Unbreakable (Highway Reapers Motorcycle Club Book 2) (8 page)

Tyson had gotten a cab and arrived at his old apartment quickly, hoping he’d be able to finish both his and Ella’s dealings with these monsters before he could go somewhere and figure out this whole situation with Ella. An eerie feeling descended upon him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of danger. With his senses on high alert he crept over to his apartment using every talent he had of being quiet and stealthy. The stale aroma of blood and sweat filled the air. The smell wasn’t unfamiliar, but he wondered what the hell he was walking into.

When he got to his apartment’s door, it was open. Not just unlocked, but wide open. The lights were on, and the place had been trashed. Not that he cared over much, because he hadn’t planned to ever come back to this place again but… damn. It was a wonder no one came to see what had to be a huge ruckus when all this was going on.

Standing beside the door, Tyson waited for a few minutes to see if he could hear anything. He should probably leave, but he was supposed to be meeting Bruce and if he was ever going to figure out this thing with him and Ella, then he was going to have to get this problem settled.

The place was as quiet as a tomb. Maybe he had been mistaken about the smells he’d thought he recognized. The lights in the front room were off, but the lights were on in his bedroom and the light shone all around the disheveled apartment. There was no one there; he could almost guarantee it. Everything was still with not even a rustle to be heard. Tyson still wanted to be careful, so he walked into the place he’d called home for the last few years and tried not to disturb anything on the ground.

Death. The aroma got louder the closer he got to his bedroom, and when he peered in he saw the reason why. Someone had paid a visit to Bruce, and they wanted to leave a message. The message had to be if you fuck with us, we are going to frame you for murder. Tyson had done a lot of things in his life. Some of them good and a lot of them bad, but he’d never done anything like this. Bruce’s head lay on his pillow, but the rest of his body had been taken apart and placed in different places in the room. One leg was next to him on the bed and the other was in his top dresser drawer, one arm was on the floor and the other was wrapped around the lamp on his bedside table. There were intestines in a bucket by the bed. He almost threw up, but held it back only because he didn’t want any type of evidence that would say he was there. This was his apartment, and he was going to have a hard enough time explaining this. He looked down at his feet and saw that someone must have left a pool of blood somewhere between the door and here because when he looked back at where he walked, he could see a trail of his footsteps.

That was it. Tyson turned and walked out the way he came, but it was much more haphazardly than before. He hoped the person wasn’t hanging around waiting for him, and he was happy that he hadn’t brought the money in with him. There was no doubt that he would have dropped it when he saw the bloody mess they’d made of his bedroom.

Hopping on his bike, he hightailed it out of there, and his mind filled with all the things he’d done wrong… like speeding away. When the police came around – and they would soon with the way he’d burned rubber – he would probably be the person that people remember leaving like a bat out of hell. He had thought he was in trouble before, but nothing compared to the bullshit that was going on around him now.

His thoughts were so discombobulated that he didn’t know what he should do next. Should he return back to the hotel… were they following him? He went a few different ways and then decided to return to Ella to let her know what was happening.

Tyson could barely park his motorcycle because he was in a big rush to get back to Ella. He bypassed the man in uniform who requested his keys and the bell hop who was trying to slow him down. He had to get to Ella, and it seemed so far from where he was to where she was. Ducking and dodging through the crowd, he finally made it to the elevator. With a sigh of relief, he practically sagged against the wall after pressing the button to the 38
th
floor. Right before it closed, a hand snuck in and re-opened the doors. The sea of people who entered seemed to keep coming. It was like the clown car where the never ending stream went on and on.

He watched as number after number lit up the panel, and it was over 13 stops between him and Ella, but he was jammed into the corner and couldn’t get out. The anxiety was killing him, and it was something so very strange to him. He didn’t get anxious. “Everything happened for a reason” and “things would work out” were the things he normally thought to himself, but with Ella in the mix, everything seemed different.

When he finally got to the floor he’d left not more than two hours ago, he felt like a different man. It was as if his eyes were opened, and everything wasn’t the way he’d always thought it was. Approaching the room quickly, he found that the door was slightly ajar, and his heart seemed to sink to his stomach. If they killed her… if they killed the woman who had grown so precious to him in these last few days, he would take the whole club out one by one. If one hair on her head was harmed, there would be hell to pay.

The way he approached this open door was totally different than he’d done with his apartment because he didn’t give a damn who saw him or who was waiting for him. They would be handled. He kicked the door open and reached for his gun. There would be no survivors if his woman had been touched.

He didn’t see anything when he got in, and the pressure in his chest made him aware of the fact that he should breathe.

“I didn’t think you were going to come back,” Ella came out of the bathroom like she had been having a spa treatment in there. Just as calm and collected as ever.

“Why was the door open?” He looked from the open door to the entry of the bathroom where she stood.

