Make him pay, Drew,I suddenly heard in the voice of Harry, coming from the dark, dusty recesses of my mind.Make that fucker pay.
Before too long, we’d pushed into the Ram, securing Owen in the back so he couldn’t move an inch, leaving me to climb in the front and take the wheel as Ayda slid into position beside me. With one last lingering look her way, I released a breath and reversed out of the parking spot, swinging the Ram around before I led us all out of the yard, my brothers behind me, my enemy in my ear, and my woman by my side.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
AYDA
The silence was deafening in the cab of the truck. Even with Owen’s grunts of pain as we bounced over potholes and turned corners, or the growl of the big Hemi engine, and even the standard whir of asphalt passing under the tires… the silence was pregnant, pointed, and significant.
We all knew where this was headed.
The three of us understood that this would end in death because it had to.
Me? I was eerily at peace with this knowledge.
I had this strange and unfamiliar urge to see the light bleed from his eyes and the lack of emotion attached to that meant that I was scaring myself a little. I should feel something more, something dark, something like remorse, but the only thing I was close to feeling was justification. This man had the power to destroy the man I loved, and possibly a child I didn’t know whether or not I was carrying. I couldn’t let that happen.
I wouldn’t.
Glancing over at Drew, I knew he had to be feeling the same rage and fury burning through him as he ate up the miles between The Hut and our final destination. Those beautifulblue-green eyes were trained on the road, but his hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were pale. The creak with the gentle twist of them against the leather alerted me to the fact that it was taking everything in him not to turn around and pummel Owen every time the asshole groaned in pain.
Drew knew where he was going, but having never been to Owen’s home before, I found myself surprised when we turned from the county road and onto a small parcel of land that was surrounded by trees and open fields. In the back corner of the cleared land was a well-kept little house that had been recently painted. The quaint country feeling that sang of ‘family’ wasn’t what I’d expected from Owen, but he’d proven that none of us really knew him at all.
His home also proved that he obviously had a lot of extra income, which many of the other guys in the club didn’t have.
“What the hell is this?” I asked quietly, leaning forward to look a little closer as I caught sight of a small barn holding at least two more bikes and a Camaro. The barn was deep enough to hide a treasure trove, but I couldn’t allow myself to think about that just yet. My question was pointless considering what we were currently looking at. Where he’d gotten the money from, I couldn’t answer, but my gut told me it hadn’t been honestly, and it had cost the club more.
Harry had been right. Harry was always right.
The realization made me feel nauseous.
“Are you seeing this?”
“Mmhmm,” was the only sound to come from Drew, and he somehow managed to make that sound menacing as he turned the truck in a circle and brought us to a jerky stop.
I finally forced myself to glance back as Owen gruntedat the sudden halt of the vehicle. His big body had rolled into the front seats, a flap of his tattooed skin catching on the edge making more blood seep from the wound. He looked pitiful in his broken state, but that didn’t reflect in his expression. When his watering eyes rose to meet mine, they were filled with a smug satisfaction because he knew what I was thinking and feeling, and he thought that he’d won.
He hadn’t.
Not by a long shot.
In order to win a fucked-up game like the one we were playing, you had to be alive to claim your victory. Owen wouldn’t make it to the end of the day. He already had one foot in the grave, and we were standing in the daylight with the dirt on the shovel, more than ready to fill in his unmarked grave and piss on his remains.
I turned my gaze back to Drew who was staring straight ahead, his lip curled in disgust. I could only imagine what he must be thinking seeing all of this shit playing out in front of him, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask while Owen was stroking his own bloody ego.
“Do you want me to search the place?” I asked, my voice hard and missing any form of emotion, unwilling to feed that smug satisfaction more than I already had.
Drew blinked twice in quick succession, turning his head my way. “Let’s get him inside first. I want to make sure it isn’t rigged.”
I nodded in agreement and pushed myself from the truck, circling around to meet Drew on the other side. I pulled the back door open to get to Owen out, and I barely blinked at the bloody mess of gore that was growing below him. This Dodge was never going to make its way back to its owners, but thatseemed like the least of our problems right now. We had a storm brewing back at The Hut, and we were running out of time.
Owen wasn’t a light man. His indulgences came in many forms, and though Drew was stronger than most, he didn’t feel the need to be gentle with his former brother, so getting Owen out of the truck became less of an issue. Drew simply dragged him out like he was road kill, the thud of his body hitting the hard-packed dirt and grass echoing with a sickening crunch of something breaking, teasing another satisfactory scream of agony from Owen.
I tried to help, but Drew did most of the heavy work by dragging Owen’s grunting body over the lawn. It was only when we reached the bottom of the small porch that I came in useful for him. Once I’d rushed up to unlock and open the door with the keys Drew had plucked from Owen’s pocket, I propped open the screen door with a flower pot and darted back down to help pick up Owen’s boot-covered feet. We managed to haul him up the half-dozen steps together, and then into the house before we dropped him carelessly to the floor, ignoring his cry of pain as another curse fell from my lips on sight of the huge flat screen on the wall.
The man had no shame.
He also hadn’t worried about ever being caught.