Page 122 of Tied to You

Me: Dean?

He doesn’t reply, sending me to tears again. They’re happy tears mixed with a gut-wrenching realisation that Travis didn’t call me himself. Clutching my phone, I sit back down on the sofa, waiting for the call that he said would come later.

When my phone rings, my eyes lazily open. Disorientated, I pick it up, realising I must have fallen asleep. With a jolt, I sit and hit the green button, lifting it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Travis?” I croak.

“It’s me. Are you okay?” he asks, clearly noting my tired voice.

“Me? I’m fine,” I say in a rush. “Where are you? What happened?” My questions become a little more frantic with each one I ask. My head’s swivelling looking for him, even though I know he’s not home yet.

“I’m fine,” he sighs, lying to me.

Rubbing my heavy eyes, I listen to him breathing. It sounds so stupid, but this tiny little thing is so comforting. “When are you coming home?” I need him here, with me.

Another sigh. “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

Maybe tomorrow? “What do you mean tomorrow?”

I hear him run a hand over his face. “Look, we have too much to do. I’m needed here. I’ll be back tomorrow when I can.”

I need you. I want to scream at him. But I don’t. The words aren’t easy to find when I feel this level of rejection. Why isn’t he coming home now? Is this still about earlier or is he really so knee deep in the shit he physically can’t get back to me? My lips finally part and I find the three words I need. “I love you.”

He takes in a breath before he says, “I know,” then hangs up.

Just like that. Gone.

And just like that, I’m back to crying again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

TRAVIS

Hands still covered in blood; I hang up and light my cigarette, sat outside on my bike. Dean stands to one side, also smoking. He passes me a bottle of beer, the glass from both our bottles chinking together as he does. The simple noise snaps me from my trance.

I was looking at him, but he’s not who I could see.

A broken arm from running his bike off the road. A blown-out knee cap. Bruises to his face and body. Missing fingers and thumbs.

A missing eye.

Flashes of red paint the inside of my lids when I blink. The level of brutality was absolutely fucking necessary. At the time, I shut it all off, refused to look at it. Seeing it now on repeat, I recognise how unhinged both Dean and I were. I knew I was capable of that level of violence; I just never knew I could rip a man’s eye out with my bare hands. With Dean, I wasn’t surprised by his actions at all.

The cunt who tried to run me off the road is no longer breathing. Once we found out why he came after one of us, we tortured him like it was a sport. I knew why I was doing it. Understood my need to have my fucking revenge. What I don’t like, is the darkness that swallowed me whole—consumed me so completely, I couldn’t bring myself to stop what I was doing. Rather than stop me, Skitz and Dean held him down, both of them matching my level of irrationality without any persuasion needed.

Brothers.

He was compliant before he started assuming we didn’t have it in us to end him. Then the fucker started making threats like there was no tomorrow. That was until Dean shot out his knee cap. Then he told us whereand when we could shut them all down. Nothing like testing a man’s loyalty with the end of the gun. I was surprised he cracked at all, but when he divulged not only who their supplier isandwhere they set up, it was like Christmas had come early.

He told us Saviours have distribution units already set up and running at three locations. Since Elvis recently confirmed the coke I gave him came from overseas, naturally and circumstantially, the Saviour has to be telling the truth.

There’s no one else around here with the reach to set up an operation similar to ours. Plus, smaller clubs either work with us, or for us. They don’t move against us.

We’re calling on some of them tonight. It’s time to move. Strike whilst the iron’s hot. We’ve used our time checking the locations given to us by the dead Saviour. All of them check out. It’s good—means he wasn’t lying. It just also means we’re in for a long run of violence, death and murder.

The triple threat.