Burn Up (Steel Veins Book 2)

by Jackson Kane

  Whatever was in the safe-deposit box was heavy. I shook it slightly but couldn’t get a gauge as to what could be hiding inside. I scolded myself for stalling and placed it back on the table. No more delays. Hendrix and Aunt Gina were depending on me to open this damn box, a box that I had no idea what the code was….

  I positioned the box to the side of the table that was out of sight of the biker in the hallway as I wanted as much solitude from him as I could get. I needed to concentrate if I had any hope of unlocking this.

  I tried to think like my mother. What could the combination be? What would she use? I tried all the birthdays I could remember. Mine and Anna’s first. They didn’t work, but I knew those would be too obvious. Even Slick, when pressed, could remember our birthdays… well, maybe. It had to be something else. I tried anniversaries and other important dates. The first and last four digits of our social security numbers, the first four of our zip codes, phone numbers, licenses, everything!

  I took a step away from my nemesis, brimming with frustration.

  The four-digit combination lock stared back at me, peering into my very soul as if to taunt me. If I survived long enough to ever sleep again, that brass-colored, number-printed, metal box would haunt my fucking dreams.

  My hand grazed Robbie’s pocket watch in my pocket that I had forgotten I still had on me. The epiphany erupted from my brain like a geyser. This had to be the key!

  I tore it out of my pants pocket. It was a miracle that Slick’s goon had let me keep it after he had frisked me. Well, I guess he was more interested in guns, knives, or cell phones.

  I opened the watch and noticed the time had stopped. Had it somehow broken in the scuffle? Then I remembered Hendrix telling me that it looked like it had been damaged a long time ago. I peeled off the picture of my mom and sister. There had to be a code behind the picture—there had to be! It made so much sense that I could already see the handwritten digits in my mind. Why the hell else would Robbie carry a broken watch around?

  When I finagled the picture out and those four desperately needed digits weren’t there, I nearly screamed. Where the fuck was it! Why not just keep the picture in his wallet? None of this made any fucking sense.

  Dread set in. I wouldn’t be able to open it. I’d have to go back empty-handed. The anxiety was becoming too much to bear as the hyperventilation started. I thought of Hendrix shot in the head, lying on the ground, bleeding out all over my aunt’s carpeting. All I could hear was the sound of my own heart frantically beating. All this was my fault, all of it! My hands trembled uncontrollably. This was all too much.

  The knob was broken off the pocket watch. That one fact stuck out in my mind like a needle piercing through the mounting self-pity and panic. Why would Robbie keep it?

  Figure this out, Maya. You can do it. It was my mother’s voice I heard in my head this time. I calmed down and forced myself to think. What was I missing?

  From what Hendrix told me, Robbie was ex-Army and was the type of person who hated being idle. He didn’t strike me as the sentimental type. Sure, keep the picture, but the broken watch? He wouldn’t have bothered.

  I rolled it around in my hands. What was so special about this plain, metal, pocket watch? I’d never heard of the manufacturer, and if anything, it looked a little cheap. I started trying to figure what numbers correlated with what abbreviated letters for acronyms related to the words on its face. I also came up with a few number combinations for the periodic elements the watch was made of, but they didn’t work when I tried them. Was I going about this the wrong way? It had to be something personal.

  I propped my elbows on the table and stared at the broken timepiece. If he liked it so much, why wouldn’t he have fixed it? Then I took a hard look at the time. It was stopped at...

  The hands of the clock were set at 11:43. Wasn’t that the time Anna was born? Then it hit me like a freight train as everything fell into place.

  Oh my God. Uncle Robbie wasn’t just Mom’s lover….

  In a stupor, I tried the number. Click. The locking mechanism released immediately. Holy fucking shit! It worked.

  I slowly pulled back the lid and fumbled through the safe-deposit box’s contents. It was all there, everything I hoped for. Records, pictures, descriptions of events. It was a wellspring of evidence. No wonder Slick wanted this so badly. This information was so damning, not just for him but for his whole chapter, maybe even the whole club. With this, I could take them apart.

