GRIFFIN

by Paula Cox

  Chapter 34

  The house was quieter than Natasha expected as she quickly entered through the back door and into the kitchen area. She had shot someone standing guard outside, but other than that it had been insanely easy to get where she needed to be. Her heart was racing. Everything seemed too in focus. She was too wired, and the only thought she had on her mind was revenge.

  What had been the circumstances of her father’s death, she wondered? What had exactly happened to him? No one had ever gotten around to tell her, and she thought about it more than she liked to admit. She hoped he hadn’t known it was coming. She hoped he had been brave, and more than that, she hoped that the death she was about to bestow upon Damon Stokes was the complete opposite of the one her father had faced. If that couldn’t be possible, she prayed that it would be worse.

  She had opted to dual wield for this, not wanting to go a moment without feeling a weapon in her hands, and knowing that in this circumstance two were better than one. The kitchen area she stood in was filthy, but then again what did she expect from a biker club? Now that she was in the house, the entire firefight felt so far away. She heard the popping of guns going off, but from the back it felt distant, as though someone far away was setting off fireworks. She guessed they sort of were.

  She heard frantic running through the house, and she pressed herself against the wall. A man she didn’t know came in holding a sawed-off shotgun and looked at the open back door. Panic flashed across his face, and he was about to turn around to let someone know what happened when Natasha shot him in the face. There really wasn’t time to think about doing anything other than that. The back of his head exploded in a terrifying display and Natasha watched in horror as his head pretty much disappeared.

  He would have ratted her out, she knew that, and she turned around to move deeper into the clubhouse in order to find Damon.

  She kept running the situation over and over in her head. What she was going to do? How she was going to do it? Was she going to make him beg for mercy? Was she going to listen to him moan and cry and try to convince her that she wasn’t that type of woman? No. She was most likely just going to walk in, point the gun, and shoot. Everything else wasn’t necessary.

  The pool table that sat in the front section of the house was far more intact than she thought it would be given the people shooting into the house from the outside, and she took a moment to admire it before moving on. No one in the room noticed her, and if they did, she put on her best scared face and pretended that she was just some biker’s girlfriend who got caught in the crossfire. It worked shockingly better than she expected, and by the time she got to the stairs, she was starting to feel pretty confidence in this.

  There was that nagging in the back of her head: would she be able to kill a man knowing what his name was? The faceless people she had got at from the outside of the clubhouse were one thing, even shooting a man in self-defense was another, but what about a man who looked her in the eye, who knew her name, whose name she knew? She would figure that out when she got there, but she was pretty sure that when it came to the man who had ordered the death of her father, she was willing to do pretty much anything.

  Damon was on the second floor, she knew that, and she didn’t bother being quiet as she climbed the stairs due to the sheer noise of all the firing guns. Her heart started beating wildly in her chest, and she realized that it wasn’t because of the fear. She was excited. It was finally going to end; she was finally going to be in a good place without having to worry about this asshole ruining her life.

  Those were the thoughts she was thinking as she entered the small bedroom that she could have sworn he was in. Soon, those thoughts completely disappeared from her head as something burning hot ripped through her arm, causing her to scream and drop the gun she was holding in that hand. It skittered across the floor until it was out of sight, and Natasha spun around to see Damon standing behind her, gun pointed and still smoking. She had been shot.

  She had been shot.

  “Of course you’re here,” Damon said, his voice was something strange and hard to follow, almost thick as though he had been crying. He clearly wasn’t sleeping very well, with dark circles ringing his eyes and making him look sick. She liked to think that it was guilt over everything that led him to his weakened state, but she didn’t think he was human enough to really be affected. Hot blood dripped down her arm, and she knew she couldn’t look at it, lest it make her feel dizzy or catch her off guard. There was no way she was going to give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing her react to the pain.

  “Where else would I be?”

  Damon chucked and ran his hands through his hair. It looked as though it were thinning, and Natasha took a perverse pleasure in that thought, of seeing any sort of weakness.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Dead? Dead. Ideally. Or at least far away. Mostly dead though.”

  “Well, obviously it’s going to take more than one of your loser guys to take me out!” she cried, wishing that she sounded so much braver than she actually felt. Damon looked down at her again, looking as though she were a particularly annoying child. His gun was still pointed at her, although she was already looking for ways to keep that from happening.

  “What is your problem?” he asked paradoxically.

  She looked at him in disbelief. “You killed my father.”

  “Oh right, yeah, I did,” he laughed incredibly hard at that. “I mean, I didn’t forget. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

  “You’re such an asshole,” she marveled. “You’re such a complete…weak…weak asshole!”

  Damon rolled his eyes. “I’m the weak one? Do you know what your father said when the man I hired held a gun to his head?”

  Natasha didn’t say anything. There was nothing she wanted more than to not hear about this. Damon clearly noticed and took a perverse excitement in that fact, knowing that this was hurting her, knowing that he had that power.

