Fuck.
Sam bends to where one of our father’s men is lying dead. He scoops up the man’s discarded weapon from the dirt. My stomach knots. Shit. My brother can see that our father is running out of men and has decided to arm himself against us and defend the man who gave him his disability. It genuinely never occurred to me that he might take our father’s side. What has the last couple of years living alone with our father done to him? He’s been brainwashed if he thinks that man is worth defending.
I want to sign to him, ‘Samuel, don’t,’ but I can’t risk taking my hands off my gun long enough to do it. Besides, he’s not looking in my direction, so he won’t see me even if I do. Shouting those words at him will have zero impact.
I want to roar my anger. Killing my father and his men is one thing, but taking my only brother with it is something else. Is that why my father brought him? He knew I’d hesitate to gun Samuel down in cold blood, so he figured he’d use my brother as a shield?
My hatred for the man who’d given me his genes only grows stronger.
We’re down to me, Malachi, and Deacon now, versus Samuel, our father, and two of his men, which means we’re slightly outnumbered.
Sam lifts the gun, aiming it in our direction. Our father notices and gives Sam a small nod of approval. Then my brother swings the barrel in our father’s direction…
And pulls the trigger.
Blood and brains explode and he slumps forward, his face on the dashboard.
One of the other men turns the gun on Samuel, but Malachi takes him out from his rooftop position.
With their leader dead, the remaining man realizes he’s on his own. He looks left and then right, before making a run for the trees. He’s not thinking straight, as he’d have been far better off going for the SUV, but panic sometimes blinds a man. I’m not sure which of us picks him off, since we all shoot in his direction, but a bullet punches him in the back and pitches him forward, leaving him face down in the dirt.
I’m breathing heavily, the surge of adrenaline not yet having quite left my system. Sam drops his gun and puts up both hands as though he’s still worried one of us might shoot him.Not gonna happen, Brother,I want to tell him.
It hasn’t sunk it yet that our father is finally dead. The magnitude of what that entails is something I’m going to have to deal with at a later date. I never wanted to take on his business, and that hasn’t changed, but there will be things that need to bedealt with, business associates who are going to have questions. I don’t want to give any of them a reason to come after me or those I love.
I wait to see if grief hits me, but there’s nothing but relief.
My brother stands beside the vehicle, unmoving. I approach him, still a little cautious about his frame of mind, since we’ve been apart for so long, and because of what he’s just had to do. No person should have to kill their own father, but he shouldn’t have had to do such a thing at his young age. His hands remain in the air, so I reach out and pull one of them down.
‘It’s okay, Brother,’ I tell him in sign.‘It’s over. Are you okay?’
He gives a shaky nod, and I pull him in for a hug, smacking him on the back.
I release him so I can sign.‘I’m sorry you had to do that.’
He replies,‘He’s had it coming for a long time.’
‘We’re free of him now. If you want it, your place is with me.’
I’m not entirely sure how that is going to work, or even if that’s what Sam wants. Though he’s younger than me, he’s practically grown, and I’m sure he has ambitions of his own. While I might want nothing to do with our father’s business, perhaps he has other plans. I have no doubt that I will be my father’s sole inheritor—he’d made no secret of his thoughts that Samuel, with his disability, was incapable of taking on the business—but I’ll make sure my brother gets whatever he wants and needs.
There will be time to worry about all of that later. Right now, we have numerous bodies to get rid of.
“Burn the vehicles with the bodies inside,” I tell Deacon and Mal.
I hate that we’ll be putting Smith and Derrick in with my father’s men, but it’s not like we can take their bodies back to Verona Falls with us.
Questions are going to be asked, especially when the rentals aren’t returned, but I have no reason to think it’ll be connected to me.
We haul the bodies into the vehicles and then use some items we found in the cabin to ignite them. I’m concerned about the dryness of the trees around us, but there’s nothing we can do about it spreading. Hopefully, we’re in enough of a clearing that it won’t happen.
There are two people I need to talk to now.
CHAPTER 28
Ophelia
As I sitand talk to the two women, my mind constantly whirls, wondering about the men and if they’re okay.
