by Jessie Cooke
“You motherfucker! I’m going to fucking kill you!” He must have bitten his tongue, because as he spat out his words, blood-tinged sputum came out along with it.
Wheelie smiled at him and said, “You really are a dumb son of a bitch, aren’t you? You’re the one tied up...you’re outnumbered, you’re naked and weaponless...but you’re going to kill me?” He looked over at Gunner and said, “You believe this guy?”
Gunner rolled his eyes and said, “Nope. I don’t know why you’re even listening to him. I would have put a bullet in his head while he was still wearing the gag.”
“Well, you know me, Gunner. I like to give a guy a chance to explain himself.”
“Fuck you. I don’t have to explain shit to you. Arrogant prick!”
Wheelie reached back, pulled out a gun, and shoved it hard against Chuck’s temple. “Fine, you got nothing to say, I’ll just shoot your stupid fucking ass right now.”
“Look, if this is about Buzz...”
“You think I give a fuck about Buzz? You’re crazier than I thought. If you hadn’t killed that bastard, I would have killed him myself. No, Chuck, you actually get credit for Buzz. It’s the two innocent women you almost decapitated that I have a problem with...you know?”
“Bitches,” he spat out. “Fucking pretty little rich bitch thought she was too good for Buzz and me...but she’d fuck the likes of you? Slut!” The gun was a revolver, left with him by the big, tattooed man that had brought them there. It had a long barrel, so Wheelie didn’t have to get too close when he pressed it into Chuck’s head. He used his thumb to pull back the hammer on it and took pleasure in the way Chuck shivered when he heard it. “If you’re gonna do it, just do it!” he yelled. Gunner yawned, loudly.
“He might be right, Wheelie. Maybe you should just do it and get it over with. I’m kind of tired of listening to him talk. I’d like to go home and fuck my own pretty little old lady now.”
“You all think you’re so much better than me. Fuck you! Your old lady is a cunt!” Gunner was on his feet and the chair he’d been sitting in flew across the room. He covered the distance between them in only four steps, and without saying a word he threw a right hook at the man in the chair. His chair flew sideways and he hit the cement so hard that Wheelie found it a wonder that didn’t knock him back out. Gunner’s anger seemed to recede as quickly as it came about, though, and after staring down at a now crying Chuck, he turned, walked over, and picked up his own chair and sat back down. “Just fucking shoot me!” Chuck was screaming. Wheelie had been the one to load the gun while Chuck was still out. There was one bullet in it. He popped open the cylinder, gave it a spin, and closed it. He smiled when he pointed it at Chuck’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Chuck screamed when it clicked.
“Damn, misfired,” Wheelie said.
Gunner snorted. “You want to use my nine?”
“Nah, it does that sometimes...Maybe I’ll give old Chuck here another chance to explain things to me. You want to talk to me about that night now, Chuck? You drugged me, didn’t you? That’s why I can hear her screaming sometimes in my head. I heard her that night...but I couldn’t move, could I? What did you give me, Chuck?”
Chuck was still lying sideways on the concrete. Blood was pooling underneath the side of his face. “I should have killed you,” he spat out.
“Yeah,” Wheelie said, “you should have. If you had, we wouldn’t be here right now. You might have gotten away with it. But you didn’t kill me...instead, you drugged me. What was it, Chuck? That was some pretty fucking powerful stuff, huh?”
“I gave you Versed,” Chuck said through swollen lips. He rolled his eyes then and said, “It’s not all that powerful, but it knocked your lightweight ass out pretty fast. You could hear what was going on the whole time, but you couldn’t help the girl, could you?” Wheelie’s muscles tensed, and his hand tightened on the gun. “You had your eyes wide open the whole time, do you remember that? Too bad you couldn’t see into the bathroom. I would have liked someone to watch me. It’s hard to describe accurately after the fact, you know. But it is a fucking beautiful thing to watch all that blood gush out like a dark, red fountain. Do you remember lying there in that bed, knowing that I was carving her up and you couldn’t help her, tough guy? Do you dream about it?”
