Saving Lawson (Loving Lawson Book 2) (22 page)

              “He’s gone,” I said firmly. “They’re all gone now.”

             
“I called Marko after we took you,” Ryker replied. “He lured the guys at the cash house. It’s probably blown to smithereens by now, which means they’re probably scrambling. And once they find out nobody is going to lead, they’ll scatter like cockroaches. Nobody knew the connections Boss had. They’ll never be able to bring in the supply to keep the crew afloat. I doubt they’ll show themselves after they’ve heard what’s happened. There’s going to be some serious heat from the police. Hire a good lawyer if it gets to that. But as it stands, the Syndicate are no more so long as you keep on top of it.”

              I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

              “And once everything is pinned on me, nobody will be suspecting you of anything. You’re just victim to a jealous ex-boyfriend.”

              I didn’t respond for a moment. This was the part of the plan I didn’t want to happen.

              “Nobody will be after you,” I told him. “You don’t need to do this, Ryker –”

              “Police are already on the way,” he cut in, passively. “It’s already done. I’m doing this to protect you guys. It’s important everybody knows you had no part in any of this. You say you were about to get killed when I heard the police coming around. That I did all of this on my own. That I turned against Boss in order to take over the crew. And now that I’ve been found out, you say I’ve fled. Understand?”

              I couldn’t say anything. This was beyond fucked. I just looked at him, searching for a different way out of this. But he was resolved in his decision.

              “Why are you okay with this?” I asked him in disbelief. “You want to live your life on the run, Ryker? Don’t… Don’t do this.”

              He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t want to live my life on the run, Heath, but I don’t want to live in this town either. There’s too much… bad here for me. I need to start over somewhere. I need to try even if it means I might get caught somewhere down the track.”

              “But… I’ll never see you again if you go.”

              He wouldn’t look me in the eye. There was so much exhaustion there. So much sadness in him. I could hardly keep myself composed.

              “Maybe one day,” he replied quietly, but it sounded like an empty promise.

              I walked over to him and grabbed his face with both hands. I forced him to look up at me, and he sagged a little as we finally made eye contact. Brown eyes to brown eyes, we stared and took each other in. He could see my sorrow and I could see his pain. We were brothers – close brothers for so long before we were torn apart, and I wished I’d had some more time with him. To let him go now… it was killing me.

              “I love you, brother,” I said hoarsely.

              He nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I kinda like you too.”

              I barely cracked a smile, and then I finally dropped my hands and stepped back.

              “I got to go,” he quietly said. “I need a head start.”

              “I’ve got a car for you already,” I told him. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I knew you’d be a stubborn bastard. Cut through the forest and head right. Follow the stream until you see an off road track. It’s parked there. There’ll be a card on the windshield and it’ll say Location R.”
R meaning Ryker.
“That’s the proof you got it’s the right one. Your share of the money is in the boot, and at the bottom are a couple fake passports, just to get you out of the country if it comes to that.”

              Ryker managed a stiff nod. Avoiding eye contact again, he muttered. “Take care, Heath.”

              He hurried out of the room and Allie’s head turned, following him leave. With panicked eyes, she called out, “Ryker, wait!”

              I heard him stop.

              “You don’t need to go,” she pleaded. “We can think this through. You start running now and you’ll look guilty –”

              “I
am
guilty,” he interrupted, looking at her. “I’ve fucked you guys over. I’ve hurt you, and I’ve made too many mistakes. I deserve this. If not for this crime, then for all the others. You just take care of Kayden, and you keep Heath close to you. He’s the best man for you, I know it. I knew it a long time ago. There’s nobody else I’d trust to be with you than him.”

              I rubbed my face, trying to fight the emotions pushing to the surface. Allie helplessly watched as he resumed walking. The door opened and shut, and he was gone with his weird as fuck friend that’d given me one of the dirtiest beatings of my life. Fucker didn’t have to take it that far. I was practically sore everywhere.

Allie went to me and buried her face to my chest, coating me with her tears. We sank to the floor together, and I stared out the dusty, broken window, wanting nothing more than to reset time. Except, I wasn’t sure what I’d do to change it. Everything wrong that happened had led me to this girl. She was worth every single obstacle.

Her and Kayden both.

They saved me from a meaningless existence, and they were breathing more life into me with each passing day.

“We’re going to be fine,” I told her reassuringly. “We’ve got each other. The worst has passed. It’s just us now, Allison. I got you.”

Only a few minutes later the sounds of sirens filled the air, and I knew all of this was finally over.

I was never going to agree to another motherfucking plan again.

Heath

Ryker became a wanted man.

              For several months after he fled, he was everywhere. All over the news. In the papers. Everyone was talking about him. They called him a murderer. Stories from felons who had served time with him in prison began speaking out about all the fights he’d provoked. They created a picture that he was hungry for violence, and it absolutely enraged me.

              “He was protecting himself in there,” I’d said to Allie once when it was starting to get to me. “He learned that if he wanted to be left alone, he had to show others he was a fighter. He wasn’t hungry for violence.”

              “I know, Heath,” she responded quietly. “They’ll say whatever they can to ruin him.”

              They did, and soon Allie and I were no longer the talk of the town. He was. And Allie was pitied for being the victim of a crazy murderer. It was hard hearing it, but there was nothing I could do to defend him. I had to pretend he was the man they painted, otherwise the spotlight was back on us and our barely solid story.

              I’d explained to Allie in great detail everything Ryker had told me to do. I described the notebook. The cash houses. They money we’d buried. I told her about the man that recognized me at the farmhouse, and what Marko did to save me from being discovered. I told her now that the gang was no more, whatever danger that might have loomed over us was over.

