by Snow, Nicole
Hell, wishing I could be back in my husband's embrace, the one who'd just disowned me because I'd been stupid enough to come here.
Fuck everything. Fuck my life.
I saw the mafia grunt's arm twitch, ready to do the deed on Zee's command. But he held up his hand instead, and barked orders in Chinese, a little more softly than before.
No, wait. Wait.
This little girl hasn't given us good reason to make her throw a tantrum just yet. Besides, this man doesn't even flinch. He's a fighter. Respectable.
Lay off, Yu. Back the fuck up.
We kill a coward first.
I couldn't believe my ears. Was I really hearing everything he said right, or had I just lost my mind with wishful thinking?
No, he'd actually changed his mind. I saw it a second later when the killer backed up, bitter disappointment on his face, fidgeting with his outstretched garrote wire.
Zee motioned, waving his hand to the right. We'll go down the line. Choose the next man. Make this one bleed like the biker trash hogs they all are.
Mercy wouldn't be so kind two times in a row.
“Wormwood? Worm! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Daddy went berserk, screaming as the killer lifted the skinny man's head up.
Wormwood opened his mouth to beg, or else curse the man about to kill him, but he never got that far. The Black Dragon hovering over him pushed his wire deep into the biker's throat.
I turned away as the brother died. He choked, sputtered, bled all over the place. The men down the line next to him screamed or cursed or shook like bombs about to go off while the demon killed him, just inches away, and they were all powerless to do anything.
When the commotion finally died, I realized Zee had gotten exactly what he wanted.
My father faced the ground, several teardrops underneath him on the dirty floor. He'd made a terrible mistake, but he'd been so sure about double-crossing these assholes, and now they were going to kill all of us, slow and torturous.
Zee wasn't kidding around. I'd only seen daddy cry a couple times over the years when he was losing mom.
Now, he did it again, except there wasn't any relief coming. No end to this nightmare, except for death.
The Chinese mobster had ruined him. And that scared me more than anything. It would've sent me into another hysterical, crying fit, if only I wasn't so achingly numb.
Zee's fingers trembled as he lowered his hand – probably drunk on triumph, the kind of glee a serial killer has when he's claimed a new victim.
Take them all away and clean up this fucking mess, he said in Chinese, nodding at Wormwood's limp body, face down in his own blood. We're off to a good start. We can afford a few more days here.
I came all the way from fucking Shanghai to have this foreign devil waste my time, try to kill me like a fool. This isn't just about making them all pay, and making sure their stupid biker club never does this again.
I want to have some fun.
It didn't sound any less insane in Mandarin Chinese. I closed my eyes and tried not to panic, slowly counting as I heard them moving around us, probably taking the five living club members back to their cage.
When I finally looked up, Zee crouched next to my father, his arm around him like an old friend ready to pass the bottle.
“This is how it works, Mister Hard Cock President. When we ask, you answer. Simple, Gil. Easy.”
“Fuck. You.” My father's blue eyes still reflected red, murder, revenge.
“Now, now. I'm going to kill more of your men and I'm going to kill you. But every time you tell us the truth, you prevent us from putting little Miss Mathers under the wire instead. You're a sensible man,” Zee said softly. “Surely, you'd rather watch the men you call brothers die rather than your own flesh and blood, yes? I know how it is. I have a daughter too. She would've been very sad if your little plot here had gone your way and you'd kept me from ever coming home again. Lucky for us, you fucked up bad, and I'm going to make sure it's your little girl crying instead of mine.”
“Elle, darling, fuck...I'm sorry.”
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I wouldn't even listen to daddy's apology, even though he kept moaning it over and over until they dragged him away.
If I heard him say it one more time with Wormwood's blood still tarnishing the ground, I swear I'd lose my mind.
* * * *
They threw me in an old shipping container with a bottle of water and a bucket to pee in.
