“Like hell you were! I saw your face on the damn camera when you left the compound. You looked sane to me. What the hell were you going to do with my old lady? She’s carrying my baby!” I yelled at her.
“Outlaw, please, I—”
I grabbed her face and squeezed it. She whimpered. “Tell me what you were going to do with her? Where were you taking her?”
She shook her head. I was going to have to do something distasteful. I was going to have to hurt a woman. I let go and pulled out the knife I carried on me. Her eyes got huge, and she started to shake her head. I laid it against her arm.
“Last chance, or I start cutting. I’m not playing with you, April. I will hurt you,” I growled.
She didn’t say anything, so I steeled myself to cut her. Payne stopped me. “Let me do it, brother. I hate the idea of hurting a woman like this, but I hate it less than you. I can make her bleed and not lose any sleep.”
I hesitated.
“Give him the knife, son. You know he’s right,” Bear said.
I handed him the knife. He was right. I could do it, but it would haunt me. Payne never seemed to let it bother him like some of us. He liked to inflict pain, that’s how he got his road name.
Payne took the knife and sliced a small cut into her upper arm. She screamed. He did the same to the other side. When she didn’t say anything, he went to her leg.
She screamed, “Stop.” He waited, never moving the knife. “I was going to take her and dump her at this old quarry I know of outside of Cookeville. It’s been closed down. If I dropped her in one of those pits, no one would ever find her. I was going to wait and then come back and pretend I had no idea where she was. You’d think it was whoever has been sending her texts.”
“How do you know about the texts? Have you been helping him?” I asked her.
“I’m not helping anyone. I overheard Bear saying something to Bull. They had no idea I was around. I figured you’d blame that person and after a while, I could get you to see that we were meant to be together.”
“You were going to kill her and our unborn baby! What kind of fucking monster are you? She hasn’t done a damn thing to you. You and I never were and never will be anything to each other. I fucked you like everyone else did. That’s all it was,” I yelled at her.
She flinched and then her face got hard. “See if you still say that once she’s gone. Whoever is after her probably won’t stop. She’ll be gone one way or another. When she is, we’ll see if you don’t need me.” She smirked when she said it then laughed like she thought it was funny.
The bitch was delusional. I clenched my fists to keep from wrapping my hands around her neck. Bear was being held back by Slash and Tank. What the hell should we do with her? Bull waved us to follow him. We all went outside.
“Jesus Christ, Bull, I don’t know what to do. She’s nuts and a danger to Tarin. For that alone, I want her gone. If we send her away, I’ll never be able to relax and not worry she’ll come back. I hate the idea of killing a woman, but I don’t know what else to do,” I told him and the other guys. Several of them were nodding.
“What if there was another option? Other than letting her go or killing her, would you do that?” Payne asked.
“It would depend. What option is that?”
“I happen to know a guy who runs a long-term mental facility out in California. It’s up in the hills near Modesto. It’s for the chronic patients who can’t get better and can’t leave because of the danger they pose to people. What if we could have her locked up there? He could make sure she’s kept there and never let out. It’s that or kill her because I agree, she’ll be back. Although, it might be more merciful to kill her.”
I looked at Bear. I didn’t want it to just be my decision, and the others had the right to voice their opinions. Whatever we did, it would be as a club. “What do you think?” That led to a half hour debate. No one was thrilled with the option, but none of us could think of anything else to do, other than to kill her.
Finally, Bull whistled. “I know we don’t like this, but we need to make a decision. One we all can live with. Can we live with the chance she’ll come back and hurt Tarin and the baby?”
Everyone shouted, “Fuck no”, “Hell no.”
“Okay, do we think killing her would be better? Can you live with that?”
There was some muttering over that option. Until this, April had been a decent person. “Okay, that leaves us with Payne’s idea. Can we live with that, even if it’s not ideal?” He looked around at each of us one at a time. One after the other, every one of us nodded. “Then let’s get this done. Payne, you find out what we need to do to get her there and admitted. Make sure your friend knows she can never be released.”
“I’ll call him as soon as we’re done here.”
“The rest of us, we still have a blackmailer out there. Today is the deadline for Tarin to have the money ready. We haven’t heard from him. I’m assuming it’s one of the four guys we haven’t eliminated. We need to get back and work to see if we can eliminate more of them before he gets impatient and tries something.”
“Let’s go. Just give me a minute,” I told them. I walked back inside. April looked at me expectantly. I walked over to her. “You’re in luck. The guys and I decided we don’t want to kill you.” She smiled at me. “However, April, I can never trust you with my old lady or kids. You’ll come after her again.” She raised her eyebrow. “That leaves us one option. Payne is arranging for you to go to a place in California.”
“I won’t stay. I’ll be back and I’ll get that bitch,” she hissed.
“No, you won’t, because where he’s sending you no one leaves. It’s a mental facility for the criminally insane. You’ll live out the rest of your days there. I hope to hell it was worth it.”