I fist my hands at my side as her wails pierce right through me. My entire body locks tight. I can’t move as I watch Renita cry into my brother’s chest. Her small frame sagging in defeat.
Hanging by a thread. That’s what we’re all doing.
“Come on, ladies, we’ll get you settled outside.” Lane steps forward, takes hold of the wheelchair, Sandy not bothering to look up as he wheels her out of the room. I wait until Seth has the other two out the door before clearing my throat of the emotions.
“Jesus, I didn’t mean for my words to come out like that.” Rocco rakes a hand through his hair, heaves out a breath and locks his hands behind his neck before turning the volume back up on the laptop.
I keep my thoughts to myself. Rocco will straighten it out on his own.
I turn up the volume just in time to catch Gabe continue his interrogation.
“A name, you pathetic pissant. I don’t have time to be fucking around with a crooked man who made a vow to honor the law then turn around and break it. My family needs me, fucker, now start goddamn talking or the first cut I make will be taking off your little boy balls.”
I let out another chuckle, this one full of humor at the sound of Gabe’s pissed off voice, my hands gripping the edge of the table as the room suddenly begins to spin.
I grind my back teeth as Gabe shifts behind Robert Kelly, the corrupted warden. I can’t help but wonder if Ellie is still strapped down and unable to move the same way Robert is. The thought alone tightens a knot in my stomach, and my vision blurs.
“I don’t have a name. I’m sorry, alright. Whitney and Shadow tricked me. At first, I did what they asked; in return, Whitney was supposed to pay me. There was no communication between her and me for a long time. She’d visit and leave. Then, out of the blue, a woman named Sadie shows up with Whitney and pays me off.”
I peer into the slime ball’s face. The man doesn’t look old enough to have graduated college, let alone holding down a prison as the warden. I want to tear him into pieces — money-hungry lying piece of shit.
“I see, and there was no mention of Ellie Wynn?” Gabe asks, flicking the blade open and poking the point straight into the man’s balls.
My own tightening when specks of blood seep through his jeans.
“Stop. Stop. Motherfucking stop, please. I’ve never heard of an Ellie Wynn, nor did anyone bring up kidnapping a woman. I might have agreed to draw up false release documents, but I would never agree to what you’re accusing me of.”
I scoff. “Liars can smell another liar even from this far away,” I mumble. His bullshit stinks.
“Why would I accuse you when I have proof you’re a lying cockroach? You let two women into a federal prison, one so she could meet with a criminal and suck his dick while plotting to kidnap a woman who happens to have disappeared. Did you know they planned on kidnapping my five-year-old granddaughter too? Did you know the other woman, the one you were fucking over your desk promised you money she didn’t have? You padded your bank account, asshole. Committed a shit ton of wrongs against people I love. That doesn’t sit well with me.”
I bow my head, shaking it angrily toward myself. How stupid I was to think I had this handled.
We already knew Whitney was afraid for her life once Shadow found out there wasn’t any money for her to negotiate a deal. What I didn’t realize was how badly or for how long she wanted to fuck me over for what I did to her.
“Where’d Gabe find the proof?” I slur, shaking the fuzz from my vision while Gabe drones on about the proof. I can’t quite make out what he says for some reason. Or maybe my ears are just too plugged up from Ellie’s screams earlier. Fuck if I know, but suddenly I feel like I drank an entire bottle of scotch instead of the little bit I did.
“Security footage from the prison, he found it in the warden’s safe.” Well, hell that certainly clears my head. Fucking corrupt little prick thought he dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s.
“Let’s not forget the murder you covered up that Shadow committed. Either you tell me where Shadow is, and who is helping him, or I’ll cut these off and then turn evidence over to the state. Wonder how the inmates will take it when they have their warden to do with as they please. The choice is yours. Not going to ask you again.”
The sight of Robert’s jeans darkening as he pisses himself out of fear lifts a corner of my mouth. It won’t be long until he shits himself. I don’t want him scared; I want him in agony the way Ellie is. And, I want a goddamn name to find her before I pass out from exhaustion.