  Underneath everything, I discovered what was to be something of a love letter that read:

  Amanda,

  I hope to God you’ve been burning these. Bruce cannot know what we have planned. He’s a fucking weasel, but the reach of the Steel Veins is some serious shit. I think we’ve got enough dirt on him that we’ll be okay. Just make sure you put everything in a safe place, and no matter what, you can’t tell me where. If things go bad... I don’t want them to be able to get that info out of me.

  I saw the girls the other day. Prettiest damn things in the world. They look just like you. I think about Anna all the time. I think about how we brought something that beautiful into the world. I never knew my heart could get so big... or hurt so damn much! Soon, I’ll get to see my daughter grow up firsthand.

  Maya’s getting so big now too. She’s so beautiful! It’s the only good thing my brother has ever done. You’re always saying that everything happens for a reason. Well, baby, maybe Maya was that reason. She’s worth all of it, and I can’t wait to get to know her when all of this is over.

  It’s almost over, baby. Just a few more weeks, and I’ll have everything lined up, and you, me, and the girls can get far away from that shitbag and the Steel Veins. I just need a little more time.

  I’m not very good at putting my feelings down on paper. But if that’s the only way that we can talk right now, then I’ll keep writing. Please be careful. I love you.

  Always yours.

  –Robert

  “P.S. Sorry about all the cursing. I know you hate it.

  I carefully set the letter down. I must have started to cry at some point. That note was a lot to take in. Robbie was Anna’s father? I guess I did know the truth but forced myself not to see it. There was no mistaking that Anna has Robbie’s dimple on the same side of her face as his.

  I imagined just how different my life would’ve been if their plan had worked. Growing up with a father who actually cared about me and my sister? Jesus, Anna would only have been a half sister, but that didn’t matter to me. With Mom and Robbie, we’d have had a real family.

  But their plan didn’t work. They both wound up dead.

  Now that monster, Slick, was threatening everything else that I held dear. I would die before I allowed him to hurt anyone else I loved. What I needed was a plan. I had to leave the bank a message somehow.

  I quickly scanned the area, but, of course, there was nothing to write on or within this vault. I glanced up at the cameras and slowly mouthed as clearly as possible what the situation was, that I needed help, and what Aunt Gina’s address was. It was all being recorded, but they might not check it until after the bank closed, if at all. By then, it would be too late.

  No, I needed to leave a physical message as well, and for that, I needed something sharp enough to carve into the table. Unfortunately nothing in the box could help me, and I couldn’t ask for a pen, or the biker would call Slick. I had to find a way to leave the message in here, but how?

  I picked up the shabby pocket watch. This small chunk of cheap metal had been invaluable to me so far, and now it had one final thing to offer me. I snapped the watch cover off and tried to carve a message, but the table was too hard.

  I sighed, turned my hand over, and looked at my palm. “Fuck....” There was only one other way to do this, yet it made me a little queasy just thinking about it. But I had no choice. I took a deep breath, pushed passed my hesitancy, then stabbed my palm with the jagged edge of the watch cover.

  Blood beaded onto my ha
nd, but it wouldn’t be enough. I drew another deep breath and jabbed my hand again. My fingers twitched, but now the blood was flowing freely. I scrawled my aunt’s address and the words HELP ME. I must have overdone it with the cut because the blood had yet to clot. I couldn’t go out like this as the biker would immediately know that something had happened. I slipped one of my shoes off and grabbed a sock. It was kinda gross, but it was all I had at the moment. Fortunately, I was wearing ankle socks today, so I’d be able to hide it in my clenched fist easily enough. I just hoped the thin fabric would be sufficient to stop the bleeding.

  Being that Slick wouldn’t know how many documents were in the box originally, I took half that was there and shoved the other half back in the hole in the wall where my box belonged. Just in case something were to happen to them or to me, I’d made sure to leave enough incriminating evidence behind for the police to put that son of a bitch away for a long time.

