HITMAN’S SURPRISE BABY

by Kathryn Thomas

  “Where the fuck is Dig? Where is that motherfucker!? I want to see him! I want to see him right this damn second!”

  “Whoa. Bishop, man. Calm down. Have a drink. Whatever that bastard did or didn’t do couldn’t be that ba—” The bartender turns to face me for the first time since I barged into the bar. His eyes laser in on my drooped, bloody arm with the gaping hole where the bullet is still lodged right into the flesh of my muscle.

  “Where’s Dig?” I repeat, my teeth gritted and my eyes struggling to stay focused. The jumping, jolty ride through the backstreets of the city only made me lose more blood. I know I don’t have much time left, and I still have to find where Rivet ran off to.

  The bartender, a rookie with no background in this shit, looks closer to passing out than me. With his mouth agape, he nearly drops the mug he’s drying off—only clumsily catching it as it dances on the countertop. When he’s managed to compose his yellow-bellied self, he reaches over towards his own cell and hands it to me. “It’s unlocked. You need to use it to call the boys?”

  Dumbshit question, but he’s right. Dig is secondary to this. I am not absolutely certain it was him calling for me when the house was shot up. It sure as shit sounded like him, and he had motivation if he thought I was bringing the Carnivores down with my allegiance to Rivet, but I can’t be certain. I need proof.

  “Send a text to the group,” I order the guy as I weakly push my own phone towards him. “Meeting here in fifteen minutes. No excuses. Everyone’s gotta come and come armed. No-show means color removal. I mean it.”

  “Yeah, boss. I got it.” He leans down onto the counter and begins furiously typing into my phone. When he’s finished, he holds it out to me. I trust him. My eyesight continues to dip enough that staring at that tiny screen is like focusing on an ant crawling through the bushes.

  “Listen, kid. I need you to call Dr. Abby Lane. Tell her to get down here too ASAP. I need her help to get this damn thing lodged out of me before I lose the rest of my blood. If she doesn’t answer, then get ahold of the contact in there called ‘The Vet’ and tell him I need the same. In the meantime, I’m gonna lay down on the couch in the office. Check on me every five minutes, so I don’t bleed the fuck out in this hellhole.”

  “I got it. But what about Dig? Was he involved? Did he shoot you?”

  I pull myself down off the barstool and back onto my wobbling feet. The room spins underneath me, and I’m forced to use the wood-paneled wall to guide me back behind the bar and towards the kitchen door.

  “I don’t know, brother, I don’t know,” I reply as confidently as I can muster. “But I’m sure as shit gonna find out before this night is over with.”

  Time passes slowly as I skid my way through the hallway of the modest kitchen. It’s empty now. The rush hour is long gone, and the club was occupied with our meeting earlier in the evening and the bloody incident back at headquarters. I’m sure the guys in charge of staffing it called all unnecessary staff back to hide out in case the law came looking for us. Still, I’m thankful for it. In a short amount of time, this place will buzz with anger and fear, and I can’t handle more than a few minutes of it.

  I pause at a corkboard hung up on the wall. It’s full of pictures of women—and a few bearded young men—blowing kisses into the camera or putting their tits into the frame. They beam brightly in red lipstick and tight T-shirts the waitstaff wear as uniforms. In the center, unmistakable from the girls around her, is a half-smiling, half-hamming picture of Rivet. Her left eye winks while her right hand is cupped over in a small wave, frozen in time. She looks years younger than the girl I know her as now. She looks… happy. It’s not Jane. It’s not Rivet locked in a safe house. It’s who she really is.

  I grab the picture off of the wall and stuff it into my back pocket. Who knows what I want to do with it, but a part of me needs her close to me, following me around as I try to make fucking sense of what has happened to us in the past twenty-four hours. The picture crumples in my jeans as I lay myself down on the old, black leather couch the girls use between shifts. It gives way under my weight, and I close my eyes to the flickering, fading industrial lights above my head. In the distance, I can smell Rivet’s perfume and lotion on the torn leather upholstery…

  “Shit! Is he dead, doc?”

  “I’m not a doctor, but I’m not stupid enough to think he’s dead when his chest is clearly moving up and down.”

  “Sorry. Yeah. Fuck, you’re right.”

  “Bishop? Man, can you hear me? It’s Tony Keller, from Northside Animal Hospital. I’m here to get that damn bullet lodged out of your arm.”

  I’m half aware of someone standing above me, putting on gloves. But the weight of my body holds me down in place. I try to wave my arm at him, but I feel too light and too heavy all at the same time. My eyes can only see halos and shadows.

  “Hold the guy down,” the voice says. “Don’t let him move. He’s gonna scream. They all do.” Before I can understand his instructions, I feel the sharpest fucking pain of my entire life shoot through my arm and up to my neck and head. A burning, crushing sensation follows, causing me to open my mouth. No sound comes out, at least that I can hear. But I suck in enough air to make my body jump straight up from the couch.

