Tortured Souls (Rebels of Sandland Book 2)

by Nikki J Summers

  “What do you mean, all of us? You didn’t stay the fuck away, did you? You’ve done nothing but get into my face since I came back. Goading me, hurting my girl, making me fucking angry.” I took a step forward and Jensen flinched and moved back. He was scared of me. Good. He fucking better be.

  He shook his head and chuckled sarcastically.

  I’m not here to tell jokes, you fucker. Get to the point and stop pissing around.

  “All of us were told to avoid you. I didn’t say we all listened.” He glanced down to his father. “He warned me, Chase, he even warned the fucking company.” He said the last part using air quotes to let us know exactly what sort of company he meant. Most likely the same businessmen who’d sold Alec Winters down the river and royally fucked him over when he couldn’t wash their dirty money anymore. “They’re probably the only ones that did take the order on board.” He concentrated his stare back on us. “Lucky for you, they listened. You wouldn’t be standing here today if Dad hadn’t put a ring of protection around you. You’d be right there alongside Brodie in that graveyard or rotting in a shallow grave somewhere. That’d probably be more fitting for you though, shitty king.”

  “That’s enough!” Don banged his fist down on the table, then pointed his finger right into Jensen’s face. “You need to watch your mouth.”

  Funny. Seemed Daddy Lockwood wasn’t too happy about the truths spilling out. But I wasn’t done. I needed to know everything.

  Jensen grimaced and pushed himself off the desk.

  “I’ve been watching my mouth for the last twenty years, Dad. I’ve had enough.” He turned to face me. “You want to know why you didn’t get any text messages?” He cocked his head then carried on, not waiting for my response. “It’s because we were told you were untouchable.” He took a step towards me. The motherfucker was getting cocky in the spotlight. One more step and I’d knock him out again. “And you know what happens when we go against his wishes? ... That.” He pointed over to Chase who was still clutching his cheek.

  Don shot out of his chair, sending it spinning to the wall on its wheels. “I told you to leave it alone. I didn’t think I needed to specify which one of them to stay away from,” Don said, backtracking. His statement made no sense.

  “Oh, but you did, Dad. You made it very clear after we were told to withdraw our statements about the fight that we shouldn’t have anything to do with Mathers. No contact, no talking, don’t even acknowledge he exists, I think were your exact words.”

  I felt Harper’s distress like it was my own. The flippant way he was talking about the fight and what’d happened back then was like prising open a still very delicate wound for her. A wound I wouldn’t let them infect with their filth.

  “And why was that?” she asked, speaking up in a small voice next to me. Her voice may have been quiet, but her presence drowned me like a tidal wave. She was the strongest woman I knew, and yet, I was beginning to second guess my decision to let her come. She didn’t need any more stress. She’d been through enough.

  “Don’t get me wrong, princess,” Jensen said to Harper, making me want to rip him to pieces just for using that name for her alone. “It was an accident. But there are certain… things Dad wanted to keep buried. Isn’t that right, Dad? It wouldn’t look good if you got dragged into a court case, and that’s what you were faced with, wasn’t it? Or did I hear it wrong all those years ago?”

  Don went to speak, but I jumped in. I needed to hear the truth. Not some garbled riddle from this punk. I was done with all this dancing about.

  “Spell it out for me, Jensen. Pretend I missed a lot of school, you know, through all the bullying, and I need things explained a little more than most.”

  Don glared at Jensen as I mentioned the bullying. Was he surprised that his offspring had turned out like him? He shouldn’t have been. Everyone knew what cowards the Lockwood boys were.

  Jensen laughed.

  “The bullying! You know, we didn’t pick you because of what you wore or how bad you smelt. We didn’t even pick you ‘cos of the whole living-in-your-own-shit story that went around in school. I picked you.”

  He scowled as he stared from me to his father and then back again. Then he looked over at his brother and said, “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t want you to hear about it like this.”

  “Just say what you’ve got to say,” Chase replied, sounding as fed up with this whole farce as I was.

