Rocky Road: Sequel Book Three

Chapter 10

***I am so sorry it's taken so long to update. With getting sick and then having writer's block I was having a hard time finishing this chapter. I wasn't sure how I wanted it to end. Thank you for your patience and thank you for reading

Mike

With my .45 in hand, I hold it close to my chest as I breathe. This is it. Dominic has been true to his word and snuck me on his father’s private jet. Jace is in the cockpit to ensure that the pilot won’t leave the runway – using whatever tactics he deems fit.

My cousin – half cousin – is assisting Conner with his luggage. It seems as though Conner and some new guy named Raoul will be attending this flight with Uncle dearest.

I’m just standing in the back near the bar behind the curtain with a freaked-out stewardess eyeing me like I’m going to kill her.

Perhaps it’s the pistol that has her uneasy – or my large form in combat gear. Poor thing probably never thought she’d be a part of a raid today.

“Shhh. Darlin’, I ain’t gonna hurt you, okay? I’m not here for you,” I whisper low so only she can hear me while Conner takes his seat.

“What are you going to do?” She blubbers. Those wide, brown eyes leak a tear as her bottom lip trembles.

“Nothing you need to worry about. Just do your job, stay calm, and everything will be fine.” She can only see my green eyes. The ski mask hides the rest of my face, it probably doesn’t help her anxiety.

The woman sniffs but straightens her spine.

“Good,” I tell her. “Everything will be fine.” This time, I’m not sure who I’m reassuring: Myself or her…

“Thank you, son,” I hear the all too familiar voice boom into the cabin and my stature stiffens with heightened adrenaline. “Conner, I’m so glad you could come. Raoul, this is Conner, Conner, Raoul.”

“You’re here for Randall, aren’t you?” The woman whispers as she fills her tray with bottles of liquor and champagne for the men in the cabin.

I give her a curt nod.

“Good. He’s a bad man.” She picks up her tray, gives me one last please don’t kill me in the crossfire look, then turns on her heel to walk through the curtain.

With patient eyes, I watch carefully through the slit of red drapes as the brunette woman gives drinks to the men in their seats. The woman shakes slightly but doesn’t motion towards me or mouth anything from what I can tell. The men seem to be just fine, taking their drinks, laughing and chatting amongst themselves.

Good. They still don’t know.

Darren shifts his eyes towards me here and there, waiting for the signal. Other than that, everything in the cabin appears to be normal. Randall, Raoul, and Conner have no clue.

“Michael, come in. Has the plane started moving yet?” Malone sounds in my earpiece. I’m sure she’s waiting at the end of the runway with her binoculars and a dozen or so agents – maybe even the S.W.A.T team.

I would have preferred that the club be in on this, but decided at the last minute not to have them interfere. Malone would have had my hide for that because she would know that they know about me.

And they’re not supposed to know.

Using my finger, I tap the button for the radio latched on my neck. “Negative. They’re getting settled. We’ll take off shortly,” I whisper low, glad the men in front of me are talking loud enough that it drowns out my low husky voice.

When the plane starts to move, the stewardess makes her way back to my side of the plane for her seat.

As she settles, I tell her to stay back here, and in her seat. She nods vehemently in agreement as I slowly move forward through the polyester curtains with my pistol up. I activate the button against my throat that will distort my voice.

I don’t want Randall to recognize me yet.

With everyone’s backs facing me, except Don, I land the barrel of the pistol against my uncle’s head. Immediately, he stops laughing at whatever dirty joke Conner shared with the group. “Shhh,” I say near his ear.

Raoul turns to notice the predicament – his dark eyes widen with fear as I take out my other pistol from my thigh strap to aim it at him.

The man stays in his seat with his hands up, Conner turns his head to see why everyone is so silent.

“What the-“

“Ah, ah, ah,” I cut Conner off. “You stay where you are.”

Conner reaches for his waistband. I know that if I don’t keep my aim at either Raoul or Randall, then one of them will reach for their pistols and shoot me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I scold Conner and push the barrel of my .45 into Randall’s head a bit further. From what I’ve gathered about Conner, it’s that he is as loyal as they come and he’d rather die than let anything happen to the dipshit at the end of my gun.

“Conner,” Randall warns through his teeth.

“I’d listen to him,” Darren pulls out a revolver and aims it at Conner.

“Declan!” Randall chastises. “What the fu-“

“Shh,” I cut the man off. “This is what’s going to happen. The plane is going to stop at any moment and the three of you will walk off this plane in handcuffs. There’s a fleet of FBI agents just waiting to drag your sorry asses off to prison.”

“You’re in on this?” Aw, Uncle dearest seems shocked that his son turned against him.

