Grizzly turned to Averyand snapped, “Why the hell did you call that outlaw biker and tell him everything?That was a damn fool move on your part.”
Avery narrowed her eyes at him.“Why?Is that what you are asking me?Why did I call him?”She took a breath and when she exhaled she glared at them, all of them and said, “He had the right to know who set him up.It won’t bring Trever back or my parents but maybe I wanted him to know why he went to prison.The real reason his life spiraled out of control.Would he have made the same decisions?Maybe.No one will ever know for sure, but his brother didn’t have to die, my brother didn’t have to die and my parents didn’t have to die.It was a long chain of events that happened because Sarah Asher didn’t get her own fucking way.She destroyed so many lives because her panties were in a bunch about an illegal deal.Well, boo-fuckin-hoo.Now it’s her turn to worry, it’s her turn to fret and watch over her shoulder every day for the rest of her life.Maybe now she’ll feel what I felt every damn day for the last eighteen years of my life.”She took a step away and looked up at Ryker when he and the others returned.Then she said, “I started over at fourteen and I can do it again.I can find a place where no one knows my name or the shitty life I’ve had trying to stay away from the real world.When I was fourteen, I had nothing, no place to live, no way to earn money to pay for a place to live.Hell, I couldn't even buy food.But I learned to survive and now I can earn a good living by doing what I learned to do to just get by.I did it once and I can do it again.”
Ryker just stood there and let her talk.He looked perplexed by her statement.Then he took a step toward her.
With her eyes full of tears, Avery raised her hand to halt him.
He didn’t let that stop him and when he reached her, he wrapped her in his arms and just held her.“Hush now, woman.You aren’t leaving here without me.”
Avery peered up at him and whispered, “I can’t ask you to come with me.You belong here with your family.You belong here but I don’t.”
The silence in the room grew until King snarled, “Who the hell says you don’t belong here?”
Swiping her tears away, Avery stared at him and the others.
“Girl, no one said you didn’t belong here,” King explained.“Grizzly just asked you why you called that Pike fucker.Could be he asked for a legal reason, I don’t know.But that has nothing to do with you being welcome here.”
Stitches shook his head.“And you told him why.Your reasoning is sound too.That man did deserve to know who set him up and why.It doesn’t matter what kind of man he is either.The truth is the truth.Will Pike track her down?Probably but that’s on them, not on you.”He shrugged.“I mean it’s not like either of them don’t deserve it.Sarah played the long game and now it’s gonna be the short game for her.In fact, a lot of their sins are coming back to slap their stupid faces.Lester will be put into a cell behind the same bars as most, if not all of his brothers and some of his brother’s kids.Instead of working for himself he made them pay for his steaks and lifestyle while they went without.That’s on him.He’s the one that sold their daughters into a life of servitude while he lived free.That’s on his shoulders too.Then we have Sarah and holy fucking shit is she a piece of work.She’s going down for murder, drug dealing and distribution, kidnapping and everything else she’s done over the years.”
“Let’s not forget the Double Devils,” Gunner added.“They aren’t going to be happy about herdoubledealing either.She was willing to let them take the fall for the drugs as well as Pike’s men.As she said, they did all the work, while she got all the reward.I have a feeling if Pike’s men don’t get to her, the Devils will and that’s not going to be just a slap on the wrist either.Sarah is going from the hunter to the hunted and I don’t think she’s ever gonna have another good day in her life.But that also means the Marshal’s work is just beginning.They will have to find hard evidence to back up the charges in court.”
“Then you’ll want the drive I gave to King and his guys,” Avery told him.“All her business is on that file.It’s got all her bank accounts and the people she and her father have paid off to look the other way.Plus, it also shows where her money is sitting right now.”
Grizzly raised his eyebrows and looked over at King.“You have all that?”
King nodded.“Yeah, Avery gave us that the same night she came to us.And yeah all that information is there and so much more.Your Marshals are going to have a great starting point.She did half the work for them and she turned it over to us willingly.”
Avery scoffed.“You bet I did.Andy and Ryker talked me into it.I was too scared to stand up for anything before I came here.But they made me see that someone had to try and stop her.She was just hurting too many people for nothing, for her own fat greedy hands.It had to stop.I thought when Andy and Riley finally got away it was to a life they never had and never would have in that family.I was so happy for them too.And I was hoping Tameria would do the same.”She rested her head against Ryker’s broad chest.“Lester would have murdered his own daughter for his greed.I didn’t rescue Gina but I could stop them in another way.I hope it helps nail their slimy, sloppy big fat asses to the wall.”
Gunner shook his head.“Slimy, sloppy big fat asses.”He chuckled.“I gotta write these slurs down.I mean some of you have used some doozies.”
Everyone laughed and the tension left the room.
After a couple of minutes, Avery looked over at Grizzly.“I know that setting her up might not have been an honorable thing to do and it may have been illegal too?I don’t know.But I hope every day she spends behind bars while she waits for their trials that she lives with a little bit of the fear she put me through living on the streets.It’s really not safe to do that, you know?”She shivered.“There are a lot of monsters living in the shadows.Certainly, more than one person you never want to meet in a dark alley somewhere.”
Grizzly walked over to where she and Ryker stood, he then pulled her out of Ryker’s arms.He crushed her to him in a huge bear hug and then he gently placed a kiss on the top of her head like she was a little kid before he guided her back into Ryker’s arms.“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.So many kids living like that don’t make it but you did.You made it through the worst of the worst and I’m damn proud of you.I don’t want you to worry one little bit about what happens to Sarah or Lester.We will nail them to the wall and they will spend the rest of their days waiting for the shiv that ends them.”He shook his head.“We never had a victim like you come forward.And this time we saw things a little differently than we saw it before.”He took a deep breath.“Now, it’s our turn.The Marshals will build a case that those two can’t get out of.With your file, we can show a timeline to prove every time they did something illegal.”He looked up at King and Gunner.“We still have to speak to Train and Gina to get what they know on the record too.”
King nodded.“When we sprang Gina, the boys grabbed her medical records over the years.We know everything Lester had done to her and we’ve got proof that the doctor in charge of her was given orders to make sure she didn’t survive.Ole Lester didn’t want her to come out of that hospital to testify against him.”
“Well, that’s over now anyway.”Grizzly nodded.“That’s another charge against the old man.I mean how many times can you attempt murder on one woman?It is insane.”
Boone came back in while shaking his head.He’d just left his men in charge of the two slimy-sloppy-big-fat-asses.
Grizzly stared at him to ask,” What is it?”
Boone scoffed.“That old man Lester.He suddenly got talkative.But what he said made no sense.He wants to trade some info he has on some woman to reduce his sentence and get protection.”
Grizzly scoffed.“When hell fucking freezes over.”He turned to the room and gave Stitches, King, Avery and Tamira a nod as he stated loudly, “Those two will both be spending whatever time they have left on this earth behind bars.”
“Well, haleefuckinglueyah!”
They all turned to see Shilo beaming at them as he pushed Train along in a wheelchair.
Gabby pushed her mother’s wheelchair behind them.
Stitches grinned and said, “I knew getting those chairs would come in handy someday.”
Grizzly, Gunner and Boone all stared at them.
