by K E Osborn
Fucking idiot is gonna get himself shot.
He rushes as Sensei and Trax shoot out from beneath the trailer trying to help Zane as the canoe drops covering Trax and Sensei giving them more shelter while Zane bolts out heading toward us. I gesture for him to hurry, but suddenly he flies to the side, a bullet obviously grazing him as he slams into the ground just before my feet.
“Fuck,” I yell, reaching down yanking on his cut and dragging him behind the shed, hoisting him up against the metal. He grimaces, but I look him over to see Zane holding his arm. His leg is bleeding too. “You’re a fucking madman, kid!”
He chuckles, followed by a cough. “Yeah, saved their asses, though,” he states as I glance over at Sensei and Trax who are safe and sound in their canoe fort.
Suddenly, two people run at us from the front. I tense up thinking we’re really screwed now. They’re coming at us from all fucking angles until I see the uniforms. It’s two cops. Not just any cops. Brody and Grier, Ace’s pals, as they rush in taking shelter where they can and aiming their weapons at the Sovereigns then firing off a few rounds.
I turn to Ace raising my brow. “Did you call Brody?”
He looks as shocked as I do. “Nope. I have no idea why they’re here, but I’m glad they are. We need all the fucking help we can get.”
I look over at Torque who’s with Lift behind another stack of canoes. They’re yelling at each other as if they’re giving themselves a pep talk. I hope they’re not thinking about doing something fucking stupid.
Lift pulls out his cell, seemingly to type something into it.
I scrunch up my face as a bullet flies through the metal of the shed past my head. I drop down as the shed rattles violently. “Fucking hell.”
Suddenly, a whooshing sound filters through the air. I have no idea what the hell it is before a shockwave blast hits me. I’m thrown to the ground as a wave of heat rolls over my back. My ears ring as a dull echo of cheering comes from Torque and Lift’s direction. Glancing over, I notice them clapping and throwing their hands in the air. I look over my shoulder as I lay on the ground to see the front of the building collapsed and alight in a fireball with the Sovereigns all face down on the ground, unmoving. I’m assuming they’re dead.
I try to figure out what the fuck just happened as Ace and I both stand, grab Zane, then hurry over to Torque and Lift as the others rush over as well.
“What the fuck was that?”
“I think I have the answer,” a voice calls out. I turn to see Noah walking around the corner of the gates carrying a grenade launcher on his shoulder.
“Holy shit, Noah? Why the hell are you here?” I ask handing Zane over to Pyro.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that,” Grier grunts as she swipes a small tendril of her blonde hair back from her face.
Noah glances at Torque. “Your Pres had Lift call me, said I was your backup in case an ambush like this happened.”
I look at the high-powered machinery on his shoulder. “How the hell does a security guard at a whorehouse get a grenade launcher?”
“We’re not listening to this,” Brody says as he and Grier turn their backs.
Noah glances to Lift as if to ask if it’s okay. Lift nods to say it’s fine to talk in front of these cops. “Well, remember how the Gentlemen frequent said whorehouse? The perks of working with scumbags is you get really awesome tips. When you’re trading with hardened criminals like the Gentlemen, they don’t tip with money.”
Lift slaps his blood brother on the shoulder. “Thanks for showing up, man. Couldn’t have done this without you. Again.”
“It’s all good. But I think once we finish this retrieval, Torque, you and me need to have a discussion about me prospecting in, finally?” Noah’s eyes light up in hope.
“Yeah, and thanks, Brody and Grier, for being here, too. But right now, we need to be concentrating on the Sovereigns who’ll be coming. We have to make sure Bex wasn’t hurt in that blast.”
My skin riddles in sweat as I look at the building. Really it’s only the façade that’s damaged, not the structure. But still, I don’t want a single hair hurt on her head. I need to get to her. Now. I take off faster than my feet will carry me. I hear everyone running behind me as I bolt for the building. The door opens as more Sovereigns run out. Bringing my gun up, I take aim as I shoot at the same time they do, but so do my brothers and the cops. Bullets fly past me as I aim straight at the Sovereigns not missing while Luc runs out into the fray.
