by C. M. Marin
“And about a year ago, I went to Vale’s cabin because the old man―unfortunately for him―was living too close to where we had just found the best spot to deal with our very lucrative business. Took him out that day, along with his sons, Billy and Connor,” he snarls my dad’s name.
A brutal pang of sadness sends a sting to my heart hearing him say so bluntly how he downright killed them. Those three men were my family even if I didn’t know it at the time.
“Of course, I couldn’t pass up the chance to have a look around the place. It was unlikely the old man kept anything club related there but still, it could have been my lucky day.”
It will be hard to get rid of that image of him and his men idling around warm corpses like there’s nothing more natural.
“And there it was,” he carries on with his little story, unaffected by the sickness that must be showing on my face by now. “Pictures of Mary and that son of a bitch, and the letter where she tells him what you now know, too.” He snorts. “Let me tell you something. I was fucking happy to have been the one pulling the trigger on that piece of shit five minutes before. My first thought was to call CJ and tell him to end you too. Problem was, the boy was obsessed with you. So much that it reminded me of me and that lying, cheating bitch. Couldn’t get her out of my head even after she left. So I decided to keep to myself what I learned and play this another way.”
Play this. He really sees the whole thing as a game. To him, people are pawns he can play with, not caring about the consequences on their lives.
“I told CJ to come back because I needed all the men I trusted for our new business. Could have handled shit without him, but I wanted you to suffer if I couldn’t kill you. Even if I could have convinced CJ to kill you, dealing with a body in another state is tricky,” he explains to me as though making banal conversation. “It was easier to make you believe he was dead. I told him he could go back to you in a while, but I thought he’d get you out of his system if I kept him away long enough. In the meantime, I had to find a way to make you come back in town so I could make you disappear. But before I figured it out, you came back on your own. The time for revenge had finally come.”
A new surge of terror has sweat literally flowing down my spine.
There’s no way I’m getting out of this place.
“But then you had to go and fuck the Chasers’ president.” He dramatically throws his arms open. “How’s that for shitty luck?”
I’d personally call it karma but then again, I’m not brave enough to say that aloud.
“I didn’t have any other choice but to bet on your desire to know your real father to lure you into my club. But then Lilly came back after twenty-five years. Twenty-five damn years!” His voice raises through his laughter suddenly filling the room. It fades quickly, though. “Things didn’t turn out the way I expected, that’s for damn sure.”
I don’t give my consent to the acerbic snort leaving me, but once it’s out, it’s too late to take it back. Rod’s face hardens with a homicidal look, letting me know I’ve screwed up in an irremediable way. That’s why I should lower my gaze and shut the hell up, hoping it’ll be enough to tame his violent urges. But I don’t. At this point, I decide I can as well go ahead and tell him my point of view about all this. I might not have another shot at it after all.
“Lilly isn’t responsible for me not wanting to have anything to do with you. I made my decision the very minute Colin told me who you were saying you were. I had a wonderful father, thank you. As for Connor, I only want to know who he was through my new family because unlike you, he was a good man.”
Stupid. I’m stupid. There’s such a dark hatred drawn on Rod’s features when he strides toward me that my heart twists and jumps in my chest at the same time. I won’t make it out of here alive. I just won’t.
The back of his hand slamming into my cheek registers only after my head snapped to the side with a violence that almost makes me forget the pain lancing through my cheekbone.
“Then you won’t mind meeting him soon, will you?” he taunts me in an eerily calm tone, as though he didn’t just fly off the handle and miss to knock over the chair I’m prisoner of.
He moves back again, but there’s not the slightest relief quieting my heartbeat this time. Instead, its pace gets furious as Rod slowly reaches for his gun and directs it at me.
I close my eyes. Nate’s face is floating behind my eyelids, and he’s all I want to see. I’m waiting for death to come, and Nate’s soft eyes and playful smile, those only reserved for me, are what I want to see last.
