out from his parted lips. “The Mayor wants rid of the MC completely. Gone.”
“Now tell me something I don’t know.”
Owen’s breaths grew faster, his head lifting as he tried to look up at Drew through bloodshot eyes. “One of the Hounds fucked Walsh’s wife.”
I felt Rubin lock up beside me, even as my own shock rocked through me.
For a moment, I thought he was going to launch forward with his own set of questions, or even beat the shit of the vile man himself for talking about his mom that way.
Rubin hated his father, but his mom was a different story.
Tightening my hand around his, I pulled him closer to me, prepared to hold him back with all of the strength I had left, but he squeezed my hand instead, a small nod making his head bob as though telling me he had this under control.
I wasn’t sure I would have had the same restraint.
“Who?” Slater asked abruptly, his unused voice catching, making him clear his throat.
Owen groaned roughly, exhaustion kicking in and his body starting to shake from the bullet wounds and hits.
“I don’t know who, and that ain’t a fucking lie.
All I…” He coughed, more blood falling free.
“All I know is that he’s had it in for The Hounds for a long time, and this was the last straw.
If you think I’m the cancer in this club, you’re even more naive than any of us realized.
Walsh has eyes everywhere. Every-fucking-where.
He’s got The Navs putting targets on your backs every day. None of you are safe.”
“What has Walsh got on The Navs to have their loyalty?” Jedd asked.
“What?” Owen coughed again, his body bouncing. “You think a guy like me knows that shit?” He started to laugh, the sound a mixture of terror and hysteria kicking in. “C’mon.”
Drew’s hands balled into fists by his sides. “And what did Walsh have on you to gain your loyalty, Owen?” he asked coldly.
“He had my hatred for you, and that was enough.”
Drew’s knee rose, hitting Owen under the chin and sending his whole body flying backward until he was laid out on the floor like a star-shaped sacrifice.
When Drew moved to step over him, his feet straddled on either side of Owen’s hips, he looked to his father, and his face turned impossibly colder.
Eric shook his head slowly, answering some silent question the rest of us couldn’t decipher from one look alone.
When Drew dropped his gaze back to Owen, he let out a long stream of breath from his cheeks.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned since getting out of prison, Sinclair, it’s that letting hate make all your decisions for you is like walking yourself to your own slaughter.
You’re proof of that. Here you are, lying beneath me, waiting for me to just stick a bullet in your head and relieve you of your duties.
Your hate for me is something I’ll never understand—”
“You’ve made a mockery out of this club,” Owen hissed, his teeth clenching together.
“But it was my club to make a mockery out of. Not yours. A club born from my father’s name. A club built by the man standing beside me now. And I’ll be damned if I let a weasel like you dictate to us what the fuck we make of the Hounds on our backs.”
Owen stared at Drew, his chest rising and falling rapidly, all his words stolen or lost.
With one last glance at Slater, Jedd, and Eric, Drew began to lower himself down until he was hovering over Owen, with one hand pressed against his chest, while the other reached into Drew’s boot and pulled out a knife.
“Hold him down, boys. It’s time we cut the club out of him.”
Slater and Jedd both held down an arm each, descending on Owen like vultures on road kill.
He’d fucked them over, and they were more than happy to be a part of the cost of his betrayal.
It took the first cut of the knife into Owen’s flesh for my mind to realize that Rubin didn’t need to bear witness to this.
Tugging on his hand, I held him to me as the sharp bowie knife slid under the layer of flesh at Owen’s shoulder.
The blood hid the hideous yellow-white of the fat and muscle under the tissue, but my eyes stayed glued to the slow peel of the pink flesh that had The Hounds printed into it.
There was nothing I could do to hide the screams from Rubin, and I felt him tremble just for a second before his back went straight and his eyes focused on something behind me.
Owen’s wails of pain matched every slide of Drew’s knife as it cut through flesh.
His legs kicked out, and blood oozed and slid over the surface, making the floor of the training room look like a butcher shop, but I still couldn’t drag my eyes away from the scene.
Not until I felt a vibration rise from Rubin’s pocket.
Moving slowly, he pulled the phone out, the source of light now making his face glow as we both glanced down at the screen.
Mom Calling…
I didn’t need to tell him that answering was a bad idea. Another round of Owen’s deafening screams seemed to ignite the air around us and draw our gazes back to the center of the room where Jedd took a swing at Owen’s face as he tried to buck Drew off.
“Ayda,” Rubin whispered after a second, holding the phone out to me.
Glancing down at the screen my heart froze. There was a text message from Rubin’s mom on the screen. It wasn’t long, and it wasn’t detailed, but it was enough to make my breath catch.
Cops and ATF dispatched to The Hut, Rubin. If you’re there with your friend, please get home NOW! Your father is out for blood.
Rubin and I looked at one another as another scream pitched from Owen and rang around the room with an almost deafening tone.
“Drew! We’ve got trouble headed our way.”