  The Broken Vein was waiting for me when I exited the vault empty-handed. He gave me a skeptical, searching look, which I ignored. Then he followed me over to see the same bank officer that had been helping me. I thanked her and asked her to wrap up everything in my box, which I left on the table in the vault. She removed a flattened cardboard form from her desk and folded it together into a box that was approximately the same size as my safe-deposit box. Then she hustled off, her heels tip-tapping down the hallway.

  When she returned, her smile was slightly tarnished and she looked a little rattled, but nothing could shake her polished demeanor, and, of course, she was still as pleasant as ever. The bank officer handed me the box, and I could feel that it was still half full, so she’d only boxed up what was on the table and not what was in the hole. So far, so good.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Merritt, for your patronage, and on behalf SeaCoast Bank, we’re pleased to have been able to assist you. You two have a wonderful day,” she stated, quickly returning to her practiced, bubbly cadence.

  I thanked her again before the biker draped an arm over my shoulder and ushered me outside. On our way out, I saw the lady’s happy, helpful façade fall away as she called the bank manager over to her cubicle. Now I could only hope that they would notify the police in time.

  Once we were inside the rental, he grilled me on why it took so long. I explained to him that it wasn’t my box to begin with and that it was my mother’s, and that I had a lot of trouble figuring out the pin number—all of which was true. “You saw that I didn’t talk to anyone inside,” I retorted unhappily.

  He regarded me skeptically for a second then pulled out his phone to call Slick.

  “Wait! I told you the truth. I—”

  But apparently, he totally ignored me. “We got it,” the Broken Vein spoke into his smartphone. “All set, bro.” He slid the gun out from underneath the seat and placed it on his lap, the muzzle uncomfortably facing me. The creep studied my face carefully. I thought he was deciding how to answer a question that Slick asked. “No, everything’s fine.” The biker then hung up.

  Oh, thank God!

  He narrowed his eyes at me and started the car. It was a clear warning that I’d better not have fucked around or the consequences would be severe.

  We made the short drive in silence with his one hand on his gun the whole time. When we arrived at my aunt’s house, the biker slid his black gloves back on, retrieved the cardboard box, then bodily shoved me toward the front door. It made sense that he’d want to be behind me in case I ran.

  I opened the front door to find the house completely trashed and Hendrix on his knees, about to be executed. He had been severely beaten, bleeding all over the place, and now was groveling. I’d seen Hendrix stare down the wrong end of a gun before, but he never groveled. He had to be up to something.

  Slick, the executioner, was standing a few feet away, his gun pointed at Hendrix, while the other biker simply crossed his arms and casually looked on. Behind them was Aunt Gina, who was frantically cutting her leg restraints with a knife, somehow completely overlooked.

  That was the play. Hendrix was buying Aunt Gina time to get free.

  “Perfect timing.” Slick’s voice was thick with triumph. “I wanted you to see—”

  “Slick! Behind—” my biker chaperone yelled, having seen Aunt Gina clear as day.

  I knew that if I was going to act, it had to be right now. I couldn’t let that psycho win. I spun on my heels and slammed the door behind me shut, locking my biker shadow outside. There was loud but muffled cursing through the door when I felt the doorknob connect with a part of him that I hoped was extremely sensitive to pain.

  “The fuck are you—” Slick’s momentary confusion gave Aunt Gina the few more seconds she needed to be fully free.

  Aunt Gina screamed through the gag, which she hadn’t yet bothered to take off, and buried the paring knife into Slick’s back. He shrieked and whirled around, bitch-slapping her to the floor. Then, to my horror, he shot Aunt Gina three times in the chest.

  I screamed at her, leaning back against the front door. The biker outside apparently wasn’t hurt as badly as I had hoped, and the wood around the locked deadbolt cracked apart as he kicked it in. The force of the blow sent me careening into the adjacent doorway of the coat closet. I slumped to the ground but was able to kick the door shut again before he could get back inside. That was when I heard the sirens in the distance. The bank lady had called the police! Hope swelled within me. We might just make it!

  Bullets punched through the door, zinging right above me. The Broken Vein outside must have heard the approaching sirens and decided that killing me was the only way in. I, however, wedged myself against the closet doorframe and the bottom of the front door itself.

