"You couldn't fucking leave good enough alone, could you, Eva?"
"This has to stop, Levi," I said, ignoring the stiffening in Nick's shoulders as I stepped up to his side, well out of the stay hidden instruction he had given me.
"What does?" Levi asked, casually. Continuing with that not-a-care-in-the-world appearance of before. "You running from me? You denying I even exist? Seems I got your attention now, don't it, cuz?"
I held his furious gaze, seeing only black in his eyes, no colour. It could have been a trick of the night light, or it could have been all him. Levi's eyes had always seemed dark to me growing up. Dark and slightly evil, as though different blood ran in his veins from mine.
"It doesn't have to end in more bloodshed, Levi," I commented. "Put away the gun."
He laughed. It sounded bitter and harsh on the night air.
"I don't think so, bitch," he said conversationally.
"Then how do you plan to finish this?" I asked, genuinely intrigued to hear what he had to say on the matter.
"It seems you've set the tone, cuz, by bringing your faithful bulldog with you. Couldn't stand to be alone with me, eh?"
My turn to laugh. Bulldog indeed. Levi had no idea who he was up against.
Suddenly Levi's stance became rigid, pure hatred filled his eyes.
"You fuckin' laugh?" he shouted, incredulously. "You fuckin' bitch!"
"Calm down!" Nick instructed.
Levi lifted his gun to aim at Nick and my heart stopped.
"Don't you fuckin' tell me what to do, shithead!" He waved the gun at Nick, I think it was meant to be threatening, but it came off more unhinged than planned.
"Levi," I started, but he turned the gun on me instead and stole my words right out of my mouth.
"Always thought you were better than us, you did," he said, a crazed look replacing the hatred of before. "Strutting around the place with that fuckin' guitar slung over your shoulders. Fuckin' cowgirl princess and didn't Ray think the sun shone out of your arse?" I would have discounted those words a few weeks ago, not anymore. Obviously Dad showed how much he loved me to Jessie and her boys, even if he couldn't show me himself. "Never so much as smiled at us, but with that guitar in your hand you thought you were invincible. Well," he said, puffing up his chest with pride, "I showed you. Fucking broke that last one and now, after I deal with your bulldog shithead friend here, I'll break the one Daddy bought you too."
"Enough!" Nick said, breaking into Levi's ridiculous monologue. "Drop the gun, Levi."
"Fuck you!" Levi spat, literally throwing his head forward and spitting out a wad of saliva at Nick's feet.
Then he charged. Why the darn hell he didn't fire his gun, I don't know. But he simply threw the gun at Nick's head, instead of pulling the trigger, and followed that up with a punch to Nick's jaw. It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly, that even Nick, security expert extraodinaire, was caught off guard and didn't manage to fire a warning shot at all - clearly he was affected by that wound.
I heard the unmistakable sound of bone crunching as Nick whacked Levi across the cheek with his gun, then Levi, in a feat unprecedented before by someone as thick as tree trunk, wrapped a beefy hand around Nick's throat while he simultaneously punched his fist repeatedly into Nick's gut.
I screamed, tried to pry Levi off Nick's body and received an elbow in the ribs, the same ribs Jessie had already pulverized, and my scream turned into a cry of pain instead. I stumbled backwards and watched in horror as the tree trunk and my man went tumbling to the ground in a flail of limbs and fists and the odd moonlit glint off the metal of the gun.
A few grunts and groans later, a lot of swearing and spitting on Levi's part, and the gun went flying into nearby bushes. I crawled after it, determined to find it and shoot the son-of-a-bitch who was currently slamming Nick's head repeatedly into the dirt. Several frantic moments later and still no sign of the gun, but my fingernails were broken and cuts and grazes marred the palms of my hands as I scrabbled in the undergrowth of a prickly bush that threatened to slice me into ribbons at every opportunity.
I sat back in frustration, muttering a few choice curse words of my own, and then gathered my energy for round two with the thorns from hell. And then I heard Nick's cry of pain.
Not just the normal fist to the gut groan. Nor even the moan he'd made when Levi had rammed his skull into the dirt again and again. This was deeper, more heart-wrenching. Coming from somewhere Nick should not have had to go.
