by K. Ryan
Shit. Whenever she was in a mood like this, it was usually in my best interest to keep my distance and not interrupt her. It was sort of like poking a sleeping bear, if the bear was a 5'6, blonde, hormonal pregnant lady wielding a paintbrush.
"Hey, Iz?"
Either she was ignoring me or just couldn't hear me because her shoulders were still square with the canvas and her paintbrush still swung around from side to side like there was no tomorrow. Preparing myself for the tongue-lashing I was about to receive, I closed the space between us until I could rest my hand on her shoulder and crouch down to her level.
She started a little at the touch of my hand and then she stared up at me expectantly, tugging her earbuds out of her ears and dropping her paintbrush into the mason jar at her side.
"Iz," I began carefully. "Marcus wants to talk to you."
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Oh, now little ol' me is important enough to keep around? I'm not going back out there."
I tossed a glance over my shoulder, grateful to see the rest of the club had respected our privacy.
"Where would Becca go, Iz?"
She lifted an eyebrow and now the light blue of her eyes twisted into a cloudy, black storm. "So now I'm supposed to help you catch her too?"
I knew exactly what she was thinking, why she would object. This was her best friend—well, former best friend, someone she'd known for years and if our roles were reversed and Dom was in Becca's shoes, I didn't know if I'd be able to bring myself to lead the club to him either.
"Iz," I sighed. "You know her better than anyone. You know we can't let the ATF get to her. Where's she runnin' to?"
Isabelle squeezed her eyes shut. "I used to think I knew her better than anyone. Now I have no idea."
"I know," I nodded and shot her a weak smile, my hand squeezing her shoulder just enough to prompt her.
She blew out a deep breath and then glanced at her phone, which was resting right next to her easel. "It's only been what? Twenty minutes since she left? Do you think the ATF would help her if she called them?"
"Depends on what their deal with her was. If all she was supposed to do was plant those trackers, who knows. They might not care about her anymore since she technically didn't deliver. Either way, Iz, we gotta get to her first."
She chewed on her bottom lip in thought and the pain in her eyes twisted my heart. This wasn't going to be easy for her, but after this, no one could ever call her loyalty into question again, especially not Marcus.
"Her family has a house in Wilmington right on the beach," she told me softly and she squeezed her eyes shut the moment she realized what she'd just done. "We used to go there sometimes during the summer. I don't think she ever told Eli about that because she never mentioned them going there before. If he doesn't know anything about it, that's probably where she's heading."
"You know the address, Iz?"
"I don't remember it," she shook her head. "But I could give you directions."
"Does anyone live there year-round?"
Her eyes widened a little as the true reasoning behind my question sank in and she swallowed tightly. "No. It's her parents' place, but they live here in town. They only go there in the summer on the weekends."
"Okay. Thanks, babe," I leaned forward to kiss the side of her head. "Dom's gonna stay here with you until I get back. It'll be late, so don't wait up."
"How could I possibly get any sleep tonight?" she muttered and reached for my hand. "Please be safe."
"I always am."
Once all the details were settled and we figured out that Eli did not, as Isabelle predicted, know about this summer house, I slid into my truck, threw the duffel bag we needed in the passenger seat, tucked Isabelle's written directions into the console next to me, and pulled out of the driveway with Eli right behind me.
. . .
Two and a half hours later, I pulled my truck into the driveway of a modest-size, single-story house right on the beach, just like Isabelle had described, and pulled my hood up over my head. It was already pitch-black and late enough at night that any neighbors wouldn't be up to see us coming and going. We didn't plan on being in this house for long, but the less people around, the less trouble that could end up blowing back on the club.
Eli leapt up the stairs, taking the lead and I was happy to hand over the reins on this one. This was his problem just as much as it was the club's, if not more so, and it was his right to confront her, to demand the answers he deserved before we cleaned this mess up. He tried the doorknob and got nothing. Becca was smart enough to lock the door behind her, but stupid enough to choose the Feds over her local MC.
He reached behind him and I handed him the leathermen he needed to jimmy the lock. Having done this very thing many times for the club already, Eli was a pro, despite the way his gloved hands shook as he jerked the tool into the lock and the way his chest heaved up and down. After about 15 seconds of work, the lock gave way and Eli pushed through the door. He flipped the light off in the kitchen as we moved through the darkness, both of us just needing to get this over with as soon as possible.
Just as we rounded the corner of the kitchen, Becca materialized in the hallway, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of the two hooded men in the house.
Her eyes widened with terror. Even in the darkness, she knew who we were. She knew what we'd come here to do. Instinct kicked in and she turned on her heel to sprint back in the direction she'd came, but Eli's cold voice called out to her.
"Don't run, Becca. It's not gonna help you."
She froze mid-step, her entire body trembling as she hyperventilated right where she stood. That was all the time Eli needed to advance on her, clamping both hands on her shoulders and shoving her into the wall. Becca cried out, tears already streaming down her lying face and she tore and clawed at Eli's iron-grip.
Fighting wasn't going to help her any more than running would.
"Why did you do it?" he asked, his voice cracking with desperation and grief. "Tell me why, goddammit!"
