by K. L. Savage
“You know I’m right,” he says, tugging the star from the table.
“We figured you two would figure it out. Glad you did, I’m a hundred bucks richer.” Reaper leans back in his chair and lays his hands on the armrest. “Catch me up. What the fuck happened?”
“Well…” Knives starts. “I went to go pick up Hellraiser here from lock up—”
“—After you left me there for two days!”
“Anyway,” he drawls. “We were on our way back when I tried to teach her a lesson about speeding…”
“Nearly killing me.”
“Did you die?” he grins.
“Might as well have,” I huff, crossing my arms.
“I pulled over, and we fought…”
“You yelled at me, and then you flung a ninja star at me.”
“Semantics,” he says.
“Semantics!” I nearly come out of the chair I’m sitting in and strangle him.
“She wasn’t listening.”
“Oh, you want to talk about listening. He hit the gas tank to the bike with the star, trying to prove a point, and guess what? A man tossed a cigarette out the window.”
“And you wouldn’t move,” Knives drones, slamming his head against the table.
“Yeah, keep doing that. Maybe it will knock some sense into your head.”
“Like how you would have been knocked on your ass if I wouldn’t have gotten you away from the explosion,” Knives counters. “You were kicking fucking rocks.”
“Pretending they were your head at the time.”
Knives growls at me, and if it were possible, I know steam would be rising from his body with how angry he is getting. He flips the star over his knuckles, something he does when he has something on his mind.
“And the tornado happened,” he grits out. “We had to hightail it out of there. I carried her because her shoes were on fire. We found the barn. Maximo came into the barn a while later, early morning, I guess. We were waiting out the storm, and that’s when her dad came in.”
Reaper is rubbing his temples and taking deep breaths. “You two are going to give me an aneurysm with your bickering. So much damn bickering.”
“Sorry,” Knives says at the same time I do. “I guess there are a few things that won’t change.”
The words cut deeper than they are supposed to. I set my jaw, reminding myself that this is why I didn’t take it further with him in the barn. “My dad came in next and shot Maximo. I didn’t hear much. Something about a woman named Natalia. My dad was looking for me.”
“Do you want to go back with him—”
“No!” Knives throws both of the stars against the wall, then slams his fist on the table. “She cannot go back with him.”
“That isn’t up to you, Knives.”
“The hell it isn’t,” he sneers at his Prez, and then realizes his mistake when Reaper stands tall.
“Watch yourself. You don’t control her. Sit your fucking ass down before I tie you up next to Maximo.”
Knives lowers himself into the chair, then grabs mine and rolls it closer to him. His hand falls on my knee, his fingers playing with the frayed hole in my jeans. “Sorry, Prez. She can’t go back.”
“He’s right, Reaper. Please, the last thing I ever want to do is go back home. My dad isn’t who he says he is, and I think Maximo knows more.”
“Why don’t you want to go home?”
“Prez—”
Reaper lifts his hand in the air, silencing Knives on the spot. “I won’t ask again.”
“Um…” the table blurs as I stare at it, and I realize I’m on the verge of tears. I don’t want to say this again. Knives’ hand finds mine, and he locks us together by intertwining our fingers.
His hold on me grounds me.
“He molested her for twelve years, Prez. He isn’t a man of God,” Knives speaks for me, and I’m relieved just as much as I am disappointed that I couldn’t find the strength to say it to a man that wants to help. When I talk to Knives, it’s easy.
Anyone else, I want my secrets to stay my own.
“Is that right?”
I can see Reaper’s fingers folding around the gavel and the bone creaks.
“I think we need to go see what Maximo wants. We will find your dad and take care of him, then figure out what the hell Moretti’s daughter has to do with this too.”
Take care of.
I’m not stupid. I know exactly what that means.
And I don’t care.
“I won’t let him take her, Prez. No way in hell.”
