by S. Nelson
“Fuckin’ say it,” I demanded, hauling him off his feet and throwing him back against the wall. He stumbled but didn’t fall down. “Say it!”
“I wasn’t in my right mind when I . . . killed your mother.” His breathing was labored, and all of the color had drained from his face. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, actually looking somewhat sincere. But it was all an act. It had to be. No way this man wasn’t the same guy who murdered my mother. Sure, he was older and weaker, but evil still lurked within him.
Only . . . I hadn’t seen the glimmer of darkness when I stared into his eyes. Shaking my head to rid myself of some fucked-up internal debate, I reached behind me and seized my gun from the couch. His eyes followed my movements.
“What do you think I should do to you?” I asked, the cool steel resting at my side. With every fiber of my being, I wanted to eviscerate him from existence.
“What?” Blood continued to drip down his face.
“What do you think I should do with you?” I repeated, enunciating every syllable. “It’s not a hard question.”
“Let me live,” he finally muttered, his breathing continuing to worsen.
“Why?” The gun twitched in my palm.
His eyes flicked to my hand before looking me in the eye once more. “Because I made a mistake, and I’ve paid for it. For twenty-seven years.”
“So I should just turn around and walk back out that door?” My anger pulsated in my veins, the audacity of the bastard in front me making me so desperately want to force my gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Why are you hesitating? “Did you think you’d just come home and live out the rest of your days without consequence?”
“I just wanna . . . live in peace.”
“Peace?” I laughed, the eerily dark sound foreign to my ears. “You think I should leave you in peace?” I took a step forward.
“Please . . . Roman.”
“Stop saying my name!” The more he talked, the more the past and present swirled together. There were brief moments when I’d first laid eyes on him, where I’d been transported back to that seven-year-old kid. Frightened of the man who beat my mom and me. Terrified of the man who stole my mom’s life. Then I’d switch to the man I’d become, someone people didn’t fuck with because they knew I’d make them pay, sometimes with their life.
I was strong and fearless, so why was I allowing Richard to confuse me, to draw on some part of me that second-guessed ending him right where he cowered?
For the next ten minutes, I found myself at a crossroads, somewhere I thought I’d never be. I knew, or at least I thought I did, that I was coming to his house to kill him. No question. But something was stopping me, and I had no idea what.
Richard deserved to die, yet I still found myself hesitating. And it was during one of those weaker moments that he decided to plead for his life once more.
“Please,” he appealed, trying to stand tall, but due to his injuries, it was a half-assed attempt. “I’m begging you not to kill me. I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Just let me live.”
I hated that I was even considering it. It showed weakness. Doubt. It went against every notion I’d ever had about seeking justice for my mother.
Then I had an idea. Along with the information about where he’d lived, I’d also been told he had a daughter, Ann. She lived somewhere nearby, and while I had no idea whether or not they were close, especially after he’d been away for almost three decades, I decided to test him. To see if he was indeed a changed man.
“I’ll tell ya what. I’ll let you live, but first you have to decide.”
The prospective of him not having a bullet in his brain made him perk up a bit.
“Decide what?”
“You have to choose. Your life . . . or Ann’s.”
His mouth hung open in surprise, his thin lips trembling while he tried to form words. I could see the proverbial wheels spinning in his head. Was he contemplating giving up his daughter, or was he trying to somehow negotiate for them both to live?
“Five seconds.”
A tear fell down his cheek, the sight definitely unexpected. “I don’t need five seconds. Kill me. Don’t hurt my daughter.”
Braylen
I awoke to a note from Ryder, telling me he had club business to deal with and that he’d be back the following day. He also left instructions for me to wait for Hawke so that he could follow me to work. Rolling my eyes, picturing the look on Ryder’s face as I did so, I knew better than to not follow his wish. Besides, I was still very much shaken up over the attack.
I had to admit, I never thought Ryder and I would ever get to the point in our relationship where he’d finally open up to me. Yes, the road to get there had been riddled with obstacles, frustrating and even hurtful at times, but we finally made it. That wasn’t to say it’d be easy from here on out, of course; if I knew anything about that man, the word “easy” should never be used.
But it was a start for sure.
Everyone was allowed to leave the clubhouse the same day Hawke and Ryder returned. After hours of glorious sex, Ryder took me back to his house, insisting I stay with him for the next week, just to be safe. I told him I couldn’t, that I was worried about Kena, but he assured me that Jagger was going to stay with her at our place. Once I’d confirmed with my sister, I gave Ryder my acceptance.
There was only one simple rule, and that was that I was to sleep in his room while he took the couch. Afraid he’d hurt me again while he slept, he said it was the only way until he could figure something else out.
How are things with Ryder going? Kena asked, looking from me to the stage where our friend Kevin was performing. He was the lead guitarist for the local band Breakers. They’d built up quite the following, so much that he’d quit working at our family’s restaurant to pursue his music full time. We had no doubt he’d make it, he was that good.
