by Lewis, R. J.
I felt someone at my front and a hand grabbed at the cloth over my eyes. It was pulled down until it pooled around my neck and I blinked my eyes open, distressed for a few seconds from the light overhead.
Ryker stared at me right in the eye, barely a foot away from me. He looked menacing, like the crazed man that’d come to the house hours prior to take Heath away. He didn’t look bothered that I was here. He just looked a little annoyed, glaring over at Matt.
“He’s your nephew?” he then asked in a hard voice to the middle-aged man I’d passed once. “Why the fuck didn’t you say so?”
The man sighed. “Boy, I got to have eyes and ears everywhere. Matt’s weak. He’s only ever been good at observing. He can’t put a bullet in someone’s head like you. Which is why she’s here. He couldn’t take care of it.”
Matt dropped his head, looking shamefully down at the floor.
I tore my eyes away from them and looked at Heath. He was seated in the middle of the room with his hands bound behind his back. They’d stripped him down to his briefs, and there were bruises everywhere, all over his solid upper body. His skin gleamed with sweat under the dim light bulb. His face was bloody, his lip busted up. His dark eyes stared right into my own, and I saw the fear that lurked within them. He looked completely taken aback by me.
“Let her go,” he demanded. “She hasn’t done anything! Fuckin’ hell, just let her go!”
A large, bearded man circled around him with a knife in one hand and an… apple in the other. He casually cut it up and ate while looking around the room like he was watching an entertaining play. When his dark eyes landed on mine, he smirked at me. He was incredibly unnerving, and the fact his hands were bound with rags – rags that had fresh blood on them – told me he was responsible for hurting Heath.
I shut my eyes. This was really happening, wasn’t it? Nobody was going to rouse me out of my sleep and tell me it was some nightmare. No, it was really going on. I was going to die with him here, and it was all going to be in the hands of Ryker. Fucking, piece of shit Ryker. And what would become of Kayden?
I lost balance standing up, nearing the verge of collapsing.
“She’s hurt,” Heath went on. “Matt, you dog little cunt, you’re gonna die for this! You piece of shit! You’re going to fucking die!”
“Muzzle the fucker,” Ryker demanded the bearded guy.
He threw the apple on the ground and punched Heath across the face, causing blood to sputter from his mouth.
“Your brother’s a real dick,” he told Heath. “I mean… damn, he’s cold, ain’t he? Torturin’ you and hurtin’ you and not even giving a fuck. That’s leadership right there. You really shouldn’t have fucked with his lady. Fuck, that is some serious soap opera shit right there.”
“Enough,” growled the boss man. “Ryker, take the gun and just end ‘em already, huh? I’ve had enough of this shit. We’re gonna have to burn the cabin down after this. It’s unsalvageable.”
Ryker nodded like this was all very basic stuff. He pulled out the gun from his hand just as the bearded man did too.
“I’ll take care of it in case you can’t,” he told Ryker. “I mean… you really think you can put a bullet in your own blood?”
“Fuck off, Reaper, I can do this. Just stand back.”
When the guy didn’t, Ryker pointed to where Matt stood and hollered, “Stand there, Reap!”
Reaper finally did as he was told and stood between Matt and me. Looking down at my arm, he hissed, “Fuckin’ hell, woman. You got some serious balls.”
I ignored him and focused my attention on Ryker. He stared down at his gun and glanced at me. He could see the pleading look in my eyes. I was begging him not to do this. He couldn’t kill Heath. He was his brother. Despite everything they went through, blood is blood!
I shook my head at him. The tears fell mercilessly down my face, loosening the tape around my mouth. I couldn’t be away from Heath. Surely he knew that. Surely he cared for me still! Where was the man from the motel? The one who held me to him like he was desperate for affection? I needed him.
My heart broke as he tore away, clearly unaffected by me. He stood in front of Heath and set the gun to his forehead. Heath breathed hard.
“Don’t fuckin’ do this,” he whispered to Ryker.
