by Nicole Fox
“Yeah, yeah. You know. If you ever want to swing by—”
“You’re inviting a Jackal into your house, boy?”
I scoffed.“I’m inviting a friend of my girl’s. Apparently, I guess you did for her … She’d want to do for you. After everything.” Hellen looked surprised.
“Hmph. Well. I’ll keep that in mind.”
With that, she was gone.
The envelope I held was fat. Long. I wondered what was inside it, and maybe Misha would be upset with me but … I had to know. There was a lot that Misha had told me about her time with Holland, interspersed here and there as she spent more and more time with me in our home.
I slid my finger into the envelope, opening it. It was filled with hundred dollar bills, and a note. It was single paged. My eyes widened, and I pulled out the note.
Misha,
What’s in here isn’t much. I say that knowing that there’s no amount of money that changes what I’ve done to you. I don’t regret getting you in my life—I regret the way I did it. What it put you through. What it put Rose through.
I’m not going to apologize. You deserve better. Know that if I’m dead now, I hope that youcan find your way with what I’ve left you. You know I love my Hellen, but I love you, too.
Watching you from the other side,
Holland
It was short. I couldn’t help but feel a surge of jealousy from it, but it was largely overshadowed by the fact that he had thought about her, tried to care for her, and had had enough foresight to include him in his dying wishes.
I didn’t like this manor what he had put Misha through. I would never forgive him, either. But I figured this was the best as far as reconciliations were going to go, and it wasn’t up to me to reconcile, anyway. That was up to Misha.
Finishing my cigarette, I went back into the hospital. Travis and Brig were still outside her door, and when I went in, I was greeted with Misha sitting up, just a little, petting through Rose’s hair.
I drew in a breath. She looked tired—I couldn’t blame her. Weary. Considering I had thought a day ago that I was going to lose her, it was beyond a relief to see her somewhat functional. I walked over, not wanting to disturb Rose, who had been through a lot. I sat at the edge of Misha’s bed, tentatively placed my hand on hers. It was chilly. I rubbed my fingers over it.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“How’re you doing? Feeling? Have your nurses checked on you—”
“I just woke a few moments ago.” Her voice was raspy. “They haven’t been in yet. They probably will be soon though.”
I didn’t know what to say. There didn’t seem to be enough words to say anything. So I leaned forward and kissed her tenderly. Nothing to work her up or anything, just enough to show her how much I had worried, how much I loved her. She kissed me back, pressing her forehead to mine.
“That was a close call,” she said.
“Yeah, it was.”
“Rigger?”
I raised a brow. “Misha, we don’t have to talk about this right now.”
“I want to know what happened, Trip.”
I sighed.
“After you kicked him down, he was pissed,” I said. “Saw it in his eyes, knew what he was doing. All hell broke out. Someone shot —we don’t know who. Had each other popping off and shit.” I ran a hand through my hair. “He shot, and I saw red. I put a couple in his chest before getting to you. There was … so much blood. You weren’t breathing well. You kept closing your eyes and muttering. I thought—”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” I shook my head. “It’s far from okay. Misha—”
“I’m fine, now,” she said. “And Rigger’s … Rigger’s gone. I guess the cops aren’t getting involved?”
I shook my head.“Cops don’t want their hands in this shit; they’re staying off books and hands off with it. They figure that it’s good riddance Rigger’s gone; they preferred Holland.”
“Most people did. What about the others?”
“They scattered after Rigger went down for good. They didn’t wanna stick around and to be honest, it was probably good that they didn’t. I wasn’t discriminating.” That made her quirk her lip a little.
“And Jared?”
“Slimy little motherfucker bailed as soon as the shots were fired.”
“He was working with them,” she said, somewhat sadly. “Hellen told me.”
“Brig thought he was up to some shit.” I kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, babe. I really am. I tried—”
“Trip,” she stopped me. “This has nothing to do with you, or what you could or could not do, okay? Don’t go blaming yourself. I see that look on your face. Don’t go there. Please don’t go there.”
I sighed. It was hard not to.
“I failed you.” I looked down to Rose. “Both of you.”
She shook her head. Despite the bags under her eyes, there was a fierceness in her gaze.
“There is nothing about this that is your fault, you understand?” she said. “Nothing. Rigger was a crazy asshole, and he was going to try something one way or another, with or without you looking over me. He’s just—he was—just that kind of man. I’m not going to blame myself for Rigger being disgusting, and I won’t have you doing it either, Trip. I’m not going anywhere, okay? So you can just hush yourself.”
I smiled. I smiled, and then I laughed. Her brows furrowed as she stared at me.
“And just what is so damn funny?” she asked, her bottom lip poking out.
“You. You are. I love you so much, Misha.”
She cracked a smile.“I love you too, Trip.”
After that, the nurses came in. They were happy to see that she was awake, less happy that she had two people in her bed. I was prompted to get up, and get Rose, too. She didn’t even stir, she was so tuckered out. I stayed to watch them poke and prod at Misha. They checked her vitals, and she was looking good—to say that she had just come out of major surgery and had been shot, that is.
That evening, I took Rose to a nearby hotel after getting the green light from the nurses that Misha would be okay, and the insistence from Misha that I needed to sleep in a real bed, and so did Rose. Travis elected to stay at the hospital, just in case. Said he felt responsible in part for how far south everything had gone.
In the hotel, I thought over a lot of things, after tucking a very tired and still sleeping Rose into her own bed. Namely, that things would need to change. Whoever the fuck took over the Jackals next—I needed to at least be on decent terms with them. Real, decent terms. I needed for all this to never happen again.
I started putting together a plan.
Misha wasn’t going to be discharged for at least two days. I had Trixie come over and watch her at the hotel. Rose wanted to come with me.
“Can I go? Please? I don’t want you to go.”
I knelt before her looking her in the eye.“Why is that, honey? You know I’ll be back.”
“I don’t want them to hurt you like they hurt Mama.”
I pat her head, trying to comfort.
“Hey, hey, it’ll be okay, all right. I won’t let anything happen to me, all right? You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your papa, and papas watch out for themselves so they can watch out for mamas and their little girls, right?”
Her eyes widened a little, and flooded up with tears. It jerked at my heart, but I simply hugged her, pulling her close to me and I snuggled on her.
“I’ll be back, okay? Just be good for Ms. Trixie.”
“O-okay. Papa.”
I smiled, liking the sound of it.
Being in Jackal country, it didn’t take long to get to where I needed to go. Back to the compound. Didn’t think I’d be stupid enough to ride on over there again, but I did anyway. Unlike the first time, however, I didn’t get off my bike once I got there; instead, I rode up to the front. There were Jackals all out front in the
compound. Oddly enough, they didn’t look like they were about to move against me. They stood up and eyed me warily.
One of them walked up to me as I approached.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to talk,” I said.
“Y’all did a good amount of talking last night,” chimed in someone.
“Shut up, Rick,” the one who’d approached me said. “Lot of fucked up shit happened in the last couple of days. Now isn’t the time.” He looked to me. “You want to talk, talk.”
I raised a brow. “You in charge here?”
“After all the shit that happened? You bet your ass.”
“What about Rigger’s goons?”
“Gone.”
Well, that was interesting.
“So, you’re in charge?” I wanted to clarify, beyond a doubt. He nodded, leading me off to the side.
“Yeah. Let’s talk.”
Chapter Nineteen
Misha
“…We’re not having anymore of these skirmishes. None. We keep in our territory, they keep in theirs. The big drugs, the guns, all of it, it’s over.”
“We’ve seen too much shit and lost too many people to justify doing this shit anymore. A lot of us are tired. A lot of us didn’t get into this shit to be some crazy ass gangs that steal people and shoot shit.So, we’re in a treaty. A real treaty. None of this wishy washy shit we’ve had the last few years.”
“Any questions?”
It was the largest gathering of Pride and Jackal I had ever seen—that is to say, there had never been a gathering like this before.
Trip and Allan, the new Jackal President, stood before us all. Pride on one side in the lot outside of Big Mama’s, and Jackals on the other. It smelled like barbeque in the air, and there were burgers and dogs on the grills that were fired up. They’d met, talked, and drawn up a damn fine order of peace between the two clubs. Apparently, after Rigger had been taken out, Callum and the others loyal to him who had taken over the Jackals had been run out by Allan and the others—tired of all the shit that Rigger had been having them do.
“Yeah, I got a question!” Travis spoke up.
Trip eyed him. “What, Trav?”
“When the fuck do we eat? I’m starving!”
Everyone laughed, and Trip rolled his eyes.
“Go on and get it, assholes. No one’s stopping you.”
The crowd spread out, and the separated lines began to mingle. I watched from the porch of Big Mama’s, and Rose ran up to Trip. I smiled. Things were so much more open now that he had told her he was her father. She took to him more openly—I think, even unknown to her—that maybe that’s what she had beenwaiting for to finally let all the walls down and just be happy with him.
I was happy with him. He’d grown so much. Years ago he would never have done this. Years ago, this never would have been possible. Yet here we were.
