by April Lust
His eyes narrowed at the action. “How could you ever get married to a snake like Santos?” His eyes flashed and I saw that anger again, but it was deeper than before, more destructive.
I swallowed heavily and clenched my eyes shut. Why was I marrying Santos? I had my reasons. Important reasons. The kind of reasons that changed a game mid play and changed your opinions of people and actions, even though maybe you never thought they could. Nester had hated Santos for a long time—I wasn’t stupid enough to have missed that. But when Nester got arrested, everything had changed. But he was so clouded by rage that he would never understand. And that was how I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth.
“I know that you guys have a history,” I began tentatively, knowing that I had to choose my next words carefully or it was a waste of breath. “I know that…that you have some bad blood, but, Nester, he’s not such a bad guy!”
He actually laughed at that and I couldn’t help but wince at the harshness of it. “Not such a bad guy?” he repeated incredulously.
Feeling my own anger build, I put more force into my words. I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s right. Santos’s been really good to me,” I told him angrily, stepping closer. “He’s taken care of me while you’ve been in prison!”
That last part slipped out before I could think better of it and part of me, most of me, wished that I could scoop the words out of the air and put them back into my mouth before he had the chance to hear them, but it was useless. He’d caught them and there was no taking them back.
“Right. Sure, of course. Taken care of you,” he spat. “Because he wasn’t the one who put me there in the first place, right?”
I bit my lip. There was a chance that it was true, that Santos had been the one to get Nester into trouble. I’d been working hard to tell myself that it wasn’t true, that Santos would never do something like that intentionally, but at the same time I knew how deep the hatred ran between the two of them. Santos hated Nester just as much as Nester hated Santos.
But even so, I had to believe that that wasn’t the case. Even Santos wasn’t so cruel.
I shook my head. “There’s never been any proof that he—”
“He was the one who tipped off the fucking cops!” Nester all but screamed at me, eyes flashing dangerously. “Who else would have done it?”
His words shook me, but I couldn’t let this get to me. I was where I was and there was no changing it. Not now. Probably never. Part of me sunk at that sad, pathetic thought, but I pushed it aside. No time to be weak now. “Oh, so I suppose you didn’t sell drugs at all, then, right?”
I saw Nester’s whole body tense, because he knew on some level that I was right. Whether Santos had set him up or not, Nester had gone along with the deal all on his own. Santos wouldn’t have been able to force him to do that no matter what Nester said. It didn’t mean that it wasn’t Santos’s fault if it had been him to call the cops on Nester, but Nester would have to accept some of the blame, too.
Even if I wasn’t sure that was really fair. This was the only life Nester had ever known; how could anyone expect any different? And in the end, I’d known what he was doing, too. Wasn’t I just as guilty, then?
“Bitch,” he got out between ground teeth, pushing past me.
I winced at the word. Nester wasn’t one to use derogatory words against me, but he wasn’t above it when he thought it was warranted. It hurt to think he thought I deserved that term, but at the same time, I thought maybe I did, too.
I turned to face him again, but his back was too me. I saw the muscles ripple beneath his tight white shirt and felt the heat on my face as soon as I realized how much I liked the sight.
He ran his hands through his dark hair almost savagely.
“So what the fuck was all of this?” Nester finally asked after a long pause.
I frowned at me. “All this?” I repeated, gesturing about my house as though that was what he was talking about.
He made a frustrated sound. “This. Us,” he clarified, and I felt my heart sink.
I shook my head, but of course he couldn’t see that. It was just that I didn’t know what to say. How was I supposed to answer that? Us had meant everything to me, but that was a long time ago now. What was the point of bringing all that up again? Were we supposed to reminisce and feel all the things we had felt all those years ago only to have reality come crashing back down around our shoulders? How was that supposed to help with anything?
When I didn’t answer, Nester turned around to face me again. There were deep lines in his otherwise youthful face, his full lips pulled down into a heavy frown that was almost more like a defeated sigh. I wasn’t stupid; I knew he was still mad at me, but there was something else there, too.
Hurt.
“What do you want me to say?” I finally asked him, almost letting my arms drop to my side again tiredly, but remembering that the ring was there and worried that it would set him off all over again. Not that this was exactly better, but still.
He let out a whoosh of air. “I want you to remember that time I took you to the movies and you were shocked that it was an outdoor thing with the blankets on the grass and everything. And when it rained everyone freaked out and left except for us. We stayed and made out in the rain, because that’s what you fucking do when you’re…”
He broke off, but he didn’t have to finish. I already knew what he was going to say because that was what I felt that night. In love. So in love that I didn’t care that a security guard shone his light down on us and told us that we needed to go, but seemed really embarrassed about the whole thing. So in love that I didn’t care that my dress was practically see through. So in love that I probably would have let Nester take me right then and there if we hadn’t been stopped.