She choked out a sob, shaking and convulsing underneath his hands, but Eli, to his credit, never flinched. Never moved a muscle except to keep her right where she was, right where she belonged. Now she was shaking her head like we were the bad guys. Like we were the ones who'd done something wrong.
"I didn't know what else to do," Becca pushed out in between sobbing gasps. "I'm so—"
Eli slammed her into the wall to cut her off. "Don't fucking say it. You don't mean it."
As much as my sympathies were with him, we needed to get this moving. So I shifted until I was shoulder to shoulder with Eli and close enough to look Becca right in the eye.
"Your deal with the ATF," I started evenly, my eyes locked on Becca with every word. "What were the terms? What did you give them besides agreeing to put those trackers in my garage?"
She squeezed her eyes shut. Eli snarled at her and slammed his hand right next to her head to force her to answer us.
"I didn't...I didn't give them anything," she stammered and swallowed hard. "I didn't know anything. Nothing they cared about, at least."
"What were the terms of your deal?" I tried again, this time letting some menace slip through.
Becca's eyes widened and they darted anxiously from me to Eli and back to me again as if struggling and crying for mercy would somehow convince us to back down.
"If I put the trackers on," Becca pushed out in between heaves. "They wouldn't charge me with anything."
Yeah, that's what I figured.
"And you thought you'd get away with it?" my eyebrows rose at the stupidity of the whole thing. "No harm, no foul?"
Becca shook her head furiously.
"Is that it?" I growled.
She swallowed hard. "I was supposed to see if Isabelle knew anything, if she'd tell me something that would help. They knew you might've told her something, that maybe you talked to her about the club. I was supposed to go over there and try to get her to talk."
Yeah, that's what I figured too. The second she'd agreed to that, she might as well have just signed her own death warrant.
"I didn't wanna do it," she whispered. "I knew she'd never say anything that could get you in trouble. I didn't even try that hard."
Like that was supposed to make what she'd done less deceitful. Less disgusting.
"Let me guess, you recorded the conversation too," I didn't even wait for her to nod. "Where's your phone?"
She gestured to the bag sitting underneath the kitchen counter that both Eli and I had missed in the darkness.
"Recording your best friend's conversation and trying to get her to talk," I shook my head at Becca. "That's some nasty, evil shit."
"I thought—"
"You could've told me!" Eli charged in, twisting his fingers into her shoulders and practically lifting her feet off the ground. "You could've told me what they wanted. What they were threatening you with."
"You wouldn't have trusted me anyway," Becca whispered, her voice trembling in fear and something that sounded a little like resignation. "I did the only thing I could."
He shoved her backward in the wall one more time, knocking her head violently into the drywall behind her. "I loved you, Becca. I would've tried to help you. We could've figured something out. It didn't have to be this way. You didn't have to do this."
"You never loved me. You never trusted me," she murmured hoarsely. "If you did, we wouldn't be here."
Eli dropped her, and she slid to the floor in front of us, covering her head with her arms and crumbling with heavy sobs. There was nothing else to say. Nothing else that could be done. We got the information we came here for. Just one last order of business left to do.
My eyes lifted up from the pathetic excuse for a human being below me and found Eli, whose eyes had glazed over in a flurry of violent, grief-fueled rage. I nodded to him, signaling that it was time, and gestured with my head to the duffel bag at my side. There was a little bit of quick prep work to do, so I headed for the nearest bathroom down the hall to get my part ready. All I had to do was lay out the five-foot square of heavy plastic, grab the first pillow I could find from a bedroom down the hall, attach the silencer to the Glock, and set it down on the counter for Eli.
Right now, I was just back-up. Not even 10 seconds after the Glock rested on the bathroom counter, Eli shoved through the door with Becca in tow. She kicked and bucked and struggled against him with every ounce of strength left in her, but that was just adrenaline. There was no use fighting or struggling.
Eli hauled her up and slammed her down onto the plastic to hold her against the floor with a pointed elbow. Becca's pleas and cries for mercy would fall on deaf ears.
I handed him the pillow and the Glock and stepped back to watch the sentence get carried out. Eli pressed the pillow against Becca's head, muffling her terrified screams for help. She kicked, bucking into the floor, and nearly knocking the Glock out of Eli's trembling hand, so I leaned forward to hold her legs down—anything to make this easier, anything to get this behind us.
He pushed the Glock's short barrel into the pillow and I could see his bottom lip quivering, both hands shaking, his entire body trembling and struggling to follow through. His lips pulled apart in agony and he squeezed his eyes shut before finally letting out an anguished, tortured wail.
With an abrupt sob, Eli shoved her even deeper into the floor and sprung up to his feet to push his way through the bathroom.
"I can't," he muttered helplessly as he passed me. "I just can't do it."
I nodded, more to myself than anything, when he shut the door behind him and focused on the buzzing in my ears instead of the crying girl just a few feet away from me. I couldn't think about how she was my future wife's best friend. Or about the fact that the only reason Isabelle had ever come back into my life in the first place was because of Becca's indirect involvement. Or about how Isabelle had always talked about the way Becca was there for her after her mom's death in a way her dad hadn't been able to. And I couldn't think about the fact that Isabelle might look at me differently after this. That she might, once the shock and the betrayal wore off, only see me as her best friend's executioner.
