I checked in on Whip, who was still unconscious. His brother sat beside his bed, keeping vigil, and I knew he wouldn’t leave until he was certain his twin would survive. He’d been shot in the side and had bled profusely before we got him back to the compound.
“Where is he?” Noose asked when I entered the room.
“We have him at the crematorium,” I replied. “Mort and I will be heading over there shortly.”
“I’d come, but I can’t leave him. I already feel like he’s slipping away.”
“Then stay with him.” I squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll take care of him.”
“Promise me you won’t make it easy for him,” Noose said through clenched teeth. “Promise me you’ll make him suffer as much as we did tonight. Do it for your boy and the father he lost, our brothers, and my brother.”
“I will, brother. I will.”
After visiting with the twins, I stopped at Mort’s bedroom, but before I could knock, Cass’s soft cries and the squeaking of the mattress came through the door. Any other time I wouldn’t have hesitated to pull Mort away, but after tonight and what we had all been through, he deserved to remind himself of how alive he was. And if Cass could achieve that, then I didn’t want to break them up.
Booker appeared next to me, and our eyes connected. I raised an eyebrow in his direction, silently asking for his opinion.
“Let him savor the moment,” he told me. “I’ll tell him to meet you at the house. It will give you some time to have a long-overdue talk with Jamie. Make him understand, Grimm. Di Oro won’t be going anywhere. I’ve made sure of it.”
Taking his advice, I headed for the house, letting myself in quietly. Downstairs was empty, so I made for the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the bedroom, I stood bewildered at the lack of life I encountered. The bed was still made and not a trace of Jamie anywhere around. Not even in the bathroom.
He could only be one place. I left my bedroom and walked the short distance to my son’s. Before I reached it, Joel stepped out and closed the door behind him.
“Jamie?” I asked him, staring over his shoulder at the closed door.
“He’s fine,” he replied. “Settled in for the night.”
I inhaled sharply, then nodded. “Fine. Ensure he’s all right and never leave him alone.”
“I won’t.”
I nodded. “Good. Both of you stay in. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
I loathed not seeing Jamie before I went out, but if he needed his best friend more than he needed a lover, I’d give him the space to sort out what was going through his head. It was best to approach him after I’d eliminated Di Oro.
“Do you think it’s the right time to go out, Dad?” Joel asked. “He’s really hurting. I wish he would cry or something.”
“I have to. There are wrongs that I must right.”
The door opened behind Joel, and Jamie came out, wearing a pair of Joel’s pajamas. It said a lot to me that he didn’t even feel comfortable wearing his own clothes, or maybe he just didn’t want to set foot in my bedroom. Did he hate me that much for not being able to save his father?
“I know where you’re going,” he said softly. “And I’m coming with you.”
“You need to—”
“I left my father lying there because of you,” he replied, pain lancing through my heart at his accusation. “You will not take this away from me too, Grimm. I need to look him in the face and watch him breathe his last breath.”
Conflicted, I paused, hoping that if I allowed him to come with me, he would forgive me for the tough choice I’d made earlier. On the other hand, I didn’t wish for him to see any more violence tonight. Today he’d seen more than I’d ever wanted him to witness. He’d endured things I’d worked diligently to shield him and Joel from.
“You should stay home,” I told him.
He took another step toward me. “If you don’t take me, I’ll just follow you anyway, so might as well let me tag along. I just want to watch. I have to.”
Time progressed as I struggled to make a decision. Maybe watching would satisfy him enough for moving on to be easier for him. I hadn’t been able to let him stay with his father’s body, but this I could give him.
I could give him justice.
“Get dressed,” I told him. “And meet me downstairs.”
“I don’t need to get dressed.”
“Go get dressed,” I repeated, frowning at his disobedience.
I’d let a lot slide in the past few hours because I knew he was messed up right now, but if he wasn’t careful, he would test my patience to the limit. I didn’t want to reprimand or punish him while he was grieving his father. If it boiled down to it, though, I would do.
“Promise you won’t leave without me.”
Didn’t he believe me now? Was that what our relationship had resorted to? Him not trusting me?
“I promise.”
He nodded, then hurried by me to our bedroom, where he should have been in the first place. For the first time, I envied him the closeness to my son. I pushed the twinge away, shaking my head when he didn’t close the bedroom door, leaving it ajar as if he still didn’t trust me not to leave without him.
“Dad, this is madness,” Joel hissed at me. “You can’t let him watch you murder someone.”
“I’m bringing him justice for what was done to his father,” I told my son. “I don’t see it as murder. Just vengeance.”
“And you think this will make him feel any better about losing his father?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “It won’t do anything but make him harder than today has already made him. We’re trying to get back the Jamie we both know, not make him into some cold-blooded murderer.”
“He’s just watching. I’ll be the cold-blooded murderer. That’s what you already think of me, isn’t it?”
“Dad.” Joel sighed. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just worried for both of you.”
“Don’t. I won’t let anything happen to him, and you should know that.”
I ended the conversation right there and made for the stairs. I was barely outfitted with a simple knife and a gun when Jamie joined me downstairs. Booker had messaged me that Mort was already waiting for me at the gate.
