Crime and Passion 8/10
Chapter Eight
While Mikey was bleeding on the stairs they made their escape. Way didn’t even yell after them. He was too busy trying to help his brother. They ran anyway, Travis hoisting Brendon into his arms and carrying him out of the house. Pete and Patrick were waiting down the street. There was another car behind them that Ryan didn’t recognize.
“What happened, is everyone okay?” Patrick asked and then he caught sight of Brendon in Travis’ arms and cursed under his breath.
The door to the unfamiliar car opened and Maja stepped out. She rushed forward, stopping short of Travis and looking down at Brendon.
“Oh God. He needs a doctor, doesn’t he? What happened to him?”
“He took a little tumble down some stairs,” Travis said, sounding more calm than Ryan felt.
Just thinking about it, hearing the words and remembering the sound Brendon’s head had made against the steps was enough to make Ryan feel sick. He looked at Maja who was biting her lip.
“He can’t come with us. He has to stay.”
“Wait,” Ryan said. “Where are you going? I thought you were coming with us.”
Travis shook his head. “I’m taking Maja with me to Jamaica. I’ve got friends down there who’ll take us in. It’ll be safe. We were going to take Brendon with us.”
“It’s better there,” Maja said at the look on Ryan’s face. “No hiding. No mobsters.”
Anger simmered below Ryan’s skin along with the worry and adrenaline. He didn’t have time for it, though, and it didn’t matter. They were right. Brendon couldn’t fly to another country, not in the condition he was in.
“We need to get out of here,” Pete said. “Maja’s taking Travis and we’ve got somewhere safe to go so let’s just go.”
Ryan nodded. “I’ll sit in the back with Brendon,” he said.
They climbed into the car, Patrick riding in the passenger seat with Pete behind the wheel. Travis transferred Brendon gently into the back and then straightened and looked at Cassie.
“Are you getting in?”
She bit her lip and hesitated and Ryan fought the urge to yell because they had to get going. Brendon needed help and they needed to get as far away from Way and his thugs as possible.
“Come with us,” Maja finally said. “We were planning for three. You’ll like it there. You’ll be safe.”
Cassie nodded, visibly relieved, and Travis shut the door. Pete didn’t waste time starting the car and screeching off into the night, leaving Maja, Travis and Cassie to go in the opposite direction.
They drove for what felt like an eternity of hours until they made it to the backwoods of Nevada. Ryan traveled the whole way with Brendon’s head in his lap. Brendon came to once, very briefly, and tangled his fingers in Ryan’s shirt. Ryan was so relieved that he hadn’t been knocked into a coma or something that he couldn’t breathe. Pete kept glancing back, narrow-eyed and guilt-ridden but he didn’t say anything, just kept driving. They stopped about an hour after the sun had risen, the morning new and pink beyond the trees they’d been traveling past and through for a few miles.
“I think we can leave the car here for now,” Pete said, putting into park. “It’s best if we walk the rest of the way. I can carry Brendon.”
Ryan almost fought him on it, but he was exhausted and there was no way he was fit to be carrying anyone anywhere. So he nodded and waited for Pete to come around to the backdoor before handing Brendon off. The other man made a small noise of discontent but settled easily when Pete hushed him.
The walk was tiring but Ryan had just enough adrenaline so that he didn’t actually notice. He was too busy watching Patrick who moved behind them, covering their tracks and shooting all three of them worried looks when he thought they weren’t paying attention. Eventually they came across what looked like a rundown shack out in the middle of nowhere. It looked unstable and not quite like the kind of safe haven Ryan had been hoping for, but he wasn’t going to complain.
“I should warn you,” Pete said as they walked up to a door that was surprisingly sturdy for such a ramshackle place. “We might not get too warm a welcome at first. They don’t like law enforcement around here.”
Ryan didn’t say anything, just knocked while Pete shifted Brendon in his arms. There was a lot of time spent standing and waiting and Ryan wondered if there was going to be any kind of welcome at all when the door opened to reveal a guy with a fro and a frown staring at them. His eyes widened when he caught sight of Pete.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, sounding incredulous and pissed off at the same time.
“I need some help,” Pete said, sounding more humble than Ryan had maybe ever heard him sound before.
“No way,” the guy said. “No fucking way, do you have any clue what a bad idea that is? The fact that you even know where we are-”
“What about the fact that you’re even still here?” Pete interrupted. “Look, you stayed because you trusted that I wouldn’t say anything. And I didn’t. You can trust me. I need help, Joe.”