Darn Dubie's voice wavers, but his revolver is steady towards Conner – the man who helped raised him since he was a little boy. “You gave me no choice. What you do is wrong, Dad. I can’t just sit by and not do anything about it.”

The plane begins to slow down. Malone sounds in my ear with, “We’re on our way. Sit tight Michael.”

I don’t respond; my eyes cut to the cockpit door opening. Jace walks out.

“Jace?” Randall gasps. “What are you waiting for? Shoot the bastard.”

“Sorry, can’t do that.” Jace shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly like he’s passing on dessert.

“You too?” Randall seethes.

“I made a deal. You weren’t apart of it. Plus, what you did to Michael in Mexico...” Jace sucks air between his lips. “Not cool.”

With my focus blazing into the back of Randall’s head, I don’t notice Raoul reaching for a pistol from his waistband. The plane comes to a sudden jerk of a stop causing me to fall forward just a bit as everyone looks to the front of the plane due to the force of gravity; Raoul takes his aim at me, I turn my sights to him – without blinking, I fire a shot right between his eyes.

I mumble a few choice words. Malone didn’t want anyone dead.

They all jump from the unexpected trigger pull – although with the silencer on the gun, there wasn’t a loud sound that reverberates inside the eardrums. It was the sudden spurt of blood and his pistol falling to the ground that brought notice to Raoul’s limp body.

With the distraction of shooting Raoul, Randall hits his elbow against my pistol, causing it to move over his shoulder as he swings around to grab my body. Due to the unexpected weight of him slamming into me, I lose my balance and we fall to the floor. It all happens so fast; I don't have a chance to react before his body lands on mine. The gun I used on Raoul slips from my grasp and lands a few feet away from us. I still have the one in my hand that was on Randall’s head; it’s between us with both our hands on it trying to aim at each other.

I’ve learned from Mexico that Randall is a decent wrestler. I’m trying with my might to point the gun at him, but he’s busy making it point at my face. The kid is yelling at his father to stop while maintaining aim on Conner. Jace’s voice reaches my ears as he tries to keep the two of them calm, along with a frightened pilot voicing his opinions.

The pistol is turning towards my face.

Damn bastard is strong!

Chaos takes over inside this plane with the kid yelling for Conner and his threats to stay back and for his dad to get off me, the pilot shouting who knows what, and Jace being in the center of it all. Meanwhile, my focus is in efforts of pushing the pistol away from my head when my uncle has me pinned on the carpet of this narrow aisle between the white leather seats. My legs are trapped beneath his as he straddles me.

In a blink of an eye, a gunshot rings inside the plane. I don’t dare look to see what happened – if I do, then the man on top of me might win. Staying focused on the task at hand of trying not to die, I’m able to turn the pistol just to my right when Randall pulls the damn trigger.

A burning fire sears through my shoulder, I shout in pain through my teeth, but the adrenaline isn’t letting me harp on it. It’s only a flesh wound. Randall’s face is so close to mine, that I can see his sweat and feel his spit from him seething fall on my ski mask as he too, fights for his life. With my left hand, I take a swing at Randall’s smug jaw from being able to injure me; he thought he was on the cusp of winning this fight, but he’s dead wrong.

Blood oozes out of his mouth and sprays me as he huffs with hard breathing. The old man is getting tired fighting the hold of this pistol with me. Having one bad arm, I use it to place my hand under his chin and push up while my right hand is making sure that if the pistol goes off again, it won’t be aimed at any major organ of mine or my head. When I’m able to get his head up as far as it can go, he suddenly uses one of his hands to lift my ski mask. The surprise hits him as his dark eyes widen and he gasps, “Michael?” That’s when I swing his head down with all the strength within I have, causing him to lose his balance and tumble against one of the seats – I have just enough room to slide out from under him and another shot is fired behind me.

Red keeps me from looking to see who just got shot – if anyone. My focus and purpose in this moment is to make Randall pay. I let him have it. Fists collide with his face repeatedly. His nose crunches beneath my knuckles, a tooth breaks, his face is bloody, and I cannot stop. Even the sound of the door to the plane opening isn’t tearing me away.

“Michael.” A shrill voice reaches my ears, but it’s not registering.

“Michael, you said you wouldn’t kill him!” Donnie. “Stop, Mike! Please!” It doesn’t stop me. The man is unconscious, and I don’t give a rat’s ass about it as I continue to revel in the pain on my knuckles and my bad shoulder as I reconstruct the face of Satan with each blow.

Hands grab at my shoulders to pull me off the fool – before I know it, I’m in cold irons.

Handcuffed? You kidding me?

As I’m pulled off my half uncle, I look around the plane. Danny Boy is holding a bloody arm with a worried and hurt expression on his face, Jace shows off a slight smile of pity and a nod; Conner’s body is slumped in one of the plane’s seats. A few S.W.A.T members are in the plane with their firearms all aimed at the last three men standing while one is holding the cuffs behind my back. Then, there’s Malone giving me the dagger look with those hazel eyes and pressed angry lips.

I’m gonna get s**t for this.

*******

“What did I say?” Malone barks at the top of her voice while she takes off the cuffs. The runway is full of police cars, the S.W.A.T van, a firetruck, and ambulances. Red and blue lights are flashing everywhere – not to mention the emergency yellow and white lights from the plane a few feet away.

Rolling my eyes prevails since she can’t see my face. “No one was to die.”

She steps out from behind me and glares in my direction. “So, do you want to explain what happened?”

“Not really.”

If looks could kill. She folds her arms, waiting for the story of what happened.

“s**t didn’t go as planned. I’m sorry.”

“You nearly killed him; you know?”

Wish I had. I don’t say anything, but my back molars are aching from my jaw clenching together.

Her eyes shift to my bloody shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

I shrug and the pain radiates down my right arm and into my chest. “It’s a flesh wound. I’ll be fine.” Not the worst that has happened to me.

“You should see the paramedics,” she orders and walks away, then stops to turn around. “By the way. Even though this all blew up… I appreciate your cooperation. We did it. We got the asshole; you’re off the hook.” With that, she turns back around to talk with the stewardess who’s wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the bumper of one of the ambulance trucks. She saw the whole thing.

Deciding that I should probably get my shoulder looked at, I head towards the ambulance where my cousin is stationed getting his arm wrapped up. When he sees me approach, he doesn’t hold eye contact.

“First time getting shot?” I try to break the ice, knowing he’s pissed that I nearly killed his father after promising that I wouldn’t.

He nods with thin lips as the paramedic personnel looks at me and asks, “Are you injured as well?”

“Yeah, my shoulder,” I tell the man in blue who looks as though he’s worked a seventeen-hour shift, if the bags under his eyes give any indication. “It’s not serious though, it can wait.”

“I’m almost done here, then I can patch you up,” he says.

When the paramedic turns to me with antiseptic, I remove my shirt so the hole in my shoulder can be examined. “Damn. This one went right through you – you’re going to need stitches, too.”

No s**t sherlock. “Do what you need to,” I tell him while keeping my eye on Drake. “You gonna be alright?” I ask him.

Those brown orbs are just like his father’s; he’s apprehensive to answer me, but he does. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. The bullet just grazed me.”

The paramedic pours the antiseptic ointment on my wound, causing me to bite a string of cusses. Then he pats the blood away and repeats the routine behind me at the exit.

As I get cleaned up and bandaged, I know I should apologize to the dillweed, but the apology would be fake and weak. I’m not sorry that I rearranged his father’s face or that he’ll need to replace a tooth or two. He deserved that and more. However, the look on my cousin’s face has me feeling remorse burrowing in the pit of my stomach like a mole digging to the center of the earth.

There was a promise that I made to him – fake on my part, but he believed me.

Dammit.

“Look,” I say as the paramedic finishes up on my shoulder. “I’m…”

How do I say this? With a hard gaze, I push through with my words after a deep inhale of air. “Sometimes… I do things that I don’t have to do.” I finish with a shrug from my good shoulder and his eyes narrow at me; I put a hand on my chest. “I was defending myself. Sometimes, when things get heated, I see red and all I do is lose control.”

He takes a moment to mull over my words, then finds an amusing spot on the ground between us to stare at. “I know. He’s the bad guy – you were just doing what you needed to in order to survive. I get it.”

Something about this kid has changed. My opinion of him has changed over these last couple of months. There’s an urge to comfort him.

What the hell?

Somehow, someway, my hand finds his good shoulder; his gaze snaps from the ground to my hand, then slowly to my face. “You did good in there. Thanks for your help… with everything.” Awkwardly, I lift my hand with the speed of a fast wind and bring it to my side.

The boy gives me a half smile. “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

My brows rise as I step back. “No.” Hell no.

He hops off the tailgate of the ambulance. “Yes. Yes, we are, Mike.”

I turn to walk away. “Nope.”

“Admit it! You like me – I’m not so bad,” he shouts at my retreating form. In response, I lift my arm and give him the middle finger as I keep walking away.

Jace jogs up to me, slightly out of breath. “You two friends now?”

“No! Shut up imbicile.” I swat the back of his head as he chuckles and lets out an “Owe.”

Stupid Jace. Dolly laughs in the distance as Jace and I stroll down the runway into the rising sun blanketing Georgia with its heat… there’s some more business that we need to take care of.