“The clean-up people came to gather the dishes from our meal. I just went to the bathroom for a few minutes; maybe they couldn’t close the door behind them.” She looked at him like he’d lost his mind, and he knew that he must look like he’d seen a ghost, because he had: the ghost of his future because his life was surely over.

He walked over and sat on the bed, tossing the suitcase as he sat. She walked over to him, but she looked wary, and he didn’t have the brain power to figure out why.

“I couldn’t believe that you left with the money. I thought we were in this together, but you were just playing me to get the big score. Laying in your arms tonight was like heaven until I woke up to find you gone. Then it seemed like hell.”

“Come here,” he asked her as he patted the seat next to him.

“I’d rather stand, but I’d love to hear an explanation if you have one.” She had her arms crossed, and he knew he had some work to do, but the process where he was going to think about what to do about Ella hadn’t happened yet.

“There were a lot of things going through my mind when I left here tonight. One of them was getting to see Bruce and clear both of our names.”

“Were you ever going to come back?” She asked and looked like she wasn’t going to believe anything he said. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t typically a liar.

“I considered it. I truly did. I don’t know if I can be as good as you need me to be, but somewhere during the night, it became impossible for me to let you go.”

She didn’t look like she put much faith in his words, so she decided that what he really had to do was to tell the whole story.

“Bruce called me.”

She slumped on the padded chair across from the bed like someone had popped her balloon, and she didn’t have any energy left. “When?”

“Yesterday, after I picked you up from the park. He said that there was a big problem with you not turning me in, and it made him look bad in front of the club.”

Her eyes narrowed on his, and he had to give it to her. She was pretty good at reading in between the lines. “He wanted you to turn me in… didn’t he?”

She looked hurt, and he couldn’t remember why he was even considering it.

“Yes, he did,” Tyson was going to give her the truth and nothing but the truth because she had some decisions to make.

“And you were thinking about turning me in?” She really wasn’t asking him; she was working it out in her mind. Ella stood up and walked around the room, coming to terms to with what had been happening.

“He offered me an extension on my loan, and when I first heard it I thought about it because I was upset that you played me.”

She stopped pacing and stared at him. The barrage of emotions that crossed her face almost leveled him. He couldn’t even tell her that he’d never have done it because those few hours after he’d picked her up, it had been an option he was throwing around.

“I know how that sounds, and I’m not going to say anything to pretty it up. It was a shitty thing to even consider, but I had.”

Ella looked around like she wanted to escape, but he had to tell her the rest of what was going on now.

“I left here to pay off Bruce for both of our debts. He’d taken up residence in my old apartment, so I knew where he would be. He said a little about being on the run from the Reapers himself now that I think about it, but I was too worked up about you and what we had going on to think about that until right now.”

She hadn’t moved from the spot she’d been frozen in for the last few minutes, so he thought he should get as much of this story out as he could because this could be his last chance.

“When I got to the apartment, it was all torn apart.” He stopped to see if she was listening or planning her own escape.

“Do you need me to help get this out of you, or are you going to continue? I don’t feel like doing a lot of ‘uh-huh’ and ‘what next’ right now.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were still with me. He was murdered. In my apartment.”

“What,” Ella walked over to where he sat and dropped down next to him.

“Not only was he murdered, but the way they took his body apart and placed pieces here and there if they connect me to this – I should say when they connect me to this – it will probably be a capital murder case.”

“Bruce is dead?”

“Yes, and apparently the Reapers have found some fix-it men who aren’t afraid to get dirty. This was the work of a hardened killer. When I saw what they’d done, I couldn’t think of anything but them trying to get to you.”

She looked him in the eyes, and he could see the confusion swirling in their depths.

“There were a lot of reasons I didn’t think we’d be good together. I know you want to go the straight and narrow, and I’m not sure that I can, but when the chips are down, I know you have my back and you know that I have yours.”

“What do we do now?”

“Well now you have to make some decisions. You can take all the money and go on your way. The Reapers have done their worse, and I will be the one charged with this heinous crime, but you don’t have to get stuck with me. You should move away from here and start your sparkly new life. You’ll have money, and you can get your new identification and be whoever you want to be… where ever you want to be it.”

“That leaves you?” She sounded sad when she responded, and he didn’t want her to be that way. He wanted her to think about her future and get what she deserved.

“That leaves me a big boy who can do for himself. I don’t want to pull you into this shit storm that is getting ready to be my life. I’m going to have to get away because I’m sure the police are going to be on my tail very soon.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone. We can do this together.”

“You still want that, knowing that I was thinking about doing to you one of the most horrible things a person can do?”

“You might have been thinking about it, but you didn’t do it. It’s a testament that you came back here now. You could have left with the money, and I wouldn’t have known anything about anything. I had the ten thousand dollars and your bike, but here you have returned.”

“This is a decision you need to be clear on.” Tyson reached for the remote control and turned on the news. He should have been surprised by what he saw, but he was expecting it.