Whoever the man was, Joe, apparently, he caught sight of Brendon and glanced over at Ryan and then to Patrick. He huffed out a sigh and muttered something that sounded like ‘wait here’ before closing the door on them. When he came back five minutes later, he wasn’t alone. There was a taller guy with him, bare-chested and covered in tattoos. He shared a long look with Pete and then stepped aside and said, “Get your dumbass in here, Pete. You guys, too.”
They all filed inside, Ryan taking in their surroundings. The place was as much of a dump as Ryan had expected, the floorboards creaky and rotted, the walls covered in dust. He opened his mouth to tell Pete they couldn’t possibly stay here and then the shirtless man and Joe were leading them to a set of stairs in the floor, hidden in a dark corner. Ryan raised his eyebrows and followed them below ground and blinked when he emerged in what looked like the pretty normal living room of a house.
The man with the tattoos made room on the couch for Brendon and covered him with a blanket when Pete laid him down.
“Thanks, Andy,” Pete said quietly.
Andy just looked at him and then straightened, crossing his arms. “What the hell’s going on, Pete?” he demanded. “You know I’m not going to turn you or your friends away but if you think for one minute I’m going to let a bunch of cops stink up my home without some explanations, you’re dead wrong.”
“The cop thing’s over, Andy,” Pete said. “I fucked up real bad and it’s over now.”
Andy stared at him for a moment and then glanced at Brendon. “What happened to him? He need a doctor?”
“I was hoping maybe Butcher was still around.”
“Yeah, he is. Joe, go get him. You guys have some explaining to do. Who’s going to stay with the kid?”
Ryan looked up and said, “I will.”
Andy nodded and then led the way out of the room and into another, Pete and Patrick following closely.
_._
“So,” the Butcher said, leaning in close to Brendon’s head and examining the wound there. “What’s the story? I could wait ‘till Andy fills us all in, but I’m the doctor, I get to ask invasive questions.”
Like Andy, the Butcher was tattooed and had been shirtless when Ryan had first seen him. He’d shrugged on a clean, plain white t-shirt when he’d gotten a look at Brendon, though. He seemed to know what he was doing and he was pretty friendly, if a bit more talkative than Ryan maybe wanted to deal with.
“Because,” Butcher went on. “Your boy here’s got a pretty nasty head wound and he’s got more bruises than skin. Not to mention that bullet graze on your arm. I’m thinking this wasn’t the result of a routine night.”
Ryan thought back to the confrontation with the Ways, saw Brendon falling down the stairs again, thought about what had to have happened before to have left him black and blue all over. He didn’t want to think about it but he knew he’d be reliving it for a while yet. He always dwelled on his missions and never moreso than when the sick feeling in his stomach didn’t go away even hours later.
“You know the Ways,” Ryan said, and it wasn’t a question. “We got tangled up with them.”
Butcher whistled long and low. “You guys don’t halfass shit, huh?”
Ryan shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. Andy still hadn’t come back with Pete and Patrick. Ryan wasn’t worried, but he was curious and fair was fair.
“What’s the story behind them?”he asked, jerking his head in the direction the others had gone.
Butcher shrugged and poked Joe in the knee, sending him for his medical kit. “Yeah, we don’t talk about Wentz around here much,” he said. “And I never got the whole story anyway. He used to be pretty tight with Andy before he decided to sell his soul and become a cop, that’s all I know.”
Ryan nodded. “And you guys do what around here?”
“What’s with the twenty questions?” Butcher asked, but he looked more amused than annoyed. “We do stuff. Mostly we keep to ourselves but we’ve been known to lend a helping hand out to those who need one.”
“So that’s why you guys keep a professionally trained doctor around?”
Butcher raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think I’m professionally trained?” he asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Up until thirty-six hours ago, I was paid to notice shit like that.”
Joe came back with the kit and sat down next to Ryan. He was more welcoming than maybe Ryan had expected, offering a small smile and looking worriedly over at where Brendon was laid out. Then again, Ryan figured these people were usually pretty nice and accommodating, so long as they weren’t being asked to look after law enforcement officials.
Butcher took good care of Brendon. He cleaned the wound, felt around a little, declared him okay and wrapped a bandage carefully around Brendon’s head.
“He’ll have headaches for a while and he might have a concussion. We’ll keep an eye on him. But other than that he should be all right. Now let me look at your arm.”
Ryan shuffled closer, keeping his eyes on Brendon’s unconscious form. It seemed like he’d spent more time staring at him like this than seeing him awake and healthy. He was beginning to hate it. Ryan’s wound wasn’t serious or even anything to write home about. Butcher cleaned it out and wrapped it up, something Ryan could have done for himself, and said he’d be sore for a while.
“It’s not the first time this has happened,” he said honestly, and Butcher smirked.
