by Rye Hart
Dylan’s eyes were trained on me. He was watching me closely, trying to comfort me with his gaze. “Give it up, Coyote. You lost this round. Give her to me and you have my word, I’ll let you live,” Dylan said dangerously.
“Like hell I will. You just gave me more incentive to get her to the meeting place. You took down all my men. That just means I don’t need to share the money.”
I felt my desperation grow as I realized Coyote had nothing left to lose. As we got closer and closer to the truck, I felt my heart beating faster and faster. Dylan knew he was playing with fire and I could see the desperation in his eyes. He just wanted to pull the trigger and take Coyote out, but that would risk my life.
The shard of glass in my sleeve cut into my hand, reminding me it was there. I swallowed, remembering Dylan’s words from my dream.
‘Promise me you won’t give up.’
I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the worst. Finally, I pulled away and jabbed the shard of glass between Coyote’s legs, managing to hit him in the crotch. He let out an animalistic scream of pain and I twisted out of his grip and grabbed his gun.
Everything became a blur. I brought the gun down on his head hard, using it as a makeshift club. He hit the ground, clearly having lost consciousness. I stared down at his still body, shaking and wide-eyed.
Dylan ran over to me and threw his arms around me, pulling me close and tucking me against his chest. I shook and dropped the gun in favor of wrapping my arms around him.
“You came.” I whispered.
“Of course I did. Jesus, you were so amazing, Alex!”
I laughed shakily and shook my head. “I just had to see you again. There’s something I knew I had to tell you and I wasn’t going to die before I got to say it.”
“What is it?” he panted, looking down at me.
Tears welled in my eyes and I cupped his face with shaking hands. “I love you, Dylan.”
His eyes widened but he pulled me closer, pressing his lips to mine in a show of passion. When he finally broke away, he smiled down at me and whispered the words I so desperately wanted to hear.
“I love you more than you could ever know.”
Epilogue
We ended up leaving Coyote there. Dylan’s men quickly captured him and zip tied his ankles and wrists before putting in an anonymous call to the cops. It wasn’t like they were going to wholeheartedly investigate the slaughter of a violent biker gang. They ended up ruling that it had been caused by a dispute over drugs or money and closed the case without much event.
Dylan took me home after that and I was rather thankful that he didn’t lecture or ask too many questions. I didn’t want to tell him the things Coyote had told me. They were awful and I didn’t even want to repeat them and I was afraid that Dylan would commit murder the next time he saw Coyote.
After that incident we were happy. I experienced what true happiness was like. We lived together in Nashville and I eventually introduced Dylan to my mother. She fell in love with him instantly and I couldn’t have been happier. I grew closer to my mother as an adult. She asked me about dad on occasion, but I just told her I didn’t know and that was the truth. I had no idea what happened to my dad. After everything he’d put me through, I wasn’t really interested in maintaining a relationship with him.
Soon after the kidnapping incident, I decided to go to school for social work. The threat of being sold into human trafficking had woken something up inside of me. I never wanted anyone to face the horrors that had been described to me, so I made it my life goal to help others in that situation. I hoped to eliminate human trafficking completely. It might have been a lofty goal, but it was what I wanted and I wasn’t going to stop.
Even though I decided to go back to school to help people, the gang was a part of who I was now. I told him I wanted to be a part of it and I meant it. The day after Coyote was arrested I went to Dylan’s tattoo artist and I got the scales tattooed on my shoulder. I was marked as his for the rest of my life and I’d never regret it.
Dylan and I are expecting our first child. We were married the previous spring and life couldn’t be better. If anyone had told me a year ago that my happily ever after would include the leader of an outlaw biker gang, I’d have told them they were nuts. But here I was. Dylan was my world and I was his. I finally had my fairy tale ending.
The End
Copyright © 2017 Rye Hart - All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on life experiences and conclusions drawn from research, all names, characters, places and specific instances are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. No actual reference to any real person, living or dead, is intended or inferred.