He nods, stands, and walks around the desk. “All right. This sure is a shit storm, son. The sheriff in this town, I don’t know about him.” Carland leans up against the desk facing forward. Slowly, he turns his head to look at me. “Care to fill me in on him?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask. I’ve only been back in town a couple of days. Although, the fucking bastard did work me over on my father’s instructions, no doubt.”
“And yet you know nothing about where they are?”
“I’m thinking Deputy Howlett helped, and he’s on your team. So that’s on you.”
“I’m going to say this once, son. If Howlett did something, then he’s not on the same team as me, and I will bring him to justice,” declares Carland as he stands up and opens the door.
I stand and hold out my hand to Cassia.
“Are we free to go?” I ask.
“Yep. But as the old cliché goes, don’t leave town.”
I chuckle. “I don’t live here anymore, Captain. But when it’s time to leave, I’ll be sure to check in first.”
“Make sure you do.”
When we get outside, Dane walks toward us and embraces both of us in a bear hug.
“It’s good to see you both, and you smell a hell of a lot better now.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask as he lets us go.
“We’ll go back to Doc Green’s. Get you fed and into some clothes that fit you. The Kings of Death are waiting for us there. Let’s get moving.”
Dane turns and walks out, and we follow him. The Fiesta is parked out front. Dane gets into the driver’s seat, and Cass and I get in the back. Seeing his big hulking frame in this little car brings a smirk to my face. Cass glances at me and grins.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. You try being over six-foot and fitting into this fucking tin can.”
“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you,” replies Cass.
“Do you see me laughing?” asks Dane as he glares at us in the rearview mirror.
Cass places a hand over her mouth, but I continue to smile. Dane does look funny.
Doc Green’s backyard must have all of the Kings of Death MC gathered there. It’s a little disconcerting to have so many of them here. As I open the door, Dane twists in the driver seat.
“Be sure and thank Smithy, show them the proper respect.” Dane pauses and looks at Cassia. “You ready?”
“Y-yes.”
“Stay close to Zeke, and if things get too much for you, find one of us.”
“One of you?”
“Savage Angels. If you lose Zeke, find one of us, got it?” Cass nods. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Smithy makes his way through the crowd, followed by Rio. Out of a need to protect Cassia, I tuck her in behind me as the masses converge. Smithy holds out his hand, and I grasp it. He squeezes a little too hard, but I don’t flinch or show any reaction at all.
“Good to fucking see you both.”
“Thanks, Smithy, wouldn’t be here without your man, Rio.” I let go and hold out my hand to Rio. He hesitates for a second, then also grips my hand tightly. “Thanks, man.”
Rio nods but says nothing. Dane steps in and punches Rio lightly.
“We owe you.”
I raise my eyebrows, surprised by Dane’s statement. From the expression on Rio’s face, he’s shocked too. It’s no small thing for Dane to tell someone he owes them. It’s like having the winning lottery numbers.
Rio glances at Smithy and says, “All we want is an introduction to The Chosen Legion.”
“That’s already in the works. Think about it. You don’t have to tell me now.”
Dane keeps going, and I follow, pulling Cassia along with me. Smithy catches up to Dane, and although I can see their lips moving, I can’t hear the conversation. Dane grins and casts a glance to me over his shoulder. He claps Smithy on the back and nods.
Smithy lets out a long, loud whistle, puts his hand in the air, points, and makes a circle. The Kings of Death MC immediately begin to mount their bikes, Dane and Smithy shake hands, and Dane gives Rio a meaningful look. Within ten minutes, the only people left in Doc Green’s backyard are the Savage Angels MC.
Zeke
No one says anything until the rumble of Harleys is very much in the distance. I look at the men around me and know they will always have my back.
“Where are they?” I ask.
Dane looks at Cassia. “Why don’t you go inside and see Doc Green? He’ll be wanting to make sure you’re okay.”
“I want to hear,” replies Cassia.
Dane shakes his head. Cass looks to me, and I do the same.
“Go inside, petal. There are some things you don’t need to hear, club business.”
“But I’m in this.”
“It’s not about that. I can tell you’re invested. There are things I don’t share with my own wife. It’s for your protection as well as ours,” explains Dane.
Cassia looks between us and eventually nods. Quickly, she kisses me on the lips and jogs into the house.
“You got lucky with that one.”
I look at Dane, but he’s watching Cassia.
“I know.”
Dane looks at me. “She’s not like her Daddy.”
“I know that, too. Where are they?”
“Smithy has them stashed in an old farmhouse outside of town. You ready to face your demons?”
“It’s a fucking mess, isn’t it? I’ve dragged the club into a fucking mess.”
“Actually, it looks like it’s going to be good for us. We’ve struck up a deal with the Russians, but we’ll get into all that later. For now, let’s pay your father a visit and decide what you want to do.”
“What I want?”
“This begins and ends with you.”
I’m sitting on my bike, Kade stands beside me, and we are waiting outside the farmhouse. It’s an old white, wooden building, and the front porch is lying on the ground in a pile. Weeds grow in the gutters, and there’s a tree that has branches that have gone in through the front windows. We are waiting for the Kings of Death MC to leave. Dane, Rebel, and Dirt are inside. Three members of the Kings come out, they nod, but we don’t exchange words. Everyone knows why we are here.
