There’s a good possibility that this little puke fuck told someone else, but, being he’s still breathing, we may be lucky. “Thanks, man, my boss will be happy. I have the money out in my car.”
The little prick gets up and follows me out to the back door, making my life easy. “You parked back here?” he comments and looks left, then right, in the dark alley that’s full of dumpsters.
“Oh shit, you’re right, let’s walk out front.” He steps in front of me and heads toward the street. I pull the nine-millimeter out that already has a silencer on and put a few bullets into his back. He gasps and falls over as blood bubbles up from his mouth, leaking out onto the pavement. Kneeling, I take his wallet and cellphone with me on my long ride home.
Spider and I are having a come to fucking Jesus moment when I get back.
Chapter 27
Kat
The loneliness that usually haunts me resides as a deeply rooted ache in my chest, but, lately, even more so than it usually does.
Looking around the bar, I see that there are happy couples or young and single people, so carefree, never having the life experiences that usually pull you under with their weight. Is it because I haven’t talked with Tank for weeks? I don’t know for sure, but it is not the only reason today feels worse than usual.
It’s better that I don’t know what it’s like to have him around me. I can barely breathe, the ache in my chest is so severe that it’s crippling me. Each thought is just as more unbearable, if not more, than the next when my mind sweeps me back into a time. The most bittersweet moment of my existence.
My stomach is overgrown with my beautiful child inside. I know the baby is a boy. I can feel it, the truth as clear as the water in the glass next to me. My hand runs over my large stomach, knowing that my time of peace is about up, and I want to cry. My heart wants to give in already.
I want to take my little boy and run far away with him, into another life. I have to move on, though, for him and no one else. He saved my life, I know he did. He woke me up and made me see the reality of my life and the position I was in.
His foot pushes back on my hand with a kick, and I smile through the tears. He feels me just like I feel him.
He may have been gifted to me for all the wrong reasons, but he is all the right ones in my world. Had he not come when he did, I would have stayed and grown darker into the world I was raised in.
I will always love the man I thought his father to be, but not the man that he is.
My hand jumps back with another kick and I hold it there. I hold onto these precious moments because Jane gets to be his mother. She will feed him, kiss and hug him when he’s hurt, and not me. I want those things more than any power in the world. I want him.
Tears stream down my face with a bittersweet calmness. It’s not fair but it is what has to be done to protect him.
“I love you, Eli,” I rasp and choke on the words as I’m swinging back and forth on the porch swing. “One day, baby, you and I, even if it is not meant for this world but the next.”
My eyes clench shut, and I take deep breaths in until my body relaxes. I memorize the feel of him, the sweet smell of the late summer air, and the slight chill of it. I tuck this moment away for forever, locking it away in memory. A small gift. I had it all for a short time.
I know time is up when my body clenches with a sharp pain that starts in my back and radiates around the front of my stomach. Calmly, I absorb everything and breathe through each and every contraction through the night.
I sit alone, not wanting anyone to disturb my last few moments of perfection.
Hours must pass before I finally wake Jane up and she helps to situate me on the bed, along with her supplies. It takes me several agonizing pushes with sweat that pours from me, drenching the sheets around me.
At four-twenty-four in the morning, a cry from my son pierces the air with his strong lungs for the first time.
After he is cleaned, I hold him to me for a few hours before I have to leave.
A beer bottle breaking in the distance wakes me from my trance behind the bar. Tami rushes over to clean up after the accident and I look away, back to cutting limes and begging the memories to leave me be for today.
I look around and wonder if any of these people are drowning in their own pain like I am. They sure don’t show it. Not like me, and not like today.
My throat constricts because I missed another one of Eli’s birthdays. I sent him a gift, but it is not the same, and it’s in no way good enough for him.
Vegas comes in carrying some books for the office and walks past the bar, smiling. My mind and emotions clam up and I hide them away from the world and her to see.
“Hola, chica!” She must have already dropped the books off on her desk along with the rest of her things, because, all of a sudden, she is right across from me, looking me square in the eyes as she comes around to stand in front of me. “Shots or coffee?”
My eyes dart back in forth over her face. “Are you asking me what you should drink?”
“Nah, you don’t have your usual ‘I kill for fun’ sparkle. It’s a little more like, ‘fuck, someone kill me already’ gloom and doom. What’s going on?” She tilts her head a little to the side and patiently waits me out.
I’m feeling broken and alone, and if I wasn’t so stuck in my head, I could move past this already.
“It has just been a hard life, Vegas.”
I used to have my sister to talk to, and that’s laughable because she was fucking my husband and I doubt she loved me at all.
“Mmm. I think it’s a shots kind of conversation. How about this then,” she pulls me around the bar and sits me in the barstool, then walks back around the bar. “I’m just nobody, a bartender, tell me anything you want. I’ve heard them all and I don’t care what you have to say.”
Vegas waits for me to respond, and I want to say yes, but I can’t tell her anything because she can’t be dragged into this. I want and need more than anything to have a friend or a sister to vent to. I miss my mother so much right now.