I just couldn't let myself go there.
Because a traitor was lying at my feet. One who, if Eli had been upfront with her the way I was with Isabelle, wouldn't have hesitated to sell out the club and her best friend. I couldn't let myself forget that.
I reached into the duffel for the second pair of leather gloves and leaned against the wall across from her as I readied myself.
"I guess I shouldn't have been surprised she told you about this place," Becca's hoarse voice called out to me from the floor.
"No," I told her as I slipped the first glove over my left hand. "You shouldn't have been. I'm pretty sure any loyalty she had to you died the night you showed up at my house last week and forced her hand."
Her eyes followed my movements, watching me wearily as I slid on the right glove and then untucked my own Glock from underneath the back of my jeans. If I was really going to have to do this, I would use my own piece. That's just the way it had to be. Her eyes clouded over as she silently observed me dip into the duffel bag one last time for that second silencer I'd packed away in there just in case this very thing happened.
"Just make it quick," she whispered.
My eyes lifted to her for just a second as I screwed the silencer on over my barrel.
"You know, I have a lot of regrets, Caleb," Becca called out to me again and I stilled where I stood, letting the hand gripping my Glock fall down to my side for the time being. I knew this part well too. This was the part where they made their peace with their life, where they confessed to whatever sin they'd been holding on to, where they made their last mark on this life for whatever it was worth.
"Yeah?"
I'd play along, let her say whatever she needed to say.
"I wish I'd never met Eli."
I lifted a shoulder. "Yeah, I guess I can see that."
"I wish I'd never brought Isabelle to the clubhouse."
My eyes shot up from my gloved hands to find her staring me down defiantly, challenging me to say otherwise.
"I'd wish I'd never brought her around you people," Becca pressed on from her spot on the floor. "I wish I'd never been around you people. All you care about is yourselves, keeping yourselves safe, yourselves out of prison. You don't care about anyone else. And then I do the exact same thing and I get tossed out with the trash."
I shot a hard glare her way. "Maybe. I'll give ya that. But you had every opportunity to go to someone for help and you didn't. You chose to sell your best friend out hoping you'd get something good enough to save yourself. Think about that for one of the three minutes you have left and tell me you aren't just as selfish as the rest of us."
Becca just shook her head, sniffling a little as a lone tear trailed down her face. "You know, one of these days, Isabelle's gonna realize what you really are. She's got you up on this pedestal like you're some kind of Superman," she laughed mirthlessly. "Being with her doesn't make you a better person—it's just makes her a worse one. And sooner or later, she's gonna realize you're not the good guy she thinks you are and she's gonna hate you and she's gonna leave your ass in her dust. The only thing she'll ever want from you then is child support and if she's smart, she'll never let you anywhere near that baby."
She must've known she hit a nerve because her eyes, still streaked with tears, went wide with awareness. Her words had sliced right through the most tender spot in my conscience. That gaping black hole that just kept pulling me in, carrying me away, and eating its way through all my guilt, all my doubts, and all my fears. I tried to tell myself I had to be all about business. That this was protocol. That this was just how we handled situations like this.
But before, I hadn't had Isabelle in my life. I hadn't had any other priorities than the club. Things were different for me and they were changing in a way I didn't quite understand. M
arcus had said to me once, a long time ago at Dom and Lex's wedding, that problems at home would mess with my priorities in the club. Assuming the club always had to come first. Assuming I always had to follow orders without questioning anyone's motives or calling anyone onto the carpet.
The longer I stared at Becca with my gun in the my hand, the more I just didn't recognize myself. I was about to kill my future wife's best friend. Somewhere along the way, I'd deluded myself into thinking this was the right choice. That putting the club first above everything else was always the right choice—it was what I'd been programmed to believe.
Tonight, though, I didn't really want to put the club first.
I looked down at the gun in my hand again and I wanted to vomit. Why was no one thinking about the fact that the ATF could be waiting outside this house right now, just waiting for us to carry out a dead body? It was so easy and even if setting this kind of trap hadn't been their plan all along, we'd handed them the opportunity right on a platter without even thinking twice.
If I pulled the trigger tonight, what were the odds that I'd find myself handcuffed minutes later and shoved into the back of a squad car with murder charges wrapped around my neck?
Why did no one else in the club seem to care about that?
The right thing to do tonight was to renege on protocol and follow my own instincts.
I didn't hesitate now. I tossed my gun back into the duffel bag and hauled Becca up to her feet.
"Wha—" she stammered.
"Shut up."
With a tight grip on her elbow, I pulled open the bathroom door to find Eli leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. When his face unearthed from his fingertips, he blinked back at me in shock.
"What are you doing?" he choked out hoarsely. "We have to—"
"We don't have to do shit," I growled. "You and I both know you don't really wanna see her in a hole somewhere. So this is what we're gonna do..."
. . .