Rock Chick Reckoning

by Kristen Ashley

  The hand I had at Mace’s abs slid around so I was holding him close with both arms.

  Preston leaned forward too and hit back, “You never should have –”

  “Given a shit about Tiny?” Mace returned. “Is that what I shouldn’t have done? Because, Dad, I was willin’ to go down for her and I almost did. You didn’t do shit and you were the reason she endured that fuckin’ nightmare before they blew her head off and you didn’t do shit. Except, of course, after they ended her life, you gave in and started trading arms with them again so the next time it wouldn’t be you direct they played with.”

  Things had degenerated into a place I did not want Mace to go therefore I decided to intervene and I did this by declaring, “I think we’re at a stalemate, boys, why don’t you retreat to your corners –?”

  “Mouth shut,” Preston ground out, eyes cutting to me. “This is none of your concern.”

  That was when, no matter how hard I was holding onto him, I lost hold on Mace as he moved, swiftly and purposefully, tearing out of my arms and closing the distance between him and his father. He was three inches taller and several decades younger but he got toe-to-toe and bent his head to get nose-to-nose with him before he commenced in delivering the death blow.

  “I warned you know I’m tellin’ you, do not ever fuckin’ speak to my woman again, I don’t give a shit what comes out of your mouth, never again. I don’t even like you lookin’ at her, you never speak to her or my retribution will be physical. Hear me and believe me, I am not joking.”

  Preston drew in a swift breath because even an arrogant, thinks his shit doesn’t stink dick like Preston could see that Mace was definitely not joking but Mace was far from done.

  “You are dead to me. You treated me like shit, Mom like shit, Chloe like shit and Caitlin like shit and you got her dead. You know it. I’ve been itchin’ to let loose the shit I got on you, itchin’ to do it for… fuckin’… years. I got a new family now and you think you can fuck with them, piss in your goddamned corner, prove you’re the man with the biggest dick by playin’ with them, think fuckin’ again. I will bring you down and I’ll smile doin’ it. I know you found out where your guns were goin’, you found out your partner was fuckin’ you, you put a stop to it and the men who were gettin’ those guns didn’t like it. They pushed, you pushed back but you didn’t do it smart. Thought your fuckin’ money made you untouchable but you… were… wrong. You had no clue what you were dealin’ with and weren’t smart enough to learn. They pushed harder, took Caitlin and you let her swing in the wind for your fuck up. There are so many reasons you’re a piece of shit, it’d take me a decade to count them down. But from this point on, your shit does not encroach in my life. Not again. You took my sister and every fuckin’ day, I think of her and my mind bleeds for your fuck up. That’s all the shit you get to shove at me but that’s fuckin’ more than enough.”

  Preston had straightened his spine and shoulders to face down his son and when Mace was done talking, he shot back, “You have no evidence to support those accusations, Kai.”

  “You wanna try me?” Mace returned.

  “That evidence doesn’t exist,” Preston replied.

  “The only proof I’ll give you that it does is to feed it to the media, Dad. There is no show and tell with this shit. You do not back down and slink away, I’ll bring you down. You try to fuck with Eddie, Shirleen, Lee, any of them, I fuckin’ promise you, you’ll have an indeterminate stay at some government facility no one even fuckin’ knows exists, courtesy of me and trust me, post-9/11, the people who’re gettin’ your guns, the Feds don’t care how much money you got. That’s a good deal, Dad, ‘cause just thinkin’ about you or thinkin’ about Tiny and what you did to her makes me lose hold on the control that keeps me from exposing you for the total, stinking piece of shit you are and always have been. And I think about Tiny all the time, every day, every hour, every minute she’s in my head, beautiful and whole then thin, broken and terrified and finally very fuckin’ dead.”

  “You have no evidence,” Preston persisted, his face beginning to get red.

  “You believe that, call my bluff,” Mace invited.

  “Your friends are on the line, Kai,” Preston reminded him.

  “You think you got us by the balls, call… my… bluff,” Mace bit off.

  Preston glared at him.

  Mace glared back.

