Page 46 of Tyrant

“They wanted me dead, they could have done it a dozen times before now, I’m guessing. This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. My dad’s clearly been planning this for years.”

“I don’t want a hero. I want you, not your sacrifice.”

I can tell how much it hurts him to step away from me. He thunders downstairs even though he’s in his bare feet and not his boots.

I can’t let this happen. The denial is so strong in me that I almost don’t listen. I wait too long. I can already hear the front door opening before I make myself move down the hall. I gather Penny up, thankful that she doesn’t even stir. She’s such a deep sleeper. I grab her bunny again, horror nearly paralyzing me.

This is so much worse than anything I feared, but it doesn’t make me want to run. I want to be at Gray’s side, but I can’t do that with our daughter to protect.

I rush back to Gray’s room and slam the door shut, bolting the lock. He told me to stay in the other room, but I can’t just abandon him, let those men take him away not knowing what happened. I put Penny down gently on the bed and edge closer to the window keeping to the side.

There’s a huge pickup parked to the side of my car with its lights still on. Seeing the hulking form of shadowy men, their figures distorted by the night and made grotesque and monstrous, is like being at a theatre of the macabre. No one looks more ghastly than the man at the front. Barrel-chested, long gunmetal hair, a thick sooty beard. Zale Grand. He’s waiting at the head of the pack of men flanking him like an alpha wolf. There are at least five on each side, though there could be more. I can only see what their headlights show me.

My heart lodges in my throat when I hear Gray’s strong voice ring out in the night. “What are you doing here, old man? You’re supposed to be a ghost. You couldn’t stay gone. I won’t be responsible for what happens to you now.”

Zale Grand always had the raspiest voice, low and husky and somehow booming and terrifying. Hearing it freezes the blood in my veins. “Nah, son, it’s the other way around. I came to collect what’s mine, and that would be vengeance. Hart is my city. It’s going to be mine as long as I have breath left in my body.”

“I can fix that for you this time. Make good on what I should have done a long time ago. Rabid animals need to be putdown. You’re my dad, but I won’t hesitate a second time to put a bullet in your head.”

“You do that, and my men will personally make sure you’re torn apart slowly, over a matter of days. They’ll see to it that you live long enough to see the slaughter of every man you call a brother. You want to be responsible for all their deaths?”

I gasp, my legs giving out so that I sit down on the floor hard enough to bruise my tailbone.

“I’ll take you as a trade. They agree to reinstate me as their prez and include my men in the club, they swear loyalty on pain of death, and all will be forgiven. I know they were just following you. You headed the whole thing. Wanted your old man out of the way so you could rule the kingdom I made.”

“It wasn’t like that, and you know it. You betrayed your club brothers. I wasn’t lying to you about any of that. It wasn’t me who found out. It wasn’t me who wanted you gone. I was shocked and fucking shamed that my own father would be betray the club he’d bled for and would die for. You betrayed your vows and your oath to serve and protect the club and all the men in it.”

Zale lets out a chilling laugh. I hear a snap and a shout from Gray makes me pull myself up and peek over the window. Three of those monstrous shadows have wrestled him down the porch and into the yard. They force him to kneel at Zale’s feet. I whimper at my own helplessness. Gray won’t fight back with us here and I can do nothing.

“A trade? You can’t offer up what’s already mine. What should I start with first? How about a finger for every year I’ve been away?”

Gray thrashes, his shadow moving in a black cage, batting its way against the bars.

Horrifyingly, Zale doesn’t watch Gray. He turns his head to the window, looking directly at me. I don’t duck. I know he can’t see me, but he frowns like he can.

Despite the glass, his voice carries through the still night. “A finger for every year, unless you come down here. Don’t think I don’t know you’re in there, I have a message I want you to take back to your brother.”

There’s no breath left in my body. I don’t have a voice to let out a scream. I’m paralyzed with fear.

“You have one minute, or we burn that house down with you and the kid inside,” Zale yells.

Gray yells too, a stream of panicked words. I can’t let him do something that is going to get him killed. Zale is threatening every single thing that he holds dear, and he’s not going to be able to hold onto his control much longer before he tries to kill each and every man out there.

Gray’s right that Zale could have harmed either of us at any time if he wanted to. He could have taken me or Penny. This was too well planned out to be random. He was watching and waiting, biding his time. He’s made a threat in front of his men and he’s not going to lose face.

I snatch Penny back up against me. She mumbles something sleepily, but I tuck her face against my neck and rush down the hall and fling us both down the stairs. I burst through the open door, running like I’m fleeing for my life, even though everything feels slowed down.

Zale Grand looks like a demon in the night, even more so down here than he did from upstairs. Gray filled out over the years I was away, but his father looks like he made it his sole mission to become wider than a literal tank. I study him slowly, sizing up my enemy. I get a good look at the other men, committing each cragged and rugged face to memory. The two holding Gray down on the ground have their backs to me, a laughing demon-like monkey on the back of their vests taunting me.

Gray twists around just enough that he can see me and Penny. His eyes rake over me and lock on my face. His agony is obvious. I shake my head, hoping he can read my thoughts from my expression.

No. I’m not giving you up again. This is our worst nightmare, but we’re going to live it together and get through it together. We’ll be okay because I’ll do anything for you, and I know you’ll do beyond that for us. I love you.

“Alright. You want this done, get it done,” Gray bites out. “But let them go.”

Zale snarls at his son, spittle spraying silvery in the night. “You no longer give orders. You are nothing. Not president, not my son.”

There’s only one truck here, but with all these men, they must have more vehicles or bikes parked further away.

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