Ready Or Not (The Hunter’s Club #2)

Chapter 51

51

deathwish (feat. nothing,nowhere.) - Stand Atlantic

It didn’t take me long to see that Riley had covered all the cameras. Which is never a good thing.

What the hell is she still trying to do? Why is she so frantic to leave? Clearly, I’ve missed something. Something important.

So I do what I’ve been avoiding this whole time. I make a call to the jail.

It doesn’t take long to get the information I wanted, and that information makes me pull over to the side of the road and empty my stomach of everything that was in it.

I missed it. Somehow, I missed it. For years, I pushed her, held her down, and forced her to submit. I knew everything I could know about my wife, but I somehow missed this.

I couldn’t keep her safe. It doesn’t matter that it happened before I knew her. I couldn’t avenge her.

And now she’s trying to do it alone. Unprepared.

I find the locations of the other two men. I don’t know which one she’s picking next, but I go for the closest one.

I pull into town, drive around for a bit, and then find them just outside town, parked at a roadside stop, eating McDonald’s chicken nuggets. Or, Rachel is. Riley’s just watching her with an unreadable expression.

I don’t yell. I don’t shout or throw them over my shoulder.

I’m numb.

The significance of how badly I failed hits me. I’m usually numb when I’m not around Riley, but this sort of numbness is so much deeper. It’s like my whole brain is empty.

I couldn’t protect the one woman I’ve been obsessed with my whole life. The woman who always has something interesting to say. The woman who never gives in to me. The woman who always makes me mad.

But I can’t even get mad now. There’s just…nothing there.

I just sit next to them on the tailgate. Rachel offers me a chicken nugget, and I take it.

We’re all silent, just watching the wind whip over the harvested field. Watching the sun as it gets close to setting.

I don’t want to talk to her. My chest tightens at the thought. Will she mock me? Laugh at me like she always does?

Fuck it. I failed her and, by proxy, myself.

I know she won’t listen to me. She never has, but I feel like I have to at least say it. Finally, I open my mouth. “The day you tried to kill your mom, there were cameras recording your every move.”

A bird flies across the sky, slow and unhurried. Riley says nothing.

“I would have bought the cops out for you, Riley. But I knew there would eventually be a day I wouldn’t be able to do that, and I wanted you to learn how to do it right.”

The wind whips the warm smell of baked grasses into our faces.

“Everything I’ve done, I did to protect you. I kept you from the life I lived because I didn’t want you to be…” I trail off as I squint at the setting sun. “Me.”

The silence is heavy. It sits heavily on my shoulders, pressing down so I can’t breathe.

I jump off the truck’s tailgate and move to mine. My boots in the gravel are the only sound. When I get what I need from my truck, I walk it over, leaving it on the spot I was sitting in.

“I never killed Pup, Riley. I did kill the neighbor who killed him, though. And I won’t apologize for that.”

I stare at the skull on the tailgate in the setting sun. I don’t look at Riley. Because I know if I do, I’ll grab her up and take away her choice. History will just repeat itself, and I’ll lose my woman completely. The last few days with her shoving me out have been some of the worst of my life. So I do the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“Meet me at home, wife.”

And then, I turn and walk away.