by Nikki Groom
“Ah.” Ruck sidles up beside us, looking a little worse for wear already. “Aren’t you two cute.” His hands are still heavily bandaged, although he does manage to hold a cigarette in one and a tumbler of whiskey in the other.
“You okay, Bro?”
“Never better.” He narrows his eyes, and the look he gives us doesn’t match the words coming from his mouth. “How’d you do it?” He jerks his chin toward me, and I look at him blankly.
“I don’t know what—”
“Come on,” he laughs. “First my brother. Now JJ. You think I can’t see through you?”
I look between him and Ram, my mouth gaping open then closed as I try and find the words to reply to him. I don’t know what he’s talking about. But he sounds bitter, and he certainly doesn’t look like he’s firing on all cylinders.
“Ruck,” Ramsey warns, his voice low and dangerous.
“Oh, relax, Bro.” He grins, patting Ramsey on the chest before dropping his cigarette on the floor and setting his empty glass on the table next to us. “I just came over to say congratulations.” His change of tone and fake smile makes me extremely uneasy, and I step backward as he steps toward me. “Welcome to the family, Sadie.” He holds out his hand with a smile on his face but contempt in his eyes. I glance to Ramsey for his reassurance, and he gives a tight nod, but I can see he’s losing his composure pretty quickly, and I hope for Ruck’s sake, he sorts himself out or steers clear for the rest of the night. I place my hand in his, nerves making my fingers tremble, but not wanting to rile him any more than he already seems.
But it was the wrong thing to do.
Despite his slurred words, he moves remarkably fast, and before Ramsey or I can act, Ruck has pulled me closer and spun me so my back is to his front, with his arm clamped tightly around my chest. He backs us against a wall and presses something cold, and hard to my temple.
An eerie feeling immediately surrounds us. The color drains from Ramsey’s face, and my legs start to weaken with fear. As every person in the room turns toward us, a weighted silence falls over them like a blanket until all we can hear is the music playing in the background.
“Put it down, Ruck, and let her go.” Ramsey speaks low and calmly, but his hands are shaking—with rage or fear, I don’t know.
“No,” he replies, laughing manically.
“Ruck.” Ramsey holds up his hands as he moves closer.
“Don’t!” Ruck yells, pushing what I now realize is a gun harder into my temple. “I swear, if any of you come even a step closer, I will put a bullet right through her brain.”
I notice JJ out of the corner of my eye, standing with his fists clenched tightly and battling with the need to step forward.
“Come on, man. Let’s grab a drink,” Ramsey offers, holding out his hand.
“Nah,” Ruck replies as though this were an everyday conversation in your everyday situation. “I’ve had a fair amount to drink already, plus a couple of lines of coke. I’m good.” I feel him nod behind me, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on the gun. I try to figure out if there’s a way I can safely get this all to stop. He needs help—that much is clear. But I can’t see how to diffuse this without putting someone at risk.
“Let Sadie go, and we’ll talk, yeah?” Ramsey offers.
“No, let’s talk here.” Bitterness drips from his tone and trickles down my spine. “Everyone stopped and listened to the big boss man about how he found his long lost daughter. I was half expecting you to stand up and talk about how you found the love of your life, and that you couldn’t be bothered with your brother anymore.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Ramsey tells him sternly.
“Do I?” he asks rhetorically. “Do you have any idea what happened to me in that lockup?”
“Ruck, this isn’t the time or the place. Let’s just go. I’ll drive you home, we’ll talk—”
“See, you’re not listening. You’re not hearing me. They fucked me up, brother.” His voice cracks, and I feel his arm slacken across my chest. “They fucked me up.”
“Let Sadie go, Ruck. She doesn’t deserve this,” Ramsey pleads, and JJ comes into view.
“Come on, son. Let her go.” JJ holds out his open palm, and Ruck’s breaths come faster in his chest as I feel him falling apart.
“I can’t do it,” he says, tears rolling down his face and dropping onto my bare shoulder. I almost relax in his hold because he’s so damn broken, he needs love to be fixed. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, and Ramsey nods, acknowledging his apology. “I’m sorry.”
Then a gunshot splits the air, and everything goes black.
Chapter 21
It’s a cruel twist of fate when your life seems to be working out better than it ever has before, then it’s shot down in the blink of an eye, and a squeeze of a trigger.
Amidst the chaos that ensued, it was silent.
Despite the shouting around me, there was no sound.
All I could see was the blood, and Sadie’s beautiful face marred with a terrified expression.
Her screams start to pierce my ears as reality rushes at me faster than the speed of light. That reality slams into my chest, stopping my heart and taking a piece of me that I’ll never be able to recover from.
My brother. My blood…
“NO!” I yell, rushing forward and skidding on my knees next to Ruck’s body. “Someone call for help!” I yell desperately, my chest constricting so hard I can hardly breathe. “So much blood,” I mutter under my breath, scooping his limp, lifeless body up and holding him tightly in my arms.
Despite begging for someone to call an ambulance, desperate for someone to be doing something, I know it’s all in vain.
Ruck’s dead.
There’s no comeback from a bullet to the brain at such close proximity.
