“I asked you if you’ve ever loved someone besides yourself. I’m not talking about that hag of a wife you pretend to love just so you have someone to suck your dick at night—someone you can push around and make yourself feel like a king in your own home. I’m talking about true love. Someone you’ve kept hidden from all of us. A girl. A boy. A woman. Two men. A fucking horse. Ever woken up in the morning and thoughtshit, I’m gonna die without them in my life. I’m gonna stop breathing if I don’t get to hold them or see them today?”
Owen’s answer came a moment too late. That moment’s pause indicated he had, as did the way he searched the floor with his eyes, trying to find a way to hide his impending lie before he responded with a firm, “No.”
“Liar,” Drew whispered, his smile growing like he knew something I didn’t. His hands curled around Owen’s leather cut even tighter, pulling his entire body up in front of him like he didn’t weigh two hundred pounds. When their eyes met, it was the first time I’d ever seen even a flicker of fear on Owen’s face. “If you don’t tell me everything we need to know about Walsh and The Navs before I kill you, I can promise you one thing, Sinclair: I’m going to spend the rest of my life, no matter how long it takes, digging, clawing, fighting my way through every single fucking inch of your history, and I’m going to find that one person—maybe two, three, four-fucking-teen of them—who you’ve loved and kept hiddenfrom all of us, and when I find them, I’m going to kill them even slower than I plan on killing you.”
I barely blinked, even as Rubin tensed beside me. I tugged him closer and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. It was a shocking approach to take, but if me being in his life had taught Drew one thing, it was that love sometimes made your priorities shift.Kill me?Whatever, we’re all gonna die one day.Kill the ones I love…?That gives you pause. Someone you love will die just because you were in their life. I felt sorry for anyone who loved Owen. A woman, man, child… his brand of love was worthless. The way Owen had treated his brothers was proof of that.
Owen remained silent, staring into the eyes of his executioner.
“Have it your way,” Drew said coldly, dropping Owen to the floor and standing over him, once again. With a nod to his brothers, Drew slowly began to remove the cut on his own back before he turned around to drop it carefully and respectfully onto a nearby bench.
He never had to give the order verbally. The others seemed to know what to do.
Jedd and Slater moved fast, dropping down to Owen’s body and making fast work of stripping him of his cut after slicing through the ropes they’d only just bound him with. Owen cried out in agony as they pushed and shoved him this way and that, shedding him of his leather first, then the shirt beneath it, until Owen was left in nothing but the dark, bloodstained jeans covering his wounded legs, and the boots on his feet.
Angry, bloody holes stood out against Owen’s pale skin. His life on the bike was reflected from the dual tone on hisflesh, sun-kissed versus patches of stark white against it. Beneath his shirt was a weave of black ink, all of it tying to the club and the brethren he’d so easily betrayed. There was a hound’s head on each shoulder, a reaper on his chest, and on his back was the standard Hounds’ patch. Something that should have meant more to him than it had.
Blood pooled and trickled from the holes in his body as he struggled in an attempt to resist what was coming. His eyes flickered around the room, as though looking for an escape, but all he found was Rubin and me. His lip curled in disgust. Even this close to death, his anger was the only thing that mattered to him.
Drew followed Owen’s gaze to me, and just like that his fist swung again, even more violently this time, sending Owen’s face the other way and out of my focus.
Drew bent and reached for Owen’s face, squeezing it tight. “Don’t you dare look at her. You don’t get to see something so fucking beautiful before you die. Do you understand me?” His fingers pressed into Owen’s cheeks. All Owen could do was scrunch his eyes shut and let his mouth pop open. With his spare hand, Drew reached for the gun in his waistband, and he pushed it slowly into Owen’s mouth. “Do you… understand me?”
Owen could only open his eyes and blink, water pooling in them as Drew applied more pressure.
“My own fucking brother,” Drew breathed out, the hatred to one of his own evident. “And here I am, thinking of ways I can cut the skin off his back just so he doesn’t get to die with the hounds and the reaper by his side. Here I kneel, with a gun in my hand and my brother’s face in the other, at war with myself because a part of me just wants to blow yourfuckingthroat out, while the other wants to bathe you in acid and watch your skin melt right the fuck off you. How could you do this, you treacherous bastard?”
Owen’s gargled grunt fought against the barrel of the gun in his mouth, making his eyes water even more.
Drew pushed it in farther, making Owen gag around it.
“You’re going to talk, Owen. When I pull this out, you’re going to tell me what I need to know to save my club. You’re going to tell me everything, or I swear to God, I’m going to make sure I fuck you up in more ways than one.”
Owen blinked again, desperate to swallow, and I watched as the giant Adam’s apple in his throat fought to fall and rise again.
“Good boy,” Drew whispered sarcastically before he slowly began to slide the gun out of Owen’s mouth. Owen gasped for air as soon as he could, his head rolling forward and backward as he tried to breathe. “Now talk.”
Drew released him, and Owen’s whole body fell forward, and he struggled to land on his hands, his limbs so shaken, sore, and unsteady.
“Marsh…” Owen spluttered, the word barely recognizable when more blood dripped out from his parted lips. “The Mayor wants rid of the MC completely. Gone.”
“Now tell me something I don’t know.”
Owen’s breaths grew faster, his head lifting as he tried to look up at Drew through bloodshot eyes. “One of the Hounds fucked Walsh’s wife.”
I felt Rubin lock up beside me, even as my own shock rocked through me. For a moment, I thought he was going to launch forward with his own set of questions, or even beat the shit of the vile man himself for talking about his mom thatway. Rubin hated his father, but his mom was a different story. Tightening my hand around his, I pulled him closer to me, prepared to hold him back with all of the strength I had left, but he squeezed my hand instead, a small nod making his head bob as though telling me he had this under control.
I wasn’t sure I would have had the same restraint.
“Who?” Slater asked abruptly, his unused voice catching, making him clear his throat.
Owen groaned roughly, exhaustion kicking in and his body starting to shake from the bullet wounds and hits. “I don’t know who, and that ain’t a fucking lie. All I…” He coughed, more blood falling free. “All I know is that he’s had it in for The Hounds for a long time, and this was the last straw. If you think I’m the cancer in this club, you’re even more naive than any of us realized. Walsh has eyes everywhere. Every-fucking-where. He’s got The Navs putting targets on your backs every day. None of you are safe.”
“What has Walsh got on The Navs to have their loyalty?” Jedd asked.
“What?” Owen coughed again, his body bouncing. “You think a guy like me knows that shit?” He started to laugh, the sound a mixture of terror and hysteria kicking in. “C’mon.”
Drew’s hands balled into fists by his sides. “And what did Walsh have on you to gain your loyalty, Owen?” he asked coldly.