I spun on my butt, more stones and grit slicing my palms and legs, as I turned my attention back to the brawl. Levi, that cowardly, fucked-up, no good, piece of shit, had his finger dug deep into Nick's shoulder blade. Over the exact spot he had landed a bullet in earlier. Tears leaked out of Nick's eyes, even as he miraculously worked through that full body screaming pain and punched Levi in the head with his good side.
Levi simply grunted, his eyes bugging out as he drooled with fiendish delight at the sight of Nick's pain. The arsehole was getting off on it, was relishing the tears and flushed face lying beneath him. It was fuelling him, egging him on. Enticing him to dig deeper, to cause more pain, perhaps to permanently wound the man beneath him.
Fuck the gun. I was going to strangle the bastard instead.
I staggered up and threw my full weight on the back of Levi, only realising I was now adding to the weight on Nick and in particular on his bullet wound, after the fact. Nick groaned. It sounded awful. And Levi swore bloody murder, jerking his body in an attempt to throw the monkey off his back.
But I clung like a monkey. My legs wrapping around his sides, my thighs pulling inward as hard as I could. I may not ride a lot of horses, but I've ridden a hell of a lot of those practice bulls in the saloons back at Nashville. My thighs are pretty darn strong. Levi's grunts turned into groans and then I firmly placed my booted feet on either side of Nick's body beneath us and with my arms wrapped around Levi's neck, stood up and back with all my strength.
My ribs protested, my back ached, the air in my lungs burst from my chest causing spittle to coat the back of Levi's head. And then the son-of-a-bitch finally released Nick and went with me. To only land like a dead weight on top of me as my back and head hit the dirt.
Holy fucking cow! But that hurt. The sky started blinking in crazy sparks of white and no matter what I did, I could not suck in air. Even when Nick hauled Levi off me and started throwing punches at the idiot's head, I still couldn't breathe. I realised I was winded and stunned and near to passing out. But I was not going to give Levi Russell the satisfaction.
I blinked frantically to wipe the white dots from my vision and continued to suck in air until it reached my lungs. Finally the world came into focus and oxygen filled my poor aching frame. I sat up gingerly, arms wrapped around my ribs and watched Levi and Nick beat the ever loving crap out of each other.
Nick is trained to fight. Hand to hand combat is something he excels in. But Levi is an overweight street rat, who plays in the gutter and loves it as dirty as he can get. Levi landed punch after punch to Nick's torso, then followed it up with a few lucky shots to Nick's face. Nick returned the favour with a kick to Levi's guts, then a swift one-two jab to his kidneys. I watched in horror as both men continued to pummel each other.
Darn it all to fucking hell, but this was never going to end, was it? I jerked when Levi landed a particularly nasty upper cut to Nick's jaw, feeling the pain right along with him. I screamed encouragement when Nick returned the favour with a knee to Levi's solar plexus, making the oaf double over and for a moment give me hope it was enough. But Levi rallied, responded with an arm wrapped around Nick's waist and a harsh shove against a tree trunk eliciting a grunt of agony from Nick.
A few hard and fast - and I was thinking desperate - punches from Nick to Levi's middle had the larger man backing off. But not before Levi landed a solid hit on Nick's nose. Blood gushed like Niagara Falls down Nick's chin and chest. He didn't make a sound, but I whimpered.
Oh God
. Oh God. Oh God. This was awful. This was unbearable. I was watching Levi pulverize Nick into a bloody mess. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to be anywhere else but here. I wanted to get off my butt and intervene, but even standing upright was a challenge right now. Not that I don't ever rise to them, but still, once I found my feet the world spun, and the only thing that stopped me from landing on my knees again was the trunk of a nearby tree.
Levi made an animalistic sound from deep inside his throat, a roar of defiance I didn't think the coward had in him. Nick staggered, showing just how weak he was getting. That bullet wound and consequent blood loss from earlier taking its toll. And Levi, seeing his prey falter, somehow found all the encouragement he needed to finish the job. The growl became an unnatural and unholy cry, announcing Nick's demise. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but the punches Levi rained down on Nick's torso, face and sides were unrelenting. The force of each strike utterly debilitating. Blood splashed across the dirt, sounds I wished never to hear again assailed my ears. Images of Nick's death before me branded on my brain for eternity.
I was crying, I realised. Wetness running down my cheeks. Me. A cowgirl-in-the-rodeo-ring was breaking down in tears. This was it. I was watching my cowboy get killed. Levi Russell was taking the one thing that meant everything to me. My heart. My soul. My beloved. I took as deep a breath in as I could manage, preparing myself for one last attempt to stop the train wreck before my eyes. The world swayed as my palm left the roughness of bark, bile rose up my mouth at the nauseating feeling of vertigo... and my knees found the hard packed earth.
Failure.
Tears.
A scream of defeat that I knew was all mine.
Then out of the shadows of the bushes behind Levi came the most bizarre sight. The distinctive shape of a guitar case, followed by the even more distinctive sound of Levi's head cracking as it was hit at high speed by the solid object.
Levi grunted. His eyes bugged out further, a small trickle of blood began to trail from his right nostril. Then he blinked, shook his head to clear some sort of haze and growled, preparing to throw his full weight back at Nick.
Whack! The guitar case hit dead centre on the back of Levi's head a second time. He started to sway, like a great big thousand year old Kauri tree as it's about to be felled by lightning strike. My eyes found Nick's ice-blue. He looked exhausted, in pain, but equally dumbfounded as to what was happening. We both turned our gaze back on Levi just as the Kauri tree came crashing down.
The sound of Levi's unconscious body hitting the dirt reverberated through the still night air.
Only to be broken by a deep voice singing from the shadows of the trees. I knew the song immediately: Garth Brooks' I Got Friends In Low Places. I know every Garth Brooks song.
"I'll just say goodnight and I'll show myself to the door."
And I was getting to know that voice too.
Spike wandered out of the tree-line without a single care in the world; guitar case slung casually over his shoulders like a baseball bat, huge-ass smile on his face.
Epilogue
Three weeks later...
I was running late, I knew it. Everyone would be there already, waiting on me. I hated being late. But I'd been waylaid by Carmel before I could get out of ASI's doors. God alone knows why the surly woman suddenly decided she had to tell me every scrap of her life. From when she was a kid living in Papatoetoe, to when she met her dearly departed husband Marcus, the love of her life. To the four unruly, but apple-of-her-eye sons they'd had. Right through Marcus's untimely death at aged forty, the years of single parenthood afterwards, the first grandchild at a way too young age. To when her life took on meaning again, after her horde up and left for the their own nests, and she started working for Nick.
I had to admit to a bit of curiosity. Not only was the woman an enigma to me; grandmotherly in appearance, tough as nails on the inside. She also doted on Nick and the ASI guys. Fussed over them, picked up after them, and genuinely treated them as though they were of her own blood. And they all softened around her too. Not so much as raising an eyebrow at her sharp tongue or persistent badgering when they stalled on a job or task they had been set.
It became obvious that she was more of an office manager, than a receptionist. Aware of what jobs were under way at any given time and who was doing what, keeping them all on target, when Eric was too busy to put the pressure on. And that she was capable too. She'd pointed out the shotgun attached to the underside of her desk, the panic button next to it and the fact she knew how to handle a Baby Glock, "Just as well as you, cowgirl."
I heard it all, just as I was struggling out of the key code locked rear door with my new Martin, the one Spike had rescued from Levi's hiding place deep within the clump of trees at Eden Terrace Reserve. He'd heard some chatter, as he put it, on the muso's grapevine - a grapevine I think was more nefarious than musical, but who was I to argue with Spike? - that a Martin was buried in amongst the trees on the Reserve. Spike put two and two together and came up with my childhood tormenting spot and the Russell boys' recent theft of my father's gift to me. He happened to be there at the exact time we confronted Levi, but thinking initially, we had it all under control, continued to dig my case out. Once he had it in hand, things had turned south with Levi and Nick's brawl, so Spike intervened the only way a guy like him knew how.
Thankfully the case protected the fragile guitar inside and now sported some scrapes and dirt encrusted scratches on the outside. A badge of honour Spike insisted I kept, so he could brag about his involvement in our "rescue" to the groupies after our sets.
I wasn't sure I needed the reminder of Levi's near successful attempt on Nick's life, but I also wasn't giving my trailer-trash cousins anything else of mine. They'd taken enough. One guitar too many. They weren't getting my guitar case too.
Things hadn't been sorted out completely as far as the Russell Family was concerned, but the upshot of it all was that Levi, Bailey, Tyler, Leo and Ryder would all do time for their attempts to harm me and mine. And that Jessie was looking at a charge or two as well, but the fight had all but left her. The realisation that her sons would be behind bars for a long time to come, that her only sibling had died and she was now all alone, had a drastic effect on Jessie Russell, that no amount of pleading to her conscience in the past had ever been able to do.
She was awaiting the verdict on whether the police were going to follow through with aiding and abetting charges on herself, but Pierce and Stone suspected if they didn't she'd still disappear with her tail between her legs and we'd never see nor hear of her again.
I thought they might just be right on that count, how did you survive the incarceration of all five sons at once? Mum and Dad had enough trouble dealing with Gabe's imprisonment, times that by five and the result would be heartbreaking I was sure.
I wasn't scared of my Aunt anymore. She and her boys had always worked best when in a crowd. Confidence in numbers they'd never really had on their own. Alone, Jessie was stripped of her posse, and the blustering bully was nothing but an empty shell.
I resolved, however, to make sure she was never visiting her sons on the days I visited Gabe. Having decided that my brother needed a little familial support. Despite our upbringing, despite our parents' faults and lack of loving care when we were young, I was not going to turn my back on my brother any longer. Whether he wanted me visiting or not, I was going to make him a part of my life from now on.
And my life was in Auckland.
I managed to finally slip away from Carmel, nabbing one of the company SUVs Nick had left available for me when he'd had to shoot out earlier for some emergency. He'd promised to meet me at Sweet Seduction, but who knew how long this current problem would take. I was getting used to the late night phone calls that pulled him from our bed, even though it had only been three weeks since I returned. I'd considered moving into a motel at first until I could find a suitable flat to stay in, but there didn't really seem much point. Other t
han various ASI responsibilities taking him away now and then, we'd spent every second together. Day and night. From the moment he'd left hospital after recovering from Levi's bullet wound and feral attack, through Dad's funeral a day later, where I sung Wrapped Up In You and farewelled my Dad on his gift; my new Martin D28 engraved with Daddy's Cowgirl on the front.
To now, when I was due at Gen's shop to jam with the guys, a new concept she was trialling on Sundays. Sweet Seduction's Sunday Sessions, where local artists - be they musical, artistic, poetic or dramatic - could perform impromptu acts to their hearts' content. Testing their material, seeking comfort from like minded people and garnering a little publicity at Auckland's most popular café-come-chocolatier-come-music-store. We were her opening act, mirroring the Showcase Local Talent Night we'd performed at with such resounding success.
I found a carpark a street over from High, and beeped the locks behind me. Lugging my case lovingly as I walked toward Sweet Seduction, feeling like I was heading towards a family gathering and knowing that's exactly what Gen's shop would be for me from now on. Home meant so many different things, to different people. To me it had been a place far away from childhood memories and hardships growing up. But now that had all changed. There was much to Auckland that reminded me of my father. Reminded me of those years I'd struggled to be something other than what I had be born into. But it didn't matter anymore. With Dad gone and Gabe behind bars, those reminders were no longer bitter, but mixed with a little sweet.
And considering what I had discovered, that maybe, just maybe, my memories were tainted by the distance of time and immaturity, I'd also promised myself I'd give my Mum a better shot. Maybe I could bridge the gap there. But I wasn't holding my breath. Her loud and very public breakdown at Dad's funeral was enough to set that back a month or two. I needed to get her forced weeping out of my head, before I crossed that particular bridge.
But in the immortal words of Garth Brooks, "Burning bridges one by one, what I'm doin' can't be undone. And I'm always hoping someday, I'm gonna stop this runnin' around. But every time the chance comes up, another bridge goes down." I wasn't so sure, but then, maybe his words were a warning I needed to heed. Because at this point and time, that particular bridge might have been on fire, but hadn't yet burnt completely through.
Sweet Seduction Serenade Page 33