Kevin had casually chased my sister but she’d never accepted, not wanting to deal with groupies. She’d come to find that she still had to deal with brazen women throwing themselves at her man, although the situation wasn’t as bad with Jagger. Especially since he never paid attention to any woman at his fights other than Kena.
“Better than before. He still drives me nuts, giving me crap about flirting with my male clients, but he’s calmed down some. I think now that he’s comfortable enough to let me in, he’s more relaxed.” I took a sip of my drink. “With life in general, you know?”
Yeah, I do, she signed.
Ryder was supposed to have been back earlier that day, but since I hadn’t yet spoken to him, Hawke giving me some excuse about him being out of range or some crap, I’d decided to take Kena up on her offer to get together. We hadn’t been able to spend much time hanging out recently. If we weren’t working, we were both spending time with our guys; there simply wasn’t much time left over for anything else. That was why, when she insisted we go out, just the two of us, I jumped all over the invitation.
I really thought Jagger would’ve shown up at some point during the evening, if not to check on her to make sure she was okay, then to make sure Kevin didn’t try to move in on his woman. What Jagger failed to remember sometimes was that he was it for my sister. Whatever interest she’d held toward Kevin was but a speck of what she felt toward Jagger. No comparison whatsoever.
“I’m having a lot of fun tonight, sis.” I raised my glass and she clinked hers to mine. “We need to do this more often for sure.”
She smiled and nodded, both of us taking a drink before chitchatting about the latest fashion trends and movies we both wanted to see. We settled in afterward to fully enjoy the band’s set, which lasted for another hour.
On my way back from the bathroom, I stopped off at the bar to grab another soda since I was the designated driver. When I turned around, I saw Kena frantically waving to me from our booth. She looked worried, so I hurried over as fast as I could.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking all around to try and figure o
ut if there was some sort of danger present. I unfortunately had some sort of idea what that would actually look like now.
Your phone keeps ringing. She’d just finished signing when my phone lit up again. “Unknown” flashed across my screen. I didn’t pick it up because I had no idea who was calling. While I was in the middle of my internal reasoning for ignoring the calls, my cell flashed again. Whoever was calling wasn’t gonna give up. Not until I answered.
Swiping the screen, I answered, “Hello.”
“Jesus Christ, Braylen. What the hell?” It was Jagger.
“What’s the matter?” His tone unnerved me, put me on alert, yet I had no idea why. “Are you looking for Kena? Why didn’t you just text her?”
“I have. A million times. She’s not answering.”
Holding the phone away from my mouth, I said, “It’s Jagger. He said he’s been texting you, but you’re not responding.”
Kena picked up her phone but she couldn’t turn it on. The battery had died.
What does he want?
Positioning the phone back to my mouth, I asked, “What’s so important that you’re blowing up my phone?”
I chuckled but stopped as soon as he said, “You need to get over here. Ryder is flipping the fuck out.”
“So you’re not calling for Ke—”
“No! You need to get over here. Now!” he shouted. I heard people screaming in the background, and one of those voices was Ryder’s. From what I could decipher over the phone, his speech sounded slurred.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“We don’t know. All we can tell is that he got his hands on some hard liquor and now he’s out of his damn mind.” Jagger must’ve pulled the phone away as he shouted to someone as I couldn’t make it out.
“What can I do?” I was clueless as to what good he thought I’d be to an out-of-control Ryder. If anything he’d probably scare me. I thought it best to let them handle him, calm him down until he eventually passed out. “Jagger, I don’t think—”
“Listen, Braylen. Hear me now. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if you’re arguing or whatever. You need to put all that aside and get your ass to the club. Right. Now.”
“We’re not arguing.”
He cursed into the phone before hanging up on me. I understood he was concerned about the welfare of his friend, but that didn’t give him an excuse to yell at me and then hang up.
“Your boyfriend is a bit of a dick.” I reached for my purse and flung it over my shoulder.
He can be. She smiled but stopped when she saw I wasn’t joking. What’s going on?
“I don’t know, but I guess we’re gonna go find out.”
Braylen
As soon as Kena and I walked in, fear made my heart slam against my chest, and I still had no idea what was going on. A few of the guys were surrounding someone, shouting for him to let go of something or else he was going to be taken down. It wasn’t until we took a few more steps forward that Jagger saw us and came running over.
“Oh thank God you’re here. You need to try and talk some sense into him.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me across the room. I tried to break away from him but the guy was too damn strong.
“Jagger, I don’t know what you want me to do. What’s wrong with him?”
“He got into that shit. That’s the problem.” He released me, flicking back the strand of hair that had fallen over his eye. He had a darkening bruise forming high on his cheekbone.
“What happened to your face? Was that from your last fight?”
“No, your boyfriend clocked me.”
“What? Why would he hit you?”
“Because Ryder is a goddamn psychotic motherfucker when he drinks like this. He hit at least three other guys, and the only way to make him stop is for us to beat the hell out of him. All of us at once. I don’t know why, but when that stuff is flowing through his blood, he has the strength of a goddamn gorilla.”
That was an awful lot of information for Jagger to vomit at me all at one time. Trying my hardest to wrap my head around everything, I made a move toward Ryder. Tripp turned around and saw me, hesitation flickering across his face before he looked to Jagger.