A few boxes were left to sit on, empty wooden crates just sturdy enough to support my weight. When I couldn't stand anymore, I finally gave in, and sat on them.
What kind of illegal cargo had they held one time? Guns? Ammo? Drugs?
The club had been involved in selling and smuggling all sorts of stuff over the years. Now, the chickens had come home to roost, and they wouldn't stop until they'd pecked out the eyeballs of everyone I ever loved.
I couldn't believe how dumb and stubborn I'd been. Jesus, how absolutely fucked in the head daddy had been to think this was a good idea, drawing the Chinese here to stab them in the back and gain – what, exactly?
I didn't even know. I regretted walking away from Asphalt in the park.
Not just because I missed his love, his touch, the way he faced down the world to keep me safe...I regretted it because Wormwood might be alive right now if I'd only told him the truth.
He wouldn't have let this fly. He'd have called up his brothers in California the second he found out, brought them up here, and they'd crash right through the walls of this dirty warehouse.
They could've wiped out the Chinese before they killed another Tacoma man wearing the Grizzlies patch. They could've –
Fuck it. What was the use?
All of this would've-could've thinking wouldn't save me.
I let my train of thought derail because it wasn't happening, however bad I hoped it might. If Asphalt didn't just decide to throw up his strong hands and walk away from all this, he'd have hit the nearest bar after everything that went down between us.
And I couldn't blame him one bit.
It started as a sham marriage, but I'd wanted to open up so badly. I should've told him everything, like I'd started to before he interrogated me, beginning with how badly I'd wanted us to be real.
But I'd lied to him instead. I'd taken on this stupid obligation to my father's club, all on a dirty secret daddy had kept from even me, and now I just might pay for it with my life.
* * * *
No clue how I slept, but I did.
A day or two passed in that dirty, dark container. Pulling down my pants and carefully pissing in the bucket was humiliating enough. So was having to thank the bastards who came to feed me stale crackers a couple times a day.
They wouldn't turn them over, or the fresh bottles of water that came with them, until I said thank you.
And I did, pretending I didn't understand the vicious comments they made in Chinese between their laughter.
Bitch thinks so much of herself, doesn't she?
Let's bring her down. Zee won't notice. There's nobody back here – bet she sucks like a starving village whore.
Hell, maybe the boss'll let us fuck her in front of daddy if the shithead keeps us waiting. Still no secrets. How many we got to kill to loosen up his lips? Maybe if we hold her down, fuck her instead, let him hear her screams...
Bitch is too polite. We'll play a game. First time she spits in our face and doesn't thank us for keeping her alive, we'll teach her a fucking lesson.
I learned to smile real big and say thank you each and every time. Thank God, there weren't very many of them.
They only came twice a day. Somehow, I walked on just enough eggshells to stop them from pushing me back inside the storage unit and closing the door behind them, leaving me alone with their dirty mafia cocks and savage threats.
I ate and drank to stay alive. Same reason I covered my ears every evening – or what I thought was evening – when I heard d
istant voices, screams, howls drowning in the unmistakable gurgle of human blood.
They were still torturing daddy and the brothers. Killing them.
I wondered who was left.
Jack-O? Line? Herc?
These men understood the risks of playing the outlaw game better than anyone. But nobody deserved to die with their hands bound while a bastard behind them slashed their throat.
So weak, so cowardly, and so fucking brutal.
I cried for them all. I prayed for my own miserable life, and daddy's too, not caring about the fact that he'd put us here.
I swore that if, by some crazy miracle, I ever got out of here alive, I'd find Asphalt. Any way I could. Next time I grabbed him, and I wouldn't let go.
I'd be the best old lady I could be to the only man who'd ever been completely straight with me, the man I knew I'd been born to meet.
God, please, just one more chance. Don't take my love, my life, before I can confess it.
Mom had always been more faithful than me. It hadn't saved her from dying once the cancer ate her up, no, but it had eased her pain.
