by Max Henry
“What the hell, woman?” he says, struggling to contain her thrashing body. “What’s going on, Dagne?”
“You need to find Digits,” I answer, my voice husky from the choking. “He needs to be here for this as well.”
Jo Jo casually strides down the hall to check out the carnage, his usual cold eyes roving over the mess we’ve left around the place. There’s one of Heather’s hair extensions to my left, a spray of blood from Beth across it, and a hand print on the wall where she pushed off to get help. My shirt is torn, and I’m pretty sure my new skills with mascara have gone to waste given the black that’s on my hands from where I’ve wiped away the tears caused by lack of air.
“You girls have some fun without invitin’ me?” he teases.
Murphy rolls his eyes at the crazed idiot. “Go get Digits. Last I saw he was out in the garage gettin’ ready to leave.”
Jo Jo nods and heads down the hall, disappearing out the front doors.
“You going to stay put if I let go?” he asks Heather.
“Sure.”
I push to my feet and step back to the far side of the hall anyway. The rage still simmering in her eyes warns me to stay on guard.
“What the hell started this?”
“I’ll explain when Digits and Hooch get here,” I say. “Best just to say it all once.”
“How fucking hard is it to repeat one word?” Heather snaps, crossing her arms over herself. “You. You started this.”
I don’t bother answering her; she doesn’t deserve a response.
Beth returns, cloth to her face and Hooch in tow. His gaze flicks between the three of us, and he strides over to where I stand, touching my throat gently.
“What the hell?” He ducks his head, checking out the marks that no doubt have been left behind. “You did this?” He spins on Heather.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her truly afraid.
“Wait.” I catch Hooch’s elbow, stopping him in his tracks. “Let Jo Jo get back with Digits, and then I think he’s the best one to explain what he’s done here.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Hooch eyeballs Heather. “Looks to me like she’s the one at fault. What’s he got to do with it?”
“Just wait,” I plead, slipping my hand in his.
He pulls me to him, crushing me against his chest. “Hell, Dagne. I can’t leave you alone, can I?”
All he’s done of late is leave me alone. “It’s not my fault,” I say, shocked he’d think so.
He pulls away, hands on my shoulders, and kisses my forehead. “I didn’t mean it like that, baby. I meant that I feel responsible for not being here to protect you.”
I don’t need to be protected, I just need to be heard. “I told you this thing with Digits would be a problem,” I whisper.
“I’ll sort it. Promise.”
“You two make me fuckin’ sick,” Heather whines from her corner.
Hooch whirls on her, arm outstretched as he points at her. “You so much as speak another word, and so help me, you won’t have a tongue left to utter another.”
Murphy reaches across and shoves Heather in warning. “Learn when to keep your trap shut, woman.”
Normally I’d agree, but in this instance I think Heather’s inability to keep her emotions in check is exactly what the men needed. Her outburst, as much as I’d rather not have had to endure that, has brought up an important subject.
Digits is controlling her, abusing her, and using her to get at me. Which leads to the question, who else has he used her as a pawn over? What else is he doing if toying with Heather is one of his favorite past times?
I told Hooch that having me around would only cause trouble. But now that I stare at this fine tea party we have going on in the bowels of the Fort Worth clubhouse, all I can think of is one line Hooch gave me back at Lincoln.
“Violence is how I resolve things.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Hooch
We’re so close to finding out who the elusive buyer is. So damn close. And then this. How can I ride out for a couple of days to track them down when the one’s I can trust the least are those I never suspected? I knew Heather was a little loopy over Digits, but what the hell?
“I’ll take you to get checked over as soon as this is sorted out,” I tell Dagne, pushing her hands out of the way to check the red marks on her throat again.
“I’m fine. Really.” She grabs my wrists and looks me hard in the eye.
I’m still not convinced. Especially after taking a look around at the bloody mess on the floor and walls, not to mention Beth’s rapidly swelling face.
“What’s going on in here?” Crackers calls out as he enters the house. “We’re supposed to be on the road in fifteen …” His words trail off as he catches sight of Beth with the towel to her face. “Shit, babe.”
Digits hangs behind, his jaw slack as he surveys the scene.
“Got anything to say about this?” I step forward, jerking him into the thick of it by the collar of his cut.
“Is that your hair, Heather?” He smirks at the strewn extension. “Who won?”
I backhand the smug smile right off his face. “I’ve been told this has to do with you.”
He eyes Dagne, and then turns to Heather. “You best be explainin’ things, wench.”
“I’m sorry baby,” she blubbers, reaching for him.
He smacks her hands away. “What did I fuckin’ tell you?”
“That you were over her, but you’re not,” she hisses. “It’s all you talk about: Dagne this, Dagne that. I’m sick of it, Digits. You were supposed to be mine.”
“I ain’t anybody’s. Try and wrap your pea-sized brain around that, would you?”
“But you told me—”
“A heap of shit to shut you the fuck up,” he grits out between clenched teeth. “Now stop embarassin’ me.”