  “He cried. He begged not to die, but he died anyway. He died knowing that he was a coward.”

  “Shut up,” Natasha said. She knew that it probably wasn’t true, that whomever had been sent to kill her father probably made up the story to stroke Damon’ ego a little bit. Her arm hurt, but not nearly as much as the idea of her father dying scared and by himself did.

  “What? It’s true. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I do like to keep eyes everywhere.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I still have his bike, you know. It is, of course, a little beat up, has a few bullet holes, but I think it will work quite nicely as my main bike once everything is said and done. As the president, I do deserve a presidential bike, don’t you think?”

  Natasha didn’t say anything, which only gave Damon permission to continue.

  “Oh, what would you know, right? He kept you in a little tower, didn’t he?”

  “I know how to ride,” she replied, taking the bait in spite of herself. He gave a condescending smile.

  “Of course you do. I’m sure you ride with all the boys very well. They just think you’re a little pet, don’t they?”

  Natasha raised the gun and fired. The bullet missed him and lodged itself into the doorframe, which only caused Damon to laugh and pull back the hammer on the safety.

  “That was cute,” he said. “But you really can’t do that again, or I will shoot you. You’re not a fan of getting shot, now are you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good. Now, I need to figure out whether or not to kill you or wait until your precious little boyfriend shows up and then kill him before I kill you.”

  At the thought of Griffin, her heart flared in nervousness. He clearly had noticed she was gone, but she prayed that he wouldn’t come charging in after her. She had made one stupid mistake and now she didn’t want them both to die over it. So long as she was alone with him, she figured she had a chance. She didn’t want to spend too much time worrying about Griffin. It would just get them
both killed.

  “Maybe he can’t make it,” she replied. Damon once again rolled his eyes.

  “Griffin? Denying himself a chance to run in and rescue his lady fair? Oh please. I thought shooting him was enough, but it wasn’t. Not even trapping him in a house and burning it was enough, but maybe the third time’s the charm, eh?”

  He was clearly relishing this, and Natasha couldn’t take it anymore. With an angry cry, she lunged at him, grabbing him immediately by a handful of his stupid thinning hair. Damon was taken by surprise, his eye widening, and he tipped backwards and landed hard on the floor. This was a pretty damn good place for Natasha to be, and she sat on his chest to get a few shots in. It felt amazing, she couldn’t lie, and she would have been happy to do this over and over if something hard and metallic didn’t strike her in the face, causing her left eye to explode in stars. Her head swam, and for a minute, she didn’t know where she was, until it was her on the floor.

  Damon punched her a few more times for good measure, directly in the face, and the sheer violence of the moment startled Natasha a little more than she would have liked. She moved her head to the side and spit the blood out of her mouth and onto the floor. That didn’t help much though, since her mouth filled with blood once more.

  “Are you done now?” Damon asked her.

  She spit in his face, the blood splashed into his eyes. With a cry of rage, he pistol-whipped her again, and Natasha knew that she wasn’t really going to be able to fight much longer. All she needed was her gun. All she needed was a single moment to take a shot, but instead, Damon’ hands wrapped around her throat and began to tighten.

  “I’ve never strangled a woman to death before,” he said thoughtfully. “Let’s see how I like it.”

  Natasha said nothing, and only watched as stars began to pop behind her eyes. Was this it? Was this going to be the end for her, strangled in a strange room in a clubhouse that once belonged to her father while a firefight raged outside? The popping of the bullets sounded distant to her now. In fact, all of it did, and for a moment, she felt peace…

  That is, until a sledgehammer slammed against Damon’ head, and he immediately went slack, his eyes fogging over, and he fell to the side. Natasha scrambled away in spite of the fact that she barely felt as though she could control her own limbs, but it didn’t matter, she wanted the freedom.

  Standing in front of her, blessedly, was Griffin, his eyes blazing with anger, the sledgehammer in his hands.

  It took Natasha a long time before she could speak again, but the first question that came to her lips was the most obvious one at the moment.

  “Where did you get that?” Natasha asked him, indicating the sledgehammer.

  “Supply closet,” Griffin replied. “I know this place like the back of my hand.”

  Griffin helped her to her feet and pulled her close. She was shaking and thought that she could probably cry, but instead of all that, she moved a little away from Griffin, her eyes scanning the room. Finally, after a moment of searching, she found it, one of her guns.

  “Were you shot?” he asked, his eyes resting on her bleeding arm. She shrugged that off, holding the gun close to her as though someone was going to try to take it away. She walked over to Damon, who was fighting to remain conscious.

  “Natasha,” Griffin said, keeping his voice gentle. “Natasha, you don’t need to…”

  Aiming the gun, she pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into Damon’ skull and ending the twitching. Griffin once again stared at her as though he had never seen something like that before, and finally Natasha allowed herself to fall into his arms, bury her face into his chest, and finally start to cry.

  Chapter 35

  “Well, congratulations, Mr. President.”

  Sunlight streamed in through the windows of the new hotel that Natasha had rented out, bright and cheerful and completely at odds with the events that had occurred in the last few weeks. The casualties were heavy, but not as heavy as had been anticipated. Unfortunately, both Brendan and Flores had died while they fought, and Natasha had cried for a very long time when she learned about Flores. She had been there; she had seen it… maybe she could have prevented it. In public, they buried their dead, and she looked as strong and regal as a queen. Now, only Griffin saw her cry in public.

  It had been a week since everything had happened, and finally they had found time to simply be together, and boy, what a time that was. Natasha felt as though they hadn’t stopped having sex since the day before—although she knew that was ridiculous.

  They had only taken a break from each other to attend a meeting with all of the charters. They were voting in new leaders to replace old. Both Griffin and Natasha had been pleasantly surprised to see Julian get voted as the president of the Marfa charter and Elias as the Vallejo charter, but the biggest surprise of all came when they voted for the president of the Lost Disciples.

  “Griffin,” Julian had said, his voice strong and sure of himself. He even raised his hand to complete the nomination. Natasha’s heart soared as mumbles moved through the crowed and heads nodded. She caught Zachariah’ eye, and he raised an eyebrow as if to say, “I told you so.” Natasha had known that Griffin had been willing to assume leadership, but now that it was actually happening, it seemed almost unreal.

  “Alright, show of hands for Griffin as president of the Lost Disciples?” someone asked. Julian’s hand went up again, then Zachariah’, then Elias’, and then one by one the others raised their hands. Griffin watched with a completely astonished look on his face, as hands continued to raise. It wasn’t until every man’s hand was raised in the room that it really began to hit him. He turned to look at Natasha.

  Natasha raised her hand.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Griffin murmured, as he kissed down her shoulder, careful not to disturb the freshly wrapped wound on her upper arm. Zachariah had taken good care of her, and even remarked that he was impressed by her bravery. It barely hurt anymore, and she was honestly still impressed by the scar.

  ***

  “Believe it, because it happened!” With a burst of strength, she rolled him onto his back and straddled him now that they were once again alone. Already she could feel him getting hard beneath her, and she loved the power that gave her. They had practically trashed her hotel room the first night they had sex after the firefight. They both still had bruises, and it was the most satisfying sex she had ever had.

  Now she teased the tip of his penis with the wet lips of her vulva, enjoying the look of pained pleasure on his face as she did so. With a quick movement, he grabbed her hips and moved her down, sliding himself deep inside of her. She moaned with pleasure; it just felt too good to ignore. They moved together in a perfect rhythm, as though they had been made for each other, as his hands moved up to gently stroke her nipples.

  There was something to this, she decided, the idea of sex after battle. She loved it; he loved it; and for the rest of their lives, they would have this.

  She leaned down and pressed her lips against his, feeling him move inside of her, hearing the sounds of his pleasure muffled against her lips. She rode him gently for a while, before going faster and faster. Suddenly, his fingers were on her clit, stroking her in the same rhythm, and she was so close. She was almost there, and then she was crying out in terrific ecstasy. Griffin couldn’t take it anymore, and he gripped her hips, driving into her harder and harder until he hit that terrific crescendo as well.

  Natasha slumped against him, and he wrapped his arm around her. They lay like this for a while until Griffin broke the silence.

  “I love you,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. He said it in an almost flinching way, as though terrified of her reaction, as though terrified that she was going to laugh. Natasha propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. There was a laughter in her eyes.

  “I love you too, you big softie.”

  The two of them laughed, and he pulled her down again, kissing until the both of them g
asped for breath.

  Epilogue: One Year Later

  The barbeque sizzled, as Zachariah threw another fresh hamburger on it, glaring up at all the streamers and colorful balloons that Natasha had insisted needed to be put up. If this was going to be a party, she was going to make it look like a party, and she didn’t care how embarrassing it was. Desiree, Natasha’s most recent best friend, had also insisted on helping, confiding to Natasha one night over cocktails that she was secretly glad that Natasha was there, since the boy’s club was so incredibly boyish. Natasha had actually been surprised to become so close to Desiree, especially after she found out the backstory between her and Griffin. Part of her had felt bad for a time, not wanting to strut her relationship with Griffin around, but the moment she saw Julian and Desiree together, all of those thoughts had flown out the window, and now they were as close as close could be.

  It was an important day, she knew, not only because it marked a year since Griffin had ascended to the presidency, but also because it was technically her college graduation. After deferring for a semester, she had decided to go back and finish everything off. Some had wondered why, but Natasha herself didn’t see anything strange in it, and after a while, people knew not to question Natasha. She got the job done, still wore the vest she had taken from the man who had tried to kill her (after getting rid of the old blood of course), and unfortunately, still rode his motorcycle… which was getting a little worn.