“Which is?”
“I’m not exactly sure. If Aton is no better then I think we need to skip out of here. Out of state. Until he wakes up.”
“He’s not going to wake up,” Rose said. “I know it. If Luke did it… Luke doesn’t mess up.”
“Hey,” I growled. “He fucked up tonight. He had a plan to take you out and it got fucked up.”
“That’s because he put people in the middle,” Rose said. “He does that when he’s sending a warning. If he really wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Same for you, Wes. I’m sorry. He’s waiting for something.”
The anger boiled within me. I let go of Rose’s hand and opened the door. I leaned down and grabbed the wires, starting the car again.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You don’t trust me? Then fucking leave. Drive until you’re out of gas. Or just go back to him. Rat me out and I’ll take all the heat that’s coming.”
I slammed the door and walked in front of the lights of the car. I skipped the damn cabin and went to the lake. Where it was calm and peaceful, with some moonlight hitting the water.
It hurt when Rose talked like that. And that pissed me off even more. Because it meant I cared about what she thought of me.
Fuck that.
I stood in front of the deck and tried to think about a rational plan. But who the hell was I? I didn’t make plans. I wasn’t part of some family or the mob. I didn’t have a suit and tie and street cred to go out and hustle people down. My job was simple - mash up all the anger and pain in my body and take it out on whoever was put in front of me. When they went down and were out, the crowd cheered for me. Aton paid me. I went home. I drank. I fucked. I woke up and did it all again.
“Wes?” Rose approached slowly. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“I just want to get out of all this. And if I end up with a bullet in the back of my head, then I at least went down swinging.”
“I know nothing but pain,” Rose said. “Nothing but being pushed around. Hurt. Told what to do. How to act. How to feel. Everyone has had something to hang over me and use me for it.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I have nothing hanging over you. You can go anytime you want, Rose. I’m not holding you here.”
“I know that, Wes. That’s why I’m here. On my own will. And that scares me. But I don’t want to bring pain to you. Or danger.”
“Too late,” I said with a smirk. “That ended when a bullet ripped open my shoulder.”
“That was your fault.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Wes, before everything went crazy the last time… when I told you about my brother and your brother… I confessed to you about a murder.”
“You said you blamed yourself for everyone dying.”
“It wasn’t just that. I’m accused of murder.”
I turned and faced Rose. “What?”
“Really. I’m accused of it. Luke has been protecting me.”
“Care to explain that to me?”
“I tried to escape.”
“What does that mean?”
“I met a guy who could help me,” Rose said.
My blood boiled with jealousy. That was something I wasn’t used to. I made fists and flexed my hands to calm down.
“He had done work for my father before,” Rose said. “He took care of false identifications. Sometimes if my father’s fighters got hurt, they’d need real medical attention. So they’d get a fake ID to get to a hospital and stuff. I don’t know how it worked in the background. I never asked or cared. But I remembered Roc. After my father died, Luke took control of everything and was bad from the beginning. Really bad. He loved to snort drugs and kill people. I knew he’d eventually want to kill me. So I tried to make an escape. I privately started to talk to Roc. See, when Luke took over, he kicked everyone out of the loop. All those contacts and relationships my father made were destroyed. I think Luke liked it. He liked making enemies because he had the size, strength, and power to fight back. All the damn time. Remember how you told me that story about that bully?”
“Yeah, I remember,” I said.
“Luke is the ultimate bully. And nobody can ever stand up to him. Or stop him. Jesus Christ, Wes, he shot your boss. Aton. A man who is connected. A man with rich blood, right?”
I nodded. That was true. It was definitely a bold move to make. “Fair enough.”
“I thought I could escape him,” Rose said. “I called Roc and he wanted to do me a favor. He knew how bad it was and that it was going to keep getting worse for me. Hell, he was already making sure to keep me separated from Luke.”
“So you got a fake ID?”
Rose shook her head. In a scene of repeat, her eyes glistened with tears against the moonlight. This time, I didn’t comfort her. She needed to stand up on her own and tell me the damn truth and the damn story.
“I didn’t get a fake ID,” Rose whispered. “Instead, I killed Roc.”
~