I slide to a halt.
Anger roaring inside of me.
A bullet whizzes past my head as Luc notices me too.
Suddenly, he turns aiming his gun at a Sovereign beside him, and he pulls the trigger. Blood spurts all over his face as another Sovereign notices Luc shooting his brethren, then he turns on Luc. I tense up as he aims for Luc, pulling the trigger as I aim at the Sovereign. We pull at the same time. Mine hitting the Sovereign in the neck, his jugular bursting open as he falls to the floor in a gurgling mess.
I glance at Luc.
His eyes lock on me.
Pain sweeps through him as I run up to him. He’s clutching his side as I aim my gun right at him. I glance down to see blood oozing through his fingers. I point my gun at his forehead as my brothers all flank me, the rest of the Sovereigns now taken care of.
“How could you?” I grit out as he stares right at me.
“We don’t have time for this, Ty. I’m hurt, and I need to get you to her, before Edgar…” He coughs as he hunches over not finishing his sentence. I react before I think, wrapping my arm around him for support, but I keep my gun trained on him. “Take me to her.”
“Guys, keep your weapons up. Edgar, he won’t hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later.”
They all raise their weapons as Luc directs us through the building. Trax and Sensei move ahead of us shooting Sovereign stragglers as we go.
We arrive at an office, and Luc gestures that Bex is inside. I let Luc go as I tense up. I don’t know what I’m going to see when I get in there.
She better be fucking alive.
Glancing at Torque, I make sure I have the all clear. He nods, so I bring my gun up placing my hand on the door handle, take in a deep breath, then open the door swiftly aiming my gun in the middle of the room.
The sight awaiting me knocks the breath from my lungs.
Not only am I seeing Edgar for the first time in years, but he has Bex, held against his chest.
Her T-shirt ripped.
Blood staining her beautiful face.
Her hair is everywhere as his hand is fisted in it pulling her back to him as he holds a knife to her throat facing me. Gabe stands in the corner of the room beaten and bloodied, his hands cuffed with another man with a gun aimed at his head as I step into the room. My eyes are on Bex the entire time knowing my brothers are following me into the room. It confuses me to see Gabe this way, a gun on him, and not at Edgar’s side—it’s not what I was expecting.
But it’s Bex I’m here to rescue, definitely not Gabe, and looking at Bex’s tear-soaked face, I can see she’s hurting. She looks sad. I hate she’s here because of me, because of my past. If I never left the Sovereigns, she wouldn’t be going through this right now.
“I’m so sorry, Bex,” I murmur.
Edgar lets out a booming laugh. “Ha! You’re in love with her, too. This is fucking gold. I had my cock out ready to ram up her ass when the alarm went off. I guess you arrived just in time to save her.”
A tear falls down her face as everything in me wants to charge him, take him out. I notice her jeans undone, but they’re pulled up. Pointing my gun at him with more force, my jaw clenches so hard that my teeth grind together. I’m so fucking twisted up from what he’s said and from seeing him, I’m having trouble keeping my shit together. I want to shoot him, I want to go fucking rabid on him, but it could risk Bex, and that bastard has a knife to her throat. My arm holding the gun almost shakes with the tension rolling th
rough me, the veins in my forearm protruding with the pressure.
“Easy, Chains,” Torque murmurs.
“I was going to make you watch as I tortured her in front of you, but maybe I should torture you both in front of each other. A little give and take, maybe?”
“Not gonna happen, Edgar,” Torque grunts.
Edgar pulls on Bex’s hair making her wince. I step closer as he presses the knife into her neck and I see a small trickle of blood blossom. “Who the fuck are you to talk on behalf of me?”
Torque steps forward raising his hands in the air like he surrenders. I wonder what the hell he’s doing. “I’m Torque. I’m Ty’s president.” I furrow my brows, he’s never called me Ty, it’s always been Chains. This is weird.
