by Avelyn Paige
Well, until it isn’t.
The agents gave me my time with Presley, but that’s coming to an end. I spy them closing in on me, and I know my freedom is coming to an end. “Whatever happens,” I whisper to her. “Know that I love you.” My lips touch hers for the first time in days, before the agents rip me away from her.
I don’t even struggle as they do.
“Wait!” she screams. “Where are you going with him? You can’t do this!”
She tries to push to her feet, but she’s too weak to fight.
“Just remember what I told you,” I utter, as they continue to drag me away.
The agents don’t stop, and neither does Presley’s protests for them to stop. I see my brothers now standing with agents all around them. One of the men who exited the chopper stands near Raze, as the agents deposit me in front of him.
“Mr. Martin, I presume,” he asks. His sunglasses conceal his eyes, but I can feel them on me.
“Martinez,” I greet him. “Nice to put a face to the voice.”
“I have to say when you called, I only expected Gio and just a few of his men. I never thought that I’d be walking out of here with Don Zezza, and so many of his men.” Martinez looks around the scene, gesturing with his hands.
I shrug my shoulders. “I aim to please, I guess. Is our deal still intact?”
“You gave me what I wanted, so you’ll get what we agreed to. Agent Billings,” he says to the man on his left. “Take Mr. Martin into custody.” The agent whips a pair of cuffs off of his belt, and slaps them tightly around my wrists. They click as he locks them hard enough around me to stop the blood from flowing into my wrists.
“I don’t fucking think so,” Raze roars. “You got what you came for. You don’t need him.”
Agent Martinez turns to my president about to reveal the last bit of my plan.
“Mr. Sanders, I would watch what you are about to say every carefully. Mr. Martin offered himself up to us as a part of this deal.”
“Is this true?” Raze sternly inquires.
“Guilty as charged, Prez,” I admit, raising my cuffed hands in front of me. “I knew they wouldn’t come just for a random tip, so I gave them something to sweeten the deal. I gave them me. The man who has been hacking their systems for years, in exchange for a free pass for the club.”
Raze glares at me, before his gaze softens ever so slightly in the realization that I had sacrificed myself for them all. One man for many. I was proud to do this for my brothers and for Presley.
“Keep her safe, Raze,” I ask. “Please, keep her safe for me.”
“You know I will.”
He shoves Agent Billings out of the way, and brings me into the tightest bromance embrace I think that has ever happened in the history of the world. I wish someone would have taken a picture for black mail later, but it wasn’t exactly the best time for that.
“Time’s up, Martin,” Billings declares, pulling me away from my club, towards the car. My brothers yell, as they pull me away. Not knowing that this was of my own making. Martinez says something to Raze, before he follows behind us.
Step by step, I look to Presley. A medic is checking her injuries, as I walk past her. She cries out for me, but I can’t look back to her. If I do this won’t happen, and the club will take the brunt of this shit. That can’t happen.
“Wait!” a voice calls out from behind me. I turn, seeing Slider jogging towards us, as Billings starts to shove me into the car. Martinez steps between us, as Slider skids to a stop.
“It wasn’t him who hacked your systems,” he expels with heaving breaths. “It was me.”
“What the fuck?” I exclaim. “What the hell are you doing, dude?”
Slider shoots me a shut the fuck up glare.
“He was protecting me. I was hacking into the government databases. Not him.”
“Is this true?” Martinez asks me.
“It is,” Slider interjects. “I should be the one going to jail. Not him. He’s innocent. I broke into your mainframe just this week looking into The Zezza file. You should find the trail hidden away in the code.”
Jesus. Has he been watching me work?
Martinez and Billings look at each other, trying to figure out if this was another fucking game or if Slider was telling the truth. I try to mouth to him to shut up, but he shakes his head no. Why is he doing this? Just let me go down for the club. It was my bed, and I was going to fucking lie in it.
“Release him, and arrest this man,” Martinez orders. “Didn’t catch your name, son.”
“No, Slider. Don’t do this,” I argue, as the cuffs come off of me and onto him.
“It’s my time,” he utters. “Can I have a minute alone with my brother?”
Martinez agrees after everything we just handed him and steps a few feet away with Billings watching us both. It was a courtesy I doubt many got from the FBI. Then again, not everyone drops half of their America’s Most Wanted List in their lap at one time. What can I say? We’re overachievers.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask him.
“Because for the first time in my life, I know what it means to have a family. You saved us all, and I will not let you go down like this. Now go get your girl,” Slider smiles, before calling back Billings and Martinez.
They shove me back, as they shove him in the back of the squad car and shut the door. Billings hits the trunk a few times. The patrolman in the driver’s seat puts the car into drive, taking my brother instead of me away. He turns away just as they reach the edge of the drive, and disappear down the road.
I sacrificed everything for my brothers, and in turn, Slider did that for me. I would be re-paying him the best way I knew how. By using the information that I had pulled from the federal server and stored on my secure server. He would still have to serve time, but I would make for damn sure he would be within the year.
