First up, if she’d gone to look at the monitors, she’d know exactly who it was standing outside her door. And if she hadn’t looked, there was a reason for it.
Second, she didn’t sound right. Oh, it was her, there was no doubt in his mind about that – but she didn’t sound anything like herself. She sounded weirdly relaxed and cautious, but he heard something under that calm.
Terror.
“It’s me, baby,” he said, speaking around the lump of fear in his own throat, trying to sound absolutely casual and cool. “I‘m back early.”
A pause. He strained hard to listen; was that whispering? Then:
“I’m afraid that I’m not feeling great. I’m covered in sick, and was just about to get in the shower. Could we – take a raincheck?” Another pause, and then she said, “Is that OK, Zeke?”
And that was it; that was the third fucking thing that convinced him that Jolene might be standing mere inches away from him talking and breathing, but on the other side of that door, she was in serious trouble.
Brian had her.
“Oh, sure,” Silver said, keeping his voice as careless and carefree as possible. “No biggie, sweet thing. Feel better and we’ll catch up tomorrow, OK?”
“Yes,” she replied quietly. His heart ached and he longed to comfort her, knew that that was the last thing he could do right now. “We’ll do that for sure.”
He stared at the door for a second, hearing so much under her words that was unsaid, then turned on his heel. He was so angry at what she was going through alone in there, he wondered how he was still functioning and thinking straight.
“Zeke?” Jolene again, sounding heartbroken and small.
“Yeah?” he said, fighting to sound non-committal.
“I love you.”
And there was screaming, blaring red flag number four. She was going to die in there if he didn’t do something.
“I love you too, Jolene.”
It took everything that Silver had to turn around and walk back to the cage, but he did it. He had to do it, and he had to get in, and he had to drive away.
So that’s what he did; he gritted his teeth and he just drove away from the woman that he loved, swallowing that sour, sick feeling of helplessness. Then he stopped one street over and watched his house, watched for lights and for movement.
He waited for the right second to go in there and kill that motherfucker with his bare hands.
**
On the one hand, Jo couldn’t believe it when Silver walked away, got into the van and drove away from her, as cool and collected and disinterested as you please. Hadn’t she practically spelled it out for him that she was in serious trouble? On the other hand, he was safe and away from this psycho gun-toting ex of hers… and that was all that she cared about. On the other other hand, she was holding out hope that he was phoning Wolf and Scars and Ice right now, calling in some reinforcements in the form of some kick-ass ex-one-percenter bikers, and that he’d be back with a damn army to rip the door off its hinges and storm the place.
It might very well be too late for her when and if they got there – but she knew with everything that she had that they’d find Brian and make him beg for them to kill him. He was a dead man walking.
The thought gave her savage joy.
“Was that him?” Brian snarled, dragging her back to the bedroom. “The love of your life?”
Jo didn’t answer him: she had decided that the last coherent, conscious words she was going to utter on this earth were going to be ‘I love you’ to Silver Bennett.
She’d said the most important thing that she could possibly imagine – and now she was done talking. She had nothing else to say to this piece of crap.
“Huh?” Brian demanded as he threw her on the bed again. “Was that him?”
She smiled brilliantly into his ugly, awful face, taunting him, and she watched him turn purple with rage. That was when Jo realized that for the first time in all the years with Brian, she completely and totally had the upper hand with him. Here – in these last few moments of her life – she was finally in control. She was going to die, that was a certainty, but she was going to choose how that was going to happen.
She was going to go out with dignity and strength, and with words of love for the most amazing, gorgeous man that she’d ever had the privilege of knowing lingering on her bruised, bleeding lips. She was going to die afraid and crying out in pain, but not begging or bargaining. She never thought that she’d have this kind of choice, and she suddenly fiercely appreciated the freedom and power in it.
She was going to die on her own terms, not on Brian’s.
It wasn’t much; it was everything.
Jo stared up at Brian and braced herself for what was to come. She wasn’t a praying kind of woman anymore, but she found herself praying for the strength of her convictions because although she knew that he’d never be able to know her thoughts here at the end, she still wanted Silver to be proud of her.
That was when all hell broke loose.
**
From the van, Silver saw movement in Jolene’s bedroom, knew that he had to go now. God only knows what she was going through, what she’d already been through, and what that asshole still had planned. He might want to take his time and torture her all night. Or he might just want to explode on her with hatred and vengeance, take her life hard and fast and brutal.
Neither scenario was acceptable to Silver, so he was putting an end to this now. He wasn’t even going to call the guys. There was zero time and anyway, Brian was his.
He got out of the cage and dashed across the neighbor’s yard, hopped the low fence into the backyard that Jolene so loved. From this distance he could peek into her bedroom, and there they were on the bed.
Jolene was on her back under Brian, glaring up at him like she was thinking about ripping his head off with her teeth and he felt a surge of pride at his girl’s courage under unrelenting enemy fire. His silver gaze swept around the room and he was horrified to see that there was blood everywhere: on her pj’s, on the bed comforter, on the wall.
On her face and on his hands.
You are fucking dead, you goddamn monstrous piece of shit. Your life is measured in seconds now.
I’m coming for you and I’m going to enjoy this, I swear.
He crept to the kitchen door that opened up onto the back porch, typed in the code, quietly turned the door handle.
Nothing. It didn’t budge.
What the fuck?
He tried again and again the door remained firmly, stubbornly shut. He had one more try and if he got it wrong, the alarm would automatically sound and the security company would show up, lights blazing. While that might be great because the noise would undoubtedly scare the prick away, it would mean that Silver was going to be denied killing him.
And Silver really, really wanted to kill him.
It suddenly came to him in a blinding flash of understanding that the security code had changed in the time that he’d been away. He grabbed his cell out of his jeans pocket, frantically scrolled through his texts to find the automatic update reminder with the new six-digit code.
Got it. 370291.
He tapped it in, holding his breath the whole time, and only exhaled when the door swung open silently. He padded across the kitchen floor, turned the corner and headed for the woman that he loved.
When he crossed the threshold into the bedroom, Silver gave himself permission to shed his civilized skin, such as it was. He allowed himself to forget about being a productive, law-abiding, tax-paying member of society, and instead harkened back to the belief system that he had lived by for years, the one that Wolf had insisted that the MC members resolutely turn their backs on when he took The Road Devils legit.
The one that said that when it came to protecting the people that you love, you make your own damn justice. Th
e laws of God and the courts are second and third to this system, and if Silver were being honest with himself, this set of beliefs was the only thing that had ever truly made any sense to him in the whole his life.
The one-percenter code.
He knew that what he was about to do was wrong in the eyes of the law, and very wrong according to the Ten Commandments of the Bible and the major tenets of every world religion – but when he stepped into the bedroom, he stepped past law and God and everything else.
In this room, there was only Silver, Jolene and Brian.
There was only one kind of law, one kind of right, one kind of justice… and it was fucking written in blood.
Brian’s blood.
And indeed, Brian’s blood was shed that night, so much of it that he died right there on that bedroom floor exactly how Silver had wanted him to, in both agony and terror.
But it wasn’t shed the way that Silver had planned it.
Oh no. Not at all.
Chapter Twenty
Silver opened the door of the house and stared grimly at Wolf, Scars and Viking.
“What the actual fuck, man?” Wolf growled even before he stepped inside. “He’s fuckin’ dead?”
“Yep.” Silver shot a quick look around the quiet street outside and shut the door behind them. “I had to do it, so spare me the goddamn lecture, Wolf. He was alone in the bedroom with Jolene and he was about to kill her. Only one of them was getting out of there alive and frankly, there was no question which one I was going to choose for that to be. I didn’t even pause before I ended him.”
“And he had a gun?” Scars asked.
“Yeah.” Silver crossed his arms. “I killed him with it.”
The four men looked at each other in silence, and each one saw a familiar expression on the other’s faces. After all, they’d seen it many times over the years – most often when they’d looked in the mirror. Whatever they’d agreed to give up to help Wolf take the MC straight, in this moment, they’d also just agreed to forget all of that. The code was back and in full effect, and it was effortless to just slide right on back into its principles.
Just as easily as Silver had done when he’d entered Jolene’s bedroom, the others simply removed their tissue-thin layer of civility like it was a coat, folded it up, set it on a nearby chair to be picked up and donned again later. When it was over.
Scars broke the silence: “Where’s Jo now?”
“She said that she needed a few minutes alone. She’s a mess.” Silver glanced over at the closed bathroom door, lowered his voice despite hearing the water running. “We need to sort some shit out before she comes back out. I don’t think she’s up to much in the way of conversation or debate, guys.”
“She’s a mess how?” Wolf asked with barely contained fury. “What exactly did the prick do to her?”
“Nothing even slightly good, but thank Christ I got there before he got under her clothes.” Silver started to walk to the bedroom and the other men followed him. “You’ll see the injuries when she comes out. Viking, she’s going to need some medical attention, but no way she can go to a hospital. Too many questions, obviously.”
“I’ll look her over,” Viking said. “Do what I can, but if the hospital is out, then I’ll have to call one of my old contacts.”
“Then that’s what you do,” Wolf said abruptly. “I don’t give a good goddamn about legit and legal right now, boys. No cops, no hospital, no reports.” He stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, surveyed the scene in front of him. Wow, this was a blast from the past. “We’re way beyond all of that anyway, seein’ as we got a dead body on the fuckin’ floor, so we go back to the old ways for tonight. Just until this mess is cleaned up.”
They all nodded.
“OK, so.” Wolf took everything in with a practiced eye, noted the blood and brain matter on the walls and ceiling. “It don’t need sayin’, but we need to call the cleaners.”
“Not Ice,” Silver said brusquely. “Non-negotiable.”
His brothers looked at him, surprised at his obvious rancor.
“What’s the deal?” Scars said. “You know Ice is the best that we have at this.”
“Ice is the fucking reason that all of this is even necessary,” Silver hissed. “He was fucking Vixen instead of taking Jolene home – he’s the reason that the dickhead on the floor here got to her.”