I was about to learn that sometimes when you pray hard enough, when nothing gets lost in translation, and luck is on your side, heave and hell both answer at once.
VIII: Uncaged (Asphalt)
Forty Hours Earlier
I needed a stiff goddamned drink after that shit in the park.
I was still in shock, squeezing the bars of my bike as it rattled down the road so hard I let the force shake me numb.
Didn't understand how the fuck she'd done it, but she had.
My baby girl fucked away everything. Showed me she didn't really give a shit, that she wasn't my babe after all, that she put her old man's dangerous games ahead of common sense.
Fuck, fuck, a thousand times, FUCK.
I'd have to tell the club now. Bring all the boys in to rain down hell on Tacoma, put a stop to whatever shit they were getting into with the Chinese. Had to move fast, too, before the motherfuckers ruined everything we'd fought for over the past year.
Then I could deal with the mad bloodlust burning in my fists, the need to shatter the whole fucking world over Elle Jo ripping out my heart.
I found a little watering hole just outside town. Recognized it from other runs, and I knew the owner had a loose affiliation with the club for years.
No sooner than I burst in and the boy behind the bar saw my patch, he motioned me over to a corner stool and slammed a shot of good whiskey down in front of me. I took it down my gullet without a word, closing my eyes as that hot, honey burn exploded in my guts.
Thank fuck for booze. Jack, Jim, and Johnny had never betrayed me. Not like pussy had.
I punched my empty glass down on the counter, making the only sound I needed for more, then ripped out my phone while I waited.
“Yeah?” Roman the Enforcer answered in his booming voice.
“Gonna need support from the guys up here after all, man. She wouldn't cooperate. Shit's coming down fast with the Chinese. Motherfucking imminent.”
“What the fuck happened?”
I explained everything. Left out the part where I'd started to feel real fucking attached to Elle Jo, when I'd stupidly believed she might really be my old lady, instead of just being the woman I'd fucked before she fucked me over.
“She just took off with one of their prospects and you didn't stop them?”
I shrugged. “You really want me going martyr alone in Tacoma?”
Roman growled his consideration on the other end of the line, and a sharp noise interrupted us. I heard his kid crying in the background.
His girl Sally made some soft, cooing noises to calm the boy down.
“Sorry. Yeah, brother, guess you're right. I'll get the boys together quick. Should get our asses up there by tomorrow evening. You keep your shit straight and try to get more intel. Find out if that bitch of a princess you married is just running, or if she's trying to lure us into a trap.”
I knocked back my second shot while Roman put the phone down, his killer voice softening as he talked to his kid, his old lady. Something about that shit made me smile.
Too bad it also made me rage, reminded me of all the shit I'd lost.
No, the shit I'd never even had. Everything Elle started to make me hope for before she flung it around, broke it, smashed it to smithereens.
“It's not like that, brother. She's a crafty little girl, being who she is, yeah, but she doesn't want any bloodshed. We both agreed on that before she stepped out. There's no fucking way she'd help her daddy draw us into a meatgrinder.”
Wasn't sure why the fuck I bothered to defend her, but I did.
“Well, she's made her choice, and so has her old man. She's eaten up her goodwill,” Roman thundered. “Get moving. Find out what you can. The Prez won't wanna put a hole through her chest if we can avoid it. Doesn't sound like we're gonna be as lucky with the rest of those Tacoma fucks.”
I nodded, feeling my chest tighten. One more day in the life where the bloodshed didn't end. It never bothered me before, but for some shitty reason, it did now.
“Take care of yourself and your family, brother. A man never knows how or when he's going to come back from the trenches every time we get ourselves into this shit.” I meant it.
Roman just chuckled, hungry as ever for raw violence. Becoming a family man had barely lessened his appetite for ripping fuckers' arms outta their sockets, though he was more careful to reign in those urges since we'd all nearly died in our shootout with the cartel a few months back.
“Worry about your own ass, hothead. Shit, you're usually itching to settle the score more than me. What's gotten into you?”