It was the least I could do for the man who just gave me my life back.
With V safe, I let the last bit of my strength fade away into a deeply exhausted expanse of nothingness. I barely remember the medics carrying me to the back of the ambulance on a gurney, or even my hospital stay. There were flashes of light, and brief whisperings of V’s voice telling me to rest. My mind was a dreamless state. The nightmares of what I had dealt with at The Zezza’s, faded with the pain medication that the doctor’s pumped into my veins, as my body healed itself from the trauma I had endured.
For days, I slept in a peaceful, drug-induced coma, until it was finally time for me to go home, under V’s watchful guard. Though we never spoke, I knew he was there. I could feel him holding my hand or talking to me about some stupid movie he wanted us to see just to pass the time. His voice was the only constant in the veil of darkness of my dreams. I clung to it.
The crack I had felt in my face that day had thankfully not needed surgery. Even as the wounds on my face healed, Gio had left his mark. A few tiny scars were left near my eye and chin. Reminders of what I had went through and of what I had survived. The rest of my body would heal the doctor had assured me, when I was discharged. The only thing I had left to worry about was my mental health. So much had gone on during the last few weeks that my brain was almost mush. I added seeing a therapist of my own to my checklist, once my body healed. It was time that my role in the office changed to that of a patient. But when I was ready to go back to work, I would know exactly how those who sat across from me felt because I had experienced it. If I could take away something from this time in my life, it would be that I would be a better therapist for it.
The entire car ride from the hospital my brother smiles, talking about his family, and how we would finally be getting our chance that we were denied as kids. He is animated as he talks, telling me about Roxie’s new word. The way he talks about his family makes me happy. With time, I hope to love them just as much as he does. It was time The Sanders’s siblings finally got to know each other again.
My body is still weak, as my brother wheels
me into the clubhouse, and I get a standing ovation from his brothers. Because of the men that I had once despised so much, I was here. One day I would thank each and every one of them for standing here at my brother’s side to protect me. I also needed to thank Misty and apologize to all of the club girls. For too many years, I had looked down upon them, but in Ginny’s hour of need, Misty stepped up. Not something that I could easily forget again, even if I didn’t agree with the way they chose to live their lives.
V is noticeably absent from the room, as I had suspected he would be. Our relationship wasn’t exactly on clear terms. We had some things we needed to talk about in private, but first, I had to see Ginny.
Mikey takes me to her room and leaves us alone inside. Ginny looks so different sitting on her bed today. There’s lightness around her that I had never seen before. This was a woman who had tasted freedom for the first time.
“You okay?” She asks, seeing the bandages around my arms and stitches in my face.
“I am, but I’m not here to talk about me.”
She shifts on the bed, grabbing a stuffed tabby cat off of her bed and pulling it into her arms to comfort her. She sniffs its fur and smiles.
Must have been a gift from someone special. Ratchet maybe?
“Cute kitty,” I remark.
“It was a gift from Slider,” she declares. “I told him about the little cat I used to take care of before my dad died, that lived under our house.”
“That was a sweet gesture. So how are you really?”
“I’m okay for the first time in my life. My anxiety has been almost non-exist. It’s like a weight has been lifted off of me.”
“It’s because you’ve put the demons of your past to rest,” I smile.
“You mean Ratchet did,” she reminds me of her brother’s part in Gio’s death.
“How is he?”
“He’s hovering like usual,” she teases. “I spent the night at his house for a few days. Asher is really good at video games. Me not so much.”
She smiles wide, as she thinks of her newly expanded family. Having her brother around would be a good thing for her along with Ricca and Asher. They would be the ones who helped Ginny heal the most. She would finally have the family she deserved.
“What about you and Voodoo?” she asks, hugging the stuffed cat tighter in her arms.
“Things are complicated,” I casually deflect. And that was an understatement. A part of me still wanted to hate him because he destroyed the trust that I had put into our relationship, but I couldn’t. He and I definitely needed to work some serious things out. That was a given. As he stayed by my side in the hospital, I could hear the pain in his voice. It didn’t take a doctorate in psychology to know that he would blame himself for my kidnapping. Despite the manner in which it happened, it was only a matter of time, before they caught up with us. The important thing that we both had to remember was that we all survived, and that was because of him.
The moment the FBI showed up in a massive raid, I knew it was him. No one would suspect it because it meant putting everything on the line, including the club. In all of my years as a therapist, feats like this were achieved by someone who has nothing else left to give, but himself. He saved me, and everyone else in the process. He was the hero in all of this despite the fact he had started off a pseudo-villain.
Lord. I’m starting to sound like him with all of this bad guy vs good guy talk. I might need a limit to the number of his pop culture references in a single day. Who am I kidding? He would just find new ones that I wouldn’t catch.
“I think you should give him another chance,” Ginny offers up as advice. “He’s not a bad guy.”
“I know he’s not, but he and I need to talk a few things out.”
A knock comes to Ginny’s door, and Mikey reappears. “You’re rides here, Ginny.”
“Ride?” I ask, turning my attention back to her.