“The motherfucker doesn’t know what fear is. He sure makes a lot of sense as to why Whitney came crawling back though, doesn’t he? Time was running out for her quicker than we thought.” I slur my words again, and my eyesight becomes distorted enough I have to lean in closer.
“Whitney was a lot smarter than we gave her credit for. Too bad for her, in the end, she was fucking dumb. Bitch got what was coming to her. This guy will, and so will Shadow and whoever is helping him. We won’t rest until they are dead, Logan.” Out of my periphery, I notice the tic in Rocco’s jaw.
Gabe flicks the blade closed, his hand whipping out, cracking Robert in the jaw. His skin splits open with a gaping wound, blood dripping down his face as he screams from the impact of the butt of the knife.
Releasing his hold, Gabe steps back, allowing the man to fight against his restraints to free himself.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing here? It wouldn’t matter if I told you or not, you’ll kill me anyway. You don’t think I know who took me? You and whoever is behind that camera are a bunch of fucking criminals who are as corrupt as me. I know how the minds of criminals work. I deal with them daily. Go ahead and turn me in. Go ahead and kill me. I have security cameras all over my home. Wouldn’t surprise me if the FBI isn’t looking for me as we speak.”
Gabe’s eyes narrow as he looks into the camera. Face uncoiling from his dangerous look and softens as if he can see me. I feel him telling me to hang on. That he’ll get here as soon as he can, that after all I’ve been through, my revenge and Ellie’s suffering isn’t going to end this way. That we’ll find her and get her back.
“Hmm. Not all criminals are dumb enough to get caught. If you know how our minds work, then you know all your security cameras were shut down by a trustworthy source. It appears there was a power outage in your area for fifteen or so minutes. You don’t have evidence on anyone, Robert. But you have a name, and you’re going to give it to me, or you’ll be squealing like a pig by the time I’m finished breaking bones.”
Another blow, this one comes down on his kneecap. I hear the bones snap, crackle, and crunch. A smile stretches across my face at the same time; my vision becomes so damn misleading; I start seeing two of everything.
Shaking my head for what seems like the hundredth time, my vision clears, and I take a seat, slumping in the chair.
“Cole something, I don’t remember his last name. I swear it.” Robert shakes his head. His jaw is going slack, eyes filling with what looks like remorse.
“See, that wasn’t so hard now, was it? Ellie was kidnapped by a man you let out early because of good behavior. A man you covered up the murder he committed in your fucking prison. We have the evidence to prove it. You are guilty as charged. Meaning, it’s time to end your life.”
Dizziness whooshes over me, and a warning blares in my ears as I slump farther in the chair. All I hear is a man’s tortured scream.
“The fuck, Rocco, did you put one of those pills in my drink?”
Chapter 9
Seth
“You good over there?”
I glance to the side at Rocco who is sitting in the passenger seat, bouncing his leg as I drive down the street.
With a firm nod, I remove my shaky hand from the console and place it on the steering wheel.
Rocco’s witnessed me shake a hell of a lot worse than this. Night tremors, day tremors, the middle of the afternoon tremors. Nighttime was t
he worst; the body shakes that would end me drunk on my ass so bad that I’d wake not having a clue what the fuck I’d done or who I’d done it with.
Stupid and idiotic is what I was. Thinking some bottle and chicks were going to cure the chaos in my head.
Hell, after a month or so in rehab, I’m still there. With the alcohol anyway. The nightmares that have my entire body trembling until I’m sweating my ass off one minute from cold sweats, breaking out in fever the next, the undeniable inability to talk about the shit that fucked me up in the first place.
“If you’re worried about me not being able to hold a steady aim, don’t be.” If I can stand and watch Rocco pour scotch into a glass, I can shoot a gun to save the woman who unknowingly helped me decide to enter rehab.
“Not worried about that, worried about you.”
I should ask him the same question.