  “Goddammit, I told you to hold him down! Get another guy in here… the ones that aren’t drinking themselves brain-dead! Quick!” The man who had his hands around my good shoulder runs off, leaving me with the doctor squinting over my face. “You know I fucking hate when you guys call me in. I’m not a damn doctor. I don’t spend my days removing bullets from stray cats or stitching up infected stab wounds from people’s poodles. I’m gonna have to charge you way more than my normal fee.”

  “Where’s Doctor Abby?” I ask weakly.

  “I don’t know, who is she? Another vet? I heard the bartender saying that he got ahold of someone before me, maybe a nurse, but she was shot too. There was a kidnapping at her house. The police were there, but she was keeping it low profile, making it sound like a home invasion.”

  Everything floods back to me as quickly as it had left. The reason I called Abby to the safe house that night was because of how close she lived. Could Rivet have gone there after I sent her away? And what was the part about the kidnapping and shooting? Nothing made sense, but I had zero time to sort it out before two of my guys ran into the kitchen, ready to follow the doctor’s orders. This time, as he works my shoulder, I lay perfectly still. My teeth grind into one another as I take the pain as best as I could. Every wasted moment crying and screaming isn’t going to get me closer to finding out what happened to Rivet.

  Finally, it stops. All that’s left is the ringing in my ears and the burning sensation in my shoulder. The vet leans over me to apply some cream, and even that pain goes away in seconds. He gets to work sewing me up while the boys on top lighten their grip on me.

  When he’s finished, he leans over me and says, “You’re gonna need some painkillers. I can’t get that for you. I’m not a doctor with a pad.”

  “I can handle that,” I mutter.

  “You’re also gonna need some blood. You lost a lot of it.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “Like hell you will. You look like someone’s squeezed you dry. I can get you a few packs. It won’t take me long—maybe a few hours. But again, it’s gonna cost you dearly.”

  “I don’t have time for that. Get the bartender in here—the guy that called you.” I shoo him away with my hand, forcing myself to sit up. Someone hands me an old, dirty T-shirt to throw on as I try to get myself back together. But the vet’s right. The loss of blood is killing me slowly. Like this, I’m not going to have much time or energy left before this becomes an emergency situation.

  The bartender slowly enters the back area, his head hung low. “You!” I point at him. “Tell me what Doctor Abby said. What happened to her?”

  He wraps his hands around the back of his neck nervously. “She was, well, she was freaked the fuc
k out. I think she was in the hospital or maybe an ambulance because I could hear them in the back talking medical stuff. She said something about being shot in the arm too.”

  “By who? Who shot her?”

  “She didn’t say,” he confesses.

  “You didn’t fucking ask?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Christ, don’t say that shit to me. When I dismiss you, you and Felipe are on the phone finding out who the hell took her down. No one’s going anywhere until we figure that out.” I take a deep breath before continuing, “But what else? What’s this about a kidnapping.”

  “I got the info on that, but I don’t think you’re gonna like it, Bishop.” He pauses, looking over at me as if he half expects me to let him go from that warning. With me staring daggers at him, he continues, “Rivet was there. She made sure to tell me that. The person that shot her took her. He said something about working with the Snakes, but she couldn’t really hear it. That’s all the info I got.”

  “The Snakes?”

  “Bishop!” The swinging kitchen down bursts open and three of my men rush in. Every head turns towards the man in the center as he exclaims, “I’m on the phone with the district PD. They say they identified the guy who shot Abby.”

  I force myself up to stand as I wait for him to finish. He swallows hard as he mutters under his breath, “It was Dig. Dig did it. And he’s got Rivet. They’re at our headquarters! The fuckers think they can take us on our own territory!”

  “Get the riding captains in this room,” I say as I look around at the few men and the vet hanging on my every word. I’ve never felt like a commander before, never had the heart of a leader or the want to be one. But as I look into each of their wide and glossy eyes, I know that I am meant to do this. I am meant to be the president of this club. I am meant to take down this threat. And I am meant to get back my girl.

  The room grows with my men. One by one, they file into the room, forming several straight rows. No one says a word. They stare at me and the bandages wrapped around my arm. No doubt they have heard the rumors. Most of them still look stunned from the drama back at the headquarters. It’s clear that many have spent the night drinking away the loss of the few that had their lives ended back there. Now there would be more lives lost, more blood spilled.

  Not everyone’s up for the task, and I wouldn’t put it on them if they all stayed behind and turned in their colors tonight. But these men, these fucking wild men with their courage and their fists, they would do anything for the honor of this club. That’s something that Dig doesn’t know or understand. Even when the only life on the line is Rivet’s, they will fight for her return. She belongs to this club, she belongs to me, and I’m not going to let them stop until she is back here with me.

  I clear my throat as I take a slow step forward. It’s so quiet I can hear my boot shuffle on the ground. The men lean in, half expecting me to not be able to muster up the words, but my voice is as clear and as strong as ever as I say, “The shit you’ve heard is true. We’ve got proof that not only is Dig, our supposed vice president, riding with the Snakes, he’s also taken what belongs to us—what belongs to me, Rivet.”

  A rush of air is sucked out of the room. Me declaring her as my property was not something I expected to do tonight, but it needs to be said to give it a little bit more legitimacy. Luckily for me, they’re probably too focused on the Dig shit to give a rat’s ass on who I am sleeping with.

  I continue on, this time a bit louder so the men in the back can have it made clear, “After he falsely accused her of killing Viper and Vince, he came after her and me at the safe house. He used fucking Snakes to take me down, but I fought them off, and she escaped to a friend of the club’s home. I don’t know how that fucking cockroach managed it, but he got her there, and he’s taken her back to our headquarters like he fucking owns the place. But boys, we’re about to teach that prick and those that dare follow him a lesson they will never, ever forget.

  “Rivet may just be a girl, but she’s our girl. And no one crosses that line. And Dig may be just another showboating, backstabbing, son of a bitch, but he deserves to feel the fucking wrath of our club. All those Snakes do until we’ve crushed them under our boots like the vermin they are! The Carnivores ride tonight. Live or die, we’re not resting until we take down Dig, win our land back, and get back Rivet!”

  A slow rise of voices sound around me, and one by one, they raise their hand—a sign that they’re with me, and Rivet, until the end of the road.

  Chapter Seventeen Rivet

  “Goddamn is this gonna be good!” Dig chuckles to his fat self.

  The rest of the Snakes glare at him in disbelief. From the few hours I’ve been in their care, they’ve made it obvious that they’re not too fond of Dig taking over their club. They give him the same look Dig gave Bishop when he won the battle for the president’s position. But Dig doesn’t seem to notice. He stands out in the parking lot of Carnivores headquarters with his chubby little hand stuffed down his pants like a dirtbag Napolean figure waiting for some battle.

  “Y’all know what you gotta do? Know your positions and all that? Cause they’re coming. If I know Bishop, I know he ain’t gonna quit until he gets his pretty little thing here back. Ain’t that right, Rivet?” He yanks hard on my hair, nearly pulling strands out.

  I try not to cry out or give him the satisfaction of seeing me in pain or afraid, but my eyes give me away. He uses his knee on my back to push me down towards the hard gravel surface. Every bone aches in my damn body, and my stomach tenses and tightens uncontrollably.

  It’s too soon, kid , I try to tell the being inside of me. You stay put until I tell you it’s time to come out. How many weeks am I? Maybe twenty now. I know nothing about pregnancies outside of what I’ve gleaned from living with the girls, and so I know that I am maybe about halfway through mine. A baby can’t survive that early. Whatever is going on inside of me is just going to have to be put on pause, and I’m going to have to do my best to protect myself and my family from whatever Dig’s got in store.

  So I stay quiet. I keep my head low. I don’t try to argue with Dig or meet the eyes of any of the Snakes that are guarding me closely. I listen, and I wait for any sign that Dig is right and that Bishop is coming. From the bits and pieces I’ve been getting, it sounds like he managed to shoot his way out of the home and beat it before the Snakes’ police payoffs made it to the home to arrest him. There was no word about Abby either—a good sign. Someone would have said if they went and finished the job on Abby and her kid. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.

  “You’re awfully quiet down there, Rivet. Is reality hitting you on the backside of that ass? Or are you just so scared for what I plan on doing to you after I kill off Bishop and his Carnivores cronies?”

  “No,” I answer to both of his questions. My voice is barely there, but he hears the reply.

  My stoic self must be a twist on what he expected. But he isn’t going to get the kicking and screaming self. He is going to get the real Rivet—the Rivet that has spent her entire life locked up in a life that shouldn’t be hers, and the Rivet that is a fire burning deep within me ready to ignite on the outside.

  “No?” He sneers as he leans down to my eye level. “Is that what you say to me, bitch? Maybe I shouldn’t wait. Maybe I should take you out back over there and give you a taste of what I’ve got in store for you. Maybe that will make you think again about saying ‘no’ to me.” He laughs one of those loud, unconvincing laughs as he looks around the circle of about twenty or thirty men.

  Barely any of them look back or towards me. They awkwardly shift in their boots or play with the motorcycles they are straddling until Dig gives it up. He grunts harshly and then places his hands under my arms. I’m lifted to my feet, and I do my best to make myself weigh more than I actually do. He struggles a bit, but he finally manages to lug me off. My feet drag on the ground past the ring of men and out towards a shed—a she
d I’ve seen so many times in my memories of my first night with Bishop. It looks different than it did back then. What waits for me in there is far from what happened with the right man.

  Dig throws the door open and tosses me inside. I stumble back towards the workbench and then towards the small bed. Little white dust particles swirl in the air around us in the glow of the lone light shining through the open window. Dig steps into the glossy blue and gray shadow, a step closer to me than before. His teeth flash a pearly smile as he growls.

  “You know, I’ve always pictured it happening like this—me stealing you away from a man, taking you like I want you. I just got the man wrong, you little skank. How long did it take before you were spreading your legs for Bishop once I put in the orders to kill off Viper? Was it when he became president? I didn’t peg you for a power-hungry little slut.”

  “No. That’s not what happened.” I try to defend myself as my hands skirt along the bed for something, anything to grab hold of.

  “Don’t worry. Now that I’m President of the Snakes, you’ll get to be the queen of it all. No one’s gonna touch you unless I say so. You’ll be mine.”