“Thanks for coming with me.”
He looked at her. “Of course. Having a baby isn’t something only one of us would go through.”
Kristie’s heart swelled with gratitude. They stepped outside and she was amazed at seeing a thin blanket of snow along the ground. It must have snowed last night. It brought a small smile to her face. Soon the holidays would be upon them. She hoