| |
I come to. The back of my head is killing me. There’s a pounding pain at the base of my neck that vibrates with each blink of my eyes. I go to wipe at my face and can’t move my hands. My pulse spikes. I blink again and realize I can’t move my legs. I jerk and the chair I’m secured to barely moves.
My stomach lurches. I hear them before I see them. Grunting and laughing. Bile rises in my throat. I’m going to slaughter them. Rip off their arms and legs then their dicks. Lastly, I’ll have their heads. My wife. My wild and free Honey Bee is face down on the floor across from me while they take turns assaulting her.
I jerk violently and my chair turns over. I fall sideways to the floor. A pair of tan boots obstruct my view as I struggle to break free.
“Look who decided to wake up and catch the show.” Bruno squats down and grabs me by my chin. I close my eyes, but he digs his fingers right under the sockets. “Watch,” he growls. “After your little bitch, you’re next. Max loves cock too.” An insidious laughter erupts deep from his gut.
There’s a chunk of his cheek missing, and I know Hazel put up a fight.
“What’s taking so long?” I hear a female voice call out from behind me somewhere. “Oh my god, you said you were just going to scare them.”
Crystal’s cunt ass.
“Told you to wait in the car.”
“Did you? Did you touch her?”
“The fuck you think this is? Take your ass to the car or I’ll let Max fuck you next. Stupid bitch. Ain’t good for nothing. Can’t do a fuckin’ thing right. Lousy pussy. Good for nothin’.”
“I hate you,” Crystal shrieks. “I wish I’d never met you.” I hear the crack of a slap and Crystal cries out.
“That makes two of us. Ruined my god damn life. Ugly whore. Can’t even get it up for you. So yeah, I fucked your friend, and she loved every second of my cock.”
“You’re a real piece of shit.”
“Why are you still here? I said get the fuck to the car.” He kicks her in the stomach and she goes sailing into the wall with a thud.
This whole time the other piece of shit hasn’t stopped his attack on my wife. Only one thing bothers me more and that’s her silence. No cries or pleas for him to stop leave her lips. In fact, she’s not moving at all. My heart nearly stops beating in my chest. I’m powerless. The world stops moving, and I can’t breathe. Everything happens in slow motion, and I can hear my heart splintering into a million pieces. They’ll have to kill me too because I’ll burn the motherfucking world down for her.
Crystal and Bruno continue to scream at each other. His boots disappear. I close my eyes plotting all the ways I’m going to make them suffer. I’ll kill everyone they’ve ever touched. I’ll take out their whole bloodline.
“Should have got shot of your ass years ago.”
Crystal gurgles.
“Fuck, bro. Don’t kill her. That’s your baby momma.”
I crane my neck to see the three of them in a scuffle. Bruno’s choking Crystal as his brother attempts to pull him off. Her face is jacked up. Two black eyes and a swollen nose. Cracked and bleeding lips.
A gunshot fires then two more. Bruno drops to a knee as Crystal gasps for a breath. His brother runs out the back. I look to Hazel. She stands beaten and bloodied. Appearing like an avenging angel holding a gun, naked from the waist down. Her gaze cuts to mine and what I see there kills me. There’s a hollowness where her sparkle should be.
She points the gun on Crystal. “Cut him loose. Now,” she screams.
Crystal gets a knife from the kitchen and nicks me in the process of cutting the ties, but I don’t care. I need to get to my wife.
Bruno grunts and lunges for Crystal. Hazel doesn’t hesitate to put another bullet in him. His body slumps forward on Crystal. I use my free hand to grab the knife she was using to finish cutting the hard plastic.
The second I’m freed I’m on Hazel. “Need to get you to the hospital.”
“No. No cops. No doctors.”
“Babe, someone had to have heard we need to play this the right way. Need to have our stories straight. Gotta be truthful. The drugs. All of it.”
“You killed him,” Crystal whispers, shoving Bruno’s body to the side.
Fuck.
“He was going to kill you. He beat and raped me.”
“I know,” she says on a sniffle. “But I love him. He’s the father of my child. I can’t do this.” She retches.
“Hazel, you need to clean up. If we’re doing this, we do it my way. No fucking questions asked.”
She nods and I look to Crystal. “You with me on this? You got Hazel into this shit. Brought your man and his fuckwad brother to her door. This shit is on you.”
She sucks in a breath. Her chin wobbles as she cries. “I never meant for it to go this far. He was mad and I... he told me she tried to sleep with him. I didn’t think.”
“You think I would willingly have sex with him? I told you I got married, and I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Hazel, shower.”
“Yeah. Okay.” She walks woodenly to the bedroom, and I feel like an asshole but if we’re doing this its gotta go fast. No room for mistakes. If the police show, we are royally fucked.
“Crystal?”
She stares at the blood covering her hands. “Oh god.” She dry heaves.
“Crystal,” I snap.
“Yeah?”
“Need you to pull it together and be a soldier right now. Get the quilt and sheets off the bed.”
She stares at Bruno as blood seeps onto the hardwood. “I think he’s still breathing.” The blood is coming from his lower back and his mouth.
“Go,” I growl, and she jumps but gets to it.
I put two fingers to his neck. He has a faint pulse. Bastard is getting off easier than he deserves. Crystal returns with what I asked for. “Help me roll him.” Fucker is heavy.
If he wasn’t such a disgusting person, I’d have some sort of remorse, but I don’t. He’s taken something from Hazel I can never replace. I promised she’d always be safe with me. That I’d never hurt her and now she’s been violated in the worst possible way. I don’t know whether to kill Crystal now or wait till she’s helped me load this fat fuck.
The sketchy bitch sticks with me doing everything I ask including helping me load the body into the back of my cage. Fucker better not bleed all over my upholstery.
Hazel is getting dressed while Crystal scrubs the floor as good as she can. Hazel gives her a change of clothes and we stuff her bloody ones into a trash bag to dispose of later.
I put in a call to Slick. Hazel can be mad at me for it later, but she needs this. “Got a situation. Soon as I can get her there. Lily needs to be ready.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly what you think it means. I can’t talk now. I gotta take out the trash.” I end the call before he can jump my ass. I finish loading Hazel’s car and get the trailer hitched. We aren’t coming back. The three of us along with the dead body in the back of my vehicle roll out to the only place I know to go to. Delbert’s pig farm in Franklin.
Rain pelts against the windshield as I drive the speed limit hoping we don’t draw any attention to ourselves.
The temperature has warmed enough to stop the snow. Nothing about this situation is ideal.
Crystal is getting anxious and Hazel I’m certain is in shock. She hasn’t uttered more than three words since I strapped her into the passenger seat. I want to comfort her, except right now I’m doing the best by her I can by cleaning up Crystal’s fucking mess. Delbert isn’t a good man, but he’s efficient and discreet. He’ll take the drugs and dispose of the body no questions asked.
I pull up to the back gate and roll my window down enough to give the signal.
The gate opens and I drive down the old dirt road to the barn to unload.
Its growing dark out and with the rain the ground is slick and muddy. I get out and hand the payment off to Delbert. He does a taste test with his pocketknife and gives me a chin lift. I open the back passenger door where Crystal sits. “Time to unload.”
“Okay.” She nearly slips when her feet touch the ground, but I catch her at the elbow.
Bitch helps me with the body, leaving it in the designated stall. The distinct smell of pig shit nearly takes my damn breath away. I grab the bag of Crystal’s soiled clothes and drop them next to the body.
“Look at him,” I order her, grabbing her by the back of the neck.
“No.” She shakes her head. I release her. Crystal retches and bends hands to her knees as she doubles over.
I aim my 9 mil at the base of her skull. “You’re a loose end.”
“Please. I won’t tell. I swear. I’ll do whatever you want. I just want to go home to my son,” she sobs and clutches at her chest. ‘I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“It’s a fucking panic attack. Breathe in through your nose and out your mouth.”
“Don’t kill me. I have a kid.”
“I grew up without a mother. So did Hazel. Look how we turned out. Was happy till you and that scum you call a man fucked everything. Was on our god damn honeymoon. Hazel who has never asked for much from anyone.” My finger twitches on the trigger. “You set her up.”
“Bruno made me. I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a fucking choice. You chose wrong.”
My woman steps up next to me, placing her shaking hand over my weapon. “We’ve had enough violence for one day.”
I’d do anything for Hazel. Anything, but I don’t want to give her this.
“You’re a shit person, Crystal. Shit mother for subjecting your son to that lousy motherfucker. Bet he hit your boy too.” I shake my head.
“I’m a good mom,” she whispers, twisting to face me. I keep the barrel of my weapon pressed to her forehead. Her dead gaze meets mine, and I wonder if the bitch has a soul.
“Are you though?”
“Holy,” Hazel cuts in. “It’s not lost on me what she’s done or who she is. I don’t expect you to understand my reasons or hers. Maybe she’s not been a good friend to me, but she’s been there for me when I had no one. Not even you. Her choices were misguided, but she doesn’t deserve to die. She’s free now. Let her go.”
I close my eyes and let out a breath.
The bitch deserves to die.
Letting her walk out of here goes against everything I stand for. Goes against the code of my club.
“Don’t make me regret this.” I lower my hand and shove my gun back into my cut. “Get up. Get back in the car.”
The three of us leave, and I drive further out into the countryside.
When I’m satisfied with the distance between Crystal and Nashville, I pull off.
I climb out and open the back passenger door. I grip Crystal by her elbow. “You and Bruno had a fight. He left you on the side of the road. You’re going to get your kid and leave town first thing tomorrow. I’ll know if you don’t and then I won’t have a choice and Hazel won’t save you. If you see Max before you go let him know that there’s a bounty on his head.”
I jerk her out of her seat. “I so much as hear a whisper that you’ve thought about Hazel or spoken to anyone about what went down, I’ll slit your throat and mail your head to your mother.”
Stupid bitch pisses herself.
Fucking hell. Gonna have to burn my damn SUV at this rate. Dead body, blood, piss. Fucking ruined. “Start walking. Don’t look back. You call this in, and I’ll know. Club has cops on the payroll in all our cities. Start over. Do better for you and that boy of yours or he won’t have a mother.”
She starts walking.
Bitch better thank her lucky stars she’s still breathing.
I climb back in and get the hell out of Tennessee.