There’s nothing in the world that could save him now. Just like I couldn’t save him for all these years.
“I’m sorry,” I cry, rocking him back and forth. “I’m sorry, Ruck.”
I should have seen how everything was affecting him. I should have spent more time with him, helped him cope. He hasn’t been right for a long time. The little signs, they were all there. It was too much for him. The war with The Wolves, the constant threat hanging over us, living life as a party, and then being nailed to a fucking cross and having to survive and relive everything they did to him for every waking moment. I was naïve to think we could get the old Ruck back so easily. The crank in his system must have messed him up, too. It pushed him over the edge. It’s a long time since he’s been the Ruck I’d once known. He tried to make it work, but he was always a round peg in a square hole. Maybe nothing would have worked for him. Maybe he needed professional help. But now it’s too late, and he doesn’t have to live with any of that pain anymore. He couldn’t live with that pain for even one more day.
But now I do.
And this hurts more than any physical pain I’ve ever endured. It’s a raw pain that feels like it will break your bones. That it will destroy you the second you look away and let your guard down.
His blood soaks my clothes and coats my skin as I hold him tighter, refusing to let him go. I think of everything I should have said or done, and everything I shouldn’t have.
JJ kneels next to me with his hand on Ruck’s shoulder and cries.
He knows there’s no recovering Ruck from this.
We know.
We’ve seen enough bullet wounds. Fired enough guns. Taken enough lives.
JJ looked on Ruck as a son. A child he never had, until Sadie came back into his life, that is. And I feel his pain. I feel the pain of a man that’s lost a child. But I also hurt with the pain of a thousand brothers.
“Sadie…” I frown, talking to JJ but not taking my eyes off Ruck. “Where is she?”
“With Lia.”
“Is she okay?” I ask. Despite everything she has survived before now, this is a situation that no one could just brush off. My mind starts to think logica
lly. Shutting off the emotional side and dealing with business, all the while holding Ruck’s lifeless body in my arms. “And Lia…”
“I don’t know, Ram,” is all he says, wiping tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.
“We’ve gotta get him out of here.” I glance around for the first time in I don’t know how long. Time is irrelevant. It’s slipped through my fingers, just like Ruck. Everything else is insignificant right now. The bar area is empty other than Tex and Vinny who stand close, wearing solemn expressions. “Tex, call Jimmy, we need to get Ruck out of here.”
“Now?” he questions, stepping forward, his face screwing up in disbelief.
“Yes,” I snap.
JJ grabs my arm. “I don’t think—”
“He’s not staying here. He wouldn’t want to. We’ll have Jimmy come for him, and take him to the mortuary.”
“It’s only been—”
“I don’t give a fuck how long it’s been, he’s my brother, and I say we need to get him out of here!” I yell through gritted teeth. Fighting back any emotion, building a wall around it, locking it out for now, because if I don’t, Ruck and me will be in a box in the ground together.
I sit in the yard and stare at the ground beneath my feet as the sun starts to come up and lighten the sky.
Nothing.
I see nothing but Ruck’s face just moments before he pulled that trigger.
I feel nothing but pain from the hole he’s left in my heart and my life.
He was my brother, and now he’s gone.
What am I supposed to do with that?
Should I process it? Cry? Grieve? Of all the things I should be doing, I do nothing. Because I’m numb to the world around me.
“You should try and rest,” Tex says, offering me a cigarette. I slide it out of the packet, and he flicks the lighter, holding it for me to spark it up. He sits next to me and places a hand on my shoulder, squeezing tightly. “Ram,” he says softly, almost tentatively.
“Don’t bother, Tex.” I sigh, blowing smoke out of my nose while taking another drag of the cigarette.
“I’m sorry, man.” His voice catches in his throat, and he coughs to cover his emotion and removes his hand, dropping his elbows onto his knees with a sigh.
“Me too, Tex.” I nod. “Me too.”
“You wanna be left alone?”
“I don’t know.” I take a deep breath, narrowing my eyes in deep concentration as I look across the yard. “I don’t know anything anymore.” It feels weird. Wrong. Everything feels wrong.
“Well, look. I’m here. JJ’s here. You just call, and we’ll be wherever you need us.”
“Yeah, appreciate that.” I almost finish my sentence with the word, brother. We all call each other by that name, but somehow, now, it doesn’t seem appropriate. “Where’s Sadie?”
“Lia took her home. They were both pretty upset.”
“I should go to her.” I jump up off the bench realizing that throughout this whole ordeal, I’ve been focusing on how I feel, how my world has just been flipped upside down. But Sadie, she must have been terrified.
“Let me drive you.” Tex stands too.
“No, I’m gonna ride.” I wave him away. “I need to ride, Tex.”
“Okay, but be careful, yeah?” he says, his words loaded with meaning. There’s still a vague threat from The Wolves, and a distracted Vice President is a vulnerable one.
“Tex, my man, if anyone is gunning for a fight, now of all times, they had better fucking be ready for the fight of their lives. I got nothin’ to lose, man.”