“What’s this!”
The fulminating bark is one I should have expected to hear at some point since the man it belongs to is the one who brought me here, but a rush of both surprise and adrenaline pops my eyes open at the echoing sound of it.
Colin is standing inside the room, but he has barely crossed the threshold.
“Told you to stay with the guys,” Rod growls at him even though I’m still the center of his attention.
My own attention doesn’t stay on Colin for very long. My eyes tear themselves away from him to land on the barrel of the gun staring at me. I’m terrified of Rod pressing the trigger without me noticing. I’d be dead either way, but my focus still doesn’t budge.
“Why the fuck is she tied up, and why do you have a fucking gun aimed at her?”
Tears have started to damp my eyes. That’s the only reason why I don’t laugh at the indignation filling Colin’s voice. His eyes send daggers at his president. They’re narrowed so tightly that they almost look closed.
Ironically, a glimmer of hope awakens in me. Who would have known that at some point, Colin would appear like my only hope? Certainly not me. But maybe he is. Maybe he can try to talk Rod into letting me go. Or letting me live, rather. I’m not delusional enough to think he’ll nicely drive me back to the Chasers, but if Colin can get him to untie me, I’ll at least have a chance at trying to make a run for it.
“Not going to repeat every fucking detail,” Rod sighs as though he’s bored. “Bottom line, she’s not my daughter. I’ve known it since I wiped out the Vale’s. She’s Connor’s daughter. She’s theirs. And I waited for this day since last summer.”
Colin’s reaction is long to come as he seems to need some time to assimilate Rod’s admission. First his eyes widen, then his lips thin as his breathing gets audibly louder, and finally his mouth opens again to roar as he strides hastily to place himself in front of Rod.
“You’re fucking shitting me!”
I don’t know whether his move is intentional or not, but I enjoy the ridiculous feeling of reprieve that courses through me when I lose sight of Rod’s gun because of Colin’s body.
“You can have any bitch you want, so don’t shit your pants over her!” he barks back. “Now go back downstairs if you don’t want to see this!”
A shaky breath snakes through my nose. On the tip of my tongue sways a plea I’m seconds away from addressing to Colin. But even if I had been in any state to form words, Colin wouldn’t have left me enough time to do so.
“You fucking played me!” he yells, his large fists closed.
His back muscles are tensed with rage rolling off them, and I find myself praying for him to go as far as killing Rod before he can kill me. But before either man can prove if he’s enraged enough to kill a friend, a sound of shattering glass sweeps across the cabin I’m trapped in.
I couldn’t say where it comes from but knowing what it means has my tears threatening to spill as much as it strangely has some hope sneaking back in me.
That’s the Chasers. They’re here.
“What was that?” Rod glances over his shoulder toward the door.
“How would I know? I’m here,” Colin snaps.
Logical.
“Stay here,” Rod orders him like he didn’t tell him to go the hell away ten seconds ago.
My muscles lose their painful tension, my body sagging on its own when he shuffles heavily
away and out the door. But I tense right back when Colin swirls around.
“You’re one of them?” he asks harshly.
My mouth opens to answer, but the words get stuck in my throat. Would my origins be enough to erase whatever screwed-up feelings he has for me and push him to kill me? I honestly don’t have a clue. Deciding that it’s safer not to speak at all, I wait for him to either require an answer or replace Rod’s gun with his own. And as my eyes dive into Colin’s in search of a hint about whatever he’s thinking, I almost forget the upcoming tragic events the man I love is on his way to provoke. In these brown eyes I stare into, there’s nothing of the man I once agreed to marry. There’s nothing of the man I took so many walks on the beach with, my hand tightly holding his. There’s nothing of the man I confessed my love to countless times, too. Nothing. And it’s alright. The truth isn’t hurtful anymore. It’s just alright.
The awkward silence dies with another shattering sound that rings out way too close to my ears this time. My head swivels, and my blood pauses in my veins all over again.
