Cannon looks between me and her several times before he responds to that. “We thought you were worth it. All of us, especially Roman…and I guess, especially Verek. He’s going to blow a fucking gasket if he has to be in the same room as you. Verek, man, I’m just not sure the guys will want you back at the table anytime soon.”
“I’m not asking to come back right now,” I assure him. “I can give Roman some time to calm down. However long it takes.”
“What do you mean?” Tessa asks. “Where are you going?”
“I’m thinking about going Nomad, or just taking a step back from the MC until all this blows over,” I explain to her and Cannon. “Would you be on board with that?” I ask him.
“If you leave, you can’t come back, not until Conrad and I think Roman is ready to forgive you.”
“You can’t ask him to do that.” Tessa exclaims. “That could take years.”
“Then, Verek will have to wait years, won’t he?” Cannon responds.
“It’s fine, sweetheart,” I assure her. “It could be just weeks or a few months.”
“Or a decade,” Cannon mutters, but I choose to ignore him.
“Leaving for now is better than being voted out. You know that, right?” I ask Tessa.
“There must be another option!” she huffs.
“There’s not,” Cannon and I both say at the same time. Cannon goes on to add, “Your boy is on the chopping block. Roman wants his head.”
Tessa shakes her head. “I could…I could go with you.”
“I think we both know that you’re not ready for that. The last few days have been great, but you don’t like being left alone. I’ll have to find another job, probably working a club at night. I couldn’t leave you every night.”
“I could go with you, to work,” she offers.
“No, sweetheart. The only way Roman will ever let this shit go is if I’m gone and you’re safe under his roof with him and Charlotte.”
“But I can’t stay with them forever!” she exclaims. “They’re engaged! Soon, they’ll be married and want me out of there.”
“I know that. I’m counting on it. When that happens, Roman will have to trust your safety to someone else.”
“This really is the best plan, doll,” Cannon tells her. “Stick to it, man, and you’ve got my support,” he says, holding out his palm toward me.
“Conrad’s too?” I ask as we shake on it.
“I’ll brief him, and he’ll probably be on board,” he replies.
“So now I just need to run it by Hugo, Nolan, and Abel to see if they’ll bite.”
“Those three don’t have any loyalties to Roman, other than taking his orders. They’ll make their own decision about this situation.”
“Yeah. Hopefully,” I agree.
“So, you still haven’t said why you’re here, although I have an inkling,” Cannon remarks.
“The names and addresses Joey gave us were solid,” I explain to him. “They’ve been handled. Now all that’s left to finish this is putting him down.”
“Fuck,” he grumbles, running his fingers through his blond hair. “Roman is going to have our asses if we let you touch him,” he says, referring to him and Conrad since they’re on watch tonight.
“I won’t have to touch a hair on his head,” I assure him.
Before he can talk me out of it, I lead Tessa by the hand toward the door of the boathouse. Conrad is waiting just on the other side of the run-down wooden shack, standing in the doorway, keeping an eye on his prisoner and on his brother at the same time.
“How’s it going?” I ask him when we walk inside. “Want to head home early tonight?”
He looks to Cannon, who is on our heels. His brother nods, so Conrad gives a shrug. “I’m just glad this is done. He’s been asking us to get it over with already,” he says, nodding to what’s left of the man sagging in the stocks. Tessa gasps when she finally sees him and covers her mouth. I don’t know whether it’s because he’s beaten and bloody or because he’s being held in the exact way that they held her and the other women.
“Do you want to wait outside with Cannon?” I ask her softly when I let her hand go to pull out my gun from the back of my jeans, the same one I gave Tessa earlier to protect herself in case shit went sideways.
“No. I can handle it.”
“Verek,” Cannon says in warning, as if he has doubts that she’s capable of watching. He doesn’t know her as well as I do, though.
“She can make up her own mind,” I tell him.
Chapter Thirteen
Tessa
* * *
I wrap my arms around myself as Verek strolls up to the severely wounded man with cuts and burns all over his body.
If I didn’t recognize his face and the dagger tattoo on his right arm that’s locked in the stocks, I would probably feel sorry for him. It’s been almost a week since the Savage Kings caught him and brought him here.
But I bet nothing they’ve done to him has been half as horrible as what he and the three other men did to me and all of those other women, some for more than a week before they killed them.
“Any last words?” Verek asks the prisoner.
“Kill me. Please,” he begs with a scratchy voice.
So maybe they hurt him more than I expected if he’s ready to die.
“Your three friends are dead,” Verek says. “Time for you to finally meet them in hell.”
With that statement, he holds the barrel of his gun up to the side of the man’s drooping head.
I startle at the loud boom of the gun going off, but I don’t scream. And as my heart gallops away, I stare at the crimson mess left behind. Blood is splattered everywhere, even on Verek’s T-shirt.
My first thought shouldn’t have been thank goodness he wasn’t wearing his leather cut, or he may never get it clean. But it was, because four men ruined me with their violence. They may have broken me, but I’ve been putting myself back together, stronger than before.
I’m an accomplice to four murders. That thought doesn’t even faze me because I’m too relieved. Never again will I wake up from a nightmare and have a panic attack, worried they will find me and finally kill me like they planned all along.
There’s nothing I can do to stop thinking about those hours when I was taken by monsters. Knowing they’re dead is exactly what I needed to try and move on with my life.
“Oh fuck,” Verek mutters when he glances down and sees the mess he’s made. He shoves the gun in the back of his jeans and rips his shirt off over his head before wiping his hands on it and tossing it to the ground. “Now I’m glad we didn’t have to use guns on the others,” he mutters. “What a mess…”
“We’ll take care of it,” Cannon says. “You need to get her home.”
I don’t like how he refers to Roman and Charlotte’s house as my home. Yes, I feel safe there, and I’m glad to have my best friend around because there’s no way I could live alone just yet. But now, after the past two days, my home feels like it’s with Verek. And knowing that he’s going to be leaving, even if it’s only temporary…well, I’m not ready to let him go.