Page 60 of Ensnared By Silence
Hayden
Ihelped Aubrey intoDevlin’s black SUV and climbed in beside her. Her palms were sweaty as we drove through the darkened downtown of Pierce Bluff. The further from town we got, the tighter her grip got. I looked at her and she met my gaze. I kissed the back of her hand and told her quietly, “You can change your mind and no one will think less.”
“I don’t want you to think less of me if I see this through. I don’t want you to stop loving me.”
Her soft words gutted me as we pulled up to an old warehouse in the back of an industrial park. James turned around from the front seat and explained, “Skid and a few of the Death Hounds are inside with Tucker. If you don’t want to be a part of this, you can stay in the car.”
With those words, he and Devlin exited the vehicle and walked into the building, giving Aubrey and I a chance to talk.
“There is nothing that will ever stop me from loving you, Aubrey. I’ll fight the world for you, if you let me.” I kissed her softly as her green eyes twinkled with unshed tears. “Let’s get this over with so I can take you home and pamper you.”
She pinched her lips and nodded, unsure of my declaration, and as we walked across the gravel parking lot to the warehouse, she tugged at my hand. She cast her eyes to the side briefly before she met my gaze.
“Tucker is your stepbrother. Are you sureyouwant to be here?”
“Tucker is nothing to me. No one. You’re the most important person in the world, and I’ll stand by your side for whatever you need. No matter what.” I locked eyes with her and a smile on her face showed a peace I never witnessed in her before. “I choose you, Aubrey. Forever, I choose you.”
Hand in hand, we walked into the building, and as I held the door open for her, Needles, the Death Hound who made sure she was safe when she ran last month, was waiting for us. He nodded with a smile and Aubrey wrapped her hand around my arm as we followed him through the dirty building littered with old machines and covered in dust. Lights from overhead cast beams across the floor and particles of dust floated through the air like snow. The closer to the stairs we got, the louder the moans traveling from upstairs sounded.
Aubrey steeled her spine as we climbed the flight of stairs, and as we entered the barren second floor, I could see an office on the back wall and a wall of hanging plastic closing off an area to the left. Sounds of flesh hitting flesh echoed throughout the floor and I looked at Aubrey as we approached.
“If you want to go, I’ll take you back outside,” Needles explained and lifted his hand to the plastic.
Devlin stepped out wearing black fingerless gloves and his hands were covered in blood splatter. The smile on his face was evil, and he held the plastic back, offering us a way inside. Aubrey led, and I kept my hand in hers as we stepped into what I could only describe as a torture room.
Tucker was naked except for a pair of urine-soaked boxer briefs, his face bloody and bruised and his arms and legs strapped down to a metal table. There was a drain attached to the table and bile rose in my throat. His head turned toward the sound of us and he immediately begged.
“Hayden, you’ve got to help me, man. There’s been a huge mistake here. Tell them to let me go.”
“Why the fuck would I do that? You tried to rape my woman . . .again!”I yelled, and Aubrey slipped her hand from mine as I approached the table.
“It was just a joke.” His swollen eyes moved to Aubrey. “Tell them, Bree. This was all a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” She scoffed and a few of the Death Hounds standing around leaned in, eager to see. Aubrey stepped up to the table and leaned over, her face tilted over Tucker’s as she spoke. “You admitted to me you knew what you were doing, and that you wanted me aware the whole time. Isn’t that what you told me when you me pinned to the floor after you hit me? That you purposely underdosed me so I would know what was happening.”
Tucker turned his head and a Death Hound whose patch said ‘Gunner’ gripped into his cheeks and turned his head back to Aubrey. “The lady asked you a question, boy. I suggest you answer it.”
“What was it you said?” she asked and snapped her fingers, glancing to me before finding James. “No one would believe me because I was a piece of garbage from the Flats. That Hayden would throw a couple of dollars my way when he pushed me out the door after you raped me.”
He sobbed, and she slapped him across the face, yelling, “Answer me!”
“Yes. I shorted your dose, knowing you wouldn’t tell anyone,” he cried, and Aubrey stepped back from him. “And I didn’t think Hayden would believe you over me.”
James grabbed a huge hunting knife from a small table, and with an upward raise of his arm, he drove the knife into Tucker’s right leg, forcing a blood-curdling scream into the air. With a quick yank, he pulled the blade from Tucker’s leg, muscle and tissue ripping from the serrated blade. Aubrey watched with fascination as Tucker writhed and cried.
“You can’t do this! Let me go, please. I swear, I won’t tell anyone if you let me go.”
“No one would believe you, but you’ll never get the chance to tell anyone,” Devlin replied from his position against the side and Tucker strained to look over his shoulder at him. Pushing from the column he was leaning against, he approached the table with slow, deliberate steps. Looking down, his blue eyes glowed as he smiled at a bloody, snotty Tucker. “You treated my sister like she was expendable, using her to test your drugs, raping her,” he gritted out.
“Sister? Bree doesn’t have any siblings.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Let me introduce myself to you since you won’t be alive long enough to repeat my name.” Tucker’s eyes flittered around the room, looking for a sympathetic person to help him.He would find none. Leaning close to his head, Devlin spoke low and deadly. “I’m Devlin Callahan and the man at the end of the table is my brother, James. Aubrey’s brothers.”
“D-D-Devlin C-C-Callahan? Oh, fuck. Please don’t kill me! I’m sorry! Bree, please don’t let them do this.”
Rumors of the madman of the Flats were well known throughout the state of Tennessee, and the stories of his vigilante style of justice were whispered in the dark. Seeing the terror in Tucker’s eyes as he begged and pleaded with Devlin did nothing to satisfy my need to see him suffer, for what he did not only to Aubrey but the other women he bragged about hurting.
I looked down at Aubrey and the icy green of her eyes stared up at me, her hands clenching open and closed at her sides. Tucker’s time was growing shorter and shorter as the blood flowed from his leg wound. James stood at the end of the table, a small vile in his hand. His gaze caught mine, and I raised an eyebrow, nodding at the bottle.