“I’m sorry,” I say to Reaper. I stare at the stone-cold expression masking his face. He looks so mad, and this time, I can’t stop the tears falling onto the table. “I didn’t want to bring you trouble. I don’t know how he found me. I thought I got away when I ran—” I gasp and zip my lips shut. I have never, ever been that close to saying those words.
A chair creaks when Knives leans forward. He spins my chair, and his eyes analyze me, confused, but then his brows do a little jiggle as they reach his hairline, and the blue irises become even brighter. It’s like a light bulb turned on in his head as he stared at me.
“You ran away,” Knives says in horror. “And you ran right to them, didn’t you? You wanted to be with the Atlantic City chapter. They didn’t steal you, no one sold you, no one trafficked you, you went to them willingly.”
Words catch in my throat, and shame crawls up my neck. I trace the groove in the table with my finger and try to think of an excuse, a lie, something that didn’t make the truth sound so bad, but nothing came to mind.
“Yes.”
“Why? Why would you do that? Out of all places, you could have picked to save yourself, and you picked them? It was as if you were asking to die.”
Reaper clears his throat when the awkward tension heightens.
“You…you went there to die?” Knives whispers in realization. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you ran away.”
“I couldn’t do it myself,” I admit. I rub my palms on my thighs when they start to sweat. “I wanted to die, but I knew I needed someone else to do it.”
Knives stands, picks up the chair, and with an agonizing cry, he throws it over the table. It crashes against the wall, and I jump, closing my eyes as the chair falls to the ground. “How could you do that?” he yells at me. “How could you give up on yourself? How could you?”
“Knives, that’s enough,” Reaper says.
“No. It isn’t. It’s far from being enough. How could you do that? What about me? You were just… you were going to leave me? You would have left me. Everyone always fucking leaves,” he continues to scream at the top of his lungs, which starts to gather a crowd outside. “You would have chosen to give up on me.”
“I didn’t even know you,” I say to him. “All I knew was what I felt, and after what my dad did, I heard about the Atlantic City chapter, and I knew that life had to be better, and if I died, I died,” I shrug.
“Death. Is. Not. That. Simple,” he bites out each word and pulls his ninja stars free. “Death leaves behind everyone that loves you.”
“Don’t you get it, Knives?” I asks. “No one loved me.”
He hangs his head, flipping the ninja star over his knuckles as he thinks. Bullseye comes into the room and tries to guide Knives out of the room, but Knives pushes him away.
Knives throws his star, and it whooshes by me, landing so hard against the wall, it disappears into the crack. “I would have missed out on you,” he says, patting his chest. “I never want to miss out on anything again. I’ve lost, and I’ve lost, and damn it, Mary, I would have missed you if I never met you.” Knives starts to walk out the door and slams into Bullseye’s shoulder. “Get out of my way.”
The guys part to let Knives through, and I want to go after him, but the stomps of his feet going down the stairs tell me he does not want to be bothered since Maximo is down there.
“I didn’t know,” I sob, whipping my head to Re
aper. “I didn’t know about him. I just… I felt useless after what my father did to me and… I wouldn’t do it now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you trouble. It’s always on your doorstep. It’s the last thing I wanted.” I bury my face in my hands and sob. Knives’ heartbroken face is all I see.
I would have missed you if I never met you.
The words play on repeat in my mind, dissecting what he meant and didn’t mean. I need to know more, but I decide to give him space instead.
“Listen, I’ve known Knives for a long time. He doesn’t handle emotion well. He’s had a lot happen, and he tends to put his feelings in a box and shove them away. You kind of open that box for him. He hasn’t felt in a long time; let him have his space.” Reaper pushes on the table to help him stand, and he gives my shoulder a comforting squeeze as he walks behind me to make his way out.
“Yeah, okay,” I nod, staring at the ninja star embedded in the wall. I wipe the tears and decide to sit in the room alone to gather my thoughts.
This church is so much better than the other kind. Truth is spoken here, love is here, pain is here.
The Ruthless Kings are a religion.
Or at least, they have the qualities that religion is made up of. The right qualities.
