“I wish it was that easy, but I’m in too deep. I’ve sinned too much to back out now. This is all I got left,” he says, pausing as he cocks his head to the side and stares at me thoughtfully.
“In another life, baby…in another life I would’ve given you my all. I would’ve chosen to be a better man and not one that carries his sins on his sleeve. I’d choose Heaven over Hell. I’d choose you over and over again.”
His hands drop away from me and he backs away.
“It’s your turn to walk away,” he rasps, bending down to retrieve my dress. Holding it tightly in his hands, he pauses for a moment, rubbing the fabric between his fingers before dropping it on the foot of the bed and turning around.
I stare at his back watching as he walks away and disappears into the bathroom. Foolishly I wait for him to return, but minutes later I hear the water and know our reunion is over. Feeling numb I reach for my dress and slip it over my head. I pull my panties up my legs, slip my feet into my shoes and grab my purse. I glance over at the bed, kiss our love goodbye, and vow to hang onto the memory of tonight for all my days.
I reach the bathroom door, lay my hand over it and fight back tears as I silently pray for his soul. Look at that—I guess there is still a shred of faith inside of me.
I slip out of the hotel room, lean against the door and finally give into the tears. Trying to understand how one person can lose the love of their life twice in a single lifetime. I say my final goodbyes to the tragedy that changed me, the family who suffered with me, and the man who will spend the rest of his cruel existence seeking vengeance.
Goodbye Alexandria, no one can hurt you ever again.
Goodbye Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, may you finally rest easy.
Goodbye Jagger, I’ll always carry a piece of you with me.
Selfishly, I wonder if I dodged another bullet. If God spared my life only so I could live in pain. I push off the door, force myself to walk away and learn it’s not that easy.
Maybe being the one left behind isn’t so bad after all.
-Five-
Cobra
By the time I step out of the shower I know she’s gone. A part of me expected her to stay and put up more of a fight, but the bigger part is relieved I don’t have to watch her walk away. Regretfully, I pull open the door to the bathroom, watching as the steam escapes and fills the room that has conformed into a prison, holding captive the memory of her. Ignoring the scent of her perfume that lingers in the air, I grab my clothes from the bottom of the duffel bag and begin to dress, transforming back into Satan’s soldier. I shrug the worn leather cut over my shirt, glance over my shoulder at the reaper on my back and the words stitched across it.
Satan’s Knights.
There’s no chapter stitched to the bottom and the word nomad stares back at me offensively, reminding me the picture-perfect life I had was over the day the devil called me home.
Taken and destroyed.
Wrecked and ruined.
Dead and buried.
Gone.
Slipping the silver rings over my fingers, I crack my knuckles and bend down to pick my suit up off the floor. I throw it into the duffel bag, zip it closed and sling it over my shoulder. Glancing around the room one more time, I let my eyes pause over the rumpled bed sheets and shake the image of Celeste from my head before striding out the door.
Eyes cast down, I glide like a phantom through the lobby of the hotel and out the door. The bitter New York cold smacks me in the face as I walk three blocks to the parking garage where my bike has been hiding out. Spotting a trash can on the corner, I reach into my bag and grab the suit. I throw it into the trash and pull my pack of smokes from inside my cut. I stare at the traffic signal, pretend like I’m every other native New Yorker waiting for the cue to cross and flick open my zippo, lighting my cigarette. I take two drags before it’s time to cross and chuck the cigarette on top of the suit. I’m half way across the street when I hear someone shout fire and a smile creeps onto my face as the threads of my suit burn to ash.
The parking attendant brings my bike around and I strap my duffel bag to it before straddling it. Peeling out of the underground garage, I turn onto the street and take advantage of the early hour and the lack of traffic. Speeding through the streets of the big apple, I make my way into Brooklyn and toward the shipping yard where the enemy waits.
I spot the cargo ship making its way through the Hudson and the empty pier where Yankovich’s men are waiting to unload it and poison more innocent lives at his command.
Satan’s waiting for these motherfuckers and I’m the disciple sent to deliver them to Hell.
Throwing down my kickstand, I bide my time and light another cigarette. I step around my bike, unlatch my bag and drag the zipper down. Pulling out the AK-47, I lift the loaded semi-automatic rifle over my shoulder and shove two Glocks into the front waist band of my jeans.
I finish my cigarette, grinding the butt with the steel tip of my boot and grab the AK-47. My finger wraps around the trigger as I take long strides toward the pier. The closer I get the clearer the faces become and my eyes zero in on the cocksucker who pulled the trigger on my parents. The motherfucker who blew my father’s head right off his body and made my mother watch before he riddled her with bullets.
The motherfucker who made the grave mistake of thinking he could take from me and live to take some more. I was too slow, too young, and a whole lot jaded to save my parents, but you better fucking believe I’m not that guy anymore. I pull the trigger with confidence, meeting my mark every single time. I dig my holes deep and I bury with precision, making sure to turn the dirt over each kill. This motherfucker thinks he’s invincible, that his sins have no consequence. He thinks he can take what is mine and keep breathing. He thinks he can take her.
Motherfucker is going to learn that no one takes what’s mine.
No one touches and taints what’s mine.
There is no such thing as coincidence in this world.
As long as the name Yankovich is involved there is a plan. I don’t doubt that Russian prick is somewhere grinning from ear to ear thinking he’s got the upper hand.
Today might not be the day, tomorrow either, but it’s going to come. My day is going to come and I’ll be the one grinning as I turn the dirt on his fucking grave.
I’m a generous killer, I give them the heads up—spraying the dock with bullets as I walk toward them. Their eyes shoot to me and they scurry around the pier like cockroaches. I’m not going to lie, it’s my favorite part. I get off on the idea that they think they can escape me, but no one gets a pardon from me. Before they can reach for their weapons I pump them full of lead.
I leave the best for last, savoring the moment I look Ian in the eyes and see the recognition beneath the fear.
He knows who I am.
He knows why I’m here.
And he knows there is a hole waiting for his body.
“Richardson,” he sputters as the barrel of my rifle digs into his neck.
“No, motherfucker. Allow me to introduce myself…”
My finger tightens around the trigger as I spit between his eyes and grin.
I don’t hesitate, I pull the trigger and blow his fucking head off the same way he blew my father’s off.
“The name is Cobra,” I sneer, dropping my hand as the rest of his body falls onto the wooden planks. I lift my free hand, wipe the splattered blood from my eye and sling the gun over my shoulder before reaching into my cut. I pull out the short list of names on the folded piece of paper.
With Ian’s blood on my finger I cross out his name and stare at the only one left.
Yankovich.
-Six-
Cobra
Age: 26
Place: Brooklyn, New York
Life is made up of choices, some are ours to make, while others are made for us. That doesn’t mean the choices that are ours to make are right. In fact, every fucking choice I have made over the last eight years was probably w
rong. Hell, I’ve got more regrets than any one person should have, but choosing to hang up my nomad patch and join the ranks of the Satan’s Knights Brooklyn chapter is not one of them.
Nearly a year ago I was at the end of my rope, drowning my sorrows in a bottle of whiskey when I met the man that would change the course of my life.
Whiskey.
Suicide in a bottle.
Never cared for that shit until two years ago.
Now, every sip reminds me of that night and the woman I let go.
I was half a bottle in, dreaming of a different life when a big hand reached across the bar and snatched my poison. Ready to pounce on the motherfucker for taking my booze and the memories attached to the bottle, I lifted my head and peered into the face of one scary son of a bitch.
Wolf.
Normally I would have shot his fucking hand off for touching mine, but there was something about the way he looked at me that kept me from reaching for my gun. Staring at him, I saw the same shit I did every time I looked in the mirror.
Desperation.
Like me, he had the reaper sewn to the back of his leather cut, but where mine married me to the road his tied him to Brooklyn, New York. I had heard the stories floating around about his club. Heard the Brooklyn chapter was on the balls of their ass and this poor bastard was hunting for new blood to join their dying breed.
Silently we danced with our demons and shared the bottle of whiskey. He didn’t share his troubles with me nor did I. We were just two brothers sitting in hell until he broke the silence.
“You ever want to make something right?” he slurred.
Every fucking day of my life.
“That’s all I wanted, but now I gotta go back to my brothers with my dick in my hand and tell them I fucking failed them,” he continued, downing the last of the whiskey.
Slamming the empty glass down, he casts his beady eyes on me.
“I gotta hand them their death certificates and show them where to sign,” he rasped, shaking his head in pure disgust. “Couldn’t even get one brother to come back with me.”
I allow him to ramble on without interruption as I pull a bud of weed from my cut and begin crumbling it between my fingers.
“I can’t say I blame them, and if you repeat a word of this shit to anyone I will cut your tongue right out of your mouth. The truth of the matter is…anyone willing to follow me back to Brooklyn would have to be a sick fuck. A brother who ain’t afraid of death, a brother who ain’t got shit left in this world. You know where I can find a sucker like that?”
“Yeah, you’re fucking looking at him,” I told him as I brought the joint between my lips and flicked my zippo.
I wasn’t serious—not really, but something flickered in his eyes…hope. It was something lost to me, yet I appreciated seeing it in someone else. After seeking revenge for years and always falling short of my ultimate goal, I finally gave up. Laying the driving force of my existence to rest, I surrendered and declared my enemy the winner.
Yankovich won.
With a handshake I signed my death certificate and followed the lunatic back to his dying club, and the place where everything I ever loved I lost…back to my hometown.
I cut the nomad patch from the worn leather of my vest, replaced it with one that read Brooklyn, and as I vowed to have the backs of my new brothers I learned that the crazy fuck, Wolf, had played me.
I wasn’t the lone ranger stupid enough to help these fuckers in their time of need.
There were three more assholes just like me that bought the bullshit Wolf fed them. Three former nomads who traded their patch for Brooklyn and a chance to call the Dog Pound home and Jack Parrish their president.
Assholes.
Fucking assholes we were.
Yeah, I wanted to kill the fucker for playing me, but now months later all I want to do is thank him. I might not get the fucking chance because he’s fighting for his life and I’m standing in the emergency room holding a pair of red shoes that belong to my brother Pipe’s dead wife.
Choices.
They’re not always ours to make and the ones that aren’t are usually the ones that kill us.
None of us chose to be here today. Today we should be at our clubhouse celebrating Jack and Reina’s marriage, not occupying a hospital deciding if Wolf should have a DNR or if Linc should have a risky surgery that might leave him paralyzed. Reina should be crying tears of joy not ones of fear as she fights to keep her baby safely inside of her. Jack should be listening to his new bride’s laughter and not wondering if he’ll ever hear her voice again.
Pipe should be teasing his wife instead of standing alongside the black body bag that holds her decapitated body.
And I sure as shit shouldn’t be covered in her blood carrying her shoes.
But the choice wasn’t ours to make.
A man with a fucking bomb strapped to his body walked into our home, disrupted Jack’s wedding before he could make Reina his wife, and robbed us of our choice. For some he stole their lives and for all he stole hope.
Hope.
Right there in the pair of brown eyes staring back at me.
Eyes I’ve been trying to avoid since I got back to Brooklyn.
Eyes that belong to Celeste.
History isn’t supposed to repeat itself, but tell that to fate.
The hope diminishes as her gaze sweeps over me, spotting the blood covering my clothes and the shoes in my hands. When she finally looks back at me all I see is horror, but it quickly fades into realization.
I’m not the guy she used to love and she’s fully aware that the man standing before her, painted in another woman’s blood, is the man she despises most—Cobra.
“Sir, you can’t come with us,” the paramedic tells Pipe as he brings the stretcher carrying his wife to a stop.
I peel my eyes away from Celeste and turn to my brother, watching as he lifts his bloodshot eyes and pins them to the paramedic denying him.
“The fuck I can’t,” he sneers.
Choices.
They keep taking them from us.
“We’re sorry for your loss, sir, but you’re not allowed in the morgue,” the officer behind us intervenes.
Pipe’s whole body shakes as he grabs choice by the balls. His grip loosens on the rail of the stretcher and reluctantly he takes a step back. The shit thing about choices is, the ones we get to make are the hard ones, the ones that fuck us up—like choosing when to let go.
Deciding he doesn’t want to let go of his wife he reaches for her again, but they quickly drag the stretcher away from him out of his reach.
With his broken heart on his sleeve, he reaches for the shoes and takes them out of my hands. Cradling them like they’re all he has left, he turns around and starts for the automatic doors. There is no question, no hesitation as I turn and follow him.
I may be one of the new guys, but I’ve been around these men long enough to know the driving force behind each of them is their heart. It’s what pushes them day after day. It’s why they wake up and fight for the brotherhood they believe in. Pipe’s heart is now in a bag on the way to the morgue and it’s that brotherhood he blames for putting her there.
Deuce, another former nomad, follows Pipe alongside me until we’re standing in the parking lot of the hospital with nowhere to go. We followed the ambulance in the back of the patrol car, and since our whole fucking compound blew to smithereens, none of us have a means of transportation.
No bikes.
No cars.
Nothing but the clothes on our backs.
Deuce elbows me demanding my attention, but I’m too busy staring at the reaper on Pipe’s back, silently vowing to do whatever it takes to grant this man the peace he deserves.
I don’t know how to console him and won’t pretend like I do.
All I know is revenge and I will deliver it to Pipe.
It’s my solemn promise to my brother.
I watch as he drops to his knees on the asphalt
and releases a soul-wrenching scream that echoes through the parking lot. The shoes fall to the floor beside him as he lifts his hands to his face and cries.
“It should be me,” he shrieks.
Guilt.
I know that shit too.
Guilt and revenge go hand in hand.
I hesitate for a moment, knowing he wants nothing more than to be by himself, to crawl into a hole and forget the world we live in—well, aside from wanting to see his wife again. He wants to hold her, cherish her and a chance to say goodbye to her. But his choice has been stolen from him, leaving him hollow.
He’s angry.
He wants a face to blame, a name—a fucking body to put in the dirt in place of his wife’s.
I step around him, crouching down so I am level with his eyes and I place my hand on his shoulder.
“Pipe,” I call.
He drops his hands, snaps his gaze back to me and the words I was about to say are lost on my tongue.
“Get the fuck away from me, boy,” he hisses.
“I’m not leaving you like this,” I retort. “Tell me what to do, brother…tell me what you need and I’ve got you. You need to forget, pick your poison and I’ll move Heaven and Hell to get it for you. You need to hit something, I’m right here, take your best fucking shot, brother—”
My words are cut short when he fists my shirt and pulls me forward. I fall on my knees as he releases his hold on my shirt, smacks me across the face and clutches my head in his hands, forcing me to stare back at him.
“You’re no fucking brother of mine,” he sneers. “You’re shit to me. All of you motherfuckers, every last one of you bastards wearing that fucking cut are dead to me,” he continues, tightening his grip on my face as he glares at me. “All you fucks worship is that motherfucking reaper, think it makes you a man, gives you a fucking purpose. It ain’t shit, boy. It’ll destroy you, take everything good in your life, rob your soul and fuck your conscience six ways to Sunday.”
He roughly releases his hold on me and leans back, diverting his eyes between me and Deuce.
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