In love. That was what Nester and I had clung to for so long before everything had suddenly fallen out beneath us.
In that moment, I wanted to tell him everything. But the truth teetered on the tip of my tongue and I couldn’t get it out. Not before his next words.
“Never fucking mind. I’m sorry I opened my damn mouth. In fact, I don’t know what the fuck I’m even doing here,” he said, biting each word off like it was a piece of jerky, tough and a little old and maybe too salty to be taking so many bites at a time. “The girl I’m looking for isn’t around anymore, is she?”
Before I had a chance to answer, to deal with the sudden swell of hurt that filled me, he was turning away. He left, slamming the door harshly behind him, and I was left to stare at the spot where he’d been.
It wasn’t the homecoming I would have hoped for all those years ago when he’d first been put away, but time changes things and people, and I knew that under the circumstances I had no right to ask for more. How could I tell him what really happened?
No, I couldn’t afford to risk Nester or anyone else, so my secret had to stay secret.
Chapter Three
Nester
I drove around angrily for most of the night. Hurt and fury built inside until I was a monster of my own rage, blinded by it until it was probably unsafe for me to be driving, but I didn’t care. I needed my freedom and I needed time to work through what Zelda had told me tonight.
How could it be Santos? How could she, of all people, knowing what a goddamned monstrous snake he was, go to him? And she told me she couldn’t date a criminal. So what the hell was she doing sleeping with a fucking wretch like that?
My stomach twisted and knotted uncomfortably at the thought of them together, lying and twisting and writhing in pleasure. I could imagine the look on Santos’s face, warped with pleasure as Zelda’s eyes stared up at him, switching between vengeful ecstasy and remorseful pleading.
I felt bile rise in my throat and had to force it back. I swallowed it down, determined to keep my cool and my sanity alike.
After the sun finally crested the horizon, I went back to Jackson’s. He was pacing nervously, like some damn mother hen, when I got back and it was clear that
he was both waiting for me and dreading the moment when I would arrive. He stopped his pacing as I walked through the door and waited for what he must have sensed was coming.
My eyes narrowed at him dangerous. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
He chewed on his inner cheek and his lower lip until it looked like he was mangling them both in his mouth like dinner, preparing to regurgitate them for his newborn. After a moment, he released his lip and sighed, shaking his head. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair, working through every nervous tick he had before finally addressing my question.
“Things were hard when you were in the slammer. They changed, you know?” he began by way of both explanation and appealing to my sense of justice and righteousness. I wasn’t sure I had those things anymore, but I tried to stay calm and reminded myself that revenge wasn’t really about shooting the messenger.
“Right, changed,” I spat, letting myself plop down onto his old, worn couch. I glanced at the stairs which led to the second floor. Jackson had a kid, but only part time and I didn’t know if the kid was here or not.
Jackson must have noticed my gaze, because he shook his head in answer. “No, Angel’s with her momma tonight. Meeting that new slab of meat that keeps trying to get her to call him daddy. I’ll break his fucking neck if he…” He broke off and shook his head, forcing his breath out in a heavy whoosh.
It looked like I wasn’t the only asshole having adjustment issues. “Focus,” I told him, bringing him back to the thing at hand. “Why the hell didn’t you guys tell me? If things were changing so badly, why leave them up in the air?”
Jackson shrugged again. He took a seat in the overstuffed chair, just as old as the couch and maybe matching or maybe just so faded you couldn’t tell one way or the other anymore, and leaned back in it. My tone had softened ever so slightly and it must have been enough to settle him, because he wasn’t as tense as he had been moments before. Not as tense and not prone to the same typical nervous ticks that he usually did when he knew something bad was coming.
“Because what could you do?” he answered finally after a long pause. “I mean, really? So we tell you, right? Then what? You come busting out of prison to kill Santos and Zelda both? That doesn’t really come off as a sound plan. Even if you could bust out, you’d go straight back, and for longer because of it. No, in the end, you couldn’t do a damn thing while you were in, so we decided it wasn’t a smart thing to tell you.” He shrugged again, apparently his move for the night. “We didn’t see the point in upsetting you any more than you already were.”
I rubbed at my eyes, suddenly feeling tired, burned out. I’d been out and back for only a day now and already it felt like the world was shifting beneath my feet. Was this really how things were?
Yes, I thought. And you’d better fucking learn to accept that, you chump, before things get worse. Before you look weak.
Running my hands through my hair, I thought about my options. There were things that I obviously needed to do. The top on my list was get revenge on Santos. Despite what Zelda thought—or claimed she thought; I’d seen the hesitation, the uncertainty in her eyes—I was convinced that Santos was behind my getting put away. She could redirect the blame all she wanted—yes, I’d gone with the plan, yes, I’d done a thousand drug deals over the years—but in the end there was only one man I could truly blame for what had happened to me.