“You don’t need to do this.”
I get off my bike and walk toward the house. Kade places a hand on my shoulder, and I stop and face him.
“We both know I need to face my demons.” I point to the house. “He’s waiting in there. I need to end this.”
Kade, my oldest friend, nods. “I’m right here with you.”
“You know Dane is right, love and loyalty. It’s not about blood but those who are willing to stand beside you through thick and thin.”
“Fuck, yeah.”
Stepping carefully over the rubble, we enter the house. My father, Debbie, and Brian are all tied to chairs with gray tape over their mouths. I notice that there’s blood on the floorboards, but it’s not theirs. At home in Tourmaline, we have a place called The Barn. It’s where we dispose of our problems. The difference is you’d never know that blood has drenched its floors. We cover our tracks, it gets scrubbed clean, no evidence is ever left behind so that nothing blows back on us.
I walk up to my father and rip the tape off him, and he cries out in pain.
“How are you going to make this right?” I ask.
Dane leans up against a wall, Dirt right beside him.
“You can’t do this!” hisses my father.
“How are you going to make this right?” I repeat.
“People will be looking for me!”
I put the tape back over his mouth and look at Debbie. Her mascara is running in rivers down her face. She at least looks scared. Slowly, I peel it off her, trying not to hurt her.
“T-thank you,” Debbie sobs.
“How are you going to fix this?”
“Zeke, it’s me, your sister.”
In frustration, I sigh and stare at her.
“Bitch, please. You might be blood, but you’re not family. Answer the man’s question,” says Kade icily.
“I don’t know! Tell me what I can do!”
This is someone I trusted. Someone I loved, but I haven’t forgotten what she said to me and what she did. I move onto Deputy Brian. The tape comes off in one fluid movement, skin ripping off with it.
“Fuck!” growls Brian. I look at him expectantly. “You, stupid bitch! He wants the money. Give him the money!”
I smile and put the tape back over his mouth and look back at Debbie. She’s shaking her head as more tears flow.
“He betrayed m-me.”
I turn my back on all three of them and look at Dane. He’s smirking.
“And they call us low-lifes. We don’t betray those closest to us, we protect and help them. You three disgust me. Zeke, however you want to handle this, I’ll back you. These people aren’t family. You get that, yeah?”
I nod, fearing my voice will betray me. Although I know everything they’ve done, for my entire life I’ve thought of them as family, as my blood.
Dane walks from the room, Dirt nods at me and follows, and when I turn back around, Rebel is there with a can in his hands. He walks toward me, unscrewing the cap then pours a circle of the liquid around the three chairs, and petrol hits my senses. Rebel hands me the cap and can that holds more of the explosive liquid and leaves the room.
“Zeke! You can’t!” screams Debbie.
“Shut it!” I yell back at her spilling petrol onto the floorboards.
I pour the remaining fuel onto my father and remove the tape from his mouth.
“How are you going to fix this?”
“Son, this isn’t the way,” he whispers.
From behind me, I hear Kade’s disgusted growl.
I shrug and lock eyes with the man who I once would have done anything to gain his approval.
“You can have what’s left of the money.”
“It’s not enough.”
“It is! We invested it wisely. We have enough!”
I shake my head and look at Debbie. Her eyes are wide, and she’s breathing rapidly.
“The house, you can have the house!” pleads Debbie. I stare at her with vacant, dead eyes. “And the church!” Debbie looks at our father. “Sign over the house and the church!”
“No,” replies Michael Russo flatly.
“Can you smell what’s on you? Don’t be an idiot, Dad! Our lives are on the line!”
“Without us, he gets nothing. He won’t do it.”
Kade laughs. “Old man, I’ve already covered the debt, so you have no bargaining chip. Give him your house, your church, and your money, and you might live to see tomorrow. But don’t think for a second that Zeke needs you.”
Kade hands me a lighter, grins at me with pure joy, and leaves the room. It’s one of those old silver flip-top lighters with an eagle engraved on it. I look down at Michael Russo and start opening and shutting it while giving him nothing. Debbie begins to struggle and so does the deputy.
“Zeke, please!” whimpers Debbie.
I open it, and my thumb turns the igniter, a flame appears, I smile at Michael Russo, take a step back, making sure I’m not in the pool of fuel. I extend my hand, and he struggles to try and loosen his binds.
“Stop! All right! You can have everything!”
“Everything?”
“Yes, damn you, everything!”
“I want a confession.”
“About what?” Michael Russo asks.
“My mother. I want you both to admit what you did.”
“To what end?”
“So, she can have some justice so that she can rest easy,” I reply with vehemence in my tone.
“Fine! Let us go first.”
“No way.”
I walk to the front of the house. Kade is standing there with documents for the house and church. He hands them to me with a pen. I walk back toward my father and pull out a knife. He flinches as I cut the bindings off one hand.
“Sign these.”
With a shaking hand, he does as he’s told, looking at me with hatred and contempt in his eyes.