Wheelie’s heart was slamming against his chest and he could actually feel his blood pressure rising. He slammed the barrel of the gun back into Chuck’s head and pulled the trigger again. Another click and another convulsion of the man’s body, and then Chuck smiled again and said, “That slut was fine, I’ll give her that. Damn, I wanted to fuck her...if only I had more time...”
Gunner laughed and suddenly their attention was on him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But here you are saying ‘If only I had time’ and I was thinking that if I were you I’d be saying, ‘If only I had more dick.’” Wheelie laughed too and Gunner went on to say, “I’m not sure you can even call that little flap between your legs a dick...and you have tiny little balls too...do your psych meds shrivel them up like that, or were you born with that tiny thing? Can you see it, Wheelie?”
“Barely,” Wheelie said. “What is it, Chuck? Two...three inches?”
“Fuck you!”
“You know, even if I was interested, Chuck, I don’t think you could. Does it even get hard?”
“Did you hear her scream when I stuck the knife in her throat? I hope you think about it every time you close your eyes. She bled like a stuck pig and I let it all drain down her body and into the tub. Then I scooped it out with that little mop bucket in the bathroom and I poured it all over you. I wanted the first thing you were aware of, to be all that blood. I wanted you to feel it, and smell it and taste it...I bet you got hard when you figured out what it was, didn’t you?” Wheelie put the gun to the top of his head and pulled the trigger. It clicked again.
“I think you’re running out of lives, Chuck,” Gunner said. “You and your little sausage dick are about to meet your maker...and by maker, I mean Satan.”
Chuck kept talking, “I watched that knife sink into all that pretty, white flesh...” Wheelie pulled the trigger again. That time Chuck didn’t flinch as hard. “It sliced right through the muscle and the bone. Her head nearly came clean off...and you know what? She wasn’t so pretty anymore.”
Wheelie started to pull the trigger again, but he looked down and realized that talking about torturing Pamela had given the sick bastard a hard-on. That made him sicker than anything had up to that point. Instead of taking a chance that this time the gun would go off, he walked over to the toolbox and set it down on top of it. And then he picked up a claw hammer and walked back over to the naked man on the floor. “You really wanted to nail that bitch that night, didn’t you, Chuck?” Chuck’s eyes were glued to the hammer in Wheelie’s hand. “Huh, Chuck? What’s wrong? You don’t want to talk about it no more?”
“Just fucking shoot me!”
“I thought about it, but you know what? I think those poor girls probably suffered quite a bit and I think you get off just thinking about it. Your little dick is hard, just describing it to me. You know what that makes you, Chuck?” Chuck was about to cry. He didn’t answer. “It makes you one sick fuck.” Chuck wailed at the top of his lungs before the hammer even struck his genitals. When it did, he lost consciousness almost immediately. Wheelie put the hammer back and picked up his gun while Chuck was out. He loaded it, making sure there was a bullet in every chamber this time, then he looked at Gunner and said:
“If you want to step outside...”
“Fuck no,” he said. They waited, silently—neither of them killers, but both of them anxious to see a monster exterminated. When Chuck finally came back around, he was crying again and talking about how much his dick hurt. Wheelie let him sob for a few seconds and then said:
“You have any last words, Chuck?” The man pulled his head up slowly and opened his mouth. Before he could get out his last words, Wheelie pulled the trigger. He watched th
e man’s head explode and wondered if it made him a bad person that he didn’t even flinch. The only thing he really felt was relief. He was just glad it was over. He took the gun back over and put it on top of the toolbox where the Sumo wrestler had told him to leave it, and at the same time, Gunner stood up. The two men looked at each other and in that moment a deep feeling of brotherhood unlike anything Wheelie ever felt for his own brother passed from one man to the other.
“You ready to go home?” Gunner asked him.