“See you in hell, bro,” Ryker said.
I shut my eyes as the gun went off.
Nineteen
Heath
“If you were so spectacular,” I said on a sneer, “then why didn’t she wait for you?”
The protruding vein at the base of his throat twitched. His eyes hardened and just as much as I was hurting at hearing what he was saying, I realized he was hurting worse. Fuck, I hadn’t come here for this.
“Ryker –”
“Fuck off and don’t come back again.” He stood up and made to leave.
“Ryker, I’m sorry,” I quickly apologized. “Look, man, I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk. Please, just talk. Tell me everything. We can work this out! Remove her from the picture for two minutes and just talk to me, man. You’re my brother.”
“We’re not brothers,” he snapped back as he took a step away from me. “And there’s nothing more to say.”
I watched as he made to turn, and I frantically said, “Your baby was born three weeks ago. Went to the hospital just last week. He had a burning fever, and we were fuckin’ scared, Ry. I got…I got a photo here if you want to see.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. With shaking fingers, I pulled out the photo and slid it across the table.
I felt like I’d been wound up tight. I was so fuckin’ tense, I just needed him to turn away and see clearly that I was here because I wanted to fix things. I begged whatever fuckin’ God there was up there – if there even was one – to just give this fuckin’ guy some clarity. To make him understand that hating me wasn’t going to fix this. We were brothers. We had an obligation to each other to sort whatever it was out.
Ryker slowly turned back around and glanced at the photo. I always knew the kind of kid Ryker was. Before his illegal bullshit, I’d seen the light in him. I knew it still existed. I knew he cared for his son. If he cared even a shred for him, he’d try to make this right.
Slowly, he took a seat back down and picked up the photo. His hand shook a little at the newborn image of Kayden.
“He looks like you,” I told him, my voice nearing broken. “And I fuckin’ love that, man. I love that he looks like you, Ry.”
Ryker swallowed hard and whatever anger there was in him washed away from his face. He sniffed once and looked up at me.
“What do you want from me, Heath?” he asked, sounding tormented more than anything. “Fuck, I can’t have you sit here and rub this life of yours in my face.”
“I’m not!” I adamantly told him, leaning over the table. “Ryker, I’m trying to fix things.”
“What have you come here for?”
I opened my wallet again and pulled out a piece of paper. I unfolded it and slid it across the table in front of him. Ryker looked down at the unreadable gibberish across the page.
“What is this?” he asked.
I glanced around me, making sure the guards were far enough they couldn’t hear. “I took care of Ricardo, and I found a bag of money in the house he was in. There was a notebook buried in the bottom of the bag. I only found out about it when I counted the money for the first time a month ago.”
“A notebook,” Ryker repeated thoughtfully, concentrating on the words across the page. “This is… this is the notebook we wrote together. Ricardo managed the money, and he made me write this shit down.”
“I know,” I replied, nodding. “I recognized your penmanship. They’re encoded, aren’t they?”
Ryker slowly glanced up at me. “Heath, this is a very dangerous thing to have in your possession. If anybody found out, you’re a dead man. You need to get rid of this.”
“No,” I snapped back. “No, Ry. See, I took a ma
n’s life, and it doesn’t matter, because the streets will continue to be infested with that gang’s bullshit. Do you think Kayden deserves to grow up around this shit? Who says another person isn’t going to come around and demand money from us all over again? Just because I killed one of them it doesn’t mean I’m forgotten. They’ll come around, and Kayden and Allie aren’t going to be safe. They’ll never be safe until they’re gone.”
“What do you want me to do, Heath?”
“I want you to figure this out. You’ve always been better at this than me.”
“Better at what?”
“Planning.”
I wasn’t stroking his ego saying that. It was true. Ryker could effortlessly think on his feet. He was smarter than me. I may have been good with my fists, but that wasn’t going to get me far this time.
The wheels were turning in his brain. He flipped through the pages, reading the gibberish like it was perfect English.
“What you’re asking for,” he started, looking back up at me, “is big. Very fucking big, Heath.”
I nodded. “I know, bro. I know.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t know. There’s no quick fix when it comes to boss and his men. If you want them to struggle, then you gotta have them turnin’ against each other. You gotta make Boss doubt his loyalty to everybody in his crew. Which means you’re going to have be a sneaky motherfucker.”
“I can do that.”
He eyed me closely, frowning a little. “This book is filled with addresses. You picked up money from a house, then that means you’ve invaded one of their cash houses. They probably think this is a one-off. But if you strike again, making sure there’s a bit of time in between, they’ll lose their shit. Knowing them the way I do, Boss will start violence for the sake of it. He’ll tear the town apart, breaking bones and demanding answers. And the power you’ve got is knowin’ he won’t get any.”
I paid close attention, nodding as he spoke.
“We hid them in the walls. Broke ‘em down, stuffed the money inside, and painted it over again. You’ll know what they look like when you see them. Brand new white coat of paint, bit of bubbles on the surface – that’s how we marked them.”
Holy shit, Ryker had been involved in some serious shit. He looked almost relieved explaining this to me, like it was nice to talk honestly with someone.
“But you can’t do this on your own,” he then said. “You need someone with you. A look out. Somebody you can trust with your fuckin’ life, and don’t you dare say Allie. You gotta keep her out of this. If I’m going to do this with you, Heath, then I need you to never open up about this conversation. You never tell her what you’re up to, because, believe me, you’re going to be busy trackin’ men and studying these houses. You’re also gonna need a spot to hide the money. And she can’t know.”
“You want me to lie to her?” I asked, bewildered by that. I couldn’t just lie to her.
“I want you to protect her,” he answered firmly, those eyes boring holes into me. “Protect her because this is dangerous. You eradicate the Syndicate and you’re ensuring her and Kayden will never be in danger again. Besides, why the fuck would you want her to know that you’re up no good? What if you fucked up and they find out about you? You give someone a little bit of information, and they won’t be safe. That’s just simple logic.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all, but he was right.
“If you’re really going to do this,” he then added, his voice lowering, “then you need to also accept how much it’ll change you. Because you will change, Heath. Something bad will always happen. Nothing ever goes according to plan. And you might lose parts of yourself. For your fuckin’ sake, hold onto everything good inside of you so you could look after my boy.”
His eyes went red and he shed one tear, staring gravely at me with the most broken expression I’d ever seen in him.
“I promise, Ryker,” I told him. “I’ll always be a good father to him. I promise.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I exhaled shakily and leaned further in. Resting my hand on his shoulder, I gripped it hard and said, “Now tell me what the plan is.”
*
The shot went off and an angry yell sounded out. Boss hunched over and gripped his thigh hard. Matt went to grab at his gun when Reaper pressed his own against his head.
“Don’t think about it, fucker,” he barked at him. “Your head is next, anyway. So I’d be prayin’ about shit. Like what a fucker you’ve been.”
Bewildered, Allie opened her eyes and stared at me. I gave her a reassuring smile and turned to Ryker. He let out another gunshot, this time in Boss’s other thigh, and Boss collapsed on his knees.
“WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. “You deceiving little shit!”
Reaper chuckled in the corner while Ryker took slow steps toward his boss. The look of indifference on his face rattled me. He had detached himself, the way I learned to do when I had to face something awful.
Boss reached for his gun, and when he pulled it out, Ryker shot him in the hand, sending it straight to the floor. He screamed again, holding onto his bloodied hand with watered eyes as he stared up at Ryker. He stopped in front of him and set the gun to his temple.
“Don’t you fuckin’ do this,” he pleaded. “Don’t! After everything I did for you, Ry, you don’t get to do this –”
“You didn’t do anything for me,” Ryker interrupted. “You fucked up my life. I walked straight into hell and you took advantage of me.”