“I’m going to make it. It’ll suck the life out of me until I do, but I am not going back to being haunted.”
Jaw clenching, anger like a stick of dynamite ready to blow, I recall the pain on Logan’s face, the holding onto hope in Ellie’s eyes as a nightmare from hell that’s gotten away with what he’s done and did for far too long.
Shadow needs to die.
I’m hoping it doesn’t come to me having to kill Shadow because his death belongs to Logan. But I will if it means getting Ellie back. And the intoxication from it will be better than any drunken night I’ve had.
Out of habit, my hand stays in the numbers ten and two positions on the steering wheel as I round the bend in the road just like Logan taught me when he took me out on a two-track in the middle of nowhere to teach me how to drive.
“Hold it like that until you pass driver’s training. After that, I don’t give a shit if you steer it with your knee. And don’t get behind it while drunk or I’ll beat your little punk ass.”
Shaking my head at the memory, I grip the steering wheel tighter and grind my teeth, that craving of liquid burn I desperately want hisses like fire through my veins.
The thing is, I crave taunting a man who deserves it a hell of a lot more.
Revenge. It’s bittersweet.
“The question of the day should be, 'how’d you come up with that duffle bag of explosives sitting in the backseat.’” I come to a stop, twist around, eyeing the black bag on the floorboard behind him.
The second Logan dashed upstairs, Rocco told Lane and me a plan he had rolling through his head about how the three of us would take matters into our own hands as soon as we got a name from the warden. We just needed to get Logan to take a pill so he wouldn’t fly out of the house before we had everything set. The only way we knew we’d get it in his system was to offer him a drink.
I had a plan of my own the minute Rocco said the three of us. There was no way I was letting Lane come. He’d done sacrificed enough for me in his life, same as Logan. Besides, he has Lexi to raise.
“Wasn’t me. It was Gabe who sent it. One of Lazaro’s guards dropped it off. There’s enough shit in there to blow up half this town.”
I smirk, Gabe and his family. Always one step ahead when the going gets rough. And, that’s what this has been for Logan. Rough. Years of carrying guilt on his back for something he didn’t do. That’s my brother for you though, sacrificing without complaint. The man always had a conscious even when he claimed he didn’t.
There’s something about the word sacrifice my troubled mind used to hate. Every time I heard that word, I wanted to hide inside myself.
No one should have to sacrifice who they are, who they were meant to be for the sake of someone else, but my brothers have. Especially Logan. I’d seen it with my little boy eyes. I heard it, the threats — the greediness encouraged by drugs.
Vile and I’d turned to something similar.
Logan would never admit this, but in my eyes, his hardest sacrifice was the day he married Whitney and sacrificed his happiness for a woman he had never spoken to before.
His reason made me hate that word along with Whitney and Shadow all the more. The thing was, it made that sibling love for Logan grow. And after finally meeting Ellie, I understood why he did it.
There’s something about the woman that can make you want something when you never thought you’d find it again.
For a man like me, sacrificing came few and far between. The one time I did, it was the final straw that sent me over the edge and dropping into the unknown.
For every drink I’d ever swallowed, every dark thought that ran through my mind when I chugged that poison like it was water, I never once gave a shit what it was doing to my body. I only wanted to numb my fucking brain, to stop the screaming in my head. To shut up the voices of many. To put me in a coma so the alcohol would shut everything down and leave me numb.
It didn’t take long for me to get to the bottom and park my ass there. I sunk into the depths of hell, weighed down by a loss without the possibility of ever getting it back. Life had no meaning to me anymore.
For years, I’ve consumed myself in grief, guilt, and so much hatred in my veins I’m surprised they haven’t busted wide open to release the toxic and bleed me dry by now. I’ll carry those emotions for the rest of my life. The one that tears a hole in my gut more than anything is the loss of the only girl who meant a thing to me. But my loss isn’t what has me doing this. It’s not what has me walking into some other kind of unknown.
