Saving Lawson (Loving Lawson Book 2)

by Lewis, R. J.

  I couldn’t say anything. This was beyond fucked. I just looked at him, searching for a different way out of this. But he was resolved in his decision.

  “Why are you okay with this?” I asked him in disbelief. “You want to live your life on the run, Ryker? Don’t… Don’t do this.”

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t want to live my life on the run, Heath, but I don’t want to live in this town either. There’s too much… bad here for me. I need to start over somewhere. I need to try even if it means I might get caught somewhere down the track.”

  “But… I’ll never see you again if you go.”

  He wouldn’t look me in the eye. There was so much exhaustion there. So much sadness in him. I could hardly keep myself composed.

  “Maybe one day,” he replied quietly, but it sounded like an empty promise.

  I walked over to him and grabbed his face with both hands. I forced him to look up at me, and he sagged a little as we finally made eye contact. Brown eyes to brown eyes, we stared and took each other in. He could see my sorrow and I could see his pain. We were brothers – close brothers for so long before we were torn apart, and I wished I’d had some more time with him. To let him go now… it was killing me.

  “I love you, brother,” I said hoarsely.

  He nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I kinda like you too.”

  I barely cracked a smile, and then I finally dropped my hands and stepped back.

  “I got to go,” he quietly said. “I need a head start.”

  “I’ve got a car for you already,” I told him. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I knew you’d be a stubborn bastard. Cut through the forest and head right. Follow the stream until you see an off road track. It’s parked there. There’ll be a card on the windshield and it’ll say Location R.” R meaning Ryker. “That’s the proof you got it’s the right one. Your share of the money is in the boot, and at the bottom are a couple fake passports, just to get you out of the country if it comes to that.”

  Ryker managed a stiff nod. Avoiding eye contact again, he muttered. “Take care, Heath.”

  He hurried out of the room and Allie’s head turned, following him leave. With panicked eyes, she called out, “Ryker, wait!”

  I heard him stop.

  “You don’t need to go,” she pleaded. “We can think this through. You start running now and you’ll look guilty –”

  “I am guilty,” he interrupted, looking at her. “I’ve fucked you guys over. I’ve hurt you, and I’ve made too many mistakes. I deserve this. If not for this crime, then for all the others. You just take care of Kayden, and you keep Heath close to you. He’s the best man for you, I know it. I knew it a long time ago. There’s nobody else I’d trust to be with you than him.”

  I rubbed my face, trying to fight the emotions pushing to the surface. Allie helplessly watched as he resumed walking. The door opened and shut, and he was gone with his weird as fuck friend that’d given me one of the dirtiest beatings of my life. Fucker didn’t have to take it that far. I was practically sore everywhere.

  Allie went to me and buried her face to my chest, coating me with her tears. We sank to the floor together, and I stared out the dusty, broken window, wanting nothing more than to reset time. Except, I wasn’t sure what I’d do to change it. Everything wrong that happened had led me to this girl. She was worth every single obstacle.

  Her and Kayden both.

  They saved me from a meaningless existence, and they were breathing more life into me with each passing day.

  “We’re going to be fine,” I told her reassuringly. “We’ve got each other. The worst has passed. It’s just us now, Allison. I got you.”

  Only a few minutes later the sounds of sirens filled the air, and I knew all of this was finally over.

  I was never going to agree to another motherfucking plan again.

  Twenty

  Heath

  Ryker became a wanted man.

  For several months after he fled, he was everywhere. All over the news. In the papers. Everyone was talking about him. They called him a murderer. Stories from felons who had served time with him in prison began speaking out about all the fights he’d provoked. They created a picture that he was hungry for violence, and it absolutely enraged me.

  “He was protecting himself in there,” I’d said to Allie once when it was starting to get to me. “He learned that if he wanted to be left alone, he had to show others he was a fighter. He wasn’t hungry for violence.”

  “I know, Heath,” she responded quietly. “They’ll say whatever they can to ruin him.”

  They did, and soon Allie and I were no longer the talk of the town. He was. And Allie was pitied for being the victim of a crazy murderer. It was hard hearing it, but there was nothing I could do to defend him. I had to pretend he was the man they painted, otherwise the spotlight was back on us and our barely solid story.

  I’d explained to Allie in great detail everything Ryker had told me to do. I described the notebook. The cash houses. They money we’d buried. I told her about the man that recognized me at the farmhouse, and what Marko did to save me from being discovered. I told her now that the gang was no more, whatever danger that might have loomed over us was over.

  As more time passed, Marko and I began watching over the streets. We paid attention to every issue that arose, to every act of violence that took place. And, using our men, we put a stop to any gang that had begun to form. We intimidated them, and we even fought violence with violence when intimidation was deflected. Sometimes violence was the only way to control it, otherwise the town would have been what it was once before.

  I’d made a home here, and there was no way I was going to let this place lapse again. I wasn’t going to leave my hometown, and I was not going to allow my family to grow up among gang violence. Hedley without the Syndicate was salvageable, and we did what we could to salvage it.