“You ready?” I asked Jamie, relieved Joel was keeping his distance. The last thing I needed right now was for him to make me even more conflicted than I already was. What if he was right, and I was doing the wrong thing bringing Jamie with me?
“Yes.”
We took my bike to the crematorium. Usually I would feel invigorated being on the back of my Harley, but tonight I felt nothing but heaviness. When we got there and Jamie hopped off the bike, his knees buckled. I caught him before he hit the ground, frowning at him in concern.
“Jamie, are you all right?”
He pushed at my arms until I let him go and gulped in a deep breath. “I’m fine.”
I nodded, aware of Mort watching us. “Everything good?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Let’s do this.”
Without speaking, we followed Mort to the back of the crematory—a huge brick building that I remembered being exactly as it was since I was a boy. My mother had been cremated, and so was my father. It was how I’d met Mort, and he’d become one of us.
I kept glancing at Jamie, checking for signs of unease, but other than his moment of weakness when he’d almost fallen, he was stoic, prepared to face his father’s killer. At least on the outside. What bothered me were the things going on inside him that he wouldn’t talk about with anyone.
Mort produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the large door at the back entrance. “Come on, this way.”
We followed him along a long corridor, illuminated by a bright light that showed how clean and sterile the place was. Other than the echo of our footsteps, silence screamed from the walls.
Jamie shifted closer to me, and I couldn’t avoid touching him anymore. Damn if he hated me. I couldn’t tolerate this chasm between
us. I slowed down and placed a hand at the small of his back, ignoring the way he stiffened at my touch. He didn’t move away, and that was the important thing. As we trailed after Mort, some of the tension left his body.
“He’s in the second room to the left,” Mort told us. “I’ll check the place out while you take care of business. You let me know when you’re ready for me to fire up the retort.”
I nodded, and we separated, me leading Jamie toward the door Mort indicated. Just outside, I paused and turned to Jamie.
“Are you sure you want to see this?”
“Yes. I’m not going to change my mind.”
I wanted to ask him the question over and over, but the conviction in his eyes said it all. I pushed the door open and stepped aside for Jamie to enter ahead of me. I released the door, and it slowly closed on its own with a quiet thud.
This wasn’t my first time being in the crematory, so I already knew what to expect. A large cooler with iron double doors used to store remains. To the left was an iron rack with several tiers, and on top of the racks rested crematory boxes. This room had three retorts in total and a pulverizing station set up in one corner for the breaking down of the bones into particles that were then bagged and passed on to loved ones.
“If you want to go at any point, let me know,” I told Jamie. We walked to the man thrashing on the metal table in the center of the room. Di Oro lay completely naked on the table, secured in place by restraints to his wrists and ankles. He protested frantically beneath the tape that covered the lower half of his face.
“Stand back,” I instructed Jamie. I moved closer to the man responsible for the death of a friend, lover, and father. By Jamie’s account, he had also kidnapped and sold people who would probably never be found again. That was the only thing I’d gotten out of him when we’d returned to the compound as he pleaded for us not to harm the boy we’d discovered along with him.
“We’re back,” I announced, holding one corner of the tape and ripping it off his face. He screamed, the sound echoing in the sterile room. “You’re going to want to save your voice for when it truly hurts,” I cautioned him. “It’s not like anybody is here but us and the dead. They can’t save you, Di Oro. Nobody can.”
“You don’t want to do this,” he gasped, pushing against the restraints. “You let me go, and my family will forgive you for taking my brother’s life. We’re even.”
“But I don’t want to be even,” I told him, running the knife across his cheek, slicing into the skin until he bled. “I want you to suffer like you made Jamie suffer when you tried to drown him. Like you made all those people you sold into sex slavery suffer. In fact, they will still be suffering while you are dead.”
“You think he’ll be safe if you kill me?” he rasped. “My family will rip yours apart. They will let you watch him die before they kill you. If you kill me, this will just be the beginning.”
I plunged the knife into his shoulder, and he screamed. I met resistance, and I pushed harder. “Now why on earth do you think you’re in a position to threaten me?”
“I’m giving you a warning,” he gasped, body contorting in pain as far as the restraints would allow him.
“Then I’ll just have to ensure your family knows quite well who they are up against. Don’t worry. I’ll send them your ashes. After I cremate you alive.”
His breathing quickened, eyes wild with fright as he thrashed even harder at the revelation of the plans I had for him. I found it was more satisfying to have them know exactly the torture they would suffer.
“No.”
A click sounded. I whipped around. Jamie had his arm outstretched, hard eyes focused, aiming a gun at Di Oro on the table. “He gets to die by my hands. He took my father away from me.”
“Jamie, let me handle this,” I told him, eyes focused on the hands that held the gun. “He’ll suffer more this way.”
“I want him to feel what my father did when he pulled the trigger and fired those shots, hitting him several times.”
Jamie was so angry the gun shook in his grasp. I should have never brought him here, I realized. He was too angry to think straight, and an out-of-control man with a gun, even one I loved, was a dangerous thing.
