Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
AYDA
The silence was deafening in the cab of the truck. Even with Owen’s grunts of pain as we bounced over potholes and turned corners, or the growl of the big Hemi engine, and even the standard whir of asphalt passing under the tires… the silence was pregnant, pointed, and significant.
We all knew where this was headed.
The three of us understood that this would end in death because it had to.
Me? I was eerily at peace with this knowledge.
I had this strange and unfamiliar urge to see the light bleed from his eyes and the lack of emotion attached to that meant that I was scaring myself a little.
I should feel something more, something dark, something like remorse, but the only thing I was close to feeling was justification.
This man had the power to destroy the man I loved, and possibly a child I didn’t know whether or not I was carrying. I couldn’t let that happen.
I wouldn’t.
Glancing over at Drew, I knew he had to be feeling the same rage and fury burning through him as he ate up the miles between The Hut and our final destination.
Those beautiful blue-green eyes were trained on the road, but his hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were pale.
The creak with the gentle twist of them against the leather alerted me to the fact that it was taking everything in him not to turn around and pummel Owen every time the asshole groaned in pain.
Drew knew where he was going, but having never been to Owen’s home before, I found myself surprised when we turned from the county road and onto a small parcel of land that was surrounded by trees and open fields.
In the back corner of the cleared land was a well-kept little house that had been recently painted.
The quaint country feeling that sang of ‘family’ wasn’t what I’d expected from Owen, but he’d proven that none of us really knew him at all.
His home also proved that he obviously had a lot of extra income, which many of the other guys in the club didn’t have.
“What the hell is this?” I asked quietly, leaning forward to look a little closer as I caught sight of a small barn holding at least two more bikes and a Camaro.
The barn was deep enough to hide a treasure trove, but I couldn’t allow myself to think about that just yet.
My question was pointless considering what we were currently looking at.
Where he’d gotten the money from, I couldn’t answer, but my gut told me it hadn’t been honestly, and it had cost the club more.
Harry had been right. Harry was always right.
The realization made me feel nauseous.
“Are you seeing this?”
“Mmhmm,” was the only sound to come from Drew, and he somehow managed to make that sound menacing as he turned the truck in a circle and brought us to a jerky stop.
I finally forced myself to glance back as Owen grunted at the sudden halt of the vehicle.
His big body had rolled into the front seats, a flap of his tattooed skin catching on the edge making more blood seep from the wound.
He looked pitiful in his broken state, but that didn’t reflect in his expression.
When his watering eyes rose to meet mine, they were filled with a smug satisfaction because he knew what I was thinking and feeling, and he thought that he’d won.
He hadn’t.
Not by a long shot.
In order to win a fucked-up game like the one we were playing, you had to be alive to claim your victory.
Owen wouldn’t make it to the end of the day.
He already had one foot in the grave, and we were standing in the daylight with the dirt on the shovel, more than ready to fill in his unmarked grave and piss on his remains.
I turned my gaze back to Drew who was staring straight ahead, his lip curled in disgust. I could only imagine what he must be thinking seeing all of this shit playing out in front of him, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask while Owen was stroking his own bloody ego.
“Do you want me to search the place?” I asked, my voice hard and missing any form of emotion, unwilling to feed that smug satisfaction more than I already had.
Drew blinked twice in quick succession, turning his head my way. “Let’s get him inside first. I want to make sure it isn’t rigged.”
I nodded in agreement and pushed myself from the truck, circling around to meet Drew on the other side.
I pulled the back door open to get to Owen out, and I barely blinked at the bloody mess of gore that was growing below him.
This Dodge was never going to make its way back to its owners, but that seemed like the least of our problems right now.
We had a storm brewing back at The Hut, and we were running out of time.
Owen wasn’t a light man. His indulgences came in many forms, and though Drew was stronger than most, he didn’t feel the need to be gentle with his former brother, so getting Owen out of the truck became less of an issue.
Drew simply dragged him out like he was road kill, the thud of his body hitting the hard-packed dirt and grass echoing with a sickening crunch of something breaking, teasing another satisfactory scream of agony from Owen.
I tried to help, but Drew did most of the heavy work by dragging Owen’s grunting body over the lawn.
It was only when we reached the bottom of the small porch that I came in useful for him.
Once I’d rushed up to unlock and open the door with the keys Drew had plucked from Owen’s pocket, I propped open the screen door with a flower pot and darted back down to help pick up Owen’s boot-covered feet.
We managed to haul him up the half-dozen steps together, and then into the house before we dropped him carelessly to the floor, ignoring his cry of pain as another curse fell from my lips on sight of the huge flat screen on the wall.
The man had no shame.
He also hadn’t worried about ever being caught.
“Motherfucker,” Drew cursed under his breath, pacing the living space we were now standing in.
His face tensed, along with every muscle in his body.
Sometimes I wasn’t sure he remembered I was there when he was like this.
Recently, more than ever, I was seeing flashes of the man he’d been hiding from me, warning me about, telling me to stay away from since before the day we got together.
He scared himself, that much was clear, but what he had to realize was that he didn’t scare me.
Not even when his eyes glazed over and his jaw set in that way which told me he was standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump into his own ocean of wild rage.
Drew’s movements were slow until he came across a rock type ornament sitting on a rustic set of drawers. He picked it up in his hand to feel the weight of it. Then at once, he spun and launched it at the giant flat screen as hard as he could.
The unit shuddered on the wall as a spider web of cracks appeared on the surface.
The ornament dropped to the highly polished wood floors with a heavy thud and rolled away only seconds before a large click sounded, and the whole television pitched forward, landing with another crash.
I probably should have been shocked by the sudden move, but the entire thing had been satisfying to watch.
The odd-sounding electrical buzz that came from the inside of the television was even better.
Owen was a lot of things, but he wasn’t smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Whether upset or smug, he just stared up at his living room ceiling, his face twisted in pain and body curled in on itself as more blood seeped from the various wounds on his body. “Make you feel better, asshole?”
Drew didn’t look at him. He just bent to pick up the rolling object and bounced the weight of the rock in his hand a few times, his attention focused on it as he slowly turned and began to walk toward Owen.
Drew never looked up or spoke. All he saw was the rock in his hand, even when he stopped in front of Owen and let the silence linger for a few intense moments.
Suddenly, Drew curled his arm, lifting it back and smashed the rock into the side of Owen’s already bleeding head, sending him crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Drew sniffed casually, looking back down at the blood-soaked rock in his grip. “Yeah. It really did.”
Owen was out. For how long I wasn’t sure, but there were no groans of pain coming from him as he laid prone on his fancy blood-stained rug bound like an animal. I glanced back up at Drew before looking back to the rest of the house.
“You think his new friends will know to come out here?”
“I don’t feel like I know anything anymore, Ayda,” he answered robotically. Glancing up at me, he swallowed and straightened his shoulders. “We shouldn’t waste time. Are you sure you’re okay here? I know what you’re going to say, but I need to ask… just one more time. Before shit gets…”
He didn’t need to finish.
I crossed the room eating up the small distance between us. It was so much easier to stand in front of him and say what I needed to say than talk across the distance that was gaping in the silent room.
“This was the one side you’ve hidden from me up until now, but you don’t need to do that anymore. I’m right here. I’m fine, and I’m utterly on board. I need you to see that.”
His eyes searched mine. “I see it,” he said softly.
I nodded with satisfaction, my hand brushing his lightly.
“Now, what do we need to do here so we can deal with this asshole and get back to the club?” I glanced over my shoulder at Owen again and tilted my chin to the back of the house. “Do we need to make sure there’s nothing here that implicates the club before he dies?”