by Tess Sharpe
“You built it. I respect that. But like I said, we need to focus on the future.” I reach into my pocket, pull out the bottle, and set it on the table between us.
Paul looks at it. “What’s that?”
“Organic, top-shelf cannabis oil,” I say. “I’ve seen the honey oil your guys have been churning out. It sucks. And using butane and other shitty solvents can be just as dangerous as cooking meth.”
“This is better?” Paul snorts.
“This is the gold fucking standard,” I say. “You grow great weed, Paul. But when they finally legalize it, that won’t be enough. The tobacco companies are already buying up all the free land and mills in Humboldt. They’re just waiting to take over and they’ll gobble up the market for plain old weed—they can grow more of it and sell it cheaper. But the specialty stuff—organics, vaping oils, edibles—all that hipster nonsense—and the medicinals?” I shake the bottle a little. “That’s the answer. Plus, it’s not gonna kill anyone. It might even help some of them.”
He eyes the bottle. “Where’d you get it?”
“Cooper makes it,” I say. “He has this new compression method. No solvents.”
Paul frowns. “At all?”
“Not necessary. He’s got this big heat-press machine. He’ll be able to explain it better than I can. But he’s agreed to work with your guys.”
“In exchange for what, exactly?”
“You need cash,” I say. “It takes a pound of bud to make an ounce of this stuff. You’ll need more land, more guys, more equipment, nutrients, seeds, clones, lights, soil—all of it.”
“So you’re just gonna finance all of this?”
“I have money,” I say. “This is a good investment.”
“What’s the catch?” he asks.
“I finance the oil side of your business. We still use the truck yard to transport the bud for the same percentage as you gave Duke. But when it comes to the oil, we’re equal partners. And partners help each other out.”
“You need muscle,” he says.
“I can buy muscle,” I say. “What I want is loyalty. I want to know that if I snap my fingers, the Sons will be there. I want the Rubies to live without being afraid their asshole exes will come and mess with them. I want a better fucking world.”
He’s silent, and then he reaches over and picks up the bottle, unscrewing it and pulling out the full dropper, holding it up to the light.
“Sixty-forty on the oil.”
I shake my head. “Fifty-fifty.”
“I’ll be assuming more of the risk,” he counters.
“Bullshit—it’ll be my trucking company transporting it. And Cooper’s production method.”
He squeezes out a drop onto his hand, smells it, and tastes it, considering the possibilities. “My guys will need to test this stuff. Talk to Cooper. And I’ll need to run the numbers.”
It’s more relief than triumph that floats through me, like leaves scattered on still water.
“Of course,” I say.
“And I need to talk to my club,” he says.
“And if they agree?”
Paul sighs. “You really gonna ban us from running guns?”
“The Sons have never run guns before,” I say. “Why do you want to bring in more trouble now? The ATF’s a nasty enemy.”
“It’s not an easy rule to enforce, Harley. What you want to do…” He sighs again.
“You’ve got two paths in front of you, Paul. You take one, you become Duke. And Rebecca? She’ll become just like me. Because you can’t become Duke and keep your child out of harm’s way.”
He looks down. I’m getting to him. I lean forward.
“But you take the other path, and Rebecca keeps her innocent life with her biker daddy. Sure, he’s a little tough and he grows weed, but in a few years, it’s gonna mean shit-all that you grow. By the time she’s old enough to really understand, it’ll be legal, and you’ll be a legitimate businessman, respected in the community. You can send her to college. She’s smart, Paul; you know that better than I do. She could become a doctor or a lawyer. She could grow so far from our roots that she’ll be at the top of the tree. She could have everything—be anything. Don’t you want that for her?”
“Yes,” he blurts out, and it’s more of a confession than either of us expect. I can hear it in his voice.
“You don’t want her to become like me.”
“No,” he says flatly, his eyes hard.
No one wants their daughter to become like me.
“Then it’s an easy choice,” I tell him.
He leans back in his chair, folding his arms as he stares at me across the table. He looks at me like he’s never seen me before, like I’ve taken off a mask he didn’t know was there.
I am the McKenna now. And he knows it.
“You really are your daddy’s girl,” he says finally.
He holds out his hand and I shake it.
“Let’s go celebrate the old man’s life in style,” he says.
Even before the sun sets, the party’s raging. Sal’s pouring whiskey like it’s water, and the Sons are getting along with the hippies from Weaverville like long-lost brothers, trading growing tips and downing beer and harmonizing with the Merle-and-Willie duet pounding out of the speakers. The guys from L.A. keep asking for vodka, and Sal keeps pouring them beer instead, but they’re already too shitfaced to notice.
I stay by the end of the bar where Duke used to sit, and I watch. People come up to me, and I hear “I’m so sorry” a hundred times, give or take a few. I manage a smile and say Thank you for coming and Please, have something to drink.
I wait until they’re all drunk enough not to notice that I’m slipping out. I kiss Sal on the cheek and hand her a thank-you envelope stuffed full of three thousand in hundred-dollar bills. The moon’s high in the sky and the streets are silent as I step out of the bar and into the alley behind it.
“Party too hard?”
I turn, waving away the cloud of Camel smoke. “I’m gonna make you stop smoking those things,” I tell her.
Mo snorts. “Over my dead body.”
Anyone else, they’d probably catch themselves or look shamed. But instead, Mo chuckles. “He would’ve liked that one.”
He probably would. Duke wasn’t a terribly funny man, but when he cracked jokes, they tended to be dark.
“Things are gonna change,” Mo comments, puffing out another lungful of blue smoke. It hangs in the air for a second, obscuring her face.
“I know.”
“They’re gonna come,” Mo says.
My stomach clenches. “I know,” I say again. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. Duke’s gone, and so is the invisible barrier that protected the Ruby for so long.
The ex-husbands and boyfriends. The Fathers Who Didn’t Approve. The men who bruised and broke and kicked toddlers down stairs. They’ll come for the women and children they think belong to them.
Now Duke is gone, they’ll think that it’s safe to come. That we won’t be able to stop them.
I look straight ahead, out at the town stretched out over the valley, the mountains sheltering it, protecting it.
“What are we gonna do?” I ask Mo.
“This time,” she says, “I think we do it your way.”
Fifty-Eight
July 16, 11:45 p.m.
It’s dark. The porch lights are shut off, the cottages silent. The pool, usually shining a ghostly blue, is engulfed in the blackness.
The only light comes from the moon rising high in the sky. It provides enough shadows to hide in.
I wait, eyes to the front. It’s almost midnight. The cottages are locked shut, the curtains drawn, the women and children inside.
They’re waiting, too.
In the distance, a car door slams shut. My head turns toward the sound, and my fingers stay steady on my sawed-off shotgun, the kind that’s easy to carry. A few minutes tick by, and then I see it out of the corner of my eye: movement coming from
the south.
He’s circled around back.
I rise from my crouch, padding with light feet across the roof to the edge that overlooks the back field the Ruby butts up against. I can see him in the moonlight—a stocky man in a big jacket, coming to claim what he thinks is his.
He walks between two of the cottages, and I follow, silently dropping onto the porch roof as he passes by.
He moves toward cottage seven with unhurried steps. Like he’s got all the time in the world.
Sam and her kids live in cottage seven. So it’s Sam’s husband, then. Luke.
It figures. She’s the newest Ruby. The pain and anger of her leaving him is still fresh. When I helped her move her stuff out, he almost went for me. The only reason he didn’t was because I’d called in Cooper to stand watch.
Luke hadn’t just broken Sam’s arm that last fight. He’d gone for one of their kids, too.
And, as it goes with so many women, trained to take so much, guilted into being so forgiving, raised to be so nice, that was it—she finally broke free. She called her mom for help, and her mom called me, I showed up with a gun and guys, and we got them out. She and the kids were safe at the Ruby.
Until now.
Until he got it into his head that because Duke is gone, the rules don’t apply anymore.
I swing down from the porch, landing on the ground softly. He doesn’t notice. His back is to me. He thinks he’s safe. That it’s gonna be easy pickings.
He’s wrong.
I move forward, silent and quick, until I’m just a yard away. I raise the shotgun into position, up against my shoulder.
“Hey, Luke,” I call.
He spins, his hand going for his waistband when he sees me.
“Don’t even think about it,” says another voice. Mo steps out from the shadow of the pool shed, her bolt-action hunting rifle pointed right at him as she stalks forward.
“There’s nowhere to run.” Jessa darts out into view, her hands steady as she points her Winchester at the back of his head.
“Hands up,” I order.
Slowly, his hands rise.
We form a loose triangle around him, Mo and Jessa at his back, me at his front, pointing the shotgun dead at his chest.
“You’re breaking the rules,” I say.
“McKenna’s dead,” he says, with a lot more bravado than he should have, considering he’s got three locked-and-loaded, pissed-off women pointing guns at him. “There aren’t any rules.”
Mo snorts. “Can I pepper his ass with buckshot yet?” she demands.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Doesn’t matter.” He looks straight at me, a mean smile twisting his lips. “I may be the first, but I won’t be the last. You think you can take a man’s woman from him? His children? And he’ll let that lie? A few women with guns ain’t nothing.”
“We got the drop on you, asshole,” Jessa says.
“You can’t get the drop on everyone,” he says, staring at me like he’s won. Like he thinks I won’t blow his fucking head off, right here, right now. “You can’t protect all of them all the time.”
“No,” I say. “I can’t. But they can protect each other.”
Mo raises her hand. “Come on out!” she calls.
The porch lights on each cottage flick on, the doors open, and the Rubies step out, each one armed and ready to protect her home, her children, her friends, herself.
We defend our own. To the death.
His gaze darts back and forth, taking in the sight, taking in Sam standing there on her porch, hunting rifle in her hand like she can’t wait to use it. And I see it in his eyes, the moment he realizes that he’s screwed.
That he’s nothing. That there’s nothing stronger than a woman who’s risen from the ashes of some fire a man set.
“You’ve made a mistake,” I tell him quietly as Jessa and Mo move forward, closing in. “How could you think we wouldn’t arm our women? That we wouldn’t give them every advantage to protect themselves against men like you coming for them? Stupid.”
Mo grabs the gun still tucked in his waistband and kicks it far from his reach. She grabs his arm, Jessa takes the other, and they zip-tie his hands behind his back as the Rubies watch and wait.
“Get the car,” I tell Jessa.
She glares at Luke for a second. “Sure I can’t shoot him?” she asks. I shake my head and she sighs, slinging the rifle strap across her back and heading off.
“Bastard,” Mo growls. When she spits at his feet, he flinches at the anger in her eyes.
I glance over at Sam. She hasn’t left her porch, but she and Luke are staring at each other.
“You want your say?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “I want this to be the last time I ever see him.”
“Sounds good to me,” Mo says.
“Sam!” he yells.
“No!” she yells back. And that’s all she says.
That’s all she needs to say.
She turns and walks back into her cottage, shutting the door firmly behind her. Leaving him behind.
Leaving him to us.
Jessa pulls the car—one of those big, boat-like Buicks from the nineties—up behind Mo. She gets out, popping the trunk, and the two of them wrestle Luke into it while I keep my gun on him.
I close the trunk with a thud and look up at the Rubies, all standing in silent witness.
“We’ll take care of this,” I tell them. “I promise.”
Jessa tosses the keys to me, and I catch them in midair. “You’ll hold down the fort?” I ask her as I get into the car. I can hear Luke thumping away in the back, yelling his head off. I should’ve gagged him.
She nods. “I’ve got it,” she says.
Mo hops into the passenger seat, and I back the car up out of the Ruby’s courtyard and head out of town.
Mo lights a cigarette, and when I make a face, she rolls her eyes, stubs it out, and flicks it out the window. “You think this is gonna work?” she asks.
“It has to,” I say.
“It’s risky.”
“It’s the best chance we’ve got.”
“And if they don’t show?”
That’s the question that’s been gnawing at me. My fingers slip against the steering wheel, and I wipe the sweat off on my jeans. “They’ll show,” I say.
North County is a big place; it takes quite a while to get to the county line. By the time we get there, Luke’s gone quiet in the trunk. I’m not stupid enough to think he’s knocked himself out or anything. He’s probably lying in wait, thinking he’ll be able to get away from me somehow.
He’s just full of bad ideas, this one.
I slow the car down, pulling over to the side of the empty road right in front of the sign that says NORTH COUNTY LINE.
No one comes out here this late, not on this dinky one-lane road, far from the highway, in the middle of nowhere. There are no houses out here. No rest stops.
Just forest for miles around.
I get out of the car and lean back against the quarter panel. Mo comes to stand next to me, lighting another cigarette. She has the grace to blow the smoke away from me.
“What time is it?” she asks.
I look at my phone. “One. They’ll be here.”
The words are barely out of my mouth when I hear the rumble of the first engine. And then the air’s filled with them as the Sons of Jefferson come roaring up, their headlights cutting through the dark, flooding the road with light and sound and menace.
They stop in a loose circle in front of us, blocking the road. The rest of the Sons stay on their bikes, but Paul gets off his, coming toward us.
“Mo,” he says, and there’s a fond expression in his eyes that almost makes me laugh.
“Paul,” she says back, flicking the ash of her cigarette at him. For Mo, that’s practically flirting.
“Harley,” he nods to me. “Heard you had some trouble tonight.”
“We handled it,” I say. “You talk to your boys?�
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“I did,” he says, crossing his arms. His leather jacket rustles a little at the movement. “We’re in.”
I smile. “I’m glad,” I say, holding out my hand.
He takes it in a bone-crunching shake. I squeeze back just as hard as I can. Partners. I take a deep breath in relief right as the loud thunking noise from the car trunk starts back up again. Paul raises an eyebrow.
“Something you want to tell me?” he asks.
“More like show you,” I say. “All of you, in fact.”
His lips twist, considering it. “Go ahead, then,” he says.
He steps back to join the Sons, and suddenly, I’m terrified. Cold-sweat-down-my-back, heart-thumping a-million-beats-a-minute kind of terrified.
This is it.
I have to prove it, here and now, who I am.
It’ll decide everything. If I’m weak. If I’m strong.
If I’m fit to rule.
I take a deep breath, and then I flip open the trunk.
I drag Luke out by the scruff of the neck, onto the road, shoving him onto his knees in front of the half-circle the Sons have assembled in. They watch, silent, judging, as I step forward.
Luke’s eyes rise to take in all the men, and he gulps, his throat working furiously.
“All of you knew my father,” I say, my voice ringing out, sounding stronger than I’ll ever feel. “And most of you have known me since I was a little girl.” I pull out Duke’s knife from my pocket, flicking it open, my gaze spanning the half circle. “I am not a little girl anymore.”
Something in the air changes, and the Sons seem to straighten up on their bikes, like sharks sensing blood in the water.
“This man”—I point the knife at Luke—“came to the Ruby tonight. He thought that because my father is gone, there’s no danger. No rules. He thought he could take his ex-wife and his children against their will, and I’d just let it happen. He was wrong.”
I nod to Mo. She steps forward, grim-faced, grabbing Luke’s head, jerking him back by his hair, exposing his left cheek to me. He fights her, but Mo’s strong, she’s determined, and she’s got fifty years of rage to fuel her.