“The money?” I ask.
“I transferred it into an off-shore account. The details are at my, I mean, your house in what used to be my desk in the top drawer.”
I turn and go back out to Kade. He’s already on the phone talking to someone. I glance over my shoulder and see Michael trying to undo the tape that holds his other arm down. I laugh, he looks up and stops. We both know he’s not going anywhere. Even if he could escape, he’s covered in petrol, and there are more of us then he can handle.
Kade walks into the room, phone at his ear. “The password for the account,” he asks my father.
“Family with a capital ‘F’ and the number 3.”
Kade relays the information, turns his back on my father, looks at me, and nods.
“Now, all I need you to do is explain how you killed my mother and,” I pause and look at Debbie, “how you helped him cover it up.”
Debbie goes white and gives a slight shake of her head.
“Yes, you will, or you’ll burn,” I reply.
Debbie looks at Michael Russo, but his full attention is on me. For the first time, I see fear in his eyes. My whole life I’ve looked at him that way, and now to see him actually afraid of me. It doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I feel like a monster.
I turn my back on him, not wanting to see the man I’ve feared reduced to this pitiful thing. Scrubbing a hand over my face, I sigh and reach into my back pocket. I open the app that records and look back at him.
“I want everything you both did. Start at the beginning.”
I hit record and close my eyes as this wretched man reminds me of the type of monster, he really is. His words wash over me, and I’m sickened. I say nothing, nor do I look at him or Debbie while they recount what happened to my mother. When at last they are spent, I hit stop and walk out of the room. Kade is still waiting and further outside I see Dane, Dirt, and Rebel. As the three of them walk toward me, Kade places a hand on my shoulder.
“You should go. Cassia will be worried.”
I nod.
“Did you get it?” asks Dane.
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s only one thing left to do.”
I nod, hand Dane the lighter and walk toward my bike. I don’t need to be here for what’s about to happen next. Kade is right beside me, and he climbs on a bike that has been loaned to him by the Kings of Death MC, then starts it.
“Rush wants to talk to you. You up for that?”
“Yeah, I’m guessing that’s long overdue.”
“What are you going to do with the recording?”
“Dane wants it sent to that trooper, Carland. I’m going to send it to a hacker that’ll send it to him. Might not be admissible in court, but the preacher is finished in this town, anyway.”
“Let’s ride.”
“Best thing I’ve heard all day.”
Zeke
Cassia is sitting on a chair at the back of Doc Green’s house with Rush beside her. As I climb off my bike, she runs and launches herself at me. For a little thing, her embrace is strong. We stand like that for a while neither saying anything, just holding onto each other. Kade chuckles as he walks past. He nods at Rush and continues into the house. Within moments, Doc Green is outside standing next to his friend, both of them watching us.
“Petal, you need to let go.” I feel Cass take a deep breath, but she doesn’t release me. “I’m okay.”
“I know.”
“I need to talk to Rush.”
“I know that, too.” Cass pulls back, searching my face. “You look like him.”
“Rush?”
Cass nods. I glance at the man and can see some resemblance, but I’ve always looked more like my mom.
“You have the same eyes.” Cass lets me go and puts her hand in mine. “He’s been sitting with me, waiting for
you. Rush is a good man.”
I say nothing as I walk toward him. Doc Green gets to me first and hugs me.
“Good to see you, boy!”
Then he takes Cassia by the arm and guides her inside, leaving me alone outside with Rush.
“As your attorney, you can’t tell me anything that could get you arrested but as your… as your fam—” Rush stops and looks me in the eyes while he searches for the right words. “As your father, you can tell me anything, and I’ll take it to the grave.”
“Do you want to hear what he did to Mom?”
Rush’s face screws up in pain, his hands go into his linen trouser pockets, and he rocks back on his heels.
“No,” he says emphatically. “No, I don’t.”
Not knowing what to say to Rush, I open the back door.
“You could stay here in Black Ridge if you wanted,” he says quickly.
“No, I can’t, Rush. My life is in Tourmaline. This isn’t my home anymore.”
“Maybe, I could come visit? We could get to know each other a bit?”
“I’d like that. You’re welcome anytime. Tourmaline is a little bigger than Black Ridge, but I have a hell of a lot more friends there.”
Rush chuckles. “So, the local sheriff doesn’t work you over?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but Carlos is a good man. He doesn’t put up with any of our shit. I think you’d like Tourmaline.”
“They got any good lawyers in town?”
“A couple, but I know we don’t use them. Dane doesn’t believe they would keep client confidentiality.”
“You and yours would never have to worry about that with me.”
Rush is looking me dead in the eyes, and I believe every word he’s said. This man, my real father, is a good man, and I’m glad I’ve gotten to know him.
“Come on, Rush, let’s get a beer. It’s been a long few days.”
“I brought whiskey and not that cheap shit Doc drinks, the good stuff. Come on, son, let’s knock back a few and talk with that pretty fiancée of yours.”
I shake my head and laugh. “You know I didn’t actually ask her to marry me.”
“You’d be a fool not to, son.”
Savage Lies: Savage Angels MC #7 Page 15
