Page 73 of Loving Trent
Uncle Joey and Ryan jump in when needed, but the rest of us stay quiet. Sammy and Zak lose their shit at the exact same time Ryan tells them about the fire. Shawn stays quiet and calm throughout it all. At some point, Leon and Demon join the conversation via phone, but I don’t know who called them because I’m too busy trying to get a read on my man.
Once everything is out there, tension fills the room and clings to each of us. Shawn grabs my hand but looks at Sonny as he says, “Let’s go.”
Shawn is the first one to break the silence filling the cab of my truck. He squeezes my hand, and I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at him. “Why are our lives so chaotic?”
“What do you mean?” I focus back on the road, checking my rearview mirror to ensure that Parker keeps up with me as I go around another car.
“Normal couples don’t have this much drama going on.” When Shawn sighs, I feel a weight settle in my chest.
I try really fucking hard not to question if it’s too much for him, but I do anyway. Because let’s face it, it is a lot of drama. Compared to the rest of our family’s stories, ours has triple the drama involved. I’m chasing down psychopaths who hurt me.Shawn has people literally trying to kill him. He’s right, it’s not normal, or I don’t think it is.
When I don’t answer him, Shawn picks our joined hands off his thigh and brushes his lips across my knuckles before biting down. I hiss and glare at him, but when a deep belly laugh comes from the back seat, I turn my glare toward the fucker who insisted he was riding with us. Zakary Haines. “Got something to say?” I growl before turning my attention back to where it should be.
“Nope.” Zak pops the p in his normal, can’t take anything seriously way.
“Trent, it’s not too?—”
My fingers tighten, needing him to stop. It’s one thing to think thoughts like mine, but to hear him say them out loud feels as if it will summon a curse. “I know it’s not. I trust and believe you when you told me you loved me and weren’t going anywhere. It’s just sometimes?—”
“Sometimes it’s hard to see what our partners see in us,” Zak speaks up from the back seat, and for once, I don’t want to strangle him. “I still do it with Sammy all the time. I think we all do. For the record, I don’t think you two have too much drama. It seems like that because it’s happening simultaneously, and both of your issues are a lot more serious.”
“Zak’s right, Son,” Sonny says from behind me. “These swords hanging over your head feel like a lot right now, but they aren’t, not when you have a whole tribe of people standing behind you. We will end both of these chapters in your life, and then it will be smooth sailing before another storm rolls in. But you know what, when that storm rolls in, we will be there to weather it with you.”
I’m not sure who Sonny is directing his words to, but they sink inside my chest, and I hold onto them tightly. I will remember them on the days when I think that everyone is goingto leave because even though I don’t want to have these thoughts anymore, I know they will still be there, waiting in the dark.
“But it does say something about our family that we’re all okay with possibly ending two people’s lives tonight,” Sammy casually says.
I look in the mirror, and our eyes connect as I say, “Yeah, it says that anyone who tries to harm one of us will pay the ultimate price, and I refuse to feel sorry about it.”
“Fuck you’re hot when you get this way,” Shawn says, leaning over the console to press his lips against my neck.
“Ew,” Sammy squeals.
Zak gags and yells, “Can you bleach your ears? I need someone to look it up. I have to forget Shawn said that.”
Sonny just chuckles and says, “Shut up, Zak. It’s not like we weren’t all there when you told Sammy that seeing her eight months pregnant made you want to bend her over the table.”
“What have I signed myself up for?” I whisper in horror. Loving the small moment of laughs and lightness, I ask the question that is going to bring our mood down, but I’m dying to know the answer to. “Shawn… Sonny said that you’ve gotten your hands bloody once. Care to share with the class?”
The tension doesn’t rise as I expected it to, making me believe that maybe I’m the only one who hasn’t heard this story. “It’s simple. It was the job Dad took right after everything that happened with Sammy. Up until that point, I helped Dad out money-wise when he was in a bind. Dad and the other members of Saviors MC work regular jobs to support what they do. Still, sometimes more cases come in, or since most of the guys are day laborers, the income slows down.
“But this job, Dad needed someone to help get a man and his young son out of town quickly. Let’s call the man Calvin. Calvin’s boyfriend was very abusive and used Calvin’s job against him to keep him quiet. Let’s just say that Calvin works a job wheremaking online videos on the side would ruin him. Well, when Calvin threatened to go to the authorities over the abuse… Weston threatened to ruin him by leaking the videos.”
“Let the record show that Weston was also part of the authorities,” Zak says disdain for the man, clear in his tone.
“Anyways, I was living in Illinois still, so Dad called me because I was closer to the house he put Calvin up in. Dad was on his way but wouldn’t get there for another hour, and Weston had been spotted by Calvin in the little town. Everything was going okay until we met up with Dad an hour later. Our meet-up location was an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. On one side was a thick, dense small forest, and on the other side was a pond.
“We got there before Dad, and I swear I watched the only way I thought there was to get to the house, but Weston was smarter than we all thought. When we all walked out of the house so Dad could take Calvin and his son away, a shot rang out from somewhere, but it was quickly followed by two more, so we never could get a clear idea of where the shooters were. That’s when Calvin’s son saw someone standing by the pond and took off toward the forest. Weston hadn’t only abused Calvin but also hurt the little six-year-old boy. Calvin went after his son, and I followed him. Dad went after the man by the pond.” Shawn stops, and it’s so quiet that everyone hears him swallow. Sitting on the edge of my seat, I’m a ball of worry that retelling this story is too much for him.
“Shawn, you can?—”
Shawn gives my hand a quick squeeze and says, “I’m good, I promise. Anyway, to make the story short. By the time I caught up to Calvin and his son, I found them both trembling in the dirt on their knees as Weston stood over them holding a pistol. He was convinced that Calvin had been cheating on him with meand was clearly losing his mind. The moment he raised his gun, pointed it at the little boy, I acted without much thought.”
“My boy's a damn good shot. The bullet went straight into Weston’s heart. He never had a chance,” Sonny speaks up with pride. “I took care of the other guy, who was working with Weston, and then I called Leon to help me cover up the killing of two police officers.”
“Damn, Baby Boy?—”
“Nope!” Zak’s hand shoots out and covers my mouth. “Whatever filthy thing you're about to say about whatever is happening in your pants, none of us, and I mean none of us, want to hear it.”
