Silence Reveals Hidden Answers’ by Michael Anderson novel Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Harvey Prescott.

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One person on my mind. Reign. The thought of him sending some slithering thing to stalk Jen for the sin of not being with his sister boils my blood to a vapor. I don’t simmer. I act.

My car screeches to a halt outside the mechanic’s shop they call is kingdom. Two of his garage-door gargoyles see me coming and they unfolding themselves from their greasy tasks tintercept.

The bigger one….there’s always a bigger one, all bulk and no brai puffs out his chest. He gets within my range, and my fist, like a piston launches from my side. It doesn’t hit his face; it rearranges it so that he’s a heap on the asphalt. The other one freezes when he sees me do that, his courage evaporates.

He scrambles back and clears my path with a panicked wave of his hands to the rest.

Three more of them in the garage get up from their crouches around a gutted sedan. One slides out from underneath a car with a spanner clutched in his fist like a toddler. They all stare.

“Where is Reign?”

They all keep silent like some brotherhood code. I’m busy. I didn’t come here to read silence. My eyes scan the grime-caked tool benches and land on a sledgehammer. They all take a step back and I wrangle the tool in my wrist.

“Come on.”

They don’t.

“Then bring out Reign!” I yell and smash the car that one of them was just repairing. I give it a bloody dent, scratching the object from where I’ve dug it, and take a step closer to them. They leave the way, but I’m looking for the scapegoat to show them that I’m not playing.

When I was in the army, they called me many names. At first, I was just a sharp piece of metal they thought they could blunt. The bullying was a sport.

I was quiet at first but bullying happened on many levels. Even if I didn’t know how to fight immediately when I joined, I learnt quick. While everyone was asleep, I was in the training ax learning how to throw punches. The sergeant saw me at thst point and was the one who trained me every day for an entire year. You can guess what happened to the bullies the next time they struck; I beat them so bad they had to clear them out of the

army.

Now I’m sick of waiting. I launch the sledge hammer and it goes past one’s head, but that was intentional. I needed them to look at the moving hammer because at that point I take one of the dudes and smash his face into the first desk I see. The rest look back at me and I hold the spanner in my hand and fix that and on the table, raising it up and looking at the scapegoat I picked.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in! He’s in!”

Just as he confesses, Reign comes out of somewhere with a cigarte in his mouth and a smile on his face. I let go of the scapegoat, drop the spanner and use my hand to beckon him.

“You come here. No weapons. Let’s dance”

I turn my back on all of them and walk out into the blinding su I want the light in his eyes. I want him to see nothing but my silhouette before my fist connects with his jaw. I want to feel the architecture of his take give way under my knuckles.

“Don’t tell me she told you…” he laughs, taking his sweet time “e’s that loyal! I would’ve given her the info on a platter. She ran to you? Wow. You two are in that deep. This just makes more interesting”

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19:11 Sat, Feb 7

Chapter 48

“Stop talking. Come here.”

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His audience holds its breath. He’s still playing with his cigarette removing it from his lips and my patience is gone.

I burst forward. No wind-up, no warning. Just pure, explosive pinch that lands him square on the mouth. His head snaps back, the cigarette scatters away in a shower of sparks. He staggers, a hand flying to his split lip and then his eyes widen in

rage.

“Good. Shut up.”

This time he throws a blow. I shove it aside and land one hard to the side of his ribs. I thought it was said he could fight. Where’s the fight, then? Maybe it’s because I’m the one pushing with the adrenaline of Jen being scared because of this fucking prick.

He can hate me if he wants. I gave him a chance to fight fair fight but now he wants to play stupid. I’ll show him what boundary he’s crossed.

I get a hand to the side of his face when I punch, then slam the other side. His head lolls back…because of course you can’t compare the fight of a man who’s angry to a man who thinks this is a game. I start punching across his nose. Over and over. I want to rip it off. I want to tear his head from his neck so he sees this isn’t what he ever expected from someone who calls himself prince of something.

That’s when he pulls a knife from under his shirt and stabs me in the arm.

I still use that arm to punch, despite the jagged pain screaming in my shoulder. I want this idiot to bleed. I want him to learn, and I don’t care. Reign growls and shoves the knife deeper. That’s when I step back, yanking the blade out of my flesh. All his men close ranks around him, giving him space. His nose clearly broken, his eyes swollen and blood-red. Next time he fights me, he’d better put up a real show.

I get into my car and slam the door. My arm won’t stop bleeding, but I drive off anyway. I’m too angry for the hospital. I’ll take care of it in my office at the club. That’s what I do.

When I walk into the club, I throw a hand up and it’s a warning for everyone to stay back, to keep their mouths shut about my leaking arm. I head straight to my office and pull out the first aid kit. The boys must have told David they saw me bleeding, because he bursts into my office and slams the door.

“What the hell, Harvey-that’s deep! You need a hospital, not a first aid kit.”

“Shut up.” I say, tearing the cap off a bottle of antiseptic with my teeth. I spit the lid out and pour the liquid straight over the wound. I bite down hard, stomping my foot once against the floor. I know how to stitch myself up. That’s exactly what I’ll do.

“Harvey, for god’s sake.”

“You being in here is gonna make me lose concentration. I need to stitch.” I grab a bottle of liquor from the drawer, take a long, burning pull, and let it fire down my throat.

When David finally leaves, I walk over to the full-length mirror in the attached closet of my office which is the place 1 usually change. Gritting my teeth, I start stitching, Grunt by grunt, stitch by stitch, until the wound is closed. I let my head fall back, chest heaving from the pain, sweat cold on my skin.

I clean it once more and go take a shower to wash off the blood my body, careful not to let the water hit it directly. After, I pull on a fresh shirt, but my face in the mirror tells the whole story: I’ve had a stupid, brutal day.

I slump into the chair behind my desk. Wasn’t able to sleep back at home. The office will have to do.

As I rest on my chair and try to find my energy from the exhaustion of what just happened, I end up falling asleep there.

I wake up sharp at 10 pm. the exact time the casino hits its peak its loudest and busiest hour. I really slept tilt to Seven hours gone, just like that. I stare at the ceiling because any moment now, I know have to get up

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