I’m pretty sure Vegas’ man will skin me alive like he promised he would if I mutter one word. I wouldn’t blame him. It would be selfish of me to tell her my story and put her at risk, because I know that she’d come in swinging.
She grabs a bottle of Tequila Rose off the top shelf, strawberry cream liqueur and black vodka. “We only make these for special guests.” She winks at me and passes me over a pink shot swirled with the black vodka. “These will tear you from the floor up, or put you down on the floor, you know what I’m saying?” She clinks her glass to mine. “To love, family and finding yourself with those you love. Salud.”
“Salud,” the word comes out raw and graveling from the tears that I hide behind my eyelids when I tip my head back to pour the shot down my throat. Happy birthday, baby boy, I say in my head, feeling even more alone, and slam the glass on the countertop.
Vegas sees the pain I can’t blink away, not today. I open my mouth to say something when the front door opens, shutting down any conversation immediately.
Tank strolls in with Spider in tow, with a look on his face that I’ve never seen before. The face of a killer or boss of the man that belongs to the MC, and not the lover who gave himself over to me. This is who he truly is.
I get up from the stool and walk over to the main floor where I start sliding chairs from the tabletops to the floor.
Quietly, the three of them talk, discussing business while I try to pretend that he’s not here. Their conversation stops and the bar grows quiet as their footsteps take them behind Vegas’ closed door of her office.
I contemplate running and getting the hell out of here. My skin crawls with the anxiety of staying in the same building as Tank. It’s too much today with everything else. I can’t be strong and hide what is killing me like cancer, painfully slow. The rawness will shine through.
I can’t run, though, and the sinking feeling of being trapped like I was before i
ncreases. The memories of Matias start resurfacing and taking me under their dark cloud.
A hand wraps around my neck and I blink awake, clawing at his arms until I realize it’s him. Matias. His other hand rips and tears my underwear down my legs, the only sound to be heard in the room other than his heavy breathing.
The burn from my skin ripping around the fabric left behind leaves tears in my eyes. His dick invades me and pushes through my flesh until he is seated, then starts rocking in and out of me. He pushes harder this time, and his hand squeezes my neck with more force, his greed of dominance taking full control of him.
He lets go for a moment to hover over me and hisses centimeters away from my face, “She’s my whore, you are my wife. Know your place, Katherine.”
A hand slices across my cheek and I hold back a scream from the blow. “Don’t fucking make a scene again.” Another hit on the other side of my face this time. “Can you smell her pussy on me?” he seethes, and I can’t hold it back anymore.
I release the river of emotions I was trying to hold back. My heart tears in two and tears shed.
“Go fuck your dirty whore then, if I mean nothing to you.” I pull his handgun out from his pants and hold it under my chin.
“Kat!”
A hand wraps around my arm, jolting me from my daydream and causing me to drop the chair. It clatters loudly to the floor. Tank backs up, holding both hands up in the air. “I was just trying to get your attention.”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I caution him, dropping my voice low. I take another step back when he comes closer. My mind races with the emotion, and, on instinct, I pull out the small handgun that’s hidden under my shirt.
I feel exposed, raw, and wanting to hide and protect myself. I point the gun to his face, “Don’t think you can ever touch me, Tank, no man owns me.”
Surprise replaces the look of confusion he had earlier, and then sympathy, and I hate it. I hate that I opened myself up for this.
“Sorry, I won’t do that again. Can you not point a loaded gun to my face though?” He’s deadly calm along with the usual bustle of the bar.
“Kat,” Vegas calls me from the side. “He’s fucking stupid, okay? It’s just Tank.” She tries to coax me and steps closer. “Sometimes he doesn’t know any other way than to bulldoze his way through. You know Tank...”
I look between them and slowly start to lower my hands and put the gun back into the side holster under my shirt. Taking in a deep breath, I try to focus on my breathing and calm my racing heart and heaving chest.
“Can we talk for a minute, Kat?” Tank appears more like the man I know, but I can’t believe him. He has another woman, and he will turn on me.
“No need, we are fine,” I grit out because a part of me misses his nicknames for me, and I hate that. I can’t let him do what Matias did, constantly playing games with my mind and heart.
Cold, I have to be cold. Lock down these feelings.
I push around him and get back to the bar to finish my shift. Thankfully, Tami walks in from the back all smiles and perks up a bit at the sight of Tank.
“Hi.”
She then greets everyone else that had arrived with him. They all respond but me, and I duck down to grab some glasses and pretend that I didn’t hear her.
Tank gives her a hug and comments how much she’s grown up in the last few months, treating her like the kid sister he’s never had. A part of me, the really fucking fucked up in the head part, is jealous of her. How she gets a fresh start. Even though I am happy for her and happy to help her, I wish I could start over too.
Life is such a fucking whore, just like the assholes who fuck us over and play games.
Tank
I’m not sure what the hell happened with Kat, but it’s pretty obvious that I fucked up again. I always seem to do that when it comes to her.
I didn’t know the woman that I fucked in Las Vegas or the woman that I fucked months ago at the clubhouse.