“Half-Way, let me handle this,” I said gently. “I’ll make him pay for what he did. You don’t have to do this. Let me take care of it for you.”
“You’re wrong.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I need to do this. It’s my father he took from me.” Jamie approached Di Oro, pointing the gun at the man’s chest, the nuzzle flush against his skin. “You took my father away from me!” he screamed at Di Oro. “You took him away.”
“Jamie.”
His arm shook. I braced myself for the gun to go off as tears streamed down his face. My heart broke for him and the truth of the moment. He wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t one of us. Even in his anger and grief, he could not pull the trigger.
“You’re weak and pathetic,” Di Oro spat at him. “Just like your old man.”
“I’m going to cut out your tongue if you don’t stop talking,” I swore at Di Oro as I slowly approached Jamie, placing a hand on his arm. “Baby, give me the gun. Your father would have wanted me to handle this. I don’t want any blood on your hands when I can get it on mine.”
I slowly took the gun out of his grasp, and he released it, collapsing against me, sobbing. I held him to me while I replaced the hammer. His whole body trembled like a leaf.
“Why can’t I do it?” he cried, sobs wracking his body. “I should kill him. I should.”
“It’s okay.” I folded my arms around him, my eyes meeting Di Oro’s.
Jamie’s sobs pulled on everything inside of me, gutted me.
And Di Oro knew his time was up.
Chapter Forty
Jamie
“I’m so proud of you tonight, Jamie. You showed more restraint than most men I know.”
Grimm’s words fell on deaf ears as I sat on the bed, squeaky clean while he was dotted with blood. Blood on his hands so I didn’t have to get any on mine. But I had stood there and watched without protest as Grimm waged war on Di Oro’s body.
The man had been limp, half-dead, and true to Grimm’s words, he had been placed in the box alive but trussed up before Mort had shoved the container into the retort.
I could still hear Di Oro’s feeble thumps against the box as they pushed him in, but Grimm had taken me away almost immediately after, leaving Mort to deal with the rest.
Now I understood why they called him the Mortician. Mort made me think of Family Guy, but The Mortician was nothing like that Mort. The Mortician was anything but. He’d been so at ease at the crematory.
Usually I thought of him as the clueless member of the club who didn’t have his dick out of Cass long enough to know what was going on. After tonight though, I saw him as so much more. A man who could burn someone alive without flinching wasn’t a man to overlook.
“How does Mort know so much about cremation?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Mort grew up around the crematory,” he replied. “His father ran the place before he was killed, and Mort learned the trade from him. Thanks to him and his connection to the place, we know how to effectively get rid of unwanted bodies.”
I sucked in a deep breath and rubbed at the place over my heart, which ached. “I had the gun. I had the anger. I had the pain. Why couldn’t I pull the trigger, Grimm? Why couldn’t I avenge my father’s death?”
Grimm came to a stop before me where I sat at the edge of the bed. He went down on his knees and took my hands in his, squeezing gently.
“Half-Way, look at me.”
I raised my head to do just that, but the tears made it hard for me to see his face. “I should have killed him.”
The tears fell, and he brushed them away with his hands. “You listen to me, Jamie, you have a good heart. A heart to help and care for people.” He took up my hands and kissed them. “Hands that were made to heal others. Don’t be
upset with yourself for not being able to pull the trigger. That’s why I am here, to pull as many triggers as you need me to.”
I shook my head and gulped down a deep breath. “It was my duty. He took bullets meant for me. I owed it to him.”
“No, no, baby. Listen to me.” I was listening, but my suffering heart refused to accept the logic he fed my brain. “What you owe to your father is to live your best life. To be happy. I know it’s going to suck for a while. It’s going to hurt real bad, and cry if you must. Take it out on me if you must, but your father did all this so you could live. So you must go on living after grieving.”
Getting to his feet, Grimm kissed my eyes, drying my salty tears before leaning forward and kissed my forehead. “I need to take a shower. Get into bed and try to get some rest. I’ll join you soon in a few.”
I nodded, mustering up my best smile for him. It must have been convincing enough. He kissed my forehead again before he moved off toward the bathroom. Once I was alone, I let the fake smile drop. I didn’t want to worry him.
It was clear from the look in his eyes that he was worried about how I was taking my father’s death. Tonight I had snapped, ready to pull the trigger and take a life. So stupid. I wasn’t cut out for this life. None of the other men in this club would have blinked twice when it came to pulling that trigger.
Yet deep inside, I was also relieved I didn’t have to pull that trigger. Grimm was right. I healed. I didn’t destroy. If I couldn’t take the life of the man who had gunned down my dad, I didn’t have it in me to kill any at all.
A sob choked out of me, and I gasped for air to calm my aching heart. My dad was really gone. He’d died trying to save me. And all this time I had disobeyed him, argued with him, made life difficult for him.
There was so much I would have done better. I would have tried harder to make him understand why I loved Grimm. I could have tried harder to be more like the son he’d always wanted and less like the one he’d disapproved of.
Biker Daddy (The Grimm Tales of Smoky Vale Book 1) Page 32