  “You’re exhausted,” Allie had complained. “You need to relax a little more and let Marko handle things.”

  She was right.

  I was completely drained after all that happened. Not just physically, but mentally too. I had a war to fight inside my head. Months passed and slowly I began to mend myself. I’d tried so hard to remain consumed in anger after my attack, believing that it was the fuel that would drive me to find the man responsible for trying to kill me. But discovering it was Matt, and knowing he’d been taken care of, there was no more reason to hold on any longer.

  I began to let go.

  Change was in the mind. It was done in small steps and became successful only when you believed it could happen.

  I was changing, and I didn’t just do it for myself.

  I did it for my family.

  *

  “You gonna apologize to me?” Marko asked Allie, smiling down at her as I wrapped the man’s hands up in boxing tape.

  Allie sighed and looked around at all the people crowding around the ring. This was her way of not acknowledging Marko’s existence, and I couldn’t help but smirk at Marko. He frowned at me, determined not to let this go.

  “Ignoring me won’t solve anything,” he proceeded to say to her.

  “I’ve apologized to you ten thousand times for the last couple months,” she retorted.

  “One more time right before I fight,” he demanded.

  Shuddering at the snake tattoos crawling over his torso, she muttered forcefully, “I’m sorry for suspecting you and hating you for the wrong reasons – it’s not to say I don’t hate you for other reasons though –”

  “That’s not a part of the speech, Allie.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And I’m sorry for doubting your loyalty. You are the best friend Heath could ever ask for and… you’re…”

  “I’m what?” he expectantly pushed, putting a finger to his ear and leaning into her as I laughed.

  “You’re the most loyal, most amazing, most perfect man in the entire universe.”

&n
bsp; He shut his eyes as she said this completely rehearsed farce bullshit, and he pretended to take in her words like he was some kind of god that deserved to be pampered with compliments.

  “Your girlfriend’s warming up to me just fine, Heath,” he then said.

  “Then you’re delusional,” I replied, but it wasn’t entirely true. She had warmed up to him because she knew he could be trusted. I’d stressed to her how wrong she’d been, and she hated being told she wasn’t right for once.

  Typical woman.

  Marko laughed. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “No maybe about it,” Allie told him, shooting him a glare. “And if you ask me to say sorry to you one more time, I will tear your balls off and force feed it to you.”

  His brows shot up and he pointed at her and looked at me in shock. “She’s been spending too much time with the boys, I think.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t mind. She’s gotten tough.”

  “I gotta be tough around you assholes,” she mumbled.

  That was true.

  Marko then turned his body toward his opponent. He stared long and hard at the large man on the other side of the ring. I wasn’t sure what he still got from fighting when it wasn’t necessary. He said he needed a good rush every now and then. I tried to remember what that was like, but having a domestic life now that involved a woman I wanted to marry, a house that needed taking care of, and a son that demanded attention, it was hard to identify with him now.

  I watched him then flick his eyes into the crowd, settling his gaze on someone in particular. I followed his line of sight to a pretty blonde haired girl. Isla, I realized. She caught his look and immediately turned away from him and made a show of kissing some buff guy that had his arm around her.

  What the fucking shit, Isla?

  Marko’s shoulders tensed, and he ran his hand through his brown hair and looked away from her. I watched him clench his fists and I nearly laughed at the obvious anger rolling off of him. He’d went on that Isla was hard as nails, but that right there took the cake for being an ultimate bitch.

  “Who is that?” Allie asked me when we were out of Marko’s earshot. Of course she’d noticed. She was a little hawk, like me.

  “You don’t want to know,” I answered.

  “They’d clearly be a fucked up pair if I’m getting the right vibe.”

  I chuckled again. “That would be putting it lightly.”

  She leaned into my side and sighed contently. “It’s nice to just be Allie sometimes. Not Allie the mother. Or Allie the student.”

  “What about Allie the sexy minx in my harem?” I said with a smirk.

  Her jaw dropped and she gave me a playful smack on the shoulder. “I’d say that’s a part of normal Allie too.”

  “I agree. Some of the things you do… Fuck. I’d take you right here and now if I could.”

  She bit her bottom lip and muttered quietly, “Why couldn’t you?”

  Why couldn’t I indeed? It took me barely a second to decide to ditch being Marko’s support. He had plenty of people cheering him on and with Isla in the crowd, I probably didn’t exist to him.

  When the fight finally began, I grabbed her hand and led her out of the crowd. She didn’t resist when I took her into my office and locked the door. She didn’t push away my advances when I kissed her. When I pinned her in the corner. When I grabbed at every inch of her. She wrapped her arms around me and let me pick her up and fuck her against the door. She moaned in my ear and tugged at my hair and I bit at her lip and panted against that delicious mouth of hers.

  It was erotic and warm, and I didn’t want it to end. I slowed down as we neared our peak, and I looked into those brilliant beautiful eyes, watching her slowly come. Just the sight alone prompted my own release, and it was a long and mind blowing orgasm. I sagged against her frame and kissed softly along her neck.