“So,” Joe said when Butcher left to put his kit away and wash up. “You can stay here as long as you want but if there’s anywhere in particular you need to get to, we might be able to help with that, too.”
Ryan glanced at from Joe to Brendon and back and said, “Can I make a call?”
_._
When Andy found out that Ryan knew Jon Walker, he actually grinned and clapped Ryan on the shoulder.
“No shit? One of our guys in Chicago, Tom Conrad, he’s pretty close to Jon.”
Ryan tried to remember if he’d heard the name before and thought maybe Jon had mentioned a Tom once or twice, but never more than in passing.
“Yeah. He and my best friend are involved.”
Involved and fucking pissed. Ryan’s conversation with them had involved a lot of yelling coming through the receiver with Joe looking on bemused. Once Spencer had calmed down and Ryan had finished explaining as much of the situation as he could, Jon had taken over the conversation because apparently Spencer was incoherent with rage.
“I mean,” Jon said. “Can you blame him? You just called to tell us you need a place to stay because you lost your job and oh by the way, you were involved in a shoot out with a mafia family. You’re lucky I’m not the yelling type, Ross, seriously.”
In the end, though, they’d agreed to keep quiet (“How we can give up any details we don’t have is beyond me,” Spencer had said pointedly) and to keep an eye out for them whenever they made it back into Chicago. When Andy had come back with Pete and Patrick, both of whom looked a great deal calmer than they had before, Ryan had told him that once they were fit to leave, he’d be going back to Chicago.
“I have friends, Spencer and Jon, they’ll take care of us.”
After that it snowballed a bit. Andy was pretty excited that Ryan knew Jon so well.
“That’ll work,” he said, drumming his fingers on his thigh and leaning forward. “You’ll need to lay low for a while. We’ll send you to Tom and his people, but Jon’ll know how to take care of you when you surface.” He paused and then said, “We’ll figure something out for Brendon. He can stay here until he finds something better.”
And it was silly, but Ryan hadn’t actually considered for a minute that he’d be going back to Chicago alone. More specifically, he hadn’t considered that he’d be going back without Brendon. He couldn’t say why. Maybe a part of him was still convinced he needed to protect him, but even now that he knew there were people who would probably take better care of Brendon than Ryan did, he didn’t want to just leave him here. He didn’t really have a choice, though. Chances were Brendon wouldn’t want to go with him, anyway.
Thinking that didn’t stop Ryan from going to his side immediately after he finished talking to Andy, though. He and Pete and Patrick were all ushered into spare bedrooms to get some sleep but Ryan couldn’t fall asleep despite being so tired he could feel it aching in his bones. He tossed and turned in the foreign bed of the small room for a few minutes before giving up and making his way to Brendon’s room.
The bunker, or whatever this place was, had several spare rooms, apparently. Some had beds, some, Ryan had seen, had hammocks (Pete and Patrick were sharing a room with two of those). Brendon was in the room next to Ryan’s, tucked into a bed that was slightly bigger than the one Ryan had just rolled out of. There was a chair by the bedside, large and plush looking. Ryan settled into it, watching Brendon in the soft glow of the table lamp that had been left on.
He looked a lot like he had the first time Ryan had seen him: unconscious and bruised. His breathing was steady and even and he looked peaceful, though. He’d hurt like hell whenever he woke up, Ryan knew, but for the moment at least he had a little bit of relief. Ryan wasn’t sure what it meant that just watching him and knowing that he was safe made something warm unfurl in hi stomach. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he couldn’t deny the fact that maybe he was more attached to the other man than he’d thought. Not just in a professional sense, because Ryan was always very good about severing a professional relationship as soon as he’d fulfilled his duty. No, this was totally unprofessional and completely irrational. This had to do with the fullness of Brendon’s lips and the sound of his voice when he was honestly cheerful and the way he tried so hard and was so strong despite everything. It had to do with all of that and a lot more, and it was deeply and stupidly personal.
Ryan fell asleep curled up in the chair with those thoughts on his mind and woke up with a hand brushing carefully through his hair. He came to more slowly than he was trained to, a gradual awakening of his senses. He could smell something cooking and hear the low, calm sounds of someone breathing. The fingers in his hair rested against his temple for a moment before dropping away, and Ryan opened his eyes to see Brendon sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning forward and staring at him intently.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Ryan said back, rolling his shoulders and biting back a yawn. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit,” Brendon answered honestly. “But some guy, the Butcher? He gave me some pain pills and everything’s very nicely fuzzy right now.”