  “Oh, I will. I was about four years old,” he said, smiling like he was telling us some kind of heart-warming childhood tale. “I couldn’t sleep one night, so I came downstairs. Mum was out with one of her friends. She hadn’t been here to put us to sleep and Dad being Dad had just sent us off upstairs to put ourselves to bed. I couldn’t rest though. So, I crept downstairs to get myself a snack.”

  He glanced at Don with a wicked grin.

  “You had company that night, didn’t you, Dad? She wasn’t the usual woman you liked to invite over when Mum wasn’t around though. This one was older. Rougher. She swore like a sailor and didn’t give a fuck. She wasn’t scared of you either, but then I guess she held all the cards, didn’t she?”

  Don sank heavily back down onto his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing, but the daggers he secretly shot Jensen’s way didn’t go unnoticed.

  “I don’t know what you think you heard, son, but I can assure you whatever it is, you’re wrong.”

  “Am I? Really? After all these years, you’re going to go with that? Do you think I didn’t do my homework? I know everything, Dad.” Jensen looked smug, but from the things that were whirling around in my head, he had no right to be.

  “I’d suggest you stop right there if you know what’s good for you!” Don shouted.

  We all stepped forward. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to let Don put a stop to this. I needed every gory detail.

  “I want to hear this.” I glared at Jensen to continue.

  Harper clung to my side protectively as the others stood firm beside me. I braced myself. I wasn’t stupid. I knew exactly what Jensen was getting at, but I needed to hear it from him. Don just grabbed a bottle of whiskey out of the bottom drawer of his desk, twisted the lid off, and knocked it back.

  “She said she had files with a solicitor. Told you that if anything ever happened to her or her grandson that those documents would go public and you’d be ruined. Your family, your marriage, your business. The whole lot. She’d expose you for the liar and cheat you really are. You offered her money to keep quiet, and she took it. Said she needed to get clothes for the boy, and seeing as you’d been the sperm donor it was only right you donated some cash towards it.

  “I watched you, Dad. I heard you sorting out the paperwork for some sort of trust fund. Not much, but enough so she could put food on the table. You called him the bastard, but she referred to him by his name. That’s how I knew it was him.” He nodded at me. “He was my bastard brother. And that’s why I chose him. That’s why I bullied him so hard in school. I wanted him to kill himself. That was if I didn’t kill him first. He was gonna ruin us. Break Mum’s heart and destroy us all if I didn’t get to him first.”

  The fire that scorched inside of me suddenly engulfed my heart and I almost cried out in pain. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t want to believe it.

  Don banged his bottle onto the desk, sending sloshes of whiskey tumbling onto the polished wood, but Jensen didn’t let him get a word in. He wasn’t finished yet.

  “Don’t even try to deny it, Dad. I heard you talking about paternity tests. That woman had you nailed to the fucking cross and you knew it.”

  My stomach dropped and the blood boiled in my veins. Harper wrapped her arms around me to hug me and buried her face into my chest, groaning out in her pain for me, but I couldn’t hug her back.

  I was numb.

  Paralysed.

  Disgusted.

  “My nan.” Was all I could manage to say through the spiked ball lodged in my
throat.

  “That woman will be the death of me,” Don hissed.

  “That’s all you can say?” Jensen turned his fury on to his father. “I tell them he’s your son and all you care about is that woman draining you of your fucking money.”

  “He didn’t give her shit.” I snapped, defending my nan. “And don’t worry. I don’t want a penny either. I’m ashamed to think I came from the same gene pool as you. You disgust me.” I glared at Don, but he couldn’t look at me. Instead, he addressed Jensen like I wasn’t in the fucking room.

  “Your mother doesn’t know any of this. I’d prefer it if it stayed that way.”

  Jensen gritted his teeth and looked at Chase. I didn’t know what he was waiting for. Permission to shred the pieces of my life a little more?