Since finding out that she’s married and comes with a fuckload of problems, I’ve kept away to sort my head out. Maybe it had something to do with my own past, but I didn’t want to admit it could. I’m Tank, the laughing, funny asshole. He’s easier for me to handle than the man who loves a woman who could love someone else, then leave me again, or my parents.
When I just walked into the bar, it came crashing down on me that she couldn’t be mine like I thought. There is no chance of us and that’s why she made it clear there would not be an us.
Yep, I really fucked up when I grabbed her arm like she belonged to me, and she dropped the chair like I was about to kill her with my bare hands.
This chick is a whole other level of crazy, more so than I realized. Well, that’s a little mean, but still true.
Now, I’m sitting in Vegas’ living room, waiting for her and Blade to get home, drinking a six pack all by myself. When did this happen to me? When did this become my life?
A thud echoes against the door before giggles come through from the other side of it. I left it unlocked so the sound of the keys hitting the concrete makes me smile. I get up from the couch and swing the door open wide to my Prez making out with his woman on the front porch.
“You two kids are way past curfew. Vegas, get your ass to your room, you’re grounded.” I stand in the doorway with my hands on my hips.
Vegas tears her face away from Blade’s to scowl at me, “Why are you in my house?”
Blade doesn’t look pleased either, and he stands up to adjust his dick. “Go.”
“I can’t, I’m homeless. Dana doesn’t need me anymore either since Axl is back.”
All that is true, except that I do have a room at the clubhouse. And sitting around a bunch of assholes while wanting to punch one of them in the face sounds great, but really isn’t. Truth is, I feel fucking alone there and that doesn’t sit well with me.
“What is it, Tank?” Blade gets down to business and Vegas follows him into the living room where I have a mess of food and beer scattered. Her face turns red, and, to her credit, holds it in. That’s why I love her, she knows when to blow up and when not to.
“I fucked up with Kat, and then, that doesn’t even matter because she’s married anyway, and this whole fucking thing is a mess.”
I sit down and hand each of them a beer. Vegas takes hers, then hands one over to her Ol’ Man, sitting down next to him and wrapping herself around him as much as possible. It sucks to see, especially when Blade lays a possessive hand on her thigh.
“What is it you want, Tank?” Blade cuts out all the B.S. in between.
“I want her, but I can’t have her at all. She’s some badass, crazy, gun wielding, vengeful woman, and married at that. I can’t have her.”
“I don’t see why not,” Blade bluntly states.
“Vegas, I don’t get how he’s not getting what I’m saying here.”
She smirks and lowers her beer. “I think what he’s saying, Tank, is that you can have whatever you want. You want Kat, then fight for her.”
These two are confusing. “She’s marr-ieeed, and to the Cartel!” I throw up my hands to further demonstrate my point.
“For fuck’s sake, Tank, kill her husband and then she won’t be married anymore. You can also fucking take her, and she can still be married. I have heard of men fucking married women before.” He pauses to give me a pointed look. “I don’t think that in her head she’s actually married though, if you need permission. You two have already fucked.” He gives me another stupid look, like I’m a dumbass.
“Whether Vegas was married or not, I was taking her, and I wouldn’t have given a fuck about it because she was mine. Fucking take what you want or sit around and talk with us about your feelings some more. What’s it gonna be? Fucking or feelings? You can’t have both. Now get the fuck out.”
He sets his beer down on the coffee table and scoops Vegas up, hauling her down the hallway before slamming their bedroom door.
“Good team building meeting,
guys.” I hold up my beer in my own little toast to myself and chug the rest of it before lying down and covering my head with a pillow to block out the fucking love making coming from the other room.
Tomorrow, I promise myself, I will do better and figure this one out.
Chapter 28
Tank
The words float in my head while I’m working in the garage the next morning. Team building.
The disappointment from the last few months has been daunting. Why did we have so much piled on the club when we did, and how did we get through it all? Together. We did everything as a team and didn’t hesitate to pitch in even when it strained other relationships. We hung on together.
I’m not the smartest man, but I am the bravest and most honest I can be.
Deciding to take a break, I drop the wrenches and go in search of some quiet, along with, hopefully, some answers. Spider is in the kitchen grabbing a cup a coffee, and he hands me a pink mug with a straight face.
God only knows how it ended up here but I’m down to raise to his challenge. Filling it full, we sit down in quiet contemplation. For Spider, it’s pretty normal. For me, it’s not.
My hands fidget with first my cut, then my mug, twirling it around. Spider glares at me over his own mug while taking a loud sip. Jesus, he needs some manners, but I don’t mention it. I don’t have it in me, especially if I need his help.
A piece of me feels conflicted and lost. The Road Dog is lost on his journey. Go figure. To break the silence, I ask, “Did you check that dickhead’s phone and internet records to see if he sold any information on Kat’s family in California?”
“As far back as I could, but that’s not a guarantee. What do you want me to do?” Spider asks, setting his mug down on the table in front of him. “I’m searching the best I can to find out who they all are to her. I think we need to put that on hold and find out who this little prick was working with under the radar.”
Escaping From Forever: Tank & Kat's story, Part 1 (Battle Born MC Book 5) Page 15