But after what I’d been through the last few weeks, maybe I had a few to spare after all.
What we’d done to Kat had been the glue that had bound Bob, Donny, and me together. That single moment had changed all three of our lives.
Bob had thought he was our leader. Bet he’d never thought I’d cross him.
Asshole.
It took three trips to haul everything out to Willy’s car, and by the end of it, I was damn near done, sweating through my shirt, gut screaming, and my hand throbbing so bad I could feel my pulse in the missing finger. Each time I came back through that door, I half expected Wayne to have strangled himself with the rope.
He hadn’t. Stubborn bastard.
I took a moment to study the Henderson brothers. Those two bastards had given me decades of bullshit.
Pity I wouldn’t get to enjoy life without them around.
Made me wonder where Lyle was. That scrawny runt never went far without these two. Him I could handle easily enough. Hell, after taking down two men twice my size with one good hand and cancer eating me from the inside, maybe I was damn near invincible after all.
Wayne yelled at me, but I couldn’t understand a bloody word through that cloth in his mouth. He strained against the rope, breathing hard through his nose, eyes wild.
Certain he was going to die right there next to his brother, I picked up the bulk pack of dunny paper and went out the back door, pulling it shut behind me.
I paused on the steps and studied the yard. The frangipani leaves moved in the warm night air. The dog up the road had finally shut up. Wayne moaned, but it was barely a noise through the walls.
I backed the car out and jumped out to shut the garage door, leaving the place looking exactly like it had for years.
At the end of the driveway, I glanced up and down the street. It was dark and empty in both directions. I paused there a moment, hand throbbing, gut churning, the warm night pressing in around me.
I pulled out slowly, keeping the headlights off until I hit the intersection at the end of the road. I kept checking the rearview mirror.
Nothing.
But somewhere out there, Bob was sitting by his phone, waiting for the Henderson brothers to haul me in.
He’d be waiting a long time.
Bob would figure out where I was headed soon enough. That cave was our secret. He’d come for me himself next time, and unlike those two dipshits on Willy’s kitchen floor, Bob would come prepared.
But I’d be ready. It was about time we had a real showdown.
I was halfway back to Koolaroo when I remembered my pages in Willy’s Chivas box on the sideboard.
Fuck it.
Every page revealed secrets I’d been forced to keep.
Them bastards are gonna choke on ‘em.
Especially Bob.
Chapter 6
Kayden
* * *
My headset crackled as I lifted the chopper off the grass at the back of the machinery shed. Sapphire sat in the passenger seat, her notebook open on her knee like she planned to take notes the entire flight to Winton.
“You gonna hit me with more questions?” I said into the mic.