  “Why would I want to rip her heart out? You’ll do a good enough job of that yourself. You’ve probably got half a dozen bastards out there walking the streets of Sandland.” He walked over to Chase and they hugged. I heard Jensen say sorry as he held his brother. They’d grown up in a fucked-up household, but at least they had each other. I’d had no one.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Don looked over at me now. Harper dropped her arms and turned to stand in front of me, like a lioness defending her pride.

  “And you didn’t do anything to help him either. Have you any idea what he went through in school? What they did to him? They should be locked up for it.” She bristled with hate as she addressed Don and then the brothers. She was seconds away from launching her own counter attack, I could tell.

  “Your brother would be in there too then, princess,” Jensen added, looking over at her with a sly, sadistic smile. I don’t know how he could be from the same flesh and blood as me. He was as far removed from my world and my morals as a slug was to a reptile.

  “And he’d deserve to be,” she shot back, holding her head up defiantly. “Cruelty like that shouldn’t go unpunished.”

  “Is that why you’re with him? To make up for what Brodie and I did?” I went to move towards him, but Harper stopped me.

  “I’m with him because I love him. He has more compassion, more warmth in his little finger than you have in your whole body. He’s kind, caring, smart, funny. He puts others before himself and he treats his friends better than most families treat each other. He’s the first to stand up for others. He’s decent and honest and…” She took a breath to try and calm herself down. “And I’m so fucking glad he didn’t end up here with you. He might not have the money or the Lockwood name, but I’m thanking my lucky stars for that. He is everything and you are nothing. You’re the ones who missed out, not him.” She pointed at Don as he scowled back at her from behind his desk. “You don’t deserve a son like Brandon. And he doesn’t deserve to have a cold-hearted bastard of a father like you.”

  I fucking loved her. And in that moment, I wanted to get her as far away from the vileness of the Lockwood family as I could.

  “Yeah, he’s so great. That’s why he did that to my brother’s face.” Chase piped up like the little bitch he was.

  Harper went to grab for my t-shirt, and I knew right away what she was doing. She wanted to expose my scars and justify why I’d acted the way I had. But I didn’t need to prove myself to anyone.

  “It’s all right, babe.” I put my hand over hers to soothe her. It broke me to see how much sadness and love she held in her eyes. I took a breath to clear my fogging thoughts and stared at the streaks of piss stood behind us. “I don’t need to justify shit to you, Lockwood. Any man who puts his hands on a woman deserves everything he gets. And bullies? Let’s just say karma does have a name and its Brandon fucking Mathers. I’m proud of my name, of who I am. And if you ever come near us again, I won’t stop like I did tonight. I don’t want anything to do with either one of you.”

  I turned to the sperm donor, sitting there like the fucking lord of the manor. The man had done nothing for me growing up. We’d lived in poverty; we’d had fuck all. My nan could’ve fed us for a week on what he spent on a single pair of shoes. Probably have some left over for a treat, an ice-cream, or something that the rest of the kids I knew growing up took for granted. He might’ve given her something to help pay the bills, but it wasn’t because he had a conscience, it was because my nan had an insurance policy against him, and he’d do anything to keep his nose clean.

  It hurt that my nan hadn’t told me any of this. But if she had, and I knew I was his kid, would it have made a difference? Maybe not. If anything, I’d have probably rebelled even more, been more pissed off with the world. I guess she was just protecting me in the only way she knew how. With blackmail.

  “If I could pick anyone to be my father, you’d be the last on the fucking list. Charlie Manson has more paternal instincts than you do. Probably do a better job with your family too.” I gave him my signature grin.

  “I left you alone,” he hissed. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  This guy was shit at excuses. I was surprised he’d gotten away with it this far.

  “You blocked me out. Made it like I never even existed. You weren’t doing the right thing. You were taking the coward’s way out. Everyone has a price though, hey, Don?”

  “It wasn’t about the money.”

  Who was he kidding?