“I think you’re doin’ a mighty fine job of that yourself,” Murphy chimes in.
I couldn’t agree more. The last couple of days since he arrived back from Lincoln—late—I thought I’d seen a change in him back to the old Digits. He told us he’d taken the long way home to clear his head and get things straight, and it sure seemed like he had—especially when he showed up in my office with new information he’d supposedly sourced from a Wingmen rat.
Third party facts were usually more fiction than truth, but when we’ve been chasing down this ghost for the better part of six months, I’m game to try anything.
It’s why we were heading out.
“Tell them what you said to me, Heather,” Dagne coaxes.
She steps around from behind me, edging toward the upset whore. Heather’s chin dimples, her eyes full of betrayal, and yet she still chooses to direct that anger at my woman.
“Why?” She lunges for Dagne, yet stops short. “So I can ruin things more than I already have? Look what you made me do,” she hisses. The broken woman turns to Digits, her face softening. “I promise I won’t do anything like this again,” she pleads. “Let me prove it to you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Digits scoffs. “You’ll fucking prove it all right.” Before a single one of us can react, he pulls his piece out and shoots Heather right between the eyes. “Best way I know how.”
Crackers tackles Digits against the wall, wrestling the gun from his grip as the idiot laughs. “What the fuck did you just do?”
Beth wails, blood spatter adding to her already gory appearance. Fragments of blood, and brain matter paint the wall beside her as Heather lifelessly stares up from where she’s slumped to the floor, shock frozen on her features forever.
I gesture to Jo Jo to get Heather’s body out of there, and usher Dagne into the parlor. Her shoulders shake, yet her face is expressionless. She simply stares at me as I spin her around and seat her in one of the armchairs.
“What were you tryin’ to get Heather to say, babe?”
Her mouth opens, yet no sound comes out. I get it; the first time you witness a person k
illed it takes a moment to sink in. The scene flashes on repeat in your mind until you can fully grasp the reality of what you just saw.
“He was abusing her,” she whispers. “Mentally.”
My breaths quicken, and I have to literally focus on keeping my feet solid on the floor until she’s finished when all I really want to do is march back through and tear Digits’ cut off before peeling his Aces ink from him piece by piece.
“He told her she had to stay skinny for him to like her. He forced her to starve herself like that.” Dagne’s face twists into one of confusion. “Told her she’d make a great mother, that he wanted kids and she was the only one for him.”
“He hates her.” I hang my head and correct myself. “Hated.”
“He made her believe they were going to be together forever. He played her for a fool.”
“He’s dead,” I state simply, straightening up. “Fuckin’ dead.”
Dagne tilts her head back, looking up at me with those innocent eyes. This isn’t her life, isn’t her way of dealing with things. As much as I’d love to say I can fix this, I think it’s only going to push us further apart. She’s just witnessed the very thing she doesn’t want—a life of violence—play out right in front of her, to her.
“What are you going to do?” she murmurs.
“Get some goddamn answers.”
***
With Dagne and Beth safely upstairs and being minded by Murphy, the one brother I can still trust, I usher Crackers, and Digits into the chapel.
“So what’s it going to be,” Digits asks casually, rounding his seat yet not taking it.
I push him down by one shoulder, and lean my hip against the table beside him. “We’ll take a vote with a full table, but I’m pretty sure we can all lay safe bets on what the outcome will be.”
“That’s it? You cut me out?”
“What else did you think would happen?” Crackers asks from his position leaning against the closed doors. “You threaten not one, but two women, not to mention kill Heather for what she had to say, and that’s just the tip of it all.”
“What else you got?” he asks cockily, staring down my VP.
“Where did you really go after Lincoln?” Crackers asks.
I glance over at him, wondering what he hasn’t shared. He purposefully ignores my curiosity and focuses on Digits.
“I told you guys, I went the long way around to think things through.”
“What things, exactly?” I ask.
Digits pins me with a less than satisfied look. “You know exactly what.”
“Can’t tell me you managed to grow a conscience over how you treated Dagne that quick if you’ve been fuckin’ with Heather the same way for twice as long.”
“Fuckin’ with Heather, how?” he asks, frowning.
“Dagne told me what Heather said to the girls before any of us showed up. You’ve been bullyin’ her, makin’ her starve herself because she believes it’s the only way to keep your interest.”
“Bullshit.”
“Never told her she was it for you then?”
“What do you think?”
“Or that she’d make a great momma?”
He simply glares up at me, his hands twitching in his lap.
“So, where did you go?” Crackers asks again. “The truth this time.”
“I met up with the rat who gave me the info I passed over,” he says.
Yet, I don’t believe him. It makes sense, sure, but why be so secretive about it? Why not just tell us straight up that’s what he was going to do?
“Why the lies then?” I ask.
“Because if I told you fuckers that’s what I was off to do, you would have wanted to tag along, and I didn’t want to scare the guy off.”
“You’re drownin’ in so much bullshit I’m surprised you can still tell night from day,” Crackers states, shaking his head.
“Believe what you want,” Digits says, “but that’s the sum of it.”