Ryan couldn’t help the smirk that curled his lips. “What are you even doing awake?” he asked, uncurling and sitting up straight. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Just returning the favor,” Brendon said easily, scooting back on the bed and leaning against the headboard. “You’re kind of pretty when you sleep. And I’m pretty sure that’s totally the meds talking,” he added.
Ryan didn’t blush but he kind of wanted to, which was different. Ryan couldn’t remember the last time anything had made him want to blush. It had been a while, he knew that much. Brendon seemed to be able to tell what Ryan was thinking, though, because he grinned like he knew and tilted his head to the side.
“Probably,” he said. “Probably I would be freaking out right now if I were in my right mind. Where the hell are we? And who the fuck is the Butcher?”
Ryan snorted and said, “We’re somewhere safe. And the Butcher is the guy who bandaged you up.”
Brendon nodded and then narrowed his eyes. “Safe? Really? Like, no more worrying about, you know, mob bosses and shit?”
“Yeah. Just like that,” Ryan answered with a small smile.
Relief flickered across Brendon’s face and then he frowned. “What about Cassie?”
“She’s fine,” Ryan said. “Travis said he’d take care of her.” And despite only knowing Travis for a few short hours in addition to the time spent watching him tend bar, Ryan trusted that he knew what he was talking about. He figured that depending on how long he’d been asleep, Travis, Maja and Cassie were over halfway to Jamaica, just like Travis had promised.
Brendon nodded and Ryan watched as he looked down and plucked restlessly at the dirty, torn knees of his jeans.
“Hey,” he finally said, looking up and catching Ryan’s eyes. “Thanks. For saving me. And for getting Cassie out of there. You didn’t have to. So thank you.”
Ryan shrugged. “I had to,” he said, and when Brendon winced he added, “I just didn’t have to do it for the reasons you think.”
Brendon blinked and this time Ryan did blush. The confession hung in the air between them, Ryan wishing he could take it back, Brendon looking like he was trying to figure out what it meant. He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it, studying Ryan closely instead. Ryan didn’t fidget under the gaze even though a part of him wanted to. Finally Brendon smiled, one of his wide, eye-crinkling, face brightening smiles.
“Yeah?” he said.
Ryan glanced away, an answering smile tugging at his own mouth. “Yeah.”
_._
Pete cornered Ryan after their communal dinner of spaghetti and some kind of homemade garlic bread that had been the best thing Ryan could remember eating in the last couple of weeks. Ryan had been expecting it because Pete was many things but unpredictable wasn’t one of them.
“Hey,” Pete said, quiet and a little hesitant.
Patrick was entertaining a medicated Brendon in the next room and Ryan glanced toward them through the open door, aware of the fact that Patrick’s relationship with Pete was still tense and even more aware of the fact that Brendon, for all that he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge against Pete, refused to be alone with him.
“Ryan,” Pete said again, tone desperately coaxing. “Ryan, talk to me.”
Ryan blew out a sigh and looked over at Pete who was staring up at him with shuttered eyes. The thing about Pete had always been that he wore his heart on his sleeve. Ryan had liked it when they were fucking because he never had to work too hard to figure him out. The problem was that when Pete got like this, melancholy and distressed, he radiated the emotions and made it almost impossible to stay mad at him without feeling insanely guilty about it.
“Pete,” Ryan said. “What do you want me to say?”
Pete crossed his arms and looked down. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get Patrick to talk to me since he yelled at me earlier, though, and Brendon. He looks at me like he’s terrified of me. I thought maybe you’d, I don’t know, be able to talk to me at least. Even if it’s to tell me what an asshole I am.”
Ryan eyed Pete carefully and bit his lip. He was still pissed off at him. Despite Pete’s reasons for making the deal with Mikey Way he was holding information back and he’d jeopardized Brendon’s life and the careers of his friends because of it. He’d been selfish and stupid and still, there was always going to be a part of Ryan that cared for him. He couldn’t turn it off, couldn’t even ignore it so that he could hate Pete for a few hours. He couldn’t hold a grudge like he wanted. His feelings were too tangled up in it and he was too tired to fight off the air of misery that Pete was exuding.
“Well,” Ryan finally said. “You’re an asshole. And you fucked up.”
Pete blinked at him and Ryan rolled his eyes, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging him roughly into a hug.
“Look, it’s not going to be okay overnight, you know that,” he said while Pete clung hard to him. “But Patrick loves you and Brendon doesn’t hold grudges as far as I can tell. We’ll forgive you.”
“Just not yet?” Pete said, and he sounded resigned.
Ryan nodded, his chin knocking the top of Pete’s head. “Yeah. Not quite yet.”
Pete held on a little tighter and Ryan let him. He didn’t have the heart to push him away. He didn’t even really want to.
Chapter Nine