“Motherfucker,” Drew cursed under his breath, pacing the living space we were now standing in. His face tensed, along with every muscle in his body. Sometimes I wasn’t sure he remembered I was there when he was like this. Recently, more than ever, I was seeing flashes of the man he’d been hiding from me, warning me about, telling me to stay away from since before the day we got together. He scared himself, thatmuch was clear, but what he had to realize was that he didn’t scare me. Not even when his eyes glazed over and his jaw set in that way which told me he was standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump into his own ocean of wild rage.
Drew’s movements were slow until he came across a rock type ornament sitting on a rustic set of drawers. He picked it up in his hand to feel the weight of it. Then at once, he spun and launched it at the giant flat screen as hard as he could.
The unit shuddered on the wall as a spider web of cracks appeared on the surface. The ornament dropped to the highly polished wood floors with a heavy thud and rolled away only seconds before a large click sounded, and the whole television pitched forward, landing with another crash. I probably should have been shocked by the sudden move, but the entire thing had been satisfying to watch. The odd-sounding electrical buzz that came from the inside of the television was even better.
Owen was a lot of things, but he wasn’t smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Whether upset or smug, he just stared up at his living room ceiling, his face twisted in pain and body curled in on itself as more blood seeped from the various wounds on his body. “Make you feel better, asshole?”
Drew didn’t look at him. He just bent to pick up the rolling object and bounced the weight of the rock in his hand a few times, his attention focused on it as he slowly turned and began to walk toward Owen. Drew never looked up or spoke. All he saw was the rock in his hand, even when he stopped in front of Owen and let the silence linger for a few intense moments.
Suddenly, Drew curled his arm, lifting it back and smashed the rock into the side of Owen’s already bleeding head, sending him crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Drew sniffed casually, looking back down at the blood-soaked rock in his grip. “Yeah. It really did.”
Owen was out. For how long I wasn’t sure, but there were no groans of pain coming from him as he laid prone on his fancy blood-stained rug bound like an animal. I glanced back up at Drew before looking back to the rest of the house.
“You think his new friends will know to come out here?”
“I don’t feel like I know anything anymore, Ayda,” he answered robotically. Glancing up at me, he swallowed and straightened his shoulders. “We shouldn’t waste time. Are you sure you’re okay here? I know what you’re going to say, but I need to ask… just one more time. Before shit gets…”
He didn’t need to finish.
I crossed the room eating up the small distance between us. It was so much easier to stand in front of him and say what I needed to say than talk across the distance that was gaping in the silent room.
“This was the one side you’ve hidden from me up until now, but you don’t need to do that anymore. I’m right here. I’m fine, and I’m utterly on board. I need you to see that.”
His eyes searched mine. “I see it,” he said softly.
I nodded with satisfaction, my hand brushing his lightly.
“Now, what do we need to do here so we can deal with this asshole and get back to the club?” I glanced over my shoulder at Owen again and tilted my chin to the back of the house. “Do we need to make sure there’s nothing here that implicates the club before he dies?”
Drew sucked in a breath and looked around Owen’s room. “Can you search the place? Grab anything that’s loose. Papers. His personal shit, laptops, passports, bank files, anything we can keep and search. Photos… take those, too. I meant what I said when I told him everyone he loved was going to pay. You take what you can, and give me ten minutes alone with him.” He kicked Owen’s limp leg lazily.
I glanced down at the body and back up to Drew, nodding without another ounce of hesitation. Pressing my lips briefly against his, I took off and headed down the small hall.
Owen’s house was very boxy and compartmentalized, each room a square with one entrance and exit. I’d seen a lot of these style homes around, but it was the first time that one of them had felt this cloistering.
I stepped into the small kitchen first, throwing open drawers and cupboards, and pulling out anything that looked like it could be useful. I found a small box under the sink, and I started piling the shit I found into it as the screaming in the other room began. The sound wasn’t that reluctant howl Owen had been giving off in the training room. This was pure, unadulterated agony that ran down to his very soul. I took a small, steadying breath as the sound clawed through my body and tried it’s damnedest to trigger my empathy, but I stomped the inclination down again. This animal deserved nothing but the pain that was being inflicted upon him. He’d caused the deaths of so many of those I loved, and I wouldn’t allow my basic human nature to second-guess the way Drew chose to handle Owen’s death. Not now. Not in the twenty-fifth hour.
I worked diligently as the screaming continued with barely any breaks or breaths in between. Anything I thought might be important was sectioned off into a paper bag for Drew to look at. I found bills, mostly, but there were a few photographs in a junk drawer, along with a set of keys. Then I hit the jackpot in the freezer when I opened up a box of frozen waffles and found his passport, a wad of cash, and whatlooked like a whole new identity.
I moved on to the dining room next, taking a laptop from one end of the table and dumping it and my small box into a larger file box he had sitting close by. I was digging through a trashcan filled with scrunched paper when I heard another round of blood-curdling screams. There was a thumping that sounded like boots on the hardwood, and when I allowed my brain to process this, I had an image of someone going into a seizure.
Shaking off the image, I rose, dumping the balled-up papers into the box before I headed back into the hall and into one of the bedrooms. This room had so much shit stacked inside of it that it took me a while to get through the contents before I found an ancient metal desk tucked away in a corner. I rifled through it carefully, dumping drawers on the floor, and pushing through the contents. When I finally found a locked drawer, I headed back to the kitchen, the sound of gurgled pleading filtering through the house pushing me to move faster. I found a knife and carving fork, and I took them back with me, forcing the thing open with as much speed as I could.
Inside this locked drawer was a set of hanging files, all of which had dates and signatures that belonged to none other than the Mayor himself. In another folder, there were photocopies of what looked like a ledger, along with names I recognized. I grabbed them all, no matter what they were labeled and moved on.
In the bottom drawer was a shoebox filled with club photographs. I took that, too.
I was on my way to the second bedroom when I made the mistake of looking down the narrow hall to the front of the house. Blood was thick and viscose as it eased down thesubtle incline toward the back of the house. The liquid stained everything in its path a sickly looking black-red color, and without looking too hard, I knew that had to be arterial blood.
Owen was not long for this world now, and I met Drew’s eyes when I stumbled into a doorframe and dropped the box. Crimson spray touched the sun-kissed skin of his face, and his beautiful eyes were cold and empty like a predator who’d been startled feeding on its prey. I nodded to let him know I was fine before I bent over to pick up the box and moved to the bedroom.
There wasn’t much in Owen’s room. A few pictures. A few porn magazines. The only beneficial thing being a smartphone and an address book.
I only took a cursory glance into the bathroom, finding nothing but more porn and the usual toiletries, but I checked the linen closet and under the sink anyway.
The box was heavy as I made my way back to Drew and the wet choking sound of a man taking his last breaths. My adrenaline rose with every step I took, my breaths coming faster and faster as I stepped into the only room I hadn’t searched.