Chapter 39 #2
Drew sucked in a breath and looked around Owen’s room.
“Can you search the place? Grab anything that’s loose.
Papers. His personal shit, laptops, passports, bank files, anything we can keep and search.
Photos… take those, too. I meant what I said when I told him everyone he loved was going to pay.
You take what you can, and give me ten minutes alone with him. ” He kicked Owen’s limp leg lazily.
I glanced down at the body and back up to Drew, nodding without another ounce of hesitation. Pressing my lips briefly against his, I took off and headed down the small hall.
Owen’s house was very boxy and compartmentalized, each room a square with one entrance and exit. I’d seen a lot of these style homes around, but it was the first time that one of them had felt this cloistering.
I stepped into the small kitchen first, throwing open drawers and cupboards, and pulling out anything that looked like it could be useful.
I found a small box under the sink, and I started piling the shit I found into it as the screaming in the other room began.
The sound wasn’t that reluctant howl Owen had been giving off in the training room.
This was pure, unadulterated agony that ran down to his very soul.
I took a small, steadying breath as the sound clawed through my body and tried it’s damnedest to trigger my empathy, but I stomped the inclination down again.
This animal deserved nothing but the pain that was being inflicted upon him.
He’d caused the deaths of so many of those I loved, and I wouldn’t allow my basic human nature to second-guess the way Drew chose to handle Owen’s death. Not now. Not in the twenty-fifth hour.
I worked diligently as the screaming continued with barely any breaks or breaths in between.
Anything I thought might be important was sectioned off into a paper bag for Drew to look at.
I found bills, mostly, but there were a few photographs in a junk drawer, along with a set of keys.
Then I hit the jackpot in the freezer when I opened up a box of frozen waffles and found his passport, a wad of cash, and what looked like a whole new identity.
I moved on to the dining room next, taking a laptop from one end of the table and dumping it and my small box into a larger file box he had sitting close by.
I was digging through a trashcan filled with scrunched paper when I heard another round of blood-curdling screams. There was a thumping that sounded like boots on the hardwood, and when I allowed my brain to process this, I had an image of someone going into a seizure.
Shaking off the image, I rose, dumping the balled-up papers into the box before I headed back into the hall and into one of the bedrooms. This room had so much shit stacked inside of it that it took me a while to get through the contents before I found an ancient metal desk tucked away in a corner.
I rifled through it carefully, dumping drawers on the floor, and pushing through the contents.
When I finally found a locked drawer, I headed back to the kitchen, the sound of gurgled pleading filtering through the house pushing me to move faster.
I found a knife and carving fork, and I took them back with me, forcing the thing open with as much speed as I could.
Inside this locked drawer was a set of hanging files, all of which had dates and signatures that belonged to none other than the Mayor himself.
In another folder, there were photocopies of what looked like a ledger, along with names I recognized.
I grabbed them all, no matter what they were labeled and moved on.
In the bottom drawer was a shoebox filled with club photographs. I took that, too.
I was on my way to the second bedroom when I made the mistake of looking down the narrow hall to the front of the house.
Blood was thick and viscose as it eased down the subtle incline toward the back of the house.
The liquid stained everything in its path a sickly looking black-red color, and without looking too hard, I knew that had to be arterial blood.
Owen was not long for this world now, and I met Drew’s eyes when I stumbled into a doorframe and dropped the box.
Crimson spray touched the sun-kissed skin of his face, and his beautiful eyes were cold and empty like a predator who’d been startled feeding on its prey.
I nodded to let him know I was fine before I bent over to pick up the box and moved to the bedroom.
There wasn’t much in Owen’s room. A few pictures. A few porn magazines. The only beneficial thing being a smartphone and an address book.
I only took a cursory glance into the bathroom, finding nothing but more porn and the usual toiletries, but I checked the linen closet and under the sink anyway.
The box was heavy as I made my way back to Drew and the wet choking sound of a man taking his last breaths. My adrenaline rose with every step I took, my breaths coming faster and faster as I stepped into the only room I hadn’t searched.
Drew wasn’t torturing Owen anymore. He was just crouched by the body; his bloody hands hanging between his legs while he braced his arms on his knees.
I moved quietly, dropping the box by the door before I turned to study the man I loved who was watching his unlikely enemy struggling to pull in his last breath.
“It’s time,” was all Drew said, the killer waiting to drop his ax. “Did you find any guns of his?” he asked me, eerily calm and in control as he stared at Owen.
I thought about the question and shook my head. Suddenly finding it odd that I hadn’t. “Not one. Give me five seconds.”
I darted back through the house and made my way into Owen’s bedroom again.
One thing I‘d learned when I’d been cleaning The Hut was that every single one of the men slept with a weapon within reaching distance.
I pulled all the sheets and blankets from Owen’s bed and pushed the mattress from the box spring, stepping forward to flip it on its side.
There was nothing under the bed, but I felt the weakness under my feet and immediately knew where I would find the weaponry I hadn’t thought to look for.
Dropping to my knees, I clawed at the edges, pressing down in random places until one end popped up. As I’d thought, there were three guns, as well as a hunting knife, a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, and another laptop.
I grabbed it all and headed back to the front of the house, handing Drew the .45 before dropping the rest of my haul into the boxes.
Drew made light work of rolling Owen over with his one free hand, placing him on his back with his face busted and twisted to the side.
He could no longer open his eyes, and as soon as I saw the harsh reality of his chest, I knew what had been going on while I’d been busy.
Owen was going to die, but Drew had made sure there wasn’t a patch of Hound-related ink on his skin when he went to his next life.
He was cut up like a butchered animal—only Owen was still somehow managing to draw in his jagged breaths.
He didn’t even look like himself anymore.
Opening up Owen’s hand, Drew placed the gun into his palm and wrapped Owen’s fingers around it as tightly as they would go. Then he pressed it against his head, making sure that Owen’s fingers were in place, just where they needed to be before he leaned over his former brother and sighed heavily.
“You don’t deserve this, but I’m giving it to you anyway,” Drew whispered.
“I never liked you, Sinclair, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love you.
You were a brother, which meant you were family, and I would die for family.
I would die for the patch on my chest. I would die for anyone who’d ever ridden by my side or behind me.
But you… you betrayed us in a way that will go down in club history.
You’ll be a lesson we’ll never forget. You’re a dirty mark on our memories, and you deserve to die in the cruelest of ways.
I want to gut you, Owen. I want to spend hours tearing out your organs, ripping your spleen out, and stamping on your heart because I decided when it would take its last beat.
” Drew exhaled heavily again, the obvious betrayal weighing heavy on his already burdened, strong shoulders.
“But I’ve already made an example of you.
I feel at peace knowing you won’t see another day.
Now, it’s up to you how you go out. Your final choice.
You have two minutes to pull the trigger and end your own life.
Once those two minutes are up, if you’re still breathing, I take you out the way the rest of the men would want me to take you out. ”
Owen’s breathing was a rasping sound, and he was struggling to drag in every breath he took, but the bastard smiled, revealing a chipped front tooth and missing bottom teeth.
The hand of his holding the gun twitched, as though he was doing his best to find the strength to lift it and take Drew out with him, but he had nothing left, just a trembling of his finger.
“They’ll... kill... you,” Owen choked, blood spilling from the twisted corner of his mouth. “Dead.”
“They’ll try,” Drew answered smoothly.
Owen’s eyes found mine, his nostrils expanding to drag in air. “You became... what you... hated.”
I felt my lips twitch, not in humor, but cynicism. The one man in the club who hadn’t tried to get to know me… and he really didn’t know me at all.
“You don’t know the first thing about what I love and hate.”
“One minute,” Drew whispered, not biting at Owen’s remark. “Make it count, Sinclair.”