“I’m going back into protective custody, until the trials are over. Agent Martinez doesn’t want to take any chances. It will only be for a little while, then after the trial I’m coming back.”
“And your brother isn’t here to see you off?”
“I asked him to not to be. He doesn’t need to see me leave again, but Agent Martinez agreed to let me call him every day, if I wanted to. I just have to get through this, and then I’ll really be free.”
She slides from the bed still clutching the stuffed cat against her chest. Ginny wraps her arms around me in the wheelchair, hugging me. “Give him a chance,” she whispers against my ear, before pulling away and walking out the door. I swell with pride seeing her so strong for the first time in her life. She was becoming the woman she was meant to be.
I wheel myself around in the chair toward the doorway. Mikey starts toward me to help, but I wave him off. My hands lower to the brakes on the wheels, and I press them down into the wheels. My brother leans down, seeing what I’m doing, gently removing each of my feet from the foot rests and pops them up for me.
“You ready for this?” he asks, extending out his hand to me. I take it. His strong hand steadies me, as I pull myself to my feet for the first time in days. My legs shiver and shake, as they remind me that I’m still not one hundred percent just yet. I take a baby step forward and then another with Mikey following right along beside me. We pause outside of my room, and he reaches for the door.
“I’ll be in my office if you need me,” he says, reminding me that he will beat V’s ass for hurting me in his own, more subdued kind of way. Just what a big brother should do for his little sister. I hold onto the doorframe, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek.
He opens the door for me, and once I’m inside, he closes it behind me. The first thing I notice about the room is that it’s changed. The bedding. The furniture. Even the flat screen is different. Did he do this?
V steps out of the bathroom with a vase of flowers in his hand and stops on a dime.
“Hi,” he mumbles.
“Hi.”
He quickly walks to the new bedside table, and places the beautiful bouquet of roses and lilies onto it. I take a small step towards him and stumble slightly. V rushes to my side, picking me up in his arms, and lying me down on the bed. He adjusts the pillows behind my back without a word, before spinning around and heading for the door.
“Wait,” I call out to him, making him pause. He turns to face me again. The nervous V is back, and he’s watching me like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Don’t leave.”
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yes, we need to talk.”
He casually walks toward the bed, trying not to show his nervousness. I stifle a smile, when I think about how every man reacts the same way to those four little words coming from a woman’s mouth. Granted that when most women say it that it means that there’s an ass-chewing to follow. He sits down on the edge of the bed with his eyes cast down onto the floor. When he lifts them to meet my gaze, I can see the sadness behind his beautiful blue eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he starts. “This is all my fault. If I had told you from the beginning that I was Beauregard this would have never happened.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
He flinches.
“That’s not exactly what I thought you would say.”
“I know, but it’s the truth. That day when you told me what you had done, I was furious with you. You cut me deeply.”
“I know I did,” he says, not even trying to hid his guilt. “I was so fucking stupid.”
“But I forgave you the minute you came for me in that parking lot. Every angry thought I had about you melted away because you were willingly to sacrifice yourself to save me and this club.”
“Raze told you about what I did, didn’t he?” he sheepishly asks.
“He did.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“The first thing you can do is wipe that sorry look off of your face, and go get me some popcorn.”
&nb
sp; He cocks an eyebrow at me trying to figure out where I’m going with this.
“When you get back, you can pick out any stupid movie that you want.”
“Any movie?” he teases with an eyebrow wiggle. “God, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
“Not those kind of movies, Beau.”
He pauses, when I use his first name. A smile like I have never seen forms on his face.
“I never thought I would say this, but my name coming off of your lips sounds so damn good.”
“I think I might be able to top that,” I challenge him. “I love you, Beau.”
“I love you, my Khalessi.”
“Your what?” I laugh. “What the hell is a Khalessi?”
He smacks his hand against his face in shock. Was it another one of his movie references that I wasn’t picking up on?
“We’ve got to fix this lack of pop culture education of yours, woman. You’re as bad as Hero. It’s Game of Thrones.”
“No idea.”
“I love you,” he smiles back at me. This time leaving the pop culture reference off.
“I know,” I fire back at him, surprising him for once with a pop culture reference of my own. He smiles wide.
He slides forward on the bed, pulling me into a gentle kiss. The connection between us growing stronger once more. At first, it was soft. Like kissing the clouds, but it grew bigger and more intense. It’s a kiss for the ages, and one that I don’t ever want him to stop. His hands fall to my shoulders, and I wince when he touches one of my still tender wounds.
“Shit,” he mutters with his lips still pressed against mine. He breaks the contact, checking my face for any visible signs of pain.
“I’m okay. I promise.”
“You’re really not. Nice try. Until you’re fully healed, I’m putting myself on a self-proclaimed no-sex penalty.”
“Fine,” I huff. “But don’t be surprised if I don’t jump you in your sleep, once I can do that, I mean.”
“Baby, I will welcome that kind of attack with open arms, but until then, how about that movie. I’m thinking a Twilight Marathon.”