“So, you’re the one who’s been keeping him in the club all these years?” Edgar questions.
“Yeah, that’s me. Once he joined the club, he felt the comradery of being in a brotherhood, of belonging, but then he realized he made a mistake. He should have always come back to the Sovereigns.”
What the fuck is he playing at?
Edgar looks over assessing me. So, I make my face as passive as possible to seem like I know what the fuck is going on. “The thing is, Edgar, when Ty joined the club, as president, I had to do a background search, I have to know everything about my prospects. So, I knew everything about his past, about his family.”
Edgar turns his nose up looking at Luc. He takes the knife from Bex’s neck gesturing for Luc to move forward. “Shoot him, Luc!”
“Let my father go,” Luc demands shocking me.
Edgar’s obviously holding Gabe hostage for some reason.
“Why would I do that? I have the girl, Ty is here, you’re here, and I can take out the traitor in my midst all in one fell swoop—”
“You son of a bitch,” Gabe calls out.
I take the opportunity reaching forward grabbing Bex, yanking her with all my might, pulling her to me.
It all happens so damn fast.
Bex screams.
The sound of a gun goes off quickly, twice.
I fall with a weight on me as a warmth trickles over my arm.
Opening my eyes as I pant hard and fast, I see Bex lying on my chest. My hand moves up to stroke her tatty hair as her head bobs up, and tears gleam in her eyes. Seeing her, alive and in my arms fills me with hope. My hands rush to her face, pulling her lips to mine.
I just need to kiss her.
She kisses me back, but she’s weak. It’s not a passion-fueled kiss, merely our lips joining letting each other know we’re here, together.
But I also need to make sure she’s all right. So I pull back, moving to sit us up.
She winces.
It’s then I notice the trail of fucking blood.
CHAINS
I lift her onto my lap to assess the damage.
Was she shot?
What the hell’s going on?
“You shot me,” Edgar calls out as he groans on the floor making me feel relieved it wasn’t Bex, but I run my hand over her arm to feel warm liquid as she flinches.
Then I see it.
The giant cut on her arm. Edgar must have sliced her on his way down.
“You’re okay, babe, I got you,” I whisper in her ear as I hold her to me.
Brody lowers his gun, smoke billowing from the tip as Grier watches him, gnawing on her bottom lip.
Then we hear the drop of the body.
There was a second bullet.
We glance to the corner of the room and notice the other Sovereign guard shot Gabe in the head at close range at the same time Brody shot Edgar. As everyone takes in the scene, it’s like the room detonates. Luc cries out in pain as Brody and Grier both aim their guns at the guard.
“Get on the ground,” Brody and Grier both yell as they race forward to the guard. Brody kicks the guard’s knees out making him fall to the floor while Grier grabs his hands placing some handcuffs around his wrists. Luc hobbles over to his father, and I know he’s in tremendous pain.
All the while, inside I’m battling the demons of my past. Gabe was a monster to me—to Luc and me when we were younger. I can’t fathom why Luc’s so cut up about his father dying.
Confusion flows through me as I wonder what the fuck’s going on. “Can someone explain to me what the hell is happening here?” I call out.
Torque steps forward. “Do you want to tell him, Edgar?”
Edgar clings to his side as he looks right at me. “All those words about you wanting to come back to the Sovereigns. Is it true, Ty?” Edgar asks.
I stroke Bex’s hair. “I’d rather die a thousand deaths than work for you.” My lip curls up in revulsion. “I despise you. You disgust me.”
Edgar smirks. It’s menacing. It’s evil. “The thing is, Ty, you are like me. So very much.”
“I’m nothing like you. I don’t get my enjoyment out of torturing boys to make them do my bidding for me when they grow up.” I glance at Bex. “I spent my time with a family who loves me. Who cares about me. Who treats me with respect. You killed my father. The Sovereigns were never a family to me. So I am nothing like you.”
“But, Ty, why do you think I paid such close attention to your father? To you? Aren’t you connecting the dots?”
I glance at Torque, his eyes fall to the ground. He knows, but I’m not quite there yet. I look at Bex and watch her eyes watering. She’s figured it out too as she wraps her arms around me. “It doesn’t change who you are, Ty,” she whispers.
I flick my eyes to Edgar while breathing harshly. I think it’s starting to sink in. “No, you can’t be!”
His lips slowly edge up the sides of his face like something from some fucking horror movie. The scene so sinister, so evil, it makes me want to puke.
“What do you want to call me? Grandpa, grandad, pops?”
Shaking my head, panic washes over me. I can’t have his blood running through me. I can’t. Bex brings her hands up grabbing either side of my face, looking in my eyes. Her sky blues staring in mine somehow calms me enough as Edgar’s laughter filters through the room.
“Enough of the family reunion, let’s get to the betrayal at hand. Gabe was a cowardly fucker! And Lucian, when I instructed you to call Ty, I told you to demand he come alone!”
I glance at Luc, he’s still bleeding badly as he holds onto his father’s dead body. But he certainly didn’t tell me to come alone. If I were to have come alone, it would have been a trap, but Luc made sure I came with full support. He was making sure we got out of this.
Maybe he is on our side.
But then, why the fuck would he take Bex in the first place?
“Well, Edgar, these brothers showed me what family is all about. You’re just a miserable old asshole. My father watched you torment me for years. When Ty left, and he couldn’t protect me anymore, Dad stepped in making sure I was okay. He actually acted like a father and treated me better. He hated what this place represented and what you did to us. Then you held that against me, beat my father senseless, and held him for ransom unless I got the doc here, and that was all to make sure Ty would come. You used my father, you used me to get the one person who got away from you. And now my father’s dead… because of you, Edgar.”
“He was my right-hand man, and he abused the situation. He treated you unfairly, gave you priority treatment over the others. He wasn’t worthy of his title, and you are nothing but a bane on this place. You don’t deserve to be a Sovereign, boy!”
Luc sneers curling his lip. “I’m not a Sovereign, Edgar, because the Sovereigns don’t exist.”
His eyes widen as he tries to sit back up. “What? What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means this place and all of its fucked up bullshit is being disbanded and closed down. All the children are being placed into care and all the men, the ones who aren’t dead, will be formally charged and put through the judicial system,” Grier chimes with a satisfied smirk on her face.
“You
can’t do that, the Sovereigns are a legacy, a right of passage, they can’t simply be disbanded.”
Luc finally let’s go of his father walking over to Edgar, his stride full of purpose and intent. Even with a bullet in his side, he holds his gun in his hand. “We can, and we will, because you won’t be around to do anything about it.”
“What the hell does that me—”
BANG.
Smoke billows from the tip of Luc’s gun. Edgar falls to the floor in a heap as my eyes focus on the oozing bullet hole in Edgar’s skull. He would always pay for his sins, it was only a matter of time, and who would be the one lucky enough to pull the damn trigger? Even though everything in me wanted to end Edgar myself, Luc suffered at Edgar’s hands for longer than I did, so he deserved the pleasure.
You’d think I’d feel elation.
You’d think I’d feel relief.
But all I feel is numb.
I feel like the world has stopped around me while I continue to stare at Edgar’s dead body on the floor.
Bex cuddles into me as I hold onto her so fucking tight I won’t ever let her go.
Silence fills the room as I begin to tremble. The man who haunts my nights, the man who made me the person I am, the man who terrified me my entire life, lays on the floor, lifeless—a bullet in his skull. Finally, slow relief floods my every fucking pore.
“I’m free,” I whisper to no one in particular.
Bex runs her fingers up and down the back of my neck soothingly as she looks into my eyes. I stare at her knowing I want to spend the rest of my life not being held back by that fucking lunatic.
By him and that godforsaken place haunting me any-fucking-more.
My hands move to Bex’s face. I rush forward kissing her, our lips colliding, teeth clashing. I don’t fucking care that everyone in here is watching. I need her. After all she’s been through, after all we’ve been through, I need her to know where I stand.