Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

32. Trent

THIRTY-TWO

TRENT

LOS ANGELES, SIX YEARS AGO

Years went by that way. His life a blur of blood and atrocity.

Trent chased a high that always dropped him to the lowest low. He could no longer tell if it was rage that drove him or just duty.

Numbness had frozen over his soul, this detached sense of being each time he pulled the trigger.

But it wasn’t the comfortable kind. It was an ocean of disgrace. A sea of shame.

The sins that mounted.

The pleas. The cries. The blood.

The blood.

He was floating in an endless abyss of it. Face barely breaking the surface.

Soon he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

Would drown.

But he had one reason to keep going. That tiny glimmer that burned through the bleakness of who he was.

And he’d fight for them until his last breath came.

Only problem was he’d started to wonder what that really looked like. Started to wonder if he were doing it all wrong. Had started to wonder if he should just go, the way his mother had said.

The life they were living was so vastly different than the one he’d imagined. He didn’t deserve any better, but his brothers sure as hell did.

He pressed his hands to the dingy table tucked in the back room of the dive where his crew liked to hang. He glowered across at his father.

Cutter, the piece of shit.

He might still be the President, but he wasn’t gonna push Trent on this.

“Leave Logan and Nathan out of it,” Trent warned, his voice a growl. “No way they’re coming on that run.”

A smirk ticked up at the edge of Cutter’s greasy mouth as he sat back in the chair, his teeth ripping the flesh of the chicken from the bone before he tossed it to the plate. “And how do you have any say about this?” he snarled as he roughed a napkin over his beard.

“They’re not like us.”

Cutter spat a laugh. “That so?”

“I promised my mother I would protect them, and I won’t let them get in the middle of this bullshit.”

Jud was different.

He’d followed Trent like that was what he’d been born to do. But as time went by, Trent had started to wonder if it wasn’t only because Jud was doing some of that protecting, too.

Nathan and Logan wouldn’t survive this world. This vile, disgusting world.

Sickness curled through his stomach, all mixed with the cruelty of who he was.

Cold.

Hard.

Numb.

Years of it.

But lately, the awareness of that depravity kept breaking through the oblivion. His spirit staging some kind of revolt. Truth was, Trent wasn’t sure how much longer he was gonna survive it, either.

“Your mother?” Cutter laughed. Pure disgust. “Tell me you aren’t still hung up on that.”

Trent was in his face, gripping him by the vest before the asshole had the chance to prepare himself. Trent pressed the barrel of his gun to the underside of his chin, aching to put a bullet there.

Cutter might be the boss.

But it was Trent who ran the show.

Cutter might not want to admit it, but most of the men were loyal to Trent. Looked to him for direction.

“Hung up on it?” The words were razors. “She is the reason I’m here. Only reason.”

Retribution.

Revenge.

Justice.

His own debt that could never be repaid.

A vicious smile curled Cutter’s mouth. “You put that Demon in the ground years ago. It’s done.”

“Last I checked, there are still a few Demons walking this earth.”

And he wouldn’t stop until he reached the top. Until Pit was dead. Because there was no way the order for that hit came down from anyone but their president.

Cutter edged back from the barrel, staring Trent down. “And maybe it’s time you focused on what you were made for rather than chasing a ghost.”

Ghost.

Ghost.

Ghost.

“Only. Reason. I’m. Here,” Trent hissed.

Loud and clear.

Except Cutter wasn’t one who wanted to hear it.

Cutter’s eyes flashed. “You belong to me, Trent. You shouldn’t forget it, VP .” He said it like a taunt as he jutted his chin at the patch on Trent’s cut. A reminder of the chains that bound. “You’re lucky you have my blood running through your veins or that little stunt would have been your last.”

Cutter tipped his attention to Trent’s gun, a threat in his eyes. But Trent saw the rest, too. The jealousy. The flicker of fear. Trent had long since become more deadly than him.

Giving for the moment, Trent straightened and tucked his gun back into his jeans. “Wrong again, Prez.” He sneered it. “Don’t belong to anything but the promise I made my mother. You’d do well not to forget it.”

Raging like a beast, Trent strode back into the main area of the bar. Slew of Owls were there, tossing back drinks, sluts dancing on the tables.

He moved to where Jud was at a tall table in the middle, dude sitting back and taking it in. He slid a beer in Trent’s direction. “About time. Wanna tell me what that was about?”

“Nope.”

No need to draw attention to the monster trying to draw his brothers into the life.

Trent grabbed the bottle, draining it as his eyes scanned the place. It locked on the hazy figure in the far back corner by the jukebox.

Without saying anything, he set his empty on the table and moved across the bar, following her out through the back door and into the dingy lot.

He pressed her to the wall, pulled out his dick, and hiked up her skirt.

Pit’s girl. Girl he was making his just for the fact that he could. Girl who kept showing again and again because she couldn’t get enough.

She was a good fuck, but the only reason he’d gone after her was to get closer to Pit.

A little acid tossed in his face.

A precursor to the pain that was to come.

Juna Lamb.

Except when he finished, she clung to his neck, pressed her mouth to his ear. “I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”

Trent’s entire being seized.

Shut down.

Before it struck back up.

He jerked back and stared her down. “How the fuck do you know it’s mine?”

She dropped her eyes. “Pit only wants me on my knees.”

“You’re sure,” he demanded.

She nodded before terror filled her face. “He’s gonna kill me, Trent.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. Not something tossed around like regular people did for effect or attention.

Pit would put her in the ground. Along with Trent’s kid.

It might have been the first time Trent felt real fear since the day his mother had died.

A spark in his blackened heart.

“I didn’t mean…” she trailed off, chewing at her lip.

“Didn’t mean what, Juna?” he demanded.

Brown eyes peered up at him. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“And what do you want?”

Tears blurred her eyes. “I…I can’t raise a kid, Trent. I’m not…”

“Kid’s mine. You don’t have to worry about that.”

She blanched. “I’m going to need?—”

Fucking typical.

It was always money. Always fucking money.

“Come by my place…tonight…after midnight. We’ll get you out of town and into hiding. Soon as the kid’s born, it’s mine. You disappear forever and you don’t say a fucking word, and I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of everything. You understand?”

Grief, or maybe it was guilt, passed through her expression before she nodded. “I understand.”

“Is this really what you want?” Nathan asked. The face that was nearly the exact same as Trent’s filled with uncertainty. Guy would do anything for Trent same way as Trent would do for him.

It was what Trent had been trying to do for years.

Protecting.

Hiding.

Seeking retribution.

Looking at Nathan’s face, he finally got that he’d been doing it wrong all along. “This isn’t a good life. We stay, we end up behind bars or dead.”

Way everyone else did.

And that was not a fate Trent would entertain.

But he’d been fighting for so long, he’d forgotten what he was supposed to really be fighting for. His mother hadn’t asked for vengeance. She’d asked for life. It was time he gave it.

“But will you be happy?” Nathan pressed. “Only thing that matters.”

A scoff of a laugh left Trent. “You think this life makes me happy?”

Sadness passed through Nathan’s expression. “I don’t know that anything makes you happy, Trent. Not sure I’ve seen you smile since the day Mom died.”

“You make me happy.” Trent looked around where his brothers were gathered in his living room. “Three of you, that’s it. And…” Trent choked over the admission, though he pushed it out, done hiding from the rest of them. “And this kid.”

A second chance.

Nathan smiled a satisfied smile. “That’s because you finally found a reason, brother. A real reason. You fucking live for that reason. Not this twisted shit you’re tied up in. Promise me.”

Fuck.

Nathan was everything Trent had believed him to be.

Good.

Kind.

Right.

Dude deserved a life so much better than the one Trent had dragged him into, even though he spent most of his time trying to keep him and Logan out of the throes of it. Trying to give them some sense of normalcy when that was nothing but a pipe dream.

His own lie.

“I promise,” Trent muttered.

I promise.

Trent cleared his throat and got down to business. “Have a deal to see through tonight. Big one. I don’t show, Cutter will be coming to collect. Don’t want to raise any suspicion. Get ready. Pack only what you need. Meet here at four. We roll an hour before sunrise. That is if everyone is with me?”

All three of them stood, hands set on Trent’s shoulders as they gathered around. “We’re with you, brother. Always have been. Glad you can finally see it.”

Nathan pulled him in for a hug. “You’re gonna be a dad, man. That’s…”

Everything Trent hadn’t known could be a possibility.

It was hope. It was a flicker of joy just out of reach.

It was life.

And right then, right that second, he found a new reason.

One reason.