Like my father, a lot of people use religion to fuel their hate.
After everything that has happened, I don’t know what I believe in. I find it hard to believe that my path in life has always been set in stone to lead me here.
“You okay?” a soft voice comes from the doorway, and Reaper’s sister Delilah is standing there, tapping on the trim with her knuckles. She surprised everyone when she showed up a few weeks ago. They look so much alike, but it is obvious Reaper is older.
“I don’t know.”
“Been there,” she sighs, slinking into the room. She’s so small, like if a stiff breeze blows, she’ll float away. Her dirty blonde hair is in a Dutch braid hanging over her shoulder. We don’t know much about her. Her stories are hers to tell when she’s ready, which I can relate to. Everyone knows my truth now, and I don’t want to see how they will look at me now.
“Everything will be okay. It might not seem like it now, but it will be. Knives cares about you. That’s been obvious since I’ve been here, and I’m sure it’s been obvious before that too.”
“We bicker a lot. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just sex.” The words don’t sound right as they leave my mouth. They leave a bad taste, because I know it isn’t just sex. It’s more.
“Maybe you’re bickering to stop what you really want to do. Maybe you’re bickering because that’s what you two have been doing for so long, you don’t know how else to be. It takes time to learn. Or maybe it is sex. Would that be so bad?”
My body turns to fire when I think about what happened in the barn. Sex with Knives wouldn’t be bad; it would be out of this world.
And it could never be just sex, because I know I’d fall in love with him if I’m not already there.
Maybe that’s why we fight
It’s because we might love each other after all.
Except he doesn’t want love. And I don’t know how to love.
“Tell me!” I swing the star and cut a gash on Maximo’s cheek. I’m fucking pissed off. Ever since Mary told me the truth, I’ve had this burning in my veins to kill someone. I need to inflict pain. I need to figure out where her father is so I can throw a dozen stars into his body.
Maximo groans in pain, but not once has he tried to beg for his life or pull on the straps in the chair. It’s like he has given up. “I swear,” his Italian accent slurs. “I swear, I don’t know much. Preacher St. James isn’t the kind of man that drops by for a visit. I’ve never met him before tonight.”
“It sure seemed like you knew each other,” I spit, wondering why we are prolonging this mother fucker’s death.
“I say you let me slice his tongue out and feed it to Happy,” Tongue says from the corner. “I want payback for what you did. You touched Daphne!” Tongue unsheathes his knife, and Reaper blocks him from trying to come closer.
“This is bigger than you. Stand down,” Reaper orders, and Tongue blows out a breath through his nose. He’s barely hanging on to his restraint, and he starts to pace, never taking his eyes off Maximo.
Reaper sighs and stretches his arms before coming over and pressing his finger in one of the gunshot wounds on Maximo’s shoulder. “I suggest you tell us everything there is to know about this Preacher Man and why he wants Mary.”
Maximo’s entire body trembles from the pain Reaper is inflicting by digging his finger inside the wound. “It has everything to do with Natalia. I swear, I’m not trying to get involved in his plan. He wanted information. His people came to the casino. They asked questions. I said I hadn’t seen Mary, but then Natalia was gone, and he sent me a picture of her. It isn’t a prostitution ring. It’s an auction. I would do anything for my niece, and I’m not about to let her get sold to some fucking asshole! So if it means throwing Daphne or Mary under the bus for my own flesh and blood, then I will!”
I throw a ninja star at him, and it lands between his ribs. He tosses his head back, gritting his teeth through the pain. “You act like you wouldn’t do the same,” he says, spittle flying from his mouth. The veins in his neck jump as he gathers himself. “I know all of you, and there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do for one another.”
He has me there. I’d trade Natalia for Mary in a heartbeat.
“How did his men find you? How did he know to come here?” Reaper digs his index finger in the bullet wound again, and Maximo shouts, tugging on the straps at last.
I pluck a freshly made star from its packaging and roll it over my knuckles. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so scarred along my hands. It took a lot of practice to throw, catch, and play with them like I do, and I messed up.