He shook his head. “No, no. I was going to make you lead –”
“I didn’t want to fucking lead! I wanted my life back! You obsessed about turning me into you, and all you ended up doing was putting a target behind your own back! I’ve got you now. I’m going to kill you –”
“You don’t get away with it! My men will kill you for this!”
Ryker scoffed, a sick smirk forming at his lips. “No, they won’t. You seem to think loyalty depends on how much money you can give someone. That’s not the case. The second their leader falls and the money runs dry, they’ll move the fuck on.”
Boss knew he was right. He swallowed hard as the sweat began pouring down his face. “No, no, Ryker. No. Just listen to yourself! Don’t fucking do this –”
But the gun silenced him, and Boss fell back, limp and dead, his upper body hitting the wall. That dark moment of silence passed. He’d killed him. Just like that.
“You want me to take care of cupcake over here?” Reaper asked, nudging the tip of the barrel against Matt’s head.
Ryker shook his head. “Nah, man, take him outside.”
“Come on, princess, hold that piss in until we’re outside, huh?”
Reaper led a whimpering Matt out the cabin, and by then Ryker had dropped the gun and was untying my rope. My gaze was fixated on a stunned Allie as she stared between us and the dead man with confusion on her face.
“Sorry for Reaper takin’ it too hard,” Ryker said quietly, staring at the bruises littering my body. “We had to make it look real.”
I barely cared. I hurried to Allie and quickly untied her. I peeled the tape off her mouth and took her into my arms. She buckled from the pain in her arm, and I had to stop to look down at it.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Give me something to wrap around her arm, Ry.”
“Use the cloth around her neck,” he replied.
I took it off and wrapped it over the gaping hole in her arm. It looked god awful. She’d bled a lot. “You’re going to get some help soon, baby. They’re coming, okay? They’re coming.”
She was a mess, crying and shaking her head. “What is going on? I don’t understand.”
“I’m going to explain everything. I promise.”
She stared up at me and put a hand to the side of my bruised face. “I thought you were going to die.”
For a second there, with Ryker looking down at me with that look of hatred in his eyes, I kind
of thought so too. I wondered if he’d taken me for a fool and had concocted this whole thing just to take me down, especially when he showed up at the house earlier than we’d intended.
“It’s alright,” I told her, kissing her softly. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Matt ordered the hit on you,” she then said, sniffing back her tears. “He said he tipped the police off for Ryker’s bust first, and then when I called him asking where you were, he realized what you were doing. It was my fault you almost died –”
“Don’t,” I cut in. “Don’t blame yourself, Allison. Nothing was your fault.”
“Fuckin’ Matt,” growled Ryker from behind me.
And before any of us could say another word, a gunshot sounded from outside. Fucker was dead. I half-wished I’d been the one to kill him. That little fucking snake had been the cause for so much trouble.
“He’s gone,” I said firmly. “They’re all gone now.”
“I called Marko after we took you,” Ryker replied. “He lured the guys at the cash house. It’s probably blown to smithereens by now, which means they’re probably scrambling. And once they find out nobody is going to lead, they’ll scatter like cockroaches. Nobody knew the connections Boss had. They’ll never be able to bring in the supply to keep the crew afloat. I doubt they’ll show themselves after they’ve heard what’s happened. There’s going to be some serious heat from the police. Hire a good lawyer if it gets to that. But as it stands, the Syndicate are no more so long as you keep on top of it.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“And once everything is pinned on me, nobody will be suspecting you of anything. You’re just victim to a jealous ex-boyfriend.”
I didn’t respond for a moment. This was the part of the plan I didn’t want to happen.
“Nobody will be after you,” I told him. “You don’t need to do this, Ryker –”
“Police are already on the way,” he cut in, passively. “It’s already done. I’m doing this to protect you guys. It’s important everybody knows you had no part in any of this. You say you were about to get killed when I heard the police coming around. That I did all of this on my own. That I turned against Boss in order to take over the crew. And now that I’ve been found out, you say I’ve fled. Understand?”