This is it. And Nate doesn’t know I’m in here.
God…
The sort of large blazing ball that just broke through the window to come roll on the floor finishes its unbridled course against the wall. Thankfully on the other side of the room.
“Shit!” Colin curses, his sudden agitation proving to me that my mind doesn’t exaggerate what my eyes are seeing.
Flames have started to spread. Rapidly rather than slowly, they bite into the wood of the wall inch by inch. The entire room is made of damn wood. Walls, floor, beams. Everything is made of it.
A third window breaks somewhere in the cabin. Maybe even a fourth at the same time, but I’m not sure. What I do know is that I will only get out of here alive if Colin unties me. But when popping sounds resonate outside, he doesn’t spare me the briefest glance before he’s gone.
“No, Colin please! Please untie me!” I call out to his fleeing silhouette, stupidly hoping to somehow get to the man I knew before remembering that he was never real.
I guess even his obsession has its limits, because his footsteps thump on the floor as he scuttles away. Gunshots keep thundering outside, and I’m now so far gone that I wonder if taking a stray bullet wouldn’t be less painful than burning alive.
If I weren’t on the brink of an anxiety attack, I’d be laughing at how slim the chances of being trapped inside a burning house twice in the span of two months are. But the panic attack is growing inside of my chest in a spiraling whirlwind, and for what seems to be both a short and long minute, my focus stays solely set on torturing my wrists and ankles like the plastic bonds around them will magically melt away if I try hard enough to free myself.
“That’s your fucking boyfriend!”
The bonds are forgotten. The fire is, too. When my head snaps up, Rod’s face has this terrifying scarlet shade even though his voice lowers to a menacing, eerie growl when he goes on. “You knew what he was planning, didn’t you?” he spits out as if being outraged that I didn’t tell him. “He’s dead,” he promises. “I’m going to kill him and your new little friends, but what about I start with you?”
My lungs shut off, air suddenly refusing to follow the path meant for it. This time, there’s no one here to divert his attention from me. When he raises his gun, I know I’m going to die. My eyes don’t get enough time to water because they close right before the gunshot blasts out.
It’s when a tear damps my cheek that the fact I’m still conscious registers.
My eyes open to see Rod’s body lying face down on the floor. And even though his eyes are as open as mine, he’s unmoving in an irremediable way. Blood is seeping from his head, creating a widening puddle of red liquid around it.
The moment a fast-moving silhouette takes form in the corner of my eye as it hurries toward me, I flinch while tearing my gaze away from Rod’s dead shape. But relief barrels into me with such a power that I could cry from it.
“You good, little sis’? Can’t seem to avoid trouble, can you?” he jokes, not acting surprised to find me here.
I’m not sure how he knew I was here and what all happened, but I don’t care right now.
That’s the first time Jayce uses that nickname. Despite the circumstances, it warms something inside me. He’s my family. My brother. It’s still hard to believe that I have a brother.
“I’d feel better if you talked to me,” he commands softly as he crouches in front of me, his gaze drowning in mine.
“Thank you.” I release a breath. “I thought he’d kill me this time. We need to get out of here. Do you have a knife?”
Looking down, he takes in my ankles. “Fuck. Fuck, I don’t have one. But Nate does. Nate!” he tosses a booming shout over his shoulder.
Panic is already back to attack me, along with the lack of air. “He’s in here?” I shriek the question.
“Of course he’s in here. You’re in here,” he retorts matter-of-factly while his gaze roams across the room, most likely taking inventory of the desperate situation we’re in. “Or do you think we just love wandering around a house we set on fire?” he jokes again.
If I get out of this place alive, I’ll make sure to teach him how to recognize appropriate moments to joke. Because this moment is very far from appropriate.
“But whe―”
A violent coughing fit keeps me from getting my question out, but Jayce answers it as though I voiced it.
