Page 102 of Riding the Pine

“Is he still breathing?” The question comes from Apollo. Without asking, I know his reasoning. Our actions would be wildly different depending on which way his answer falls.

Do we need clean up for a body? Or do we need damage control?

Scott’s face is contorted in agony as he stares at his bloodied hands. He may be an enforcer, a tough guy on the team, but he’s not naturally violent. And given his family’s history, he’s always strived to stay on the right side of the law.

He’s muttering to himself, something about not deserving her, about how he was always destined to follow the family path to jail. He’s crying, his tears slithering down his cheeks weaving a path through the drying glob of Brock’s blood.

I assume it’s Brock’s, it could be the other guy, but something in my gut tells me Scott nailed Brock.

“Look at me,” I snap to get his attention. “Whatever you did, we’ll handle it. Do you understand me?”

He shakes his head. “I need to turn myself in. I need to go to jail. I need to.”

Ares surges forward, darting into the kitchen. He returns with a trash bag, opens it and holds it out to our friend, our brother, who’s still crying and shaking.

Apollo’s already on his phone, a hundred bucks says he’s messaging one of our lawyers to get their asses over here now.

Scott shakes his head at Ares. “I need to be punished for what I did. You can’t cover for me. You can’t.” He’s a fucking mess, breaking in front of us, and my heart cracks.

Standing in front of us in this moment, he seems to think we’ll judge him or be angry at him for what he did. I open my mouth to set the record straight, but Ares beats me to it.

“Hermano, you did what all three of us have wanted to do for days. Whether he’s alive or dead, none of us cares.” His voice isdripping with a cold, scathing hatred. “And you’re going to let us help you.”

“You can’t help me.” Scott holds his hands up, showing us his bruising knuckles. “I don’t deserve your help. I’m just like my thug cousins. I couldn’t help it. I just… He said…” He sniffs then wipes his nose. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have snapped. She didn’t want me to snap. I said I wouldn’t. We all said we wouldn’t.” He’s holding his head in his hands, truly cut up about what he’s done. But all I feel for him is gratitude that he’s done something we’ve all wanted to do.

Call it darkness, call it some kind of sinister evil lurking inside, or call it human nature, but when someone harms someone so close to me in the way those cabróns hurt my sister? You better believe I don’t just want them to suffer, I want tomakethem suffer.

It’s unhealthy, it’s unreasonable, but wanting to watch him take his last breath and knowing it was me who did it in revenge for my sister is something that’s flashed in my dreams for the last few nights.

I know I’m fucked up; we all are. And we are all going to need extensive therapy to get through this, but I’m not letting Scott go down for whatever the fuck he just did.

None of us are.

CHAPTER 44

Scott

They make me strip. Trembling and sobbing about what I’ve done, I pull my clothes off and drop them in Ares’s garbage bag. Shoes, boxers, the whole lot.

I’m ushered into one of the guest room showers, and instructed on what to do to clean myself from head to toe.

I know that fucker isn’t dead, though the temptation to keep railing on him until he stopped moving was hugely alluring for a hot minute.

As soon as someone finds him, he’s going to call the cops, and then I’m going to fucking jail. At least if I shower his blood off me, I’ll be going in clean, right?

Shit.

What the hell did I do?

I stand under the hot water as it washes away the outward signs of what I did. It’s not even so much the senseless violence, because what else could I call it? It’s the fact I did exactly what she asked me not to.

She’s going to lose her shit at me. She’s going to leave me because I did the one thing she asked me not to, and beat the shit out of her rapist.

Thoughts spiral in my head, and I know what I need to do. I need to confess my sins to the police. I need to take the rap for what I did, do my time, and move on.

Athena deserves someone who can keep their patience and not lash out at someone with their fists.

I’d never hurt her. Not ever. But I can’t promise I won’t ever hurt someone who hurts her. And maybe that’s her line not to come back from. Maybe that’s the one thing she needs from me that I can’t give to her.

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