Page 45 of Justice

Red’s eyes shift from hers to the face beside her. “Tobias Marks, I should have known Drake would send you here. Somehow, I never pictured you as a seasoned biker.”

“Well, he would have come himself if you were worth his time, which is why I’m letting my friend Justice kill your ass. As far as your expectations of how I look, not all bikers live like you. Some of us have fancy cars, and dress in suits occasionally.”

Justice swallowed hard at the label he gave her; there was no reason for pretenses anymore as Red’s breaths were numbered. Suddenly, she felt foolish for enjoying their kiss earlier as it would seem Tobias was full of lies.

“What happened that night?” She demanded, no longer giving a shit about the reason Tobias was here.

“What night you talking about, sweetheart?”

Justice pulls her foot from his neck and drops her knee into the center of his chest, the action knocking the breath out of him. “You know what night I’m fucking talking about.”

Red struggles to suck in a breath and when he finally does, Justice jabs her finger to the side of his neck, making him unable to feel the rest of his body.

“You have less than a minute to tell me what I want to know, or you’re going to have the worst pain in your entire miserable life.”

Beth had saved this training for last, a skill she learned before deploying to the Middle East, one reserved for anyone who tried to rape her in the event of capture. She cautioned Justice about the severity of applying pressure at the juncture of the neck and spine, hold too long and the pain would be excruciating.

“Your mother wanted out. I found a stash of money she’d stolen during one of her sober moments. She knew how bad I wanted you and your sister and she fought me every chance she could to keep you both safe.”

“So you kept her high.”

“I had to, she was going to take you and Tymeless away.”

“So if you wanted me so bad, why have me sent to prison?”

“Sending you to prison wasn’t in the plans that night. You had come of age prior to, and I had waited long enough. When Tymeless went to spend the night at her friend’s house, I decided to take what was mine.”

Justice could picture her sister bouncing out the front door as she and her best friend had plans to help set up for a children’s carnival in the next county. Justice wanted to complete college applications and enjoy a night in front of the television. Red had been gone for over a week and her mother was sober enough to shower and order dinner. As the two sat down, Red came in the back door, a smile on his face as he kissed her mother’s cheek, placing the pizza they had called for in the middle of the table.

“I asked you if you wanted something to drink with your pizza and you said a coke was fine. I filled the bottom of the glass with GHB and then added coke, doing the same to your mother’s drink.”

Justice recalled the three of them sitting around the table, laughing like a normal family. She ate a slice of pizza and took several sips of the coke, and that was all she could remember.

“You had never touched a drug in your life, and so when the GHB hit your system it took you down quick. Lavender was an addict, so the drug barely registered in her system. She stayed conscious long enough to stop me from fucking you while you slept, stabbing me in the back before I slit her throat. I laid your body over your mother’s and called the authorities. Bobcat came in when the cops arrived.”

Justice remembered waking up not far from the spot where she knelt, her hands covered in her mother’s blood, Red was on the floor with a knife in his back and the cops were pointing their guns in her face.

“And since you had the authorities by the balls, you pinned her death on me.”

“I knew you would never trust me again, but Tymeless hadn’t seen anything. She didn’t know who to believe, her sister or her father.”

“So you fabricated an entire plan, just so you could fuck your own daughter? Do you have any idea how sick you are?”

Red’s face began to pale, and Justice knew she had to release the pressure point quickly or she was going to have a situation on her hands.

“How is loving someone sick? I never married your mother, not legally anyway, so I’m free to love her as much as I want. Besides, your mother and Bobcat had an affair right under my nose.”

Releasing his neck, she stands, as the color begins to return to his face. “Gang banging someone on a pool table is not an affair, you stupid motherfucker!” She’d listened long enough, so pulling her boot back, she kicked him in the ribs with all the strength she could muster.

“I spent four years in a cell because of your greed and sexual deviance. I danced on a stage, so I could stay alive long enough to look you in the eye and say, everything comes at a price, princess. It's time you paid up.”

Red’s eyes grow wide and she knows despite all the drugs he has snorted, smoked or mainlined, he remembers those words he said to her in the courtroom that fateful day.

Justice watches as his body jerks each time she pulls the trigger, another hole appearing in his chest, the crimson stain from his seeping blood marking the entrance point. The gun clicked in protest of being empty, and she watched as the life dimmed, and then vanished from his eyes. She handed the gun back to Tobias who wrapped an arm around her and whispers into her ear. “Come on, Justice, let’s get you out of here.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE

Tobias feltlike a huge piece of shit as he watched Justice unload the magazine into Red’s chest. He knew the moment the word friend left his lips he’d hurt her, but there was nothing he could do to fix it. He’d broken his own rule when he let the words of an asshole like Red get to him, allowing the rage he felt for a girl he had yet to meet make him lose his focus and shoot the motherfucker.

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