“So fucking ready,” he said.
29
By the time the van dropped Wheelie and Gunner off where their bikes were, it was after midnight. Wheelie checked his phone and a knot formed in his belly when he saw that he had six missed calls. When he checked the call log and saw that five of them were from Christopher, he rolled his eyes. The sixth one was from Sylvia, though, and she’d left a voice mail.
“You can go on ahead,” he told Gunner, who was anxious to get home to Tammy, his old lady. “I just have to return a few calls and then I’ll be out of here.”
“Okay, brother, you good?”
Surprisingly, he was. “Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for being there.”
“Anytime.” Gunner held out his fist and Wheelie bumped it with his. As soon as Gunner and his noisy Harley pulled away, he listened to Sylvia’s voicemail.
“Wesley.” Her voice was thick, and he could tell that she’d been crying. “Chris is in New York. He says he got arrested and he can’t come home...I’m so pissed at him, but I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry...you must be busy. Just call me when you get a chance, okay?”
He sighed. He was so fucking tired, and he was aching to see Bri, but he couldn’t abandon Sylvia even if she had abandoned him once upon a time. He pressed in her number and he could tell when she answered that she hadn’t been sleeping. “Wes?”
“Hey, Syl. I’m sorry it’s so late.”
“It’s okay, I was up.”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I can’t believe any of this. Christopher was arrested...”
“I know, Syl. He told me.”
“He told you? He told you and he didn’t tell me first, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I told him to tell you. That was his responsibility.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry...”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m sure it was a shock to find out your husband was working for an art thief and a fence...”
“He was?”
Jesus fuck... “Sylvia, what did he tell you, exactly?”
“He said that he got arrested for stealing, but I was so freaked out, when he told me he was out on bail but had to stay in New York, that I didn’t even think to ask what he stole. Wes...what the hell has he been up to?”
“A lot, I’m afraid, Syl. But like I said, he needs to tell you. I’m sorry, but I’ve had a long day...”
“Okay, I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Wheelie sighed. “You didn’t bother me. You know I care about you and Bella...a lot. But Christopher only came out here and told me what was going on because he thought I could get Dax to help him. You know that otherwise I’d be the last person he’d think of telling anything to.”
“He came there, to Massachusetts?”
“Yeah, he was here. I sent him back to New York.”
“He told me he couldn’t leave.”
“He wasn’t supposed to...”
“I’m going to kill him, Wes. I swear, I’ve forgiven him for so many things. But this, I’m just done. I can’t do it anymore.”
“I get it. Can I call you tomorrow and we can talk about it?”
“How about if Bella and I get on a plane tomorrow, and we can talk about it in person?” Wheelie heard the change in her voice and for the first time in all these years he realized that was the sound of her voice when she wanted something from him. She’d had him wrapped around her finger for so many years that she honestly still believed all she had to do was lower her voice and, if they were face to face, bat those pretty long eyelashes...and he’d do whatever she wanted.
“No, Syl, I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“Why? Don’t you want to see us? Bella would love to see you. And so would I. I miss you, Wesley.” Low and seductive. Son of a bitch. She left him for his brother and all these years later she still thought he still wanted her. Shamefully, he realized that up until he met Bri...he did.
“Sylvia, I’m going to go now. I need to get home to my girl. I will call you in the morning.”
“Excuse me? Your girl?”
“You didn’t think I’ve been celibate all these years, did you? Just waiting for you to realize what an asshole my brother is, and then you’d call and I’d come running back?”
“I’ve never stopped loving you, Wesley. I don’t know what I was thinking...” Wheelie had another epiphany. Their entire lives, since the second grade, their relationship had always been about Sylvia...and what she needed, or wanted. She pretended to listen to him and she pretended to care...but had she even asked him about the murder charges? Was she so wrapped up in her own problems that she didn’t even remember that he had any, or did she just not care?
“Don’t, Sylvia! Don’t do that! You made your choice. For the first time in a very long time, I’m happy. I’m really, really happy. I’m sorry for what Christopher is doing to your family, but I can’t help you. I know your parents would love to take you and Bella in if they need to, so I’m not worried. You’ll be fine. I wish you the best, Syl, but I’m done...with you both.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Do I sound like I’m laughing, Syl?”
“What about Bella? She adores you. You’re just going to cut her out of your life?”
“No. I’d love to still see Bella...”
“Oh, so you think I’m going to let you just see her whenever you want to when you won’t even help me? Who are you?”
Wheelie chuckled. “I guess the new and improved version of myself. If you choose to use your daughter, my niece, against me, the way you’ve used me and my brother against each other all these years...then I guess my heart will have to be broken. I’ll miss the hell out of that little girl, but I won’t let you use her to get what you want from me...” The line went dead and he looked at it for a second and shook his head. The oddest thing was that he didn’t feel sad at all. What he felt was relief.
He noticed as he looked at the phone that he had two new text messages. He pressed the icon and read the first one from Dax. It said, “Text me when you’re back in Boston. Don’t come out to the ranch. FBI here, tearing it up. Bart Kent too. I hope all went well.”
Shit. He sighed and opened the next text message. It was from Bri. It simply said, “I hope you’re safe. I miss you.” He smiled and texted back:
“I’m safe. I miss you too. Headed back.”
Almost immediately he got back, “Hurry, I’m waiting up.” Seconds later, he was on his way. His brother and sister-in-law could deal with their own business. He washed his hands of them both. The murderer was dead...and as far as the FBI and Bart Kent were concerned, he’d think about all of that tomorrow. Tonight, all he wanted was to be with his girl. He smiled again at that thought. He had a “girl.”
Another hour on the road and Wheelie was finally back home...sort of. He was in Dorchester, in front of Sabrina’s house. She’d left the outside light on for him. He parked the bike and before he made it up to the door, she pulled it open. She was wearing a pair of sweats that had been cut off into shorts and a white t-shirt cut low enough that he could see the swell of her breasts. He thought his senses were alive earlier in that warehouse, but they had been nothing, compared to this.
He was about to tell her how hot she looked when she propelled herself forward and wrapped her arms around him. Their lips touched in a soft caress at first, but hers felt so good that he pressed harder and they molded together like clay. He wasn’t usually big on kissing. It was just a wa
y to get a girl to loosen up and let him get into her pants. But with Bri...the kiss was almost as erotic as the act itself. He swept his tongue slowly across her full lips and she opened them and let him inside. The kiss quickly turned hot and urgent, and Wheelie used his teeth to pull down her lower lip and coax her tongue out to explore his mouth more intently. He put his hands in her hair and she had hers on his biceps as the kiss got more and more demanding. Wheelie felt something at that moment that he’d never felt about a woman before, not even Sylvia...he felt possessive. He wanted her to be his, completely, forever.
At last he pulled back so that he could look down at her beautiful face and he said, “Wow, that was a hell of a greeting.”
She smiled and his heart grew. “I was worried about you,” she said.
“I’m okay.”
“Did you find him?”
“It’s freezing out here and you’re barely dressed. You’re going to get pneumonia. Let’s go inside.” He guided her into the house and closed the door behind them. She was looking up at him and for a few seconds their eyes were locked together, but then hers slid down his face and landed on his mouth. The look she gave him, the hunger for him in her eyes, caused him to shudder, and he had to taste her again. He shoved both of his hands in her hair and pulled her up on her toes while he bent down to meet her lips. She put her arms back up around his neck and used that hold to pull herself up, deeper into the kiss and closer to his body. Her breasts were crushed into his chest as their tongues slid together and his cock was already throbbing in his jeans. When he reluctantly let her go again so they could both take a breath, he said, “Could we talk about my trip, and everything, tomorrow?” She smiled, nodded and said:
