Sophie Oak - Siren Beloved

That was a scary prospect. He remembered how hard it had been on Lexi to lose Brandon. But he wanted to try. He wanted it all.

He sipped his coffee as he looked out of the kitchen window over the yard. The barn door looked like it was open. It hadn’t swung wide, but he could tell that it wasn’t locked. The lock was sitting on the outside of the hinge. It was a windy day. It wouldn’t do for the door to swing open. And Ike was obviously running around. He could get stuck in there.

Lucas sighed and left his coffee behind. He let the screen door slam behind him. The sound was a loud shot in an otherwise perfectly quiet morning. Ike seemed to have given up his attempt to communicate. It was almost eerily quiet.

And he smelled something odd. Was that gasoline? Had Aidan been gassing up some of the equipment? It smelled like he’d spilled it—a lot of it.

Lucas pulled the lock off and was just about to lock the barn when he heard something shuffle inside. “Aidan?”

He opened the door and felt his stomach drop. Aidan was lying on the rack, tied down, the same way they had tied up Lexi the day before. Without another thought, Lucas rushed in.

“What the hell?”

Aidan’s eyes flew open. They were wide with terror. He pulled at his restraints and seemed to be trying to talk, but there was a rag in his mouth. Lucas raced to him and pulled the rag out.

“Run, Lucas!”

But it was too late. Something moved behind Lucas, and he felt the right side of his head light up before the world went dark.

Aidan felt sick as Lucas fell to the ground. Dwight had perfected the art of slamming the butt of a rifle into a person’s head. He might not be the best foreman in the world, but he was damn good at knocking people out. And he was an accomplished killer. Aidan’s vision was still hazy, and he smelled gasoline. Was that just a hallucination? How much of this was real? He prayed Lucas was an illusion, but he didn’t hold out hope.

“Don’t hurt him. He doesn’t know anything.” Aidan was pretty sure it wouldn’t work, but he was willing to try anything at this point. He couldn’t stand the thought of Dwight shooting Lucas in front of him. Aidan prayed Lexi was somewhere safe. How long had he been out? Obviously long enough to get dragged to the barn and tied down with his own damn rope. “Please don’t shoot him. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Dwight stared down at the body at his feet. “When you first told me about those two, I thought you were insane. Now I’m just disgusted. I might be a killer, but at least I’m not a damn queer.”

Aidan’s head was pounding, but at least that gag was gone. He didn’t scream, because that was a surefire way to get that nasty rag shoved down his throat again. Besides, Bo was too far away to hear him. Only Lexi had a possibility of hearing him, and he couldn’t risk her running in here and getting herself killed.

“I’ve been listening to you talk for over a year, and it always made me sick,” Dwight continued. He reached down and grabbed Lucas’s wrists and pulled him, dragging him across the wood floor of the barn. “Do you have any idea what it took to sit there and listen to you whine about your sex life? But it gives me a couple of outs. You see, you might think that you’re being brave, but what you did last night was just stupid. Everyone saw you kiss Lucas. The police here aren’t really going to care that you got yourself killed. They’ll just say that’s what happens to gays.”

Dwight might have a point about the sheriff. He hadn’t been terribly friendly last night, but he had done his job. It might have been different if Karen hadn’t been gift wrapped and served up on a silver platter. That was obviously Dwight’s doing, but he let that go for now. Dwight needed to understand this wouldn’t be as easy as he thought. “Bo won’t let it go. And I assure you Jack Barnes won’t take kindly to his brother being murdered.”

For the first time, Dwight looked like he was sweating a bit. He dropped Lucas and stepped away. “I can’t worry about that now. I can’t let you live. I should have smothered your ass while I had the chance, but you didn’t remember. The doctors said they thought you would never remember, so I let it go. I didn’t want to kill Tanner and Link.”

A sudden flash of Link going down spun across Aidan’s brain. He’d been so fucking young. Tanner had been an accident. Aidan could almost forgive what happened to him. A firefight was scary and chaotic, but Link died in the quiet aftermath. Link had been murdered in cold blood. “But you did it anyway.”

“I had to. I wouldn’t survive in prison. Do you have any idea what I’ve done to survive? I had to stab myself to make it look like I’d been in a fight. That takes guts.”

Dwight was one delusional son of a bitch. “I bet Tanner’s wife and kid and Link’s parents would disagree with you.”

Dwight picked up the rifle he’d put down when he moved Lucas. He held it casually against his body. “I had to take care of myself. No one else would do it. And now I have to take care of you.”

“There’s no war here to slow down an investigation. Someone will figure out that you did this.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why. I’ve been careful. I’ve never once said a bad word about you. I’m the loyal friend who sat by your bedside and followed you home to make sure you were okay. Now, Bo, he’s talked his mouth off about how pissed he is. That boy can’t handle his liquor. He was a might miffed you got the ranch. And I’ll make sure the sheriff knows how much you embarrassed him last night at the fair. No one in these parts wants a queer in their family.”

Dwight was severely underestimating this town in Aidan’s opinion. There would be some people who wouldn’t accept him, but not all. Even the ones who wouldn’t condone his lifestyle wouldn’t want him dead. Dwight was in for a mighty big wake-up call if he managed this.

“How exactly are you going to frame my brother? That’s not his gun. Everyone knows he loves his Remington Model 7. He would never use yours.” Sometimes Aidan thought Bo loved his rifle and the hunting that went with it far more than he would ever love any woman. He was pretty sure Bo slept with that rifle from time to time.

“I have no intention of shooting you. I’m—well, Bo—is going to lock you in the barn and set it on fire. By the time the ranch hands see the smoke and make it back from the east pasture, it will be too late. I’ve already hidden the gas can in Bo’s car. Dumbass doesn’t even lock his car.”

God, Aidan prayed Lexi was still asleep. He couldn’t bear the thought of Dwight tossing her inside with him and Lucas. Aidan pulled uselessly against the ropes he’d lovingly fastened to this table for his subs. This barn was supposed to be a playroom, a place where they could be themselves and love each other however they wanted. Now it would be his tomb. The ropes bit into his flesh, tearing at his skin. He felt blood start to leak from his wrists. Was that a little bit of give?

“Hurting yourself isn’t going to help,” Dwight said, standing over him. He had the rag in his hand. He shoved it into Aidan’s mouth. Aidan fought, but he gagged as the rag nearly found the back of his throat. He had to concentrate to breathe. “Can’t have you screaming, can we? I wonder if they’ll think you and that boy down there were playing your kinky games and Bo couldn’t take finding you like that. Or, hey, maybe they’ll blame Lexi. No real woman wants to lose her man to another man.”

Dwight pulled out a match when he got to the door of the barn. “Don’t worry too much. I poured the gas around the inside perimeter. The only window is up in the loft, and I made sure it’s closed. The smoke will kill you before the flames get to you. I’m not a monster after all.”