I’m here because, for the first time in my life, I can sacrifice for my brother, and I don’t plan on losing my life in the process. Not when somewhere between meeting Ellie and seeing how she made Logan happy and thinking ‘fuck, I want a piece of happiness for myself.’
The day I decided to seek help, was the day I’d reached the thin, tempting line, I’d been wobbling across for far too long. That bitch was ready to snap in half, and it would have if I’d kept on. Worse, the sacrifices Logan made to protect my sorry ass would have been for nothing because pouring that shit in my mouth was the chicken-shit way I chose to die.
Wasn’t about to do that to him or any other member of my family. What I am going to do is park my ass in front of Shadow and teach him the ways of fighting like a man.
Sweat drips from my forehead and into my eyes. It doesn’t do me a damn bit of use to wipe it away; it’s pouring out of me. It isn’t from fear of not knowing what the hell we’re walking into; it’s from wanting a damn drink so badly that if I wasn’t about to pay Logan back for everything he has ever done for me, I’d have stopped and grabbed a bottle.
I let out the breath that feels like I’ve been holding since Lane and I walked back into the house and heard the name Cole Bates. Along with it comes an internal chuckle as I recall how I decked Lane in the face, knocking him on his ass when he tried stopping me from backing out of the driveway. Once this is over, he’s going to be mad as hell both Logan and me banged up his pretty-boy face.
One-stop at a gas station and a few Benjamins later, I had an address for Cole Bates.
“You know Lane is going to show up. Wouldn’t doubt it if he isn’t on his way already. We need to sneak in, find Ellie, and get your ass out before he gets here. We get her, and you take her home, come back and do whatever it is you have to do to blow this fucker up.”
Rocco’s jaw locks tight as I repeat his words of action from earlier. I can hear the memories of a night I’d much rather keep buried eating at his brain.
“Ellie’s alive, Rocco, don’t let your mind go there, man. Don’t.” I can’t think about that night, or I’ll lose my head before I get inside.
Bloodshed becomes profound in the confined space the closer we get, rebounding off the windows and crawling up my spine.
Pressure coils in my gut as I put the rental truck in park. My phone vibrating non-stop as I turn it on, set it to vibrate and tuck it into my pants pocket. I don’t have to look at the damn thing to know its Lane. Goddamn him.
Removing one of my guns from the back of my pants and grabbing another I’d stashed under
the seat; I cut the engine, the two of us climb out and Rocco heads toward the front with his bag while I make my way toward the back of Cole’s house. Eyes on alert searching for signs of being ambushed as I stay low alongside the bushes up the immaculate drive and scale the side of the house until I reach the back.
My hands tremble as I peer through a window, ready to blow someone’s head clear off their body. Goddamn, the place is silent and dark. Too quiet for my liking.
Alarm bursts in my chest when I hear someone behind me, I whip around, ready to pull the trigger on both guns when I swing around only to come face to face with Lane.
“The hell? I could have shot you!”
“Yeah, and I could beat your ass for what you did. Now shut up and tell me if the plan is the same.”
Before I can get a word out, an earsplitting scream comes from above us.
“Fuck, I don’t know what the two of you have planned, whatever it is, carry on and let me get Ellie.” There’s a distinct nervous bite in his tone; it drowns out along with everything else when the sound of another scream sends a rushing jolt through my brain.
A bomb of rage goes off inside my stomach. It pulses through my body, leaving me no choice but to kick open the back door — finger itching to shoot anyone standing in my way.
Another piercing scream slices through my heart. What seems like forever only takes a few seconds for us to find our way to the front of the house where Rocco is already halfway up the stairs. Trailing behind him, we haul ass down a long hallway to an open door and a sight that makes my blood run cold.
Who I assume is Cole lays in a pool of blood by the door. My pupils widen, my heartbeat slows, and my blood flow hits my upper extremities when I see Ellie on the floor, her legs spread wide. Shadow is kneeling behind her. I lose my shit when I hear the hiss of a zipper.
I take several silent steps forward. The only thing on my mind is saving Ellie.
Untwist Page 9