by Naomi West
I stepped back out of his reach. “What’s the matter with me?” I pointed at my split eyebrow. “Maybe this.” I lifted my shirt to show him the purple bruises on my belly. “Or maybe these.” I showed him my wrist, red from where he’d grabbed me. “Or this! Take your pick. I’m leaving. Let me pack.”
He stood in the doorway, pouting and looking like a little kid, arms folded. He wanted me to soften, go to him and lay my head on his chest and tell him I didn’t mean it. I’d never really leave him. Of course he was in the right; he was always in the right. I was just a silly ditzy woman.
“You’re breaking my heart,” he murmured as I zipped up the suitcase.
It was so predictable, I almost started laughing again. In that moment I saw the cycle clearly. He would abuse me and then emotionally manipulate me, and on other nights it would work. I would feel bad for upsetting him. Even as I bled and ached and bruised from the abuse, I would feel guilty for making him feel bad. I would rub his forehead like he was a toddler and tell him everything was going to be okay. But not today.
I barged past him and made for the door. “I don’t care,” I said. “I’m done caring.”
“You’re done caring!” He leaped forward and grabbed the suitcase out of my hand. “What sort of thing is that to say? What sort of woman are you?”
“I’m a tired and bored woman. Yes, bored—because this has happened before, and if I stay here it will happen again. Give me the bag, please.”
“You can’t leave,” he said. “You can’t leave me.”
“I can. I am.” I reached my hand out for the bag. “Give it to me, Clint. I’m not playing.”
“And you think I am?” His face grew dark. His cheeks trembled. All the self-pity vanished. “You think I am!” He threw the suitcase at me and ran for the kitchen. I heard him rooting around in drawers. I knew what he was doing.
My survival instincts kicked in, fear driving me forward. I forgot about the bag and made for the door. I fumbled with the latch, too late … He swiped the knife across my arm, cutting a deep gash in my bicep, and then stabbed me through the back of the leg. I screamed and swung for him, my fist catching him in the jaw. I hit him over and over, but he lashed out again. The blade stabbed me through the hand.
I was barely aware of what I was doing. I was made into an animal, just like him: fight or flight. I wanted to flee, but he had me pinned with the knife. I caught a glimpse of his face, blood-spattered and crazed. I head-butted him, hard, so hard that he fell back dazed for a moment. I head-butted him twice more and then kicked him right in the balls, causing him to slump to his knees.
And then I was able to get the latch from the door and swing it open. Bleeding from three different places, I charged into the street, right across the road and to the first door I could get to. The old lady who opened it knew exactly what had happened; the whole street had heard our arguing.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Come in. Come in now!”
I collapsed on her porch.
When I woke, I was in the hospital and Mom was there, looking as tired as I felt.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“Clint has been arrested for attempted murder and assault and who knows what else, and I … Oh, you don’t need to hear this now, dear.”
“What, Mom?” I tried to sit up but the drugs had made me woozy.
“I have cancer. That’s why I couldn’t call the police. I got your hint. I’m not stupid. But … but I collapsed, right there near the phone. And by the time I came to, the phone was ringing to tell me you were in the hospital.”
“Cancer …”
I felt too numb to react. All I knew was that life was cruel. I had escaped one hell only to be plunged into another.
Chapter Thirteen
Dante
“Dad would be fuckin’ ashamed,” I snarled, taking a step toward Markus. He was shoving all his stuff into a big suitcase: his photos and his leather and everything from his office. He didn’t respond, so I took a step forward and placed my hand on the suitcase. “What, you won’t even look at me?”
“You knew this is what I wanted,” he said. “You’ve always known that.”
“When you met a woman and started a family! You ain’t met a woman as far as I know.”
“And I’m never going to, hanging around here all the time,” he said.
“You above club girls now?”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m not above anything. But I … why do I have to explain this to you, little brother?”
“Don’t call me little brother. If you leave, you’re not my brother.”
Markus sighed. “If that’s really how you feel, I don’t know what to say to you.”
“It’s not how I really feel! You know that!” He tried to close the suitcase. I pulled it toward my end of the desk. “This is our club. We’re the glue that holds it together. And now—what? You’re going to leave. Okay, sir. Fine and dandy. But where? Where are you going to go, and what are you going to do?”
“I suppose I have to figure that out,” Markus says. “I don’t have any concrete plans.”
“Go east and sit in fancy cocktail rooms patting each other on the back. Or go west and stroll down sunset with some heroin-addicted model on your arm.”
“I think the States are bigger than that.” Markus smiled. “I’m going. That’s my decision. You’re going to be the president.”
“What if I’m not ready to the president? How many times have you called me reckless, or a kid? How many times have you said I need to grow up?”
“I was joking,” Markus said. “You know that.”
“Joke or not, you were right. I ain’t ready for this shit. Just stay a couple’a months to give me time to get used to the idea.”
