Page 24 of Savage Obsession
My finger twitches over the stainless steel trigger, but something has me pausing. Movement from the treeline catches my eye
Willow breaks out of the treeline and runs past Reaper and runs straight for me. Her boots are three sizes too big, her pants swallow her lower body and the hoodie too.
My whole body clenches as she grabs my arm and peers up at me through the light of my burning cabin.
“I told you to go to the main compound,” I say without taking my eyes off Drudge. My tone darkens the air.
“You did,” she fires back, her hot breath white. She juts her chin up. “I didn’t go. I don’t follow commands and rules. You might want to consider that the next time you bark out orders at me.”
“You don’t want to see what comes next, Willow. Leave now.” I lift my voice. “Ash. Take her away.”
Her grip tightens around my arm. “I’m not leaving,” she says. The stubborn streak in her widens. “And you’re going to want to hear me.”
My finger returns to settle on the trigger. I never place it there unless I have every intention of pulling it. When I cock the hammer back, Drudge’s eyes glint. He thinks he’s untouchable in front of his daughter. Idiot. I will rid the world of him and earn her wrath if it means she is safe.
“All this ends now,” I say, the truth in my voice turns into solid ice.
“If you kill him,” Willow urges, moving closer, putting her body half in front of mine because she’s got more courage than all the Vultures and her father put together, “there will just be another snake that pops up. You know I’m right. You all do.”
“I thought you wanted him dead,” I grind out, and yeah, my voice is a blade now.
“I wanted him stopped.” She doesn’t look away from me. She doesn’t look at Drudge, and that hurts him more than any bulletI could put in him. I know it because I am watching every stutter of emotion that flits across the man’s weathered face.
“He deserves it for what he did to my mother and brother. And I am not going to stop you if you want to end his life.”
Drudge stares at his daughter. From one second to another the hollowness in his eyes is a grave with no headstone. No recognition. No love. Just absolute darkness stares back.
“But if you do,” she continues, steady and strong under the frost, “the Russian will just find another puppet. I suggest you use him.”
Drudge hawks spit into the snow by my boot. “I won’t be workin’ for no damn Savage piece of trash.”
I rear back and crack him across the bridge of his nose with the heel of my weapon before he finishes the last word. Bone gives, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve heard tonight. I enjoy watching the blood gush down his face. He drops to his knees in the snow. Hands fly to his face, his gun drops into the snow. Pain will do that to a man.
“There’s one thing you can hold over him to get him to do anything you want,” Willow continues as she watches her father bleed. Her voice is softer now, like it costs her to say the next words.
“What’s that?” I ask her, wishing I could spare her the pain.
A small shoulder goes up. “A girl,” she spits out as if those two words are bitter on her tongue. “She’s about my age. He kidnapped her from a parish over from ours. She’s his plaything, and she’s as twisted as he is. He took her from the other rival gang. A weaker crew.”
“The Black Thorns?” I ask, keeping my eyes on Drudge and the horizon at once.
“Yes. They are not strong enough to stand up against the evil my father wields. And the girl he took has just as twisted a mind as my father. She’s pregnant.” Willow swallows. “Use her.”
As she speaks, I can see the light in her eyes flicker. It doesn’t fade out and die, but it dims. For that alone I want to empty my magazine into the man kneeling in the snow. No one smothers out Willow’s light. No one but me gets close enough to touch that light, and when I touch it, it’s only to add more love to it so she can burn brighter, damn it.
Behind me, flames chew through the last of the roof and sparks belch into the night sky. I don’t look back. The cabin was a life I was pretending to want. I used to want the quiet and empty nights it offered. It served its purpose. It gave me a fire to lay her beside. I’ll trade it a thousand times to have her in my life.
Now I am going to kill the one man who can take her from me. We will find how to take down the Euphoria shit and the Russian in some other way.
Reaper steps into my peripheral and uses a low voice that drips with enough reason to pull me out of the lethal trance I’ve fallen into.
“She’s right, brother,” he offers in a tight, controlled voice. “Keep the bullet with his name chambered and hold on to it for now. You copy?”
I blink a couple of times and realize maybe they are both right. I need to holster my ego here and my thirst for vengeance long enough to get what we are really after. “Copy that, Prez.” I swallow the bile in my throat at sparing a man’s life that doesn’tdeserve to draw air for another minute. It hurts, but I know it’s the right thing to do for now.
I don’t take my eyes off Drudge when I say, “But when it comes time to put this fucker in the ground, I’ll provide the bullet and the grave.”
Willow laces her fingers through mine, feeding me her calmness while she answers a few questions for Reaper. She tells him where to find the pregnant girl and then he gives orders to a few patches to bring her here.
