by Mandi Beck
Kiernan stops and holds up a hand for them to do the same. “That’s far enough. Where’s this chip ya have?” When Reggie steps forward to give it to him, every one of Kiernan’s goons raises their arms, guns cocked. He shakes his head. “I don’t think so, big fella. Hand it over to the lady and stay where ya are.” Reggie stands where he is, the indecision flitting across his face. Frankie makes the decision for him when she moves around him, both of my brothers directly behind her. Watching her every movement, I feel every one of my muscles tensing, readying for battle just like before a fight. She reaches Reggie’s side and takes the card from him, and with a hand cradled under her swollen belly, walks to the devil himself.
“Such a brave girl ya are,” Kiernan says as she nears him, arm outstretched with the tiny little chip pinched between her fingers. It’s all surreal and in slow motion with the birds chirping happily in the background, the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore. All so serene and peaceful. Such a lie.
Kiernan takes her offering and hands it off to O’Reilly. As he turns back to Frankie, he draws his weapon. “Brave or just stupid, just like yer dead fella.” Stock still, I watch in horror as Kiernan points his Glock at Frankie’s head. At that moment, I don’t think, I just act. Stomping on the foot of the asshole behind me, I throw my head back with all of my strength and connect with his face. Cursing, he drops to the ground, writhing in pain. A cacophony of yells and screams fill the air right before shots ring out and echo all around us Not sure where they’re coming from, I barrel my way through mobsters with guns to my girl, noticing that the clearing is now full of cops, all adding to the melee. With Frankie in my sights, I wade through the chaos. Just as I near her, I see a flash out of the corner of my eye. I turn to see Kiernan, the sun glinting off the muzzle of his gun, a smile of pure evil across his face as he pulls the trigger. I flinch with each shot.
One. My heart stops beating. Two. I’m frozen in terror. Three. I lunge toward the mad man set on taking everything from me. Four. I tackle him to the ground, my arms still tied behind me, his weapon flying from his murdering hands at the impact. The birds now squawking in panic as I throw all of my weight on him. Screaming Frankie’s name over and over, no way to stop it as it echo’s in my ears, invading every space in my mind, I pin him to the ground with my body, heavy with the adrenaline running through my veins. I’m just about to slam my head into his face, just like I did to his brother, when I’m hauled up by the arm, but not before I get in two swift kicks to his head and one to his ribs as I’m dragged away.
“Deacon, it’s Detective Adams. Please, stay still, let me cut your restraints,” I recognize her voice as thick arms hold me steady. Stilling, I allow her to free me. Once my hands are unbound, the arms holding me loosen and I drop to my knees. Not allowing myself time to recover from what just took place, I stand and start searching frantically. Calling out for Frankie and my brothers, pushing my way through the hoards of people now clogging the banks of the lake. I see Reggie crouched down covered in blood and come to an abrupt halt. “No, no, no, no, no, no.” Over and over, falls from my lips as I take in the scene in front of me.
Sliding across the grass and sand, I scramble to where Reggie sits. The guttural sounds coming from me rip from my very soul. How? How will I ever learn to live without the one person who believed in me the most? Loved me at my worst? Who I love more than I love myself?
I won’t.
I can’t.
I fucking won’t.
I explode through the emergency room doors of the hospital, startling the people milling around with my haste and my appearance. I wouldn’t allow them to treat me at the lake, my need to get here far greater. The three of us skid to a halt in front of the treatment room doors when we see a bloodstained Dr. Ashley push through them. Grim-faced he greets me, “Mr. Love, I’m sorry that we’re meeting like this again.” A part of me is hopeful. Everything turned out all right last time I saw him. It would this time too, right? I mean, it fucking has to. All hope is dashed when he shakes his head no. “I’m just so sorry that the outcome isn’t the same.” I knew. I knew, but having him confirm it is too much.
“No. No!” I yell and storm past him, pushing my way through the doors, searching every bay I pass, my eyes darting frantically until I come to the one I’m looking for. Collapsing to the ground, all my strength leaves me. Gone. All of it. Gone, as a nurse pulls a white sheet over my brother’s face. “Don’t. Don’t put that on his face. He can’t fucking see like that.” Staggering to my feet, I move to his side. “He can’t see. He needs to see,” I demand, tugging at the sheet that she won’t let go of.