  Personally, if you asked me, I thought Mace’s glare was a lot better.

  This went on a long time too but I didn’t try to intervene and even Juno sensed she had to let this play out so, along with me, she remained silent.

  Finally and suddenly, with some surprise, I watched Preston Mason’s face twist and he whispered so low it was nearly inaudible, “I had no idea Caitlin –”

  But Mace didn’t let him finish.

  “I know you didn’t which makes your monumental fuck up a colossal fuck up because even after you fucked up, you fucked up again with those goddamned commandos then again when you didn’t come clean to the FBI and work with them to find a way to get her out of that fuckin’ mess then again when you let me walk in there and watch my sister die.”

  “Kai, I had no –” Preston started again.

  “You think I give a fuck?” Mace whispered and the tortured way those words came out made my stomach clench and even Preston flinched. “Honest to God, you think I give a fuck about anything that has anything to do with you? They tortured her, Dad, they cut off her fuckin’ hand then they took her fuckin’ life and all that is on you. This is not a fuck up like you grounded her for too long because she missed curfew and she’s pissed like any teenager would be pissed because their Dad is an asshole, for fuck’s sake.” Mace spit the last three words out and kept going. “You fucked up and her life ended. Even after it was done, I cleaned up your goddamned mess and kept my mouth shut. Way I see it, you owe me, you owe me huge, you owe me a fuckin’ sister and there’s no way to repay that so I’m tellin’ you now, you repay by getting the fuck out of my life and staying out.”

  Preston held his son’s eyes.

  Then, because he was a dick, he kept trying.

  “Every day, I think of her and –”

  Mace took a step back, most likely to retain a shred of control even as he lost it and roared, “Fuck! I do not give a fuck!”

  And that was when Juno woofed but her woof was not a woof of solidarity with Mace; it was a different kind of woof. It was the kind of woof that made Mace’s head whip toward her so my head whipped toward her and I saw she was on all four paws on the bed, staring at the wall.

  Then she woofed again as she jumped off the bed. Then she didn’t woof but barked, straight out, sharp, agitated, a warning. She immediately started dancing along the wall, sniffing, restless then more barking.

  “Goddamn it,” Mace clipped, reaching into the jacket of his tux to pull out his phone but it started ringing before he got to it as did the phone in my house. “Goddamn it!” Mace barked then shouted. “Get down!” When both Preston and I hesitated a millisecond, he roared, “Down!”

  On his word, the windows exploded and I hit the deck and I hit the deck with Mace’s body on top of me.

  “Juno! Come!” Mace shouted, I tried to look but he had an arm over my head, his body covering me as gunfire sounded from what seemed like all around, piercing my eardrums. “Talk,” I heard Mace growl, probably into his phone then, “No shit? You hear that. We’re under heavy fire. Units. Every available man. Now.”

  Then I heard the flip of a phone closing just as the gunfire stopped and I felt the fur of Juno pressing to my arm.

  Thank God, she was close.

  I thought that then thought no more. Mace was up and he was hauling me up with him.

  “Move,” he ordered when he had me on my feet but he didn’t need to, he had my hand and he was dragging me to the door. “Come!” he commanded Juno but he didn’t need to do that either because she was right at our sides, crowding us.

  That
was when I heard several very scary noises, noises the like I only ever heard in movies. I stupidly stopped, turned my head and saw them.

  I saw them.

  Mace didn’t stop, he didn’t even hesitate. I knew he heard it too and I knew he knew what they were without looking at them. I knew this because he went faster, as in a lot faster, as in running faster and my feet had to move again or he would literally be dragging me.

  But I saw them.

  I saw them

  Grenades.

  Not one.

  Three.

  Three!

  I realized it then that they blew out my windows at an impossible angle if they were firing from the ground or they did it from higher ground but at a distance only so they could launch the grenades in and blow us to bits.

  Shit.

  Shit!

  We were out the door on a run and sprinting down the stairs, Juno at our sides, Preston following close when we hit the first landing, multiple explosions rocked my apartment and tossed us as they blew out the wall above our heads. We flew to the side, Mace slammed into the wall and I slammed into him while plaster, wood splinters and probably bits and pieces of my possessions shot over our heads and rained down on us.

