Tortured Souls (Rebels of Sandland 2)

He held his hands up in defence and then smirked. I looked across at Finn and he was holding back a fucking grin too.

“I’m not pussy whipped, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s the last thing we’d accuse you of.” Zak laughed.

“Like I said, have you told her?” Ryan sighed and pinned the other two with a keep-your-mouth-shut glare before turning to me.

“It’s not that I’m hiding it,” I admitted, because it was true. “Last night wasn’t the right time. But she knows what she’s getting into. She knows who I am, and she said as much herself. So, thanks for your concern, but we’re good.”

“I hope for both your sakes you’re right.” Ryan flicked through his mobile phone, pretending to look like he didn’t give a shit.

“Whatever. I’m not here to talk about how awesome it’s gonna be when I’m the world champion. Wouldn’t want any of you to feel inferior.” Both Ryan and Zak scoffed at me, but not Finn.

“Success comes at a price,” Finn said in a low, mournful voice.

“And I’ve got the goods to pay,” I snapped back. “Look, what is this? An intervention or something?”

Zak slammed his laptop shut, and I knew then that he meant business.

“We think Lockwood might be behind the text messages we’ve been getting.”

I shrugged back at him.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“We got another one yesterday,” Ryan added. “Told us we should think twice before putting on another event. Unless we wanted to see the whole of Sandland ‘go off’, that is. In other words, they were threatening some kind of explosion or something. Zak tracked the message back to a mobile registered to Don Lockwood.”

“So, what are we waiting for then? Let’s go and confront him.” I went to stand up, but Zak gestured for me to sit my ass down and listen.

“Not so fast. I ran a check on Lockwood, and he has multiple mobile phones registered to his name and his company too. He’s a dirty fucker, so we need to play clever and keep this information close to our chests, until we know exactly what we’re dealing with. He is distancing himself from Alec Winters publicly. He claims he had nothing to do with the money laundering. But he’s making a lot of fucking effort to try and fuck shit up for us. He’s trying to mess with our heads.”

I agreed with him. The Lockwoods liked their mind games. But so did I.

“Not all of our heads though,” Ryan said, glaring over at me.

“Are you still not getting any messages, Brandon?” Finn asked.

“Nope.”

I wasn’t going to apologise for it either. Sure, I had their backs when shit went down, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over the fact that Don fucking Lockwood wasn’t sending me lame text messages to try and scare me.

“That part just doesn’t make sense.” Zak frowned as he spoke. “But that’s why we have to play the long game. Wait it out and see what he comes at us with next.”

I didn’t agree with him.

“Fuck the long game. The Lockwoods have been pissing around for too long. I’m still waiting for Jensen to show his face around here so I can rearrange it for him.”

“Aren’t we all? That fucked up piece of shit has been dodging our bullets for too long now,” Ryan said, showing as much anger as I felt.

“You’ll have to get in line, mate,” I told him. The first hit was always going to be mine.

“There won’t need to be any lines. We’ll be standing right next to you. He messes with one of us, he messes with us all. And that includes Harper.”

That was what I loved about these lads. It didn’t matter what we went through, we’d always have each other’s backs. We’d always be there when one of us needed help. We weren’t blood brothers; we were brothers of the heart.

“So, the plan is to pretend we don’t know Lockwood is a shady fucker?” I gave a sarcastic huff and looked at each one of them to gauge their reaction.

“The plan is to stay tight,” Ryan stated confidently. “Watch our backs and make sure he knows he isn’t spooking us. Business as usual.”