“Sir, please. Sir, he’s gone. I’m sorry,” the nurse says to me gently, carefully removing my shaking hands.
“He can’t see . . .” My words are lost on a sob. Sonny hates the dark. I’ve always made fun of him for it.
“Deacon?” I whirl around to the sound of my name. The haggard face of my dad bringing all the pain to the forefront. The nurse makes her way past him, giving us time alone.
“Pop.” The moment he’s beside me, I fall into him. His arms band around me, holding me up. “Why Pop? Why Sonny?” I can’t catch my breath, the pain in my heart is too much. “It should’ve been me. It always should’ve been me. I’m so sorry, Pop. So sorry. He was the good one. He was so good, Pop.” My voice catches on the words as my dad does his best to console me, even when his world is imploding.
The door opens and Maverick steps in tentatively, “They’re wrong, right? He’s not g-gone?” he asks hopefully, brokenly.
My chin hits my chest as another sob is dragged from me. I can’t. I can’t do this. Refusing to look at the bed that holds my now lifeless brother, refusing to meet the devastated eyes of my father, refusing to acknowledge my only living brother. My only. Living. Brother. I stumble into the hall. I have to find Frankie. I need to find Frankie.
Limbs like lead, I wander out to the waiting room, searching for my girl. My anchor. Not seeing her, I spin in a circle, frantically seeking. Please no. She was fine, wasn’t she? I saw them put her in the back of an ambulance. She was sitting up and talking to them. Right? I dart for the door and run right into a brick wall.
“I got ya, bro,” Reggie says, steadying me.
Eyes wild, I look behind him. “Frankie?”
“She’s okay. They admitted her to the maternity ward though for observation because she was grazed.”
My heart trips, trying to find a rhythm that isn’t quite so painful. “Does—does she know?” I ask.
Reggie drags a hand down his face and shakes his head no.
Nodding, I look away, his pain more than I can handle right now. “Take me to her. Please.”
I stand outside of Frankie’s hospital room with my forehead pressed to the wood, tears falling silently and steadily down my face and dropping to wet my shirt as I ready myself to face her. She’s going to know as soon as she sees me. I’m incapable of hiding the pain I’m suffering right now. I don’t even have the energy to try really. I just want to spare her of it for another minute. Our lives are never gonna be the same. We’re never gonna be the same. With one last fortifying breath, I push through the door.
She’s sitting in bed, eyes closed, hooked up to monitors beeping and tracking what I assume is the baby’s heart rate. I open my mouth to say something. Anything. But nothing comes out. Just then her eyes open slowly and land on me. One look and she sees everything, just like I knew she would.
“Nooooooo. Nooooo, Deacon! No!” she wails. Burying her face in her hands, her whole body convulses from the power behind her anguish and tears.
I start for her, my steps faltering when I see Guy stand from a chair in the corner. He brushes tears from his face, my dad’s name falling from his lips as he heads for the door knowing that Frankie and I need each other right now. Turning back to the Princess, I reach over my shoulder and pull my shirt over my head as I walk to her bedside, wincing when it sticks on the dried blood of my wounded
shoulder. Gently, I slide my hands under Frankie’s legs, moving her over and crawling in behind her. She turns into me, burying her face in my neck, her tears dropping onto my chest.
“It’s all my fault, all m-my f-f-fault, Deacon. I’m s-so s-sorry,” she sobs. I hold her to me, doing my best to stay strong for her when, really, I’m on the verge of breaking again.
“Don’t say that, Frankie. It’s not your fault. It’s not, baby,” I demand, rocking her gently.
“It is! I brought him into our lives. I did that. I k-killed Sonn—” She can’t even get his name out before she’s crying so hard against me that it shakes us both.