  “Heath,” she breathlessly said.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been very forgetful lately.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And I forgot to take my pill.”

  “So?”

  “So…you didn’t use a condom.”

  I smirked, licking a path up to her mouth. “Whoops.”

  Whoops indeed.

  Epilogue

  Allie

  Heath spent a lot of his time at his gym, or at home, or in bed nailing me to the wall with his insatiable appetite.

  He spent whatever time there was after that asking me to marry him.

  I told him no. I wasn’t ready yet. Even when I graduated school and got a job as a counsellor at a rehabilitation centre, I didn’t say yes. I wasn’t sure what was stopping me. I knew one day it was going to happen. The yes inside of me would want to finally come out and make his day.

  But it was because of Ryker, I eventually came around.

  As time passed, he had faded into the background in the news. Nobody found him. Nobody knew where he was. But every so often, I’d get a card in the mail, and it’d have gibberish written all over it that only Heath could decipher.

  Sometimes they were one liners; quotes that most likely related to him in that particular moment. Other times they were short paragraphs. Sometimes, they were both.

  Three and half years later, his latest card put me at peace.

  Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. – George Bernard Shaw

  I am fine.

  But it gets hard sometimes.

  Maybe one day you’ll let Kayden know about me. And maybe one day he’ll find me. I know it makes no sense, and the odds of that happening are close to nil. But the thought of meeting him keeps me going at times. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect. A lot of time to pick up the pieces. I’m bettering myself in the hopes that if that day were to come – 20, 30, even 40 years in the future – I can be proud of who I am and feel worthy of being in his presence.

  -R

  Heath was too broken apart by that letter upon reading it, but I smiled. Ryker was changing for the better. This card was proof of that. Any contact from Ryker was always in regards to Kayden, and I knew one day Kayden would come and demand the truth of what had gone on. I was already teaching him to be strong. To tackle on the criticisms he was born into with his head held high.

  And when the day did come that he demanded the truth, I’d give him these letters, and he would have a piece of Ryker somehow.

  Kayden was a happy boy, and he was even happier when his brother was born into the world a year ago. Dominic Lawson came out into the world screaming at the top of his lungs. But the second he saw Kayden and heard that little voice he’d heard talk against my stomach for the months prior to his arrival, he stopped completely and stared at him with big blue eyes.

  They were inseparable.

  Two peas in a pod.

  Experiencing, learning, loving, sharing – they did it all together.

  And now we were here, watching them play in the backyard as we rocked on the porch swing. Heath’s arm was around me, nestling me to his side. He stared fondly at them, and I could see the pride shining out of his eyes.

  Heath had come back to me. He had softened for me, though he was hard around everyone else. He, too, was at peace.

  “I just want them to love each other forever,” he said to me quietly. “I want them never to be apart. To never have to go through what we did.”

  “They will,” I reassured him. “Because despite everything that’s happened between you and Ryker, I’m sure you both love each other as much as you did before it all went pear shaped. That’s the power of brothers. You’re there for each other, even when you don’t want to be. That kind of love is unbreakable.”

  He smiled wistfully. “And what about the love between you and your mother? Is that unbreakable too?”

  “No,” I replied, leaning back in our porch swing with his arm wrapped around me. I watched the kids play in the backyard and said, “Mom can’t be helped. She refuses to change, refuses to open her heart
to me because she’ll forever be reminded of my father. Even when she learned the truth and accepted it, she was too stubborn to let me back in. I’ve accepted that. Some people don’t want to change. They’re tethered to their pasts.”

  “Yeah, they are,” he agreed. “But we’ve got each other. And Allie, you’re my past, present and future.”

  “I know,” I replied, smiling broadly at him.

  “Good,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss me.

  “Now,” he started, rubbing his nose against mine. “Before I smuggle you into the bedroom and take you through a tour of Pound Town, I want you to tell me you’ll marry me first.”

  I stared into all Heath’s raw beauty and for a second I lost myself in those dark eyes. Feeling particularly happy – and hopeful – today, I replied, “Okay, Heath. I’ll marry you.”

  Ryker

  20 years later…

  Maria called me from inside the house.

  I was too busy breaking shit in the shed to pay attention. This fucking car needed its engine stripped and it was a cunt of a job. Lucas stood next to me, bored as shit, holding onto the tools in his hands as he sneakily texted his friends.

  “You must think I’m deaf or dumb, or, hell, both if you think I don’t know you’re whacking those fingers on that phone.”

  He exhaled loudly and stuffed the phone in his pocket. “You’re taking forever.”

  I stood up and grabbed the bottle of water on my shed table. “You want this car, Luke? Like really want it?”

  He stared at the car I had bought and stripped just for this spoiled little shit.

  A Pontiac 1967 GTO, almost halfway done. This baby was going to look like a dream. If the chicks weren’t clawing at my seventeen year old now, they would be when they saw him rolling in this.

  “Yeah, but I want it when it’s done,” he replied.

  I raised a brow. “Then you’re not hungry enough for it.”