  It took Mace a nanosecond to recover before he was dragging me down the next flight of stairs, this time tucked close to him, his arms crossed and covering my head.

  We hit the second floor landing when he stopped us and shoved his phone in my hand just as he reached into his jacket at his waist and around his back where I knew he had a holster. I heard the click of him releasing the strap and he came out with a gun.

  “Call back last call in my call history. That’s the control room. They gotta have a status update, get it,” he ordered then his eyes slid to his father and he went on talking as I flipped open his phone and shakily found his recents screen. “Stay here with Stella. Do not move unless I tell you to.”

  I looked up to see Preston getting close to me then I looked to Mace to see him moving cautiously toward the mouth of the flight of stairs that led to the first floor.

  He didn’t move cautiously back. He jerked back as gunshots went up the stairs, bullets embedding in the ceiling. I swallowed a scream and, to stop my instinct to throw myself at my man, I pressed into the wall. Preston pressed into me. Juno pressed into me. Mace ran to a door, tried the handle, found it locked then he took a step back and slammed forward using his shoulder and the door blew open.

  His eyes sliced to me. “Follow me, Kitten, at my back. Close. Now.”

  I moved, got close to his back feeling Juno’s fur brush my bare legs as I did as well as feeling Preston keeping close.

  Mace moved into the second floor hall and we all moved into the second floor hall. Mace shifted and we all shifted. Mace pushed the broken door to, pulled a narrow table from the side wall until it was blocking the door and he shifted again, moving down the hall, quickly but stealthily, head up and sweeping side to side.

  We all moved with him.

  I kept close to his back, my fingers shoving up under his jacket to curl into the waistband of his trousers and I looked back at the phone. I hit go on the last call and put it to my ear.

  It didn’t even ring before it was answered; there was no greeting, just a barked, “Status.”

  “Um… hi,” I said. “This is Stella.”

  “Right, Stella, status,” the man’s voice replied, not a bark this time but still sharp, urgent and I thought it was Monty but I wasn’t sure and I didn’t give it headspace at the time because Mace moved us toward a wall, stopped and was doing hand motions to his father. I felt Preston’s fingers curl around my arm as I felt Mace’s fingers curl around my wrist to detach my hand on his slacks. Then he stared into my eyes a beat before he turned and moved back where we came.

  Oh man.

  I got down to business and said into the phone, “Okay, multiple grenades just blew up my apartment. We’re cut off at the backstairs. We’re in the hall on the second floor and Mace is going back toward the backstairs.”

  “Stop him.”

  Shitsofuckit!

  “Mace, stop,” I called, quiet and quick. “Monty says stop.”

  Mace stopped, twisted and looked at me.

  “More,” I said into the phone.

  Monty didn’t hesitate. “You’re surrounded. All exits cut off. They’ve disabled the outside cameras, we tried to turn on the inside cameras but they’re off-line. Before they got to the cameras, we saw at least six of them approach and breach the house. They’re inside. First unit to the scene, ETA, five minutes. Mace needs to hole you in until backup arrives. Out.”

  Without delay I relayed this information to Mace. “Surrounded. No exit. Outside cameras disabled. Inside off-line. At least six men inside. Backup five minutes. Monty says we need to hole up.”

  Mace started moving back just as more bullets tore through the door we just went through.

  When this happened, I didn’t think. I’d been shot at a lot recently and been caught unaware and therefore didn’t respond appropriately.

  Not this time.

  This time I dashed to the next door off the hall, opened it and raced in. Juno came with me. So did Preston. Mace followed, slammed the door, locked it and then turned to his father.

  “Move this shit,” he ordered, circling his hand around in the air. Preston nodded and immediately father and son started moving jumbles of furniture in front of the door.

  I slunk to the back of the room with Juno, crouched low, knees to chest and went back to Monty.

  “We’re in, I think, the third room down to the left coming down the hall from the back. They’re on our floor.”