There’s nothing that I can say that she’ll listen to right now, so I don’t. I just sway her from side to side, letting my hands sift through her hair, over and over, letting the monotony of the motion calm me as the tears fall with hers, mingling before they leave a trail down my chest. I’ve never felt pain like this. It’s all-consuming and heavy. It’s so heavy. Like I’m lying beneath a ton of bricks and can’t find the strength to get out from under them. May never find the strength to fight my way to the surface. I may never want to.
Forty-five days. That’s how long I’ve been walking around in a haze. One thousand and eighty hours since my brother left this world and me to fumble my way through it. I’m barely living right now. I don’t really know how. Sonny was always telling me what to do, and now . . . nothing. My pop isn’t much better. Mav has himself so buried in work he doesn’t have time for anything else. They got the fight postponed. I don’t even know for when. Don’t really give a fuck. The trial was over and done with as well. Those of the bastards that weren’t killed at the lake that day are now behind bars. Better than they fucking deserve.
I come to the gym every day, work myself until I collapse. My shoulder almost completely healed. Most days I don’t even bother to go home. I think a part of me feels Sonny here in the gym. Within the walls or something. Nobody bothers me here; they don’t know what to say. I’m glad they don’t try. Frankie is worried about me. Fair, since I worry about her too. Every time I see her, she’s crying. I’m not sure if she even realizes it anymore. It kills me to see her like that. I know me staying here at the gym hurts her, that she doesn’t understand it. I just can’t find it in me to explain it to her right now.
How do you explain? I’ve been to war. Lost brothers. I've held them while the life seeped out of them in a country a world away from home. I've watched them be blown into the atmosphere by cowards not willing to even look you in the eye when they take your life. But never my own flesh and blood. Never my brother. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I left the battlefield behind me; my war, my fight, a totally different beast now. Death wasn't supposed to invade my soul here. It wasn't supposed to take from me what it wanted with bullets and violence. Leaving me with gaping holes, soulless. Anger and anguish a constant companion instead of my beautiful girl.
The sound of the door catches my attention.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, confused.
“I called him,” Frankie says, moving out from behind Leo.
Widening my stance, I look to them for some kind of explanation. Frankie walks into the weight room, closing the door behind her. “I called him, Deacon.”
“Yeah, you said that. Why?” Eyes narrowed, I watch her cross her arms over her chest, Leo leaning back against the closed door, content on letting us have this out.
“Do you blame me for what happened?” she asks in a controlled voice.
“No, of course not. I’ve told you that,” I say, agitated. We’ve had this discussion more than once, and I’m over it. Tired of telling her that it wasn’t her fault. It simply wasn’t.
“Then why don’t you come home?” The hurt in her voice cuts right through me.
I glance at her then away.
“Leo, did you know that we’re having twins?” she asks with a hint of sadness and wonder.
Whipping my head to look at her, I ask in astonishment, “What? We are? Why didn’t you tell me? What the fuck, Frankie?” How the fuck could she keep something like this from me.
“I tried calling you. When I was in the hospital, Dr. Dean came to check on me and said they were picking up two heartbeats. He scheduled an ultrasound. You missed it. Indie took me.” Her voice catches. “You didn’t come home that night. I drove here to tell you, but you were sleeping.” She shrugs her shoulders. “You haven’t been home since, not in weeks really, figured you didn’t care.” There are tears glistening in her eyes. I shoot a look at Leo who is still against the door, head down. I still don’t get why she called him.
“Of course I care, Frankie. You’re all I’ve got left,” I say to her softly. “I just—I just . . . fuck.” Thrusting my fingers through my hair, I yank until I can feel the burn in my scalp.
“It should’ve been me, Frankie. He was a good man, honorable, fucking perfect, the bastard.” I laugh, full of regret, squeezing my eyes shut. “Should’ve been me,” I choke out.
I’m not sure when she moves, but when I open my eyes, she’s standing in front of me. Her blues travel over my face slowly before they settle on mine. Black eyelashes spiky from her tears, she reaches up and trails her fingers down my face. “Sonny didn’t deserve to die Deacon, but neither did you. You, you’re a good man. The best man I’ve ever known. I don’t ever want to hear you say that it should’ve been you again,” she states firmly. “It shouldn’t have been any of us.” Flicking a tear from her cheek she continues, “I miss him too, Deac, every day. I also miss you. I feel like I’ve lost you both.” Her voice is thick with emotion and it breaks me.