  Slick flailed for the knife that was jutting from the musculature of his back, making him look like a life-sized, wind-up toy. Decades-old anger drove Aunt Gina’s hand, but she wasn’t a murderer. She had stabbed him out of unwilling necessity, which led to Slick’s wound being painful but not deadly. He would survive.

  The other Broken Vein inside the house drew his gun but foolishly left Hendrix unattended to help his president. Hendrix seized the opportunity and somehow sprang up like a striking rattlesnake. He had appeared positively death-like when I first saw him, but now he was filled with energy and vigor. How much of that was playing up his wounds for show and how much was just pure adrenalin?

  It didn’t matter because Hendrix was ready for a throw down. He grabbed the back of the passing biker’s head and rammed it into the nearest wall with such brutal strength that the biker’s face smashed right through the drywall between the studs. The Broken Vein’s unconscious body hung limply, suspended awkwardly by just his head and neck.

  The sirens wailed in front of the house as several cars screeched to a halt. The biker outside crashed against the door once more, desperate to get in. I braced myself with everything I had left. The metal hinges strained and twisted, and deep cracks spread along the wood grain, threatening to snap it in half, but somehow it still held. He wasn’t getting in.

  There was yelling outside, back and forth from both the police and the stranded biker. Then more shooting, so I rolled away, knowing I didn’t need to hold the door shut any longer.

  Slick whimpered as he finally extracted the knife out of his back and dropped it to the floor. Hendrix glanced at me with a concerned expression, making sure I was all right, before he hurled himself back at Slick.

  But the Broken Veins’ president was much too quick, stepping backward and firing two shots into Hendrix.

  “No!” I screamed as if the words could somehow deflect bullets. They didn’t. Hendrix crumpled to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and my heart crumpled with him.

  My aunt and now Hendrix too? It was soul crushing. I shifted my gaze up to my father, the man who had taken everything from me. Sorrow, self-loathing, depression—all were just tiny islands in my ocean of vengeance.

  He had to pay for this!

  Slick kicked Hendrix’s body over
to check the entry wounds as he was always deadly thorough. Seeing that Hendrix wasn’t dead yet, he lined up one last shot that would finish the job.

  Like most of my life, my father didn’t notice me. He didn’t notice that I had picked up the unconscious biker’s pistol. He didn’t notice that I had carefully aimed, but he sure as hell noticed me when the wrist that held his gun exploded.

  Slick screamed, stumbling back to stare at me with both shock and anger.

  Do you see me now, Dad?

  His hand, now only loosely attached to his arm by a few ligaments, flopped lazily, while the wrist spurted blood onto the ground and the gun splattered into the ever-growing pool.

  “You fucking cunt!” Much to my surprise, he refused to quit and wasn’t giving in to the pain. With his other hand, he picked the gun up and brought it around to shoot me. Again, I was faster. I fired, this time catching him square in the knee. Broken bits of cartilage and bony shrapnel sprayed out through the brand-new hole in his pants.

  Slick staggered backward, tripping over some of the wreckage from their trashing of Aunt Gina’s place earlier. His injured leg buckled; then, with a series of sickening pops, it bent the wrong way completely, causing him to crash to the floor in a crumpled heap. Slick lay there, whining and moaning.

  “Hendrix!” I rushed over to him. By now, he had lost a lot more blood and was in rough shape, but the only life-threatening wound that I could see was the one just above his left pec, and he had placed pressure on it already.

  My father missed.

  “Do it! Kill me!” Slick yelled at me through labored breathing. We heard the police cautiously approaching the house. They’d be here any minute. It was all over for him, and he knew it. I stood over him anyway. I needed to see that even monsters got what they deserved.

  “Why did you kill Mom? Was it because you found out about her and Robbie, or was it because you knew that Anna wasn’t yours?” I didn’t have a way of recording our conversation. There would be no way to prove any of what he said right now in court, and Slick knew that too. I didn’t care. I just needed to hear it from him. I needed this closure.