“Listen to me.” He roughly grabs my face in his hands. “Don’t let me hear that from you ever again. I know this fuckin’ hurts. It’s gonna hurt for the rest of your life. I’m not gonna tell you that it’ll be alright because it’s never gonna be the same and that’s not alright.” His voice cracks at the picture he’s painting. A future without Ruck. And it’s a white-hot poker stabbed viciously through my heart. “But you are still alive. You are not on your own. You have us, your brothers—not by blood, but by choice. You have Sadie. She’s your future, man,” he tells me, holding my gaze, searching my eyes for some kind of recognition. “So you take as long as you need, but don’t you ever let me hear you say you got nothing to live for. You’ve got a lifetime ahead of you. Ruck wouldn’t want you to waste it.”
“You’re right.” I hold his wrists, nodding before pushing him away and stepping out of his hold. “But I can’t see that far ahead, Tex. I can’t see any further than the end of the yard right now.”
“I know. It’s still raw. It hurts like fuck—”
“It doesn’t hurt. I feel numb, Tex. Numb to the motherfucking bone.”
“You need time, Ram.”
“Yeah.” I tap his shoulder as I walk off toward my bike.
“Check in in a couple of hours, okay?” he calls out behind me, and I raise my hand in acknowledgment. That was enough talking for me.
I don’t want to talk anymore.
I don’t want to listen.
I just want to ride.
I ride until the tank is pretty much empty. Then I fill her up and ride again. The open road gives me silence, space, and more thinking time than I thought I needed. The sun has come up and has started to go back down again, and I’ve ridden roads I never even knew existed. This is freedom in its purest form. Freedom from responsibility, from expectation, from people. But most of all, it’s freedom from myself. From what I’ve become, from what was expected of me.
Inside me felt quiet, but tight. I was knotted together in a silent ball of intense grief, and even after riding for hours upon hours, I still don’t know how to undo it. It seems that for every direction I turn in, the knot gets tighter until it feels like it’s choking me.
I pull into JJ’s drive and sit there for what feels like forever. I can’t move—either that or I don’t want to.
I’m lost.
I have no direction. No desire. No sense of who I am at this minute in time. Before last night, I owned my life. I made it move in the direction I wanted. Took what I thought I was owed, and made changes for a better life, for my brother and me.
My brother…
Sadie pushes open the screen door, and I glance up at her. The sorrow in her eyes, the quiver of her bottom lip, the broken way she holds her body, is enough to bring the swelling emotion to the surface.
She’s my truth, my transparency, and the catalyst to my undoing.
I break.
She runs toward me, and as she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling my head tightly to her chest, I cry.
I cry like I’ve never cried before.
And it hurts. So fucking much.
My body shakes as loud sobs fill the impending night’s warm air. I cry into Sadie, my tears coating her skin, my heartache filling her ears. And she cries back. Her grief for me overriding all fear she felt when Ruck held that gun to her head. My tears slow for a minute when I recall that scene.
Fuck, I hated him for that, for doing that to her, for putting her in that position. He didn’t know what she had gone through in her life, and now he never would. But if he had, would he have tortured her mind for that small amount of time? Would he still have given her that memory to carry around like a lead burden, on top of all the other weights she has to bear if he had known about her past? If he had known her?
But he had burdens too. And he carried them like a champ. It was hard. We had a hard life before the Souls, but I thought it was getting better, I thought…
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Sadie whispers into my hair. “I’m so sorry.”
I look up into her eyes and feel her apology in my heart. “I’m sorry, too.” I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand, and she steps back, giving me space that I’m not sure I want. “Climb on,” I tell her, nudging my head toward the back of my ride.
She looks at her bare feet, then back to me, and I take in her appearance. Knotted hair, dark circles around swollen brown eyes
, and that kills me. The pain in her eyes hits me almost as hard as the pain in my heart. “I should probably wear some shoes?” She smiles tentatively, as though she feels she shouldn’t really be smiling at all.
I nod. “Tell Lia you’re with me.”
“Okay.” She walks back toward the house, but slows and turns to look at me. Her chest rises and falls heavily with a sigh as she looks to me sadly.
“I know, Raven. I feel it too,” I tell her.
I was running out of strength. Physically, I could go on forever. Emotionally, I was ready to fall.
I ride through the darkness with Sadie on the back of my bike. It’s the only thing that feels right in all of this. Her by my side. Her arms around my waist. I knew this was where she was meant to be from the very beginning. I tried to push her away, but I couldn’t. I wanted her on my bike and in my bed, and from the very first moment I set eyes on her, that fierce raven-haired beauty that was seeking revenge and owning that moment, had to be mine. I was naïve to think I had a choice in our connection. It was fate, and there was no stopping it.
But Ruck, I should have stopped that. I should have seen it coming…
Tears and regret cloud my eyes and restrict my throat, so I pull up a dust track to the top of a hill and park up.
I just need a second…
Hopping off, I stand near the edge where the hill drops off steeply. I lower my head and take several deep breaths to try and calm the racing emotions in my body. I’ve never felt so conflicted. I’ve never felt pain and regret with such intensity that it threatens to swallow me whole.
When Sadie went missing, and The Wolves had Ruck, I was mad. Really fucking angry beyond all comprehension. But I was scared, too. So fucking scared that I would never get them both back alive.