“Hey, hey,” Viking said softly. “I get that you’re angry, man, but we don’t know that Ice bringing Jo home would have changed anything. If her ex has been watching her and waiting for her to be alone, then he’d have figured out a way in as soon as anyone dropped her off. Ice, Wolf, me.” He paused. “You.”
“Fuck off, Viking.”
“OK, whoa. Shut up both of you and do it now.” Wolf’s voice was as ferocious as it ever got and the others snapped to attention pretty damn quick. “This ain’t helpful and it ain’t what we need right now. We got plenty to do and we need our best people on it because this is serious shit. We got a dead body gettin’ more dead by the second, and this guy has fuckin’ heat on him, remember? This ain’t some asshole nobody sellin’ dime bags on some street corner behind a donut store, this guy’s a lawyer who’s bein’ investigated by the feds. You think a guy like that can just disappear and nobody’s goin’ to notice?” He glared at Silver and Viking, who both looked appropriately abashed and contrite. “So put whatever beef you got with anyone to one side for now, and work with your brothers to solve this goddamn problem, because if we fuck this up and drop even one fuckin’ ball that we got jugglin’ up in the air, then we all go to jail. Clear?”
“Clear, Prez,” Silver said and caught Viking’s eye. “Sorry, man.”
“Me too.” Viking shook his head. “I was out of line. You’re upset and understandably so. Your woman got hurt badly and you killed the man who did it, right in front of her. You don’t need me giving you a lecture.”
“Yeah,” Silver said on a sigh and turned to Scars. “You’re right, Innis. Ice is the best that we have at this, so call him. I’ll work it out with him later.”
A noise behind them made them spin around. Jo was standing there and even though these were hard, brutal men who had seen plenty of violence, they still winced when they saw her bruised and cut face. Right away, Silver moved to her and supported her as she stood there on shaky legs.
“Jo.” All the harshness was gone from Wolf’s voice now, and there was nothing but concern and kindness. “Baby, I’m so sorry that this happened to you. Go sit, huh? Let Viking take a look at you, leave this fuckin’ mess to us. We’re gonna fix this.”
She stared at him in open disbelief. “Wolf. My ex’s dead body is on my bedroom floor with a bullet through its damn skull. How can anyone fix this?”
“That you don’t need to know,” Wolf said shortly. “Now, go with Dr. Viking. You look like you’ve gone ten fuckin’ rounds with Lennox Lewis and you’re about to crash down right here.”
“But what –”
“But what nothin’,” he cut her off. “From here on in, the less you know, the better. I said that we’re gonna fix this and that’s what we’re gonna do. I know this happened to you and this is your home, but you ain’t got no place here anymore, Jo, none at all. Believe me when I tell you that you want to get as far away from all of this as you can, so do what I say now.”
“C’mon, baby,” Silver whispered. “You know he’s right. There’s nothing for you to do here.”
“I –” She swallowed hard and ran a weary hand through her hair. It came to her that although this was all new and frightening to her, for these guys it was old, familiar ground. No way they were in over their heads, even if she didn’t have the first clue what the hell to do next. Where did you start in making a dead body just go away, never to be found? “Yes. Yes, I know that.”
“So let’s go sit in the living room.” Silver
nodded at Viking. “Let the good doctor look you over and then we’ll take you to a clinic that we know. The guy who runs it doesn’t ask too many questions about mysterious injuries.”
“Is he a real doctor?” she asked, letting herself get tugged away from the grisly scene in the bedroom.
“Yep, totally.” Viking watched her carefully as she limped along, hanging off Silver’s arm. She was surprisingly mobile, but he was worried about a possible head injury and her eye looked pretty bad too. “He’s an ex-combat medic that I worked with in Iraq, so we go back a while. He’s worked with the MC many times and we can trust him to patch us up and take care of us, without ever once asking what the hell brought us to his doorstep.”
“I thought that you guys were out of the life.” Jo winced as Silver lowered her to the sofa. “But you still stay in touch with people like this?”
“We do, because you never know when they’re going to come in useful.” Viking sat next to her, turned her face to the light to check her if her eyes could track movement. Or eye, because the left one was swollen shut. “Life is unpredictable, hon.”
She thought about Brian kicking in her door out of the blue, and then she realized that he’d been shot dead less than an hour after that. So invincible and in control one minute; so dead meat with no face on a bedroom floor the next.
“Yeah,” she said wanly. She suddenly noticed that her headache was back and she almost laughed. How bizarre was it that at one point that day, a headache had been her biggest problem? And come to think of it, the damn headache was the entire reason that she’d left work early – and walked right into Brian’s trap. “Unpredictable is the word.”
**
Forty minutes later, Scars opened the door to Ice and Cain. More grim looks in the doorway were exchanged all around, then the former Enforcers came in carrying large black bags that Scars hadn’t seen in years. Despite that, he knew damn good and well what the boys had in them – he’d seen them on clean-up duty many times, after all.
“How’s Jo?” Ice said without preamble. “How bad is the bedroom?”
The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2) Page 35