I give no thought to looking like a pussy in front of Leo. With tears streaming down my face, I scoop up my girl and bury my face in her coconut-scented hair. Immediately I feel a weight lifted. Not completely, but enough to let me breathe for the first time in over a month. This right here is all I have left—I can’t forget that. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t realize,” I say into her neck.
“I know, Deac.”
I pull back, a small smile all I can muster even though I’m happier than I’ve been in longer than I can remember. “Twins?” I ask in awe.
Frankie nods, smiling sadly at me. “Yes. Dr. Dean says that sometimes one hides behind the other or their heartbeats are so in synch you can’t tell that there are two.” She fingers the chain at my throat. “I didn’t know if you wanted to know the sex so I told them not to tell me.”
“Baby, I’m sorry I missed it. Did they give you those picture things?”
We’re interrupted when Leo clears his throat. He raises his hand in apology. “Sorry. I know you’re having a moment. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says sheepishly. “But I practically had to suck my Commander’s dick to extend my leave. We need to get to work.”
Glancing between the two, I ask, “What do you mean ‘get to work’?”
Leo sighs dramatically. “Your fight is in less than three weeks. You look like hell. You probably won’t even make weight right now,” he tells me shaking his head.
“I’ve been hitting it hard, dude. I’m in fucking fantastic shape. I’ve never not made weight,” I spit out.
“Hitman, you’ve lost weight. You need to bulk up. You’re not taking care of yourself, bro. Just being here in the gym going through the motions isn’t cutting it,” Leo chides. “If you’re gonna be ready, we gotta get you on track.”
I don’t want to listen to his shit. I don’t even want him here. I know that’s hateful as fuck since he’s my friend, and Frankie obviously called him, but Sonny is my trainer. “Tomorrow. I just want to go home with my girl right now. That’s the track I need to get on.” Wanting to change the subject, “You staying at our place?”
“Not tonight. I’ll probably stay here tonight.”
“Call me if you change your mind, Yoda,” I say as I take Frankie’s hand and lead her to the door.
She stops as we pass him and places a hand to his arm. “Thank
you for coming, Leo. I appreciate it.”
He bends and gives her a peck on the cheek. “Any time, sugar.”
Leo holds a hand out for me to shake. “Tomorrow, Hitman. You and me,” he says pumping my arm.
“Talk to you then, Yoda. It’s good to see you,” I lie. It’s not good to see him. I now know why he’s here and I’m gonna have to break it to him that it’s not gonna happen.
Late that night, lying in bed with Frankie curled into my side, my mind is racing. My thoughts all over the place. I sigh deeply. “You asleep?”
“No, I’m up, Deac,” she says as she begins to softly trace her name inked into my skin. She does it when she’s lost in thought.
“Why did you call Leo, Frankie?” Pretty sure I’ve figured it out.
Her hand stills for a second and then resumes its path. “I’m scared for you. Usually I’m the one who is able to pull you out of whatever you’re dealing with, just like you’re it for me. Nothing I’m doing is working though. I couldn’t even get you to come home.” Frankie’s voice is pitched low, but I hear all she’s not saying. It’s always been either her or Sonny able to keep my shit straight. I run hot a lot of the time, always have, and Frankie has been my anchor since forever. If it wasn’t her, it was Sonny. “I couldn’t watch you slip away any further than you already had. I called Leo a couple of weeks ago. He said he was about to go on leave and that he’d be here the first chance he could.”
“What’s he gonna do for me that you couldn’t, Princess?” She sits up, so I stack my hands under my head.
“Train you. Help you find some purpose. Make sure you don’t step in that Cage with Rude Awakening unprepared and get hurt,” Frankie says in a matter of fact tone. “I see you, Deac. I know you and I see you. You’re hurting so bad and you won’t let me in.” Her voice hitches. “You’re a hair trigger right now. I keep waiting for you to go off. It won’t be long before you do. I’m afraid for you. For us.” She reaches out and runs her fingertips lightly over my lips. “I need you. We need you.”