A lot.
And now I’m a fucking pro, and it all started with my first one made of knives.
“I don’t know, Reaper. I swear I don’t know.”
“That isn’t good enough,” Prez says.
“It’s all I’ve got. Natalia is all I have. My brother, he doesn’t even know me. I can’t let his daughter disappear. You’ve met her, Reaper. This is Natalia.”
So Preacher Man auctions women off. I guess praying doesn’t pay the bills. My stomach rolls when I think of Mary and what her father did to her. Was he grooming her for future auctions? Or was she his own deviant secret that he always wanted to keep?
For the hell of it, I throw another star, and it lands right under the one lodged in his ribs. Fuck, that feels good. I roll my shoulders, then wipe the sweat off my mouth and forehead. “He’s here, though. In Vegas? For how long?”
“Until he gets Mary.” Maximo’s normally perfectly styled hair is messy, dripping with sweat. His shoulder rises as he wheezes. There is no doubt he is in pain.
I grip his jaw and squeeze as hard as I can, wishing I could break every bone in his fucking body. “There is no way he is getting her. You hear me? Sorry to disappoint you.”
“What did Daphne have to do with it?”
“He said he wanted a brunette. Daphne was perfect—” a blood-curling scream fills the room and leaves the open abyss of his mouth.
Tongue has cut three fingers from Maximo’s hand. He stares at them in disgust as he examines them and plucks the gold ring off the pinky that’s still twitching. Damn, Tongue moved quickly. I didn’t even see him bring down his knife across Maximo’s hand.
Reaper doesn’t reprimand him because, at the end of the day, you fuck us, you get fucked in return. An eye for an eye.
“I’m feeding these to Happy. No way in hell you’re getting these back. Be glad you have your tongue.” With that, Tongue scoops up the fingers and leaves the room, kicking the door open with his foot. It slams against the wall, and in his departure, he didn’t close it.
And Moretti steps inside.
“What are you doing to my brother?” More
tti asks, his accent just as thick as his brother’s. Something about him feels familiar like he is in business mode. “I suggest you stop.”
“Why do you care?” Maximo heaves, blood dripping onto the floor from where his fingers used to be. “You don’t remember me anyway.”
Moretti comes out of the dark, and the burns on his arm aren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be. “But I feel it. What did you do?”
“I betrayed them, for good reason, just believe me. Okay? Fuck! He took my fingers. That crazy bastard!” Maximo tries to get out of the restraints again, but it’s pointless. He is at our mercy until we say otherwise.
“Why?” Moretti presses. “Why would you do that to them?”
Bullseye interrupts by throwing a dart, and it lands right in the muscle of Maximo’s calf. Everyone turns to him when Maximo curses. The dart isn’t as bad as getting your fingers cut off, but I’m sure it’s uncomfortable. “Oops,” Bullseye says, shrugging his shoulders. “My fingers slipped.”
Moretti pulls out a gun and aims it at Bullseye’s head.
The only sound in the room is the drip of blood coming from Maximo’s hand.
“I’d think twice if I were you,” Tool growls, pressing his screwdriver against Moretti’s neck.
“I’d get a bullet between his eyes before you had that shoved in my throat.”
I reach around and pull out a new gun, aiming it at Moretti’s head. I cock it, and the click of the bullet sliding into place always gives me the same feeling a ninja star does.
Almost.
“Mine’s bigger,” I say with a smirk, noticing the small handgun he has. Mine will blow his head off and paint the fucking walls with his brains.
“Drop it,” I say to him, and when he doesn’t listen, I move the aim from him to Maximo. “I said drop it, Moretti. You know we aren’t afraid to make you both gator food.”
“What did you do, Maximo?” Moretti has a desperate edge to his voice. “What did you do?”
“It’s Natalia. Your daughter. She’s been taken as collateral.”
Moretti drops the gun and backtracks. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “No! Not Natalia. Why? For what? Give the man whatever he fucking wants!”