“He searched downstairs, I searched upstairs,” he explains summarily while standing up and striding to the door. “Nate!”
“Be careful, someone might hear you.”
“They’re all dead. Just your ex-fiancé who’s missing.”
What? But he was here a few minutes ago. Oh, no. What if Nate ran into him?
“It’s hard to breathe,” I say as I try to suck in a deep gulp of air.
In the next breath, Jayce is back in front of me. “It’s because you’re panicking and breathing in too much smoke. Try to relax, it’ll be okay.”
A loud, crushing sound that makes me jump out of my skin doesn’t help me relax at all.
Jayce enfolds his body around mine all the while roaring again, “Nate! Here, now!”
There is a thick impatience in his voice, but there’s also worry. He won’t admit it to me, but he starts to worry about Nate as well. I’m actually so afraid that I don’t stare anywhere but at the door when Jayce pulls away from me, not even bothering to have a look at what he protected me from. Something fell somewhere behind me, that’s all I know. I’m not sure whether it’s normal that the fire is propagating so quickly, but this place is well on its way to burn down. And although I’m still held captive by these damn bonds, the reason why Nate isn’t answering Jayce is the only thing that sends dread to tumble deep into my stomach.
“Go,” I manage to blurt out through the paralyzing fear. “Please find him. You need to find him and get out. It won’t hold much longer,” I tell him as he’s waiting just as I am to see Nate cross the threshold. When he doesn’t even acknowledge me, I go on. “Jayce, you―”
“Shut up and listen.” His eyes dart back to me as he cuts me off sharply. “You think either of us is going to leave you behind?” he almost seethes. “If I have to die to make sure you walk out of here, I will. My entire family was killed, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do. Now I’m right here, and I’m not losing my sister right after I met her. We clear?”
My tears start to leak, the emotion too high for me to stay brave.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Good.”
“But Nate might be hurt.”
“Cam!”
Both our gazes find Nate as he jogs into the room.
Thank God.
“Thank fuck. What took you so long? Give me your knife,” Jayce groans at him, stretching out his arm toward him as he joins us.
Without answering his question or even looking at him, Nate crouches beside me and sli
des a knife out of his boot before handing it to him. Even when Jayce gets down to work, starting with my left ankle, Nate’s sharp attention stays exclusively on me.
Happiness at seeing him unharmed is so strong that I’m even more angry with those tight bonds. I’m dying to wrap my limbs around him and never let go. The touch of his palms framing my face to examine me closely isn’t nearly enough.
A muscle of his jaw ticks when his fingertips brush the probable red mark left behind by Rod’s punishing hand.
“Nate! Jayce!”
It’s Liam’s voice that barks their names just before footsteps seem to rush up the stairs.
“Stay back, we’re coming!” Nate shouts back, but Liam barges into the room a couple of seconds later, only stopping once he’s behind me.
“Take the papers on my lap,” I tell Nate.
After carefully fumbling with the bonds digging into the skin of my wrists, Liam releases my hands just as Nate slides the thin stack of papers into the back pocket of his jeans. At the same time, Jayce straightens up, and I realize that my four limbs have been set free.
Doing my best to quiet the wobbling of my legs, I stand up without wasting one more second.
Nate takes his cut off and adjusts it over my head. “Hold it in place.”
I want to argue when my gaze catches his bare arms, but I know I won’t win this one no matter how hard I try, so I comply and let him lift me up. If he wants to carry me out of here, I’m not going to argue about that either. We don’t have time for that.
Breathing under the thick leather is as much of a challenge as breathing air clogged with smoke, it seems. And the scorching air we trundle into isn’t helping matters. My arms twined around Nate’s neck are on the verge of strangling him, but the contact appeases me some as I pray for us to escape that inferno without running into any more unforeseen obstacles. And just as the possibility of us not getting the chance to leave that place at all brushes my mind, a wonderful wave of fresh air hits the few inches of my skin not covered by any piece of clothing.