Markus looked at me calmly. “If I stay a couple of months I’ll be here for a couple more years, and more and more, until I’m old and gray and I don’t remember ever wanting to leave.”
“Then don’t fuckin’ leave!” I kicked the chair, snapping the leg and sending it to the floor.
Markus shakes his head. “You need to get that temper under control if you’re going to lead.”
“Tell me something,” I said. “What if I leave too and we just let the club fall into anybody’s hands? Maybe we ought to make Lion the president.”
Markus bristled and I knew I had him. “You don’t want to leave,” he pointed out.
“Maybe not, but it seems to me, brother, that you don’t give a fuck about anybody but yourself. All you give a damn about is dancing off into the sunset and living some fucking fantasy life. But don’t you understand that this life doesn’t exist? It’s never existed. If it does exist, it’s only in your goddamn head. You think you can just leave Sun Town and suddenly be this new man, with a Martha Stewart wife and a gaggle of brats and a house in the suburbs? You think one day when you’re living this make-believe life your neighbor ain’t gonna make some comment at one of your fancy parties and your old self isn’t gonna come out? You’ll crack your knuckles on his face and this new life will come tumbling down.”
“Maybe,” Markus said evenly. “You might be right. I don’t know. I have no clue what’s going to happen to me. All I know is that I’m leaving. You keep talking and talking like that’s going to change something. You keep going on and on like I haven’t already told you I’ve made up my mind. You know me better than anybody. When have you ever known me to change my mind?”
“Never,” I admitted. “But I’ve never known you to go this bat shit crazy either.”
Markus hefted the bag. “You’re talking like we’re never going to see each other again. I’ll keep in touch. I’m sure we’ll visit each other in the next couple of months.”
“And when the Wraiths come knocking, or the Mexicans, or some other gang? Then what? I’m here defending our club while you’re off baking cupcakes. It’s a joke. The men’ll lose all respect for you, and I can’t rightly blame them for it.”
“Don�
�t say that,” Markus mutters. “Don’t bring respect into it. Don’t you think I’ve paid my goddamn dues? How many men have I killed and tortured? How many widows have I made? I’ve covered myself in blood for decades for this club and now you’re going to call my respect into question?” He dropped the bag and lunged at me. He was quick, and strong. He had me pinned against the wall before I could react. All at once I was five years old, with my teenage brother seeming like a giant. “Are you really going to bring my fuckin’ respect into it?”
“Let me go,” I said. “Let me go or I swear to god there’ll be lead.” He may have had me pinned, but I had my hand on my revolver, ready to draw and shoot him in the belly.
He looked down at my hand, and then at his hands on my neck, as if he couldn’t decide which one was more difficult to believe. And then he stepped back, releasing me. “You’re right,” he said. “Dad would be ashamed of us.”
He picked up the bag and left. I clenched my jaw, head pulsing with rage. Slowly, my vision was turning red. Thinking became difficult. When I heard him leave by the main entrance, I snapped. I marched through the bar and kicked open the door, pacing into the parking lot with my revolver at my side.
“You can’t leave,” I said. “You can’t leave me.”
I pointed the gun at him as he secured the bag to his bike. He didn’t look up, didn’t say anything, just kept fiddling with the straps.
“Did you hear me?” I roared. “You’re not fucking leaving!”
“Do whatever you need to do,” Markus said. “But I’m getting on this bike.”
I cocked the hammer and aimed the barrel at his head, finger stroking the trigger. It was like some madness had overcome me. All my life, Markus had been at my side. The idea of him leaving was like learning I was going to lose my legs. How would I stand without them?
He climbed onto the bike and revved the engine, and then put one foot on the ground and watched me. The gun trembled in my hand. He just kept watching me, his face calm. It was as if he didn’t care if I pulled the trigger. That was the worst part. I could see the pain in his eyes. He’d had enough of this life, and perhaps pulling the trigger would be a blessing to him. I fired. His eyes went wide in shock.
The bullet flew clear over his head. I dropped the gun, not believing that I had just fired at my brother, even if I’d purposefully missed.
“I’ll see you, Dante,” he said. “Be safe.”
He rode away from me, leaving me standing there in the parking lot feeling like I was being punched in the gut over and over. After a long time I picked up my revolver and fired the remaining five shots into the air, and then turned back to the clubhouse.
Selena was standing at the door, smiling sadly. I opened my mouth to speak to her but then the clubhouse shrank down to the size of a tennis ball and flew through the air into my mouth. I bit down on the clubhouse, through wood and metal and glass and plastic, all of it crunching between my teeth.
When I wake, my leg burns with hellish pain and Selena murmurs beside me, a cut across her forehead from where the man hit her. I try and sit up, but the bullet sends violent needles of pain through my leg. I try and reach over and nudge Selena awake, but I need to see to my leg first. I feel groggy and pissed: pissed by the memory but more pissed by the kiss. I let my defense slip and now we’re even worse off than we were before. I wonder where my men are. Lion and the boys should be rolling in soon. That is, unless Brose ordered the guns to be taken somewhere else. I curse myself for not thinking of the possibility earlier and putting a tracker on myself.
I pull down my jeans and look at my leg. The bullet is wedged in about a half-inch deep. I bite down on my collar and pick the bullet out with my fingers, growling with the pain. Once it’s on the floor, I tear the sleeves from my shirt and bandage it up as best that I can. With that done, I rest my head against the wall, struggling to keeps my eyes open. The pain soon passes and I struggle to my feet, gritting my teeth but not letting myself fall down. I limp to Selena and sit down next to her, maneuvering her so that she’s in a more comfortable position. At least as comfortable as you can get, lying on the floor of a place like this.
We’re in the same room I found her in, but now the door’s locked. I stroke the hair from Selena’s forehead and then stand up again and limp to the door. I press my ear against it. I want to hear the cavalry ride in: Lion and his men, their bikes howling into the night. What I hear instead is the unmistakable tap-tap-tap sound of Brose’s cane.
“My men tell me you’re moving around in there,” he says, so close that I could punch through the door and throttle him. But I hear other men out there, too, around five of them. The click of metal: they have their weapons out. “Hello, Dante? Are you in there?”
“I’m here,” I say quietly, leg burning, chest burning, head burning. Everything’s burning and all I want to do is burn with it. Burn everyone and get Selena out and take her far away where nothing can hurt her. She’s suffered enough because of me.
“You killed my men,” Brose says. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
“What are you going to do with us?”
“I’ve been giving some thought to what you said in the desert: a man of my word … It has some truth to it, I’ll admit. I parlayed with a business associate of mine and he gave me similar advice. Because, despite your general stupidity, you are not so stupid when it comes to this business. I am not so arrogant that I can’t admit that. So at the moment I am leaning toward killing you and letting the girl go.”
“Yes!” I exclaim without pause. “Do it. I don’t give a damn. Just let her go.”
I mean it. I’ll take the bullet for this woman. I can’t stand the idea of Selena losing her life because of me. If these crazy couple of days have revealed anything about me, it’s that there’s more emotion in me than I ever guessed at. I thought it all died with Markus, but clearly that’s not true. I’ve been floundering, searching for something worth fighting for. I’ve found her now; there’s no doubting that anymore.
“So eager to die,” Brose says, wonder in his voice. “I’ve had my fair share of women. Slutty women and punky women and fat women and skinny women. But I have never, in all my years, become so entrapped so swiftly. Is her pussy really that sweet, Dante?”
“Just get this done,” I growl. “Let her go. I have to see her leave. And then you can do anything you want with me. That was the deal, remember. That was the goddamn deal!”
“Yes, yes, I know what the deal was!” he hisses. “I need time to think and discuss. I very much would like to kill you both, but I see that from a business standpoint it doesn’t make much sense. Isn’t it funny, Dante, that a man can be in charge and yet not really in charge? Do you think any man is in charge of his own destiny, really?”
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to massage the fire from my leg. I’m in no mood for word-bandying.
“You really are a Neanderthal,” Brose says in a musing tone. “Sit down, relax. Talk to your woman. I’ll be back to kill you soon, don’t worry. For a man who’s made such a fuss over his family dying, you are very eager to die.”
With that he leaves me, his cane clicking down the hallway until it’s quieter than a whisper. I limp to Selena and sit down, and then take her by the shoulders and shake her gently. She groans and sits up, eyes half closed. “Where am I?” she mutters. “Are we back from the bar? Are we doing it, Dante? Are you going to make me pregnant?” She giggles girlishly. “I know it’s crazy but …” She trails off, looking around the room. “Oh.” Her shoulders slump. “We didn’t escape, did we?”
“No,” I say. “But you will. I promise you.”
I promise, but I’m not sure if I believe it. All in all, I’ve been a terrible rescuer.
Selena leans over my leg. “Dante! Oh, God, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her. I open my arms. “I’d be finer if you’d let me hold you.”
She leans into me without any hesitation. “I keep coming back to th
at moment when I asked you to tell me something about yourself,” I say. “Would it be too much trouble to make that same request now? Or are you still closed to me?”
“I feel close to you,” she says, kissing my chin. “I feel really close to you. It’s like magic. I don’t understand. Close, Dante. I’ll never be closed again.”
Hearing that, I think I could die a happy man.
Chapter Fourteen
Selena
I don’t mean to talk for as long as I do. Maybe it’s the idea that soon all of this might be over: everything. My life, my budding love, my plans for the future. Far From the Madding Crowd will remain unfinished on my bedside table until the landlord comes by to clear away my things. Stuck in this tiny cell with Dante’s arms around me, I find I can’t stop talking.