  “It was always about the money, that and your reputation. I mean, what would the rest of Sandland say if they knew you’d been screwing a fuck-up like my mother and got her knocked up? I’ll bet you even got her hooked on drugs too. Was that it? You both snorted coke and fucked like rabbits behind your wife’s back. Were you so high you forgot the condom? I thought your sons were the biggest dickheads in Sandland, but you? You’re the worst. You’re scum. The filth on our shoes. The dirt at the bottom of the barrel. Your best friend gets caught doing the same shady shit you’ve been pulling for years and you run and hide like a fucking weasel. You’ve got no backbone, and I can’t respect a liar, a cheat, and a fraud like you.”

  The words came tumbling out, and yet I felt like I hadn’t even scratched the surface on all the reasons why I hated this man so much. He was reason I got bullied. He was the cause of all the misery in my life.

  “All you have in you is hate.” Don sneered at me as he spoke.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Hate for you.”

  “Then I suggest you get out. I’ve got nothing more to say to you. There’s nothing for you here.”

  I didn’t want anything he had to offer. I was struggling to even breathe the same air as him.

  “Don’t worry, we’re leaving. But if I were you, I’d come clean to your wife soon. She already thinks I look familiar. I’d hate for her to hear about your sordid affair from someone else.”

  Don shot up from his seat and slammed his hands onto his desk.

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “If I did, you’d know about it,” I said, feeling the anger surge forward. “She won’t hear it from me, but I can’t vouch for my nan. She’s getting awfully forgetful in her old age. I can’t be held responsible for what she tells people when she’s out and about in Sandland. Oh, and if anything ever happens to her, it’s me you’ll be hiding from, not the fucking solicitors.”

  I stalked over to the door and slammed the fucker open. The door handle banged off the wall and probably left a dent in the plaster, but I didn’t care. I held Harper’s hand as we headed for the door. I needed to get out. Being stuck in this building was stifling me. I felt like I was drowning in the sea of lies and deception that he’d built around himself.

  I wanted no part of it.

  I was done with being used, lied to and deceived. It wasn’t the life I wanted for myself or Harper.

  Tonight, I’d heard truths I didn’t particularly want to know about. But I wouldn’t let it break me. That family was nothing to do with me. I had my nan, my boys, and I had my girl. My little warrior. The one person in my life who accepted me for all my flaws and loved me anyway. Not because she had to, or because
we had some time-honoured bond, but because she wanted to. She saw something in me that no one else did. I saw something in her too. I saw my future.

  I wanted to make a life for us. To go out to work and come home knowing she was there waiting for me. I wanted a family, kids, screaming arguments over who left the toilet seat up or forgot to wash the dishes, which would be all on me, and then fucking awesome make up sessions afterwards once the kids were in bed. I wanted holidays by the sea and weekends spent making memories. I wanted all of that, not just because I’d never had it growing up, but because I knew there wasn’t anyone else in the world I wanted to be with more than her.

  “I’m so sorry, Brandon. I’m sorry everything is so fucked up.” She stopped next to her car and threw her arms around me.

  Before, I’d wanted to set this place on fire and spark up a cigarette in the flames as I watched it burn to the ground. Now, I felt tired of it all. I wanted to get away. Focus on the good in my life. Move forward and live. With her.

  “It’s not that bad, babe. I have you.” I kissed the top of her head and she sighed then peered up at me.

  “You’ll always have me.”

  Her words made my aching heart ease slightly. And looking down at her, I realised my own family would never suffer the way I had. I’d treat her like a queen and my kids would grow up knowing how a real man takes care of his wife.

  “Brandon Lockwood. Who’d have thought it?” Zak piped up, and his words made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in revulsion.

  I pointed my finger at him and gave him my last threatening look of the night.

  “You ever call me that and I’ll break every one of your fingers. You’ll never D.J. or type on a keyboard ever again.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, but he knew I was serious. I’d let that one slide, but next time, he’d regret it.

  “I’ve gotta say, mate, I loved the Charlie Manson reference.”

  I grimaced but held myself back. I hadn’t said anything in there for his entertainment. But right on cue, Ryan butted in. He could read me like a book, and he knew Zak was skating on thin ice.