Santos DeArma.
But the thing about revenge was it was easier said than done. I’d been intending to rally my guys and take down Santos the old fashioned way, but my encounter with Zelda had changed my opinion on a few things. Maybe hitting Santos where it hurt wasn’t just about the club, though I decided quickly I would have to start there.
It just wouldn’t end there as I’d originally planned.
Looking up at Jackson again, I asked, “How many are still loyal?”
He looked up at me in surprise at my question, almost like he’d forgotten I was there. Maybe he had, lost in his own thoughts about the dad who was muscling in on his girl or the woman he never could hold on to. “Berserker?” he questioned, though he surely already knew the answer.
I nodded. “Yeah, how many stuck around?”
He hesitated, running a hand once more through his hair. It was getting thinner than I remembered, though he was only a couple of years older than me. He’d always gotten the short stick as far as hair went and eventually he’d just shave it all off. He just didn’t want to, so he was trying to hold on to what little he still had, almost desperately.
He chewed on his lip again, telling me that he really didn’t want to answer me.
I let out a sigh. “Just tell me, Jackson. I already know that we lost a few. I need numbers to know where I stand.”
He finally managed to meet my gaze and I saw what might have been pity there. “We lost more than a few.”
I tensed at that. “How many more?”
Sighing, he shook his head, slumping forward until his elbows were on his knees and he could use his hands to scrape along his scruffy face. “Over half.”
My eyebrows must have hit the roof, I was so shocked. Sure, I’d factored in losing a few. The Berserkers had been pretty loyal, all things considered, but taking a hit like your leader going to prison was a hefty thing and I didn’t really fault guys for shying away after the fact. A record like being busted for drug deals could do wonders for your reputation, but it also meant that every cop in the area knew who to look for first when something was going down.
But over half? I had expected at least some loyalty from my boys, and the idea that so many had just shrugged their shoulders and headed for the hills, well, it hurt in unexpected ways. I had at least been prepared in some small way for the betrayal of Zelda. No, I hadn’t been expecting her to be shacking up with that crook Santos DeArma, but at least I had known we were over when I got out.
But this? How could I have known that I would lose so many of my brothers after being gone for a measly five years? It just didn’t seem right.
“Over half,” I repeated as though I’d simply misheard him—or he was out of his goddamn mind.
“Yeah, boss, over half,” Jackson confirmed in an unfortunate tone that told me just how much he hated being the one to tell me. “A lot of ’em, well, they freaked out. ’Specially the ones who haven’t done time yet. The ones who were young and stupid anyway—we can do without ’em.”
He was working hard to cheer me up, I could tell, but I thought some part of him honestly felt that way, too. Jackson had done time himself. He’d spent four years in prison and done an additional two years of probation, so he knew the system and he despised it. It meant he was both terrified and not afraid at all. He never wanted to go back, would probably rather go out in a blaze of glory than get thrown in the slammer all over again, but he also knew he could do it. He could survive it and he would for that little girl of his.
I let out a heavy sigh, trying to collect myself. I needed a plan, and knowing how few people I had left made that plan a little more difficult, even as other parts of it were starting to come together.
“Alright, well, who do we have left?” I asked as calmly as I could. I could feel the now familiar bubble of anger overtaking my chest cavity, like an ulcer, the worst kind of heartburn, tearing through my system, unwilling to let me be.
Jackson thought a moment. “Well, most of the guys don’t really come around anymore, you know? We haven’t had an official meeting in ages. Didn’t seem right without our leader,” he clarified hopefully, trying to gauge my reaction. When I only nodded, he pressed on. “But I keep in touch with the guys, keep tabs on who’s still around. The Bobby Boys are still with us, and so is Schumacher. Grease, Bones, and Wildcard, too. Few others. Some of the stubborn kids are still here, some of the old farts are out of the picture. You know, like Carlson, who decided he was just done with the whole fucking thing. Some headed off to other clubs, some moved out of the state, and some just retired.” He shru
gged.
“So how many total?” I finally asked, forcing myself to be calm and collected about the whole thing.
Jackson took a minute to think about that. He counted on his fingers and in his head, adding up imaginary numbers. Finally, he fixed me with a pained look. “Fifty you can count on. Maybe seventy-five on the high side, but I wouldn’t push my luck with a lot of them. They’ll probably get on board when they know you’re out, but I wouldn’t put my money where my mouth was until you talked with them.”
I couldn’t say anything for a moment.
Fifty. After my club had grown to over two hundred, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the idea of only fifty. We’d gone through recruitment a few years back and nearly doubled our numbers. We were discussing expanding our territory. We were talking about taking over a few other dwindling clubs and maybe branching out into another city. We were thinking about becoming big, real big, and now? Now fifty was all I could count on.