“I really think she can calm him.”
“I don’t know. I think it was a bad move calling her here,” Marek added, taking a step forward to shield my presence. He blocked my view, and when I tried to walk away from him, he grabbed my upper arm and pulled me back. He didn’t hurt me, but his hold was strong. “I think you should leave, Braylen. We got this.”
Choosing to ignore him, I asked, “What happened? Why is Ryder freaking out?”
“We don’t know,” Tripp answered, switching his attention back and forth from me to Ryder and back again. “He yelled something about not being able to do it. That he’s weak and pathetic. He’s not making any sense.” Tripp looked back toward Ryder once more. “He’s got blood on his clothes and his knuckles are split. We didn’t do that to him.” He ran a frustrated hand over his head. “I probably cracked his rib, but that’s it.”
“Cracked his rib? Why would you do that?”
“Because he came at me.” He said it like it was a normal occurrence, like he had no regrets about hurting his friend when he was in an obvious altered state.
“Get away from me!” Ryder roared, throwing a bottle he’d been holding at the crowd of men caging him in.
“Calm the fuck down, man,” someone shouted.
“At least he got rid of his drink,” Marek said, finally releasing my arm. “But I still think you need to leave.”
As if finally sensing I was near, Ryder pushed through the crowd of men and came straight for me. I wasn’t gonna lie—he scared me. I’d never seen him like that before, and the fact that he seemed to be a bit out of his mind was unsettling to say the least.
His dark hair was disheveled. His face was cut and bruised, his gray shirt ripped in several places and spattered with blood. His hands were swollen, his knuckles cracked and covered in the red stuff as well.
“Bra . . . Braylen,” he slurred, “What are you doin’ here?” Before I could answer, he yelled, “Go! You need to go.”
Marek and Tripp tried to hold him back, but he pushed them, causing them to lose their footing. Jagger was right, Ryder seemed to have the strength of ten men. Okay, maybe not ten, but definitely superhuman strength.
“What’s wrong, baby,” I soothed, reaching out to touch him, to try and offer him some sort of solace in his crazed state of mind.
“You can . . . can’t be here. You ca . . . can’t see me like this.” He erased the remaining distance between us and all of the men froze, waiting to see what he’d do. When I looked into his eyes, they were blank, a void shadowing his essence. I’d never seen anything like it, not in all my life.
“Ryder, please tell me how I can help you. Do you want to go somewhere? Just you and me?”
It was like he never heard me, schooling his expression before grabbing me and pulling me impossibly close. The smell of the whiskey on his breath made my eyes water.
“Let her go!” Jagger shouted, trying to pry Ryder’s hands off me, but to no avail. My upper arms started to ache, but I needed to make him see that I was right there with him. For him.
“Tell me what happened,” I pleaded.
A tear fell from the corner of his eye but he made no move to wipe it away, allowing the trickle of emotion to show his distress. I’d never seen him look so broken before and it tore at my soul. Something had devastated him. Destroyed him.
“I couldn’t do it,” he whispered, another tear falling as his shoulders started to shake. He was having some sort of breakdown.
I had to try and be strong enough for the both of us. I had to push aside my fear and attempt to reach him, make him tell me what happened.
“You couldn’t do what?”
“He stole every . . . everything from me,” he slurred, “and I couldn’t fu . . . fuckin’ do it.” His breathing turned la
bored. “My mom,” he garbled, but I’d heard him.
“Who did?” I tried to keep him on point, but he was drifting all over the place.
“I gave him a ch . . . choice and he didn’t pick her.”
At that point, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Had he really split from reality? Were his nightmares filtering into his consciousness, making it difficult to decipher what was real and what wasn’t?
As if finally realizing he was holding me, a look drifted over his face before he shoved me away from him, stronger than I believed he meant to. I lost my footing and fell on my ass, hurting my wrist on the way to the ground because I was trying to break my fall.
“Goddamnit!” Stone yelled, rushing forward with Jagger and Tripp. They tackled him, but not before Ryder threw out a few punches on his way down.
Kena rushed toward me and helped me to my feet, pulling me back toward the other side of the room. Other than my wrist, I wasn’t hurt.
Scared.
Shook up.
But physically intact.
“Don’t hurt him,” I cried, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. It took all three men just to hold him down. “Please, let him go.” I cradled my head in my hands. I just couldn’t bear to watch them hurt him any longer.
“Hold him still,” someone shouted. “I need to get this in his arm before he hurts someone else. Or himself.”
Several moments passed before the shouts subsided. I was afraid to look, so I kept my head down until someone tapped my shoulder. When I didn’t budge, they smacked my arm. My head shot up.
Kena.
He’s out cold. I think they injected him with something. Tears drifted down her face, she was so shaken up. I hated that she’d witnessed Ryder shove me, but I was fine. I had to convince her of that. Besides, the man who pushed me wasn’t Ryder at all. That was someone else inhabiting his body. There was a reason, a dark reason he went off the rails, and I needed to find out what it was.