AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ChapterThirty-Seven
Alex always thought he’d die with a gun at his head. He didn’t think he’d go willingly. Yet he’d been prepared for exactly that. All this time, trying to keep Sarah safe, keep her alive, he’d only succeeded in perpetuating the violence. In dismissing her need to be involved in the decision making, he’d dismissed an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. Until she forced the issue.
She would have died to save him.
Not from Tom or The Devils or any other monster lurking in the shadows. She wanted to save him from himself, his poor choices and deadly outcomes. She succeeded. In that moment, with Tom’s gun to her head, he’d seen fear in her eyes. More than that, he’d seen unconditional love. For him.
Despite everything he’d put her through, she loved him. He couldn’t let her down, couldn’t let her think her love was wasted on him. He wanted to be worthy of her. And he wanted to be free.
He would trade his life for hers, knowing that he’d finally made a choice he could be proud of. No longer beholden to violence, he would’ve died a free man.
Instead, Tom had ended his own suffering. He doubted it had been a well thought-out plan but somewhere, deep inside, Tom had wanted to be free as well.
Alex shook the thought from his mind and kicked the gun from Tom’s lifeless hand, where it landed in front of Sarah’s feet. She stared at it. A heartbeat ago it had been pressed into her face, then thrust point blank at Alex. Tom’s eyes were vacant, unaware of the blood leaking from the hole he’d blasted into his skull.
‘Sarah,’ Alex whispered. He was at her side, enfolding her in his arms. She reached up, stroking his cheek, convincing herself he was alive.
‘Are you hurt?’ He gingerly held her face, his fingers caressing the back of her head.
‘I’m fine. Just a sore head.’
His features clouded. ‘You are hurt.’ He removed his hands from her face, his fingertips stained with blood. ‘Let me see.’
He guided her back inside the bathroom, this time flicking the light switch on. A dull glow sputtered into life. Gently he parted the hair on her head.
‘It doesn’t look too bad. Hang on.’
Disappearing into the main room, he pulled a sheet from the bed and ripped it into strips. Returning to the bathroom, he ran the taps until the chill was replaced with a warm trickle. Ripping a smaller section from the yellowed sheet, he wet it down and wrung the excess water from it. He kept his touch soft as he pressed the cloth to the wound. He traded the wet, stained cloth for dry and continued to press it against her head.
‘How bad is the pain?’ Her grimace answered his question. ‘You’re probably concussed.’
‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
He picked up a longer strip of sheet and wound it round her head, tucking the end carefully underneath the fabric at the front.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about Tom? We can’t leave him here.’
‘Is that his car in the lot?’
She nodded.
‘I think we should get him out of here. Drive to nowhere and bury the body.’
‘Okay.’
He was glad Sarah was on the same page. They needed to delay the discovery of Tom’s body for as long as possible, hopefully forever. He also wanted to lay him to rest. Give him back some of the dignity that had slipped away since Aaron’s death. There was another matter to deal with.
‘I think we should send Jesse his proof.’ He rubbed his hand over his face as though he could rub away the memory of his former club’s new enforcer.
‘Tom had an iPhone.’
He nodded. Walking back into the main room he dropped beside the body and started searching for the phone. He found it in his front pocket and snapped a close up of the bullet wound and Tom’s vacant eyes.
A small lie for freedom.
Sarah clungto the narrow vanity for support. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up much longer. She glanced into the mirror. The sheet looked like a turban, with her face paler than the fabric. A bruise was starting to form where the gun had been jammed into her cheek.