  “Hang tight,” Monty advised.

  Right. Hang tight. Great. Good advice.

  Effing hell.

  “Roger that, hanging tight,” I whispered, deciding against doing this with sarcasm as Mace shoved a huge, old rickety wardrobe in front of a dresser his father shoved in front of the door and I stared at the furniture noting that unfortunately none of it was made of steel.

  Effing, effing, hell, hell, hell.

  “Stella, a squad is three minutes out. Another unit two minutes behind them. Luke one minute behind them. You’re good,” Monty assured.

  Gunfire exploded, loud and terrifying, bullets thudding in and through the furniture in front of the door. I went down to a hip and thigh, my arm with the hand not holding the phone shot out and curled around my dog and I pulled us both down so far my forehead was resting on the dusty floor.

  The gunfire kept sounding, hideous, excruciatingly loud. I felt my lungs seize, my breath evaporating, not on a joyride, beaming to a different galaxy in order to get the ef out of Dodge even as I felt Mace crouch low beside me.

  We were good.

  Right.

  Not even close.

  More gunfire but this was Mace returning fire, probably warning shots to let them know he was armed. He only shot twice but the gunfire outside ceased.

  I sucked in breath.

  “Two and a half minutes, Stella,” Monty said in my ear.

  “I’m movin’,” Mace whispered to me, my heart froze, my neck twisted, my eyes shifted his hard, determined face and my breath disintegrated again.

  Then it came back in a fiery rush and I whispered frantically, “No. They’re two and a half minutes out.”

  “Babe, these guys are not stupid but they are desperate. They’ll aim low or kick in. They got no time, they know it and they got six men. We got one with one gun. We don’t have two and a half minutes.”

  My hand went from Juno, shot out and I grasped the material of the arm of his tux. “No,” I pleaded.

  “Stay low,” he returned.

  “No,” I whispered, not to his order but to his going.

  He didn’t listen. He jerked his arm free and his eyes shifted to his father.

  “She’s in your care,” he whispered, the words held weight, they had meaning no one could miss then he moved, crouch
ed low, he went to the side wall then around the furniture and I lost sight of him.

  “Oh my God, Monty,” I whispered into the phone. “Mace is on the move.”

  “Fuckin’ fuck, fuck, fuck. Maverick. Fuck!” Monty clipped in my ear.

  I didn’t feel particularly soothed by this reaction and because of that I felt tears well in my eyes then I felt Preston close and heard Juno whine. I looked to my dog to see her low on her belly but her eyes were aimed at where Mace disappeared.

  My dog loved my man.

  I loved my man.

  And he was going to keep me safe.

  Or die doing it.

  Oh God.

  “Monty,” I breathed, my breath now coming fast, in pants, more adrenalin tearing through me, so much, I was tingling from head-to-toe, so much, I could feel it saturating my system. I was drowning in it.

  “He’s good, Stella, he knows what he’s doin’ and he’s been in worse spots than this,” Monty told me.

  This was not exactly welcome information. It was actually scary information but nowhere near scarier than my current scary situation so I let it slide.

  Then I thought no more when the sound of more gunfire filled the air but through this I heard furniture move (no joke!) and then a door open (oh God!) then a grunt, a shout, more gunfire, more gunfire, still more gunfire, another grunt, a thud, a man’s scream, more gunfire, another thud, another man’s shout, the sickening sound of bone breaking, a man’s strangled cry, more gunfire…

  Then silence.

  I held my breath, eyes on my dog, Juno’s eyes not having moved from the spot where she last saw Mace.

  “Stella?” Monty called in the phone.

  My head turned and my gaze shifted, catching Preston’s. He was on his knees, bent forward, torso twisted my way, his body mostly shielding mine from the door. His eyes were on me and I saw it, clear as day, fear was written all over his face and not the kind of fear a man feels when his life was in imminent danger. The kind of fear a man feels when his mind is consumed with the possibility that another one of his children had been struck low.

  Even considering the terror I felt which took most of my attention, it was still difficult to witness.