Chapter 62: Chapter 62

ICARUS ‘ICE’ HAWKINS

EIGHT YEARS AGO, I WAS THE SAME fucking schmuck working for Lucas Hawkins. A scrawny kid with a maid for a mother, no father, no money, no fucking worth to anybody.

And hell, I would have been the same loser all my life after mumsy died of typhoid or some shit of the sort had it not been for HIM.

KADE FUCKING HAWKINS. MY GODDAMN SAVIOR. My partner in crime. My brother.

The same boss’ son who thought we were equals. The same kid who had everything I never had and hated it.

Money. A powerful father. Power. He had it all and the fucking kid hated every inch of it.

I envied him. All my eighteen years of being his best friend and I envied everything he had. But apart from envy? I looked up to him. He might have been a sour pussy, hell a pain in the ass but the kid had his heart in the right place, had that urge to do what needed to be done to get ahead in life and I respected that because I wanted it too.

And when the kid got his first dose of power, I straight up jumped into that wagon because why the fuck not? Who wouldn’t have wanted the kind of power the HAWKINS name brought? I’LL TELL YOU…NO-FUCKING-ONE.

But the thing about power?

Power was a bitch alright. You wanted power? You had to cut your losses and cutting losses wasn’t a fucking piece of cake when you had a lot.

For Kade to rise into power, he had had to get rid of the one man who made his life a living hell and the bastard was none other than that his pops.

Dear old daddy. How fucking poetic it was.

And eight years ago, I was seated in that goddamn corner of a basement watching Kade beat his old man up, watching AN eighteen-year-old Kade struggle to finish the inevitable and to earn his trust, I offered to finish the damn job because it wasn’t rocket science.

Slicing through a man’s throat hadn’t been a challenge to me even though I hadn’t killed a single person yet.

When Kade left and my pocket knife was in my hand sinking into what used to be Lucas Hawkins, the bastard had coughed and spattered his blood to my shirt.

I let the shit slide then because in a matter of moments, the man would be dead and me and his son would rule his damn empire.

But…like I said, power being a bitch?

I’d never forget the way his bloodshot eyes looked at me (and normally I forgot a lot), mockingly, daring me to do it. Then his voice had cut through the air in me.

“You were my failsafe”, he said and he didn’t stop talking. Fuck I wished he had. I wished I would have killed him then.

“I knew he’d want to kill me. never thought he would, but deep down I knew he could…to avenge his bitch mother so I had to bring a plan B. S—someone who was more like him, s-someone close, someone who’d challenge him and help me when the time was right”

“And why would I help you?” I’d asked. Stupid me had dared to ask.

“Aah…the most important question of the day. Why would my servant want to help me when his loyalties are to my son? Icarus, my mother wanted to call me that when she had me but my father wouldn’t allow it. Lucas was a better American name than Icarus so I figured why not give my own son the name I deserved?”

“A dying man would say anything to save his skin”

I had wanted to believe that because Lucas Hawkins wasn’t my father. He couldn’t have been my father.

“Left ankle, black birthmark”, He coughed, “the same birthmark I have on the same spot. Of course, we could get our DNAs looked at but you are about to kill me- “

“S—she never said anything. She never mentioned you. She never spoke of you. You are not- “

“She never said anything because I threatened her, I’d kill her myself. I was still married to Nicole when I hooked up with your mother, if my wife knew she’d leave me. well eventually she did leave me but that’s another story. Question is, do you have what it takes to kill your own father, Icarus?”

That night had been the first time my loyalty to KADE WAS MISALIGNED.

AND IN MY MOMENT OF WEAKNESS, I LET LUCAS HAWKINS GO.

I betrayed Kade and for those eight years he knew, damn he trusted I had eliminated his father, that we had eliminated his father. Our father.

That’s not the first time I had betrayed my half-brother.

No, the second time, I hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t foreseen that shit like a woman would get under my skin.

Because she happened.

Cassandra Bates. The woman with the red hair snaking around our house like freaking Medusa.

Pretty as fuck. So sweet she gave me a fucking toothache and sunshine and hell all wrapped into one perfect pale milky skin. Skin I had wanted to bury my nails and teeth in.

I lurked in the corners watching her, lusting after her, wishing I didn’t fancy her but I did and Kade got to her first and I backed down. She was his. I had to respect that.

Fast forward to the present, I was right behind both brothers.

None of them had spotted me but I saw them.

I saw the hint of rage simmer hot in Kade’s eyes like a loaded pistol cocked and ready to detonate.

I saw the cruelty etched into the man whose face was slashed into two by a nasty scar. Lucas fucking Hawkins. The man behind everything. The man behind the Zetas (something I hadn’t figured out because I was too hung up on booze and the fact that Kade and Cassie were getting married to do my job right)

And in the arms of my supposed father, was the woman who’d once asked me ‘Do you like killing? Would you have had a different life if you hadn’t met Kade?’ the woman who’d mattered more to me than any woman I had buried my balls in which were my usual flavor of WOMEN WITH pointy long nails, botoxed lips, and ass implants.

She looked lost.

She looked hurt—no, she was hurt. Judging from her clothes, from that cut on her lips, from how weak and SUNKEN HER EYES WERE.

“You said it yourself I’m the one supposed to be out of the fucking equation. The one supposed to be rotting six feet under. You want me so why don’t you let her go and for once in your measly life be a man and face me? One on one just like you did when I was five. Come on, Lucas what’s it gonna be?”

You would want that, wouldn’t you? A one on one? A chance to rip me apart with your big hands now that you are all grown up? But you forget I know how you soldiers operate. I know you like I knew your father so to quote your words – here’s how this is all gonna play out motherfucker, you want her? then it’s simple, kill him”

The tension took another dive for grating silence. Both brothers looked at each other and judging from the veins on Kade’s neck, the fucker was prepared to do anything for Cassie. Anything including killing his own brother.

“And you…son. You want your woman then make a choice. Make a choice like you did all those years ago. Him or her?”

“This won’t play out the way you want to old man. It’s us two versus you and the odds of us winning…you know the odds are in our favor”

“Maybe…but you forget, I taught you everything, Connor and the one thing you should know about me is that I always…always have a plan B. I WOULDN’T BE HERE IF I DIDN’T, ISN’T that right, Icarus?”

MotherfuckingFuck.

He’d spotted me. fucking old man had spotted me.

His eyes remained rooted on me and I walked out of the shadows, my head held high, my conscience gnawing at my seams and Kade’s unbelievable eyes hanging a noose around my fucking neck.

The brothers could have shot me if they wanted to but they watched.

They watched as I took the rightful place behind my father.

She watched with panic-stricken eyes deeming me a traitor and I ate all that bullshit because come the next few seconds none of that would matter.

“Fucking traitor”, Kade spat.

“Now now don’t act like a jealous kid. Your brother had the decency to respect the one moral code we had boy. You don’t cut the hand that feeds you. I fed you; I made you who you are and you wanted me gone but he…he understood what family meant”

“Are you buying his bullshit right now? After everything we’ve been through. Fuck, Ice! After everything? And what does he mean brother? What shit has he been feeding you all these years?”

“Enough!” our old man chortled like a lunatic, his finger trigger happy on the damn trigger.

“One of you dies or she dies. The choice is yours boys but time is ticking. A second longer of this nonsense and I’ll blow her guts out you hear me? I’ll smear this damn place red with her blood”

My Glock was up, pointed at the two brothers, ready to shoot if they didn’t obey Lucas’ order.

The unhinged bastard cackled with a frightened Cassie in his arms gazing at the two brothers as they dropped their rifles to the floor ready to start a sparring session to save Cassie.

Me? I was looking at the back of my father’s head knowing very damn well he’d kill the brothers and escape with Cassie. He’d kill me too because this motherfucker cared about himself and the next woman, he’d push a ten-pound baby in.

It took only the slightest movement of my right hand to have a straight trajectory at his spine and when my aim was set and I was pretty sure Cassie wouldn’t get harmed, I fired my Glock.

The bullet speared him right in the spine as he let go of Cassie falling like a fucking piece of scum forward.

The brothers were too caught up in their bullshit to actually figure out Lucas was down.

Cassie…weak, flabbergasted was well on her way to falling on the floor face first when I caught her in my arms in time, having had to step over a wincing Lucas on the floor.

Her emerald eyes gleaned with tears…the same emerald eyes I had stared at when Kade first brought her to the mansion, the same emerald eyes that flogged the mansion everywhere me and the guys looked, the same emerald eyes that stared at her flowers in our garden like she wanted to marry them.

God damn it, Cassie.

Her weak hands held my shirt as she exhaled,

“I knew you were good”

“I’m a monster Cassandra just like my father— “

The first bullet hit my back like a speeding freight train, like freaking karma. It tore through flesh, tore through some pretty important organs too, I could officially say I knew what internal bleeding felt like. And it stung like a bitch all right.

“I—Ice? Ice?” Cassie sobbed in my arms and I still held her.

Another shot fired behind me, this bullet piercing my back harder than the first.

Lucas chuckled bitterly behind me before the brothers—I assumed rained bullets on him with vengeance.

Cassie wept, I tried standing still but God knew I could feel myself slipping.

Slipping into the void. Letting the darkness take over. Getting ready to meet mumsy in heaven or dearest daddy Lucas Hawkins in hell.

“Ice, no. P—please, no”

“Hey, it’s okay”

“No. No, you are not okay. You are bleeding, he—he shot you. We need to get you to the hospital, we need to—”

“It’s okay. Take…take care of him”

Everything shut down and f0r the first time in my life I wasn’t putting up a fight. I was letting DEATH WIN THIS ONE.