I held up my empty shot glass and studied the light streaming across it. I knew damned well what – or who – had gotten underneath my skin.
That was for me. He didn't need to know it.
I'd just given him all he needed for a club briefing. The giant who'd held me down and knocked me out cold on a couple occasions when I got out of line was the last brother I'd confess anything to.
“Nothing. Just being up here by myself in their fucking den, I guess. Don't worry about it. I'll get as much as I can outta the locals for you and the Prez by the time you show up. I'll be ready.”
“We'll be there in thirty hours. Thirty hours or so to get our shit together and ride.”
The line went dead. I pushed the phone back into my pocket and ordered one more shot to clear my fucking head.
Once the poison wore off, I'd be back on the road. This time, I'd be demanding answers, and I wasn't letting anybody blind me again.
* * * *
Gil's place was first on the itinerary. She'd always run back there before when shit went raw.
Daddy would probably be there to console her, tell her what a good girl she'd been to walk out on the bald headed fuck who'd always been too bad for her.
My body tightened, ready to tear open throats like a tiger. Didn't get any better as I rolled into our old neighborhood.
Hit the breaks when I circled by my parents place, now property of some young couple who'd probably make their kids a hundred times happier than I'd been. I let myself have one long glance at my the home I'd left years ago, feeling the grim past staring out the windows, looking right at me.
The fucks who'd bought my parents' place changed the color and the landscaping, but they couldn't do anything to banish the ghosts inside.
I could still hear my folks bitching at each other, before my old man walked out. Then the shitty soap operas and dog shows my ma used to watch, smoking and drinking herself to death. The woman put away more poison than half the guys I'd ever met in the club.
She hadn't lasted more than a year or two after I'd gotten patched in and blew town. Spent her last half year on this earth in a shitty fucking hospice, all she could afford on her meager bennies.
I remembered how shell-shocked Elle Jo used to look when she walked outside, not long after her m
a died. Saw the girl cry while she was alone at the bus stop several times, while I played hooky at home and smoked in my room.
How many times had I wanted to march out there, pull her into my arms, and squeeze her 'til all her tears stopped coming, if only for a day? Shit, how many times had I stared at her ass while she disappeared inside her house? How many fucking times had I thought about her later while I fucked the nameless sluts I started pulling as a prospect, the only good thing that came outta my time with the Tacoma charter?
Too many brutal memories in this old neighborhood. I sped the rest of the way to her doorstep, letting my engine roar loud and lonely.
Maybe it was the Jack in my system, or else the hole in my chest that bitch left behind when she walked away. It hit me hard to stop and stare up at her old man's porch, remembering the first kiss that hooked me forever.
Even now, I'd kill a man to taste those lips. Preferably her old man, but fuck, anybody would do if it got me back in bed with that woman. I'd spill blood to feel her nipples go soft on my tongue, sink my teeth into her shoulder while her pussy clenched around me.
I had to shake off the lust. Remember why the fuck I was standing here, stepping off my bike and pulling out my binoculars about a block up to take a good look at the house.
The whole neighborhood was dead silent. I stood my ground and watched for a solid half hour, waiting for somebody to stagger out for some fresh air or a piss.
Her old man always had a prospect or two hanging around, but I didn't see so much as the dot of a lit cigarette shining into the night.
My girl had either avoided daddy's place entirely, or else there was nobody home.
Fuck it. I ran down the street and snuck near the back, climbing over the locked gate. There wasn't a bike in sight, the biggest sign yet the place was deserted.
If Gil's boys were here, they'd be guarding the back door, the flimsy weak spot most homes had. With one hand on my gun, I slammed my boot across the knob. Fucking thing splintered with barely any effort.
Nobody greeted me with a bullet or a blow to the head as I stepped inside. The interior was just as pitch black as the porch outside. I latched onto the adrenaline in my blood and didn't let my guard down, but I took a quick scan through the entire house.