“You look so nasty and in love, it’s sick.”
I looked over to see Big Mama. Despite her admonishment, she was smiling widely at me and grinning ear to ear. I returned the smile and looked back out to Trip. He was filling up plates for himself and for Rose. A Jackal stopped to talk. She chattered to him animatedly at whatever he had said to her. My heart swelled.
“I am,” I said. “I really am.”
“You know, not every woman would stick around after all this. A lot would bail. Think it was too much.”
I laughed. “I think after the first time, I’m done bailing,” I said. “I’m … happy. With everything that he’s set forth. He’s grown so much, hasn’t he? This has grown. To think—Pride and Jackal. They’re not friends, but they’re not enemies anymore, either. They’re eating together. They’re talking together. This has never happened before.”
“And it’s likely it wouldn’t ever have if Trip didn’t love you so much. You take good care of that boy, sugar.”
“I will, Big Mama.”
I had a lot of ideas about where I wanted to go from here. All of them involved Trip, the boys, and our girl. I knew there were a few things that I wanted to do first, however.
A couple of weeks after everything between the Pride and the Jackals was settled, I pulled up to Holland’s old place in a new car that I had bought with some of the money that Holland had left me. It had been a surprise, but it was more than enough to kickstart a few little pet projects of mine that I wanted. Hellen was coming outas I was pulling up, and she looked incredibly surprised to see me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as I popped out of my car, smiling warmly at her.
“You not happy to see me, Hellen?”
“More so wondering why the hell you would drag yourself back here after you finally got away—again. Girl, what are you doing here?”
“I got you a little something.”
I went to the car, into the back seat, and pulled out a small but elegant plaque. I had had it custom made for her, in memory of Holland. I knew that whatever funeral or burial t he had had, had likely been tainted by the stain of Rigger. When she saw it, her eyes welled up with tears.
“Misha …”
“Please, please just accept it,” I said. “Things weren’t ideal … I know that it had to be hard, the way things were with me and Holland. But you never treated me poorly for a situation that I couldn’t control, and you never resented me. Trip told me that it was you that brought the envelope and the letter Holland left.”
“I was just trying to look out for you.”
“And this is me looking out for you.”
I fished out a decent stack of cash from my pocket. Immediately, Hellen shook her head.
“You can’t expect me to take that when I got plenty from Holland—”
“This isn’t about Holland,” I told her. “This is about me and you, for all those years. Please, take it. It’s the least I can do.”
Her shaking fingers curled around the bills, and she looked at them incredulously. I didn’t know how much Holland had left her, but I knew that this would be a nice amount to add on top of it.
“You know, you’re welcome over anytime,” I told her, as she brought me into an embrace.
“Yeah, yeah, your boy told me that, too. You go on and git. You stay out of trouble, you hear, girl?”
“I hear you, Hellen.”
After stopping by Hellen’s, I made a trip to the compound. There was even more surprise there. Allan came out, eyeing me warily.
“Misha …?”
I smiled. “Hey, Allan.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You know, the number of times that thathas been said to me today ….”
He smiled a little. “Sorry. Wasn’t expecting you. Didn’t know if something came up?”
“No, nothing came up. I actually wanted to talk to you about a little project I want to get done. I hear you do construction on the side …”
Epilogue
Trip
“I can’t believe you pulled this all off.”
We stood together outside of a newly remodeled Ace of Pride. It was … spectacular. Misha had used the remainder of the money that she had gotten from Holland to pay Allan to remodel. The old Ace, it had been great, but this was Misha’s present to me.
“We’re starting new. I think we should give this place a complete one-eighty,” she had said to me.
I had been apprehensive about letting Allan do the work on it. We had worked on a truce, but actually working that close? Seemed like it was going to stir up trouble. But Misha had insisted, saying Allan’s crew came highly recommended, and there were few that could boast the talent that he and his did.
Hated to say it … but she was right.
The bar maintained its rustic value, but it was all updated on the inside, and had a shiny ass new sign on the out. The stairs had decent railing, finally, and the lot wasn’t a dirt and gravel mess from hell. The boy, initially, weren’t sure if they were going to like the change. S
eemed a little too wishy washy for their tastes and they knew what they liked and what they didn’t!
But Misha knew her way around stubborn men, and it wasn’t long before they were all on board.
I took Misha’s hand and walked her inside. There were Allan’s boys, and my boys. Together. this was something that was taking a little while to get used to, but I was getting used to it, nonetheless. I guess that’s what happened when you finally buried the hatchet; you stopped caring about dumb shit like who wore what name on their back and what strife in the past you had with people.