              As more time passed, Marko and I began watching over the streets. We paid attention to every issue that arose, to every act of violence that took place. And, using our men, we put a stop to any gang that had begun to form. We intimidated them, and we even fought violence with violence when intimidation was deflected. Sometimes violence was the only way to control it, otherwise the town would have been what it was once before.

I’d made a home here, and there was no way I was going to let this place lapse again. I wasn’t going to leave my hometown, and I was not going to allow my family to grow up among gang violence. Hedley without the Syndicate was salvageable, and we did what we could to salvage it.

“You’re exhausted,” Allie had complained. “You need to relax a little more and let Marko handle things.”

She was right.

              I was completely drained after all that happened. Not just physically, but mentally too.  I had a war to fight inside my head. Months passed and slowly I began to mend myself. I’d tried so hard to remain consumed in anger after my attack, believing that it was the fuel that would drive me to find the man responsible for trying to kill me. But discovering it was Matt, and knowing he’d been taken care of, there was no more reason to hold on any longer.

              I began to let go.

              Change was in the mind. It was done in small steps and became successful only when you believed it could happen.

              I was changing, and I didn’t just do it for myself.

I did it for my family.

*

“You gonna apologize to me?” Marko asked Allie, smiling down at her as I wrapped the man’s hands up in boxing tape.

              Allie sighed and looked around at all the people crowding around the ring. This was her way of not acknowledging Marko’s existence, and I couldn’t help but smirk at Marko. He frowned at me, determined not to let this go.

              “Ignoring me won’t solve anything,” he proceeded to say to her.

              “I’ve apologized to you ten thousand times for the last couple months,” she retorted.

              “One more time right before I fight,” he demanded.

              Shuddering at the snake tattoos crawling over his torso, she muttered forcefully, “I’m sorry for suspecting you and hating you for the wrong reasons – it’s not to say I don’t hate you for other reasons though –”

              “That’s not a part of the speech, Allie.”

              She rolled her eyes. “And I’m sorry for doubting your loyalty. You are the best friend Heath could ever ask for and… you’re…”

              “I’m what?” he expectantly pushed, putting a finger to his ear and leaning into her as I laughed.

              “You’re the most loyal, most amazing, most perfect man in the entire universe.”

              He shut his eyes as she said this completely rehearsed farce bullshit, and he pretended to take in her words like he was some kind of god that deserved to be pampered with compliments.

              “Your girlfriend’s warming up to me just fine, Heath,” he then said.

              “Then you’re delusional,” I replied, but it wasn’t entirely true. She
had
warmed up to him because she knew he could be trusted. I’d stressed to her how wrong she’d been, and she hated being told she wasn’t right for once.

              Typical woman.

              Marko laughed. “Yeah, maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Allie told him, shooting him a glare. “And if you ask me to say sorry to you one more time, I will tear your balls off and force feed it to you.”

His brows shot up and he pointed at her and looked at me in shock. “She’s been spending too much time with the boys, I think.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind. She’s gotten tough.”

“I gotta be tough around you assholes,” she mumbled.

That was true.

Marko then turned his body toward his opponent. He stared long and hard at the large man on the other side of the ring. I wasn’t sure what he still got from fighting when it wasn’t necessary. He said he needed a good rush every now and then. I tried to remember what that was like, but having a domestic life now that involved a woman I wanted to marry, a house that needed taking care of, and a son that demanded attention, it was hard to identify with him now.

I watched him then flick his eyes into the crowd, settling his gaze on someone in particular. I followed his line of sight to a pretty blonde haired girl. Isla, I realized. She caught his look and immediately turned away from him and made a show of kissing some buff guy that had his arm around her.

              What the fucking shit, Isla?

              Marko’s shoulders tensed, and he ran his hand through his brown hair and looked away from her. I watched him clench his fists and I nearly laughed at the obvious anger rolling off of him. He’d went on that Isla was hard as nails, but that right there took the cake for being an ultimate bitch.

              “Who is that?” Allie asked me when we were out of Marko’s earshot. Of course she’d noticed. She was a little hawk, like me.

              “You don’t want to know,” I answered.

              “They’d clearly be a fucked up pair if I’m getting the right vibe.”

              I chuckled again. “That would be putting it lightly.”

              She leaned into my side and sighed contently. “It’s nice to just be Allie sometimes. Not Allie the mother. Or Allie the student.”

              “What about Allie the sexy minx in my harem?” I said with a smirk.

              Her jaw dropped and she gave me a playful smack on the shoulder. “I’d say that’s a part of normal Allie too.”

              “I agree. Some of the things you do… Fuck. I’d take you right here and now if I could.”

              She bit her bottom lip and muttered quietly, “Why couldn’t you?”

              Why couldn’t I indeed? It took me barely a second to decide to ditch being Marko’s support. He had plenty of people cheering him on and with Isla in the crowd, I probably didn’t exist to him.

              When the fight finally began, I grabbed her hand and led her out of the crowd. She didn’t resist when I took her into my office and locked the door. She didn’t push away my advances when I kissed her. When I pinned her in the corner. When I grabbed at every inch of her. She wrapped her arms around me and let me pick her up and fuck her against the door. She moaned in my ear and tugged at my hair and I bit at her lip and panted against that delicious mouth of hers.

              It was erotic and warm, and I didn’t want it to end. I slowed down as we neared our peak, and I looked into those brilliant beautiful eyes, watching her slowly come. Just the sight alone prompted my own release, and it was a long and mind blowing orgasm. I sagged against her frame and kissed softly along her neck.

              “Heath,” she breathlessly said.

              “What?”

              “I’ve been very forgetful lately.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And I forgot to take my pill.”

              “So?”

              “So…you didn’t use a condom.”

              I smirked, licking a path up to her mouth. “Whoops.”

              Whoops indeed.