I really don’t know what to believe anymore. I swing so hard daily between wanting to kill this motherfucker, and then hoping what he says is the truth, that I’m developing whiplash.
I kill him, and he’s finally telling it to us straight, and I lose all respect.
I out him, and he has in fact lead us to the ghost buyer and an end to this drug shit, and I can’t be trusted to make decisions.
I leave him in, and he fucks us over again, and I get both of the above: lost trust, and respect.
I can’t fucking win.
“How do you want to deal with this, pres?” Crackers asks, snapping me out of my head.
I stare down at Digits, seeing him, but not recognizing a single piece of the brother I swore in a few years ago. I can’t trust him, but even worse, I can’t trust myself either.
“I don’t know.”
Digits smirks. He knows he has me. And it grates at me.
“I can’t trust you to go alone and check this address out,” I tell Digits, “but I’m also not leaving you here unsupervised with the women.”
“Quite the problem you have there, boss.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with his mirth.
“So we all go, exactly as we’d planned to begin with. But you listen up, and you listen real good.” I lean down, leveling our gazes as best I can. “I find out this is a lie, that the address is a fake, and you won’t be coming home in anything but a wooden box. You hear?”
“I hear you.”
“Good.” I look up at Crackers. “Objections?”
“If it keeps him away from the girls while we’re gone, then I’ll agree.”
“Sorted then. Let’s go find out who the mystery man is.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Dagne
“When were you going to tell me you were going away for a few days?” I hit Hooch with the hard questions the second he shows his face in Beth’s room.
He glances between myself, and Murphy where he sits watching over a snoozing Beth. She put up a brave face, but the minute we got ourselves cleaned up she curled under a blanket and was out like a light.
“I was coming to tell you as soon as I had the bike ready.”
“So I had no time to protest, right?”
Murphy stands, dusting his hands on his legs. “Excuse me.”
Hooch and I wait, watching as he leaves the room, pulling the door quietly behind him. I check Beth, but she hasn’t even stirred.
“It’s club business, Dee. It hasn’t got a thing to do with you.”
I shake my head turning for the window. We don’t fit together. Any misconceptions I had about us managing to make this work have only been brought to light.
“Everything this club has done since Digits brought me back here has had something to do with me in one way or another. Admit it.”
“Not true.”
“How?”
He sighs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Like I said—”
“Club business.” I nod tightly. “I get it. Little women can’t handle the truth, right? It’s why this goddamned boy’s club keeps their women folk in the dark?”
“There you go,” he snaps, “making presumptions about shit you don’t understand.”
“I’m trying, Hooch. I really am. But when you keep asking me to stay, and all that means for me is lies upon lies, and abuse upon abuse, then tell me, why the hell would I want to stick around anymore?”
“So that’s it? I’m not enough?” He crosses his arms; eyes narrow slits as he scowls at me.
“I never said that.”
“Sure feels like you meant it.”
I spin and stalk toward him, taking him by surprise. “Then give me enough. Stop shutting me out, and packing me away for later. I’ve barely seen you since we got back here.”
“Because I’m the president,” he growls. “It’s my job to be busy, takin’ care of everyone else before myself.”
“Before me,” I correct.
He huffs a heavy breath, hanging his head. �
��I’ve been on my own for so long the habits are hard to break.”
“I don’t doubt that, but you haven’t had somebody to ignore in the past if what you say is true, so it shouldn’t be a habit to begin with.”
“I don’t ignore you.”
“You don’t make any time for me, either.” I step up to him, resting my palm over his racing heart. “This”—I press harder with my hand—“tells me you care.” I drift my hand upwards, resting my fingertips on his bottom lip. “But I need to hear it from here.”
“I guess I’m still worried that if I share it all, then I’ll lose it all when you leave.”
“I’ll leave if you don’t share it all.” I shake my head, moving my hand back to his chest. “I can’t be held at arm’s length all the time.”
His dark eyes hold mine captive as he searches my gaze for something. Whatever it is, he doesn’t find it. His brow furrows and he steps out of my reach with a huff.
“I need to be on the road. I’ll see you in a couple of days, Dee.” He hesitates just outside the door, staring at me for what feels like an inordinate amount of time, but in reality is probably a few fleeting seconds. His mouth opens to say something, but he shakes his head instead, turning heel and leaving me hanging.
He’s closed the metaphoric door on us, shut me out and barred the windows. I hold myself tight, turning back to the window to watch the men as they roll out in a cloud of dust and thundering engines.
I can’t wait around for the promise of nothing to come. He feels so close, and yet so far away. I’ve never felt such a strong connection with somebody who only gives me what they think I need.
Why do I stay on? That’s the real question. What the hell incenses me to stay when I get little to no love in return?
Why?
Because you know this isn’t the real him. You know this is his depression talking.
He’s pushing me away to protect himself, when in reality, that’s the last thing he needs.
I move to the bed and take a seat at the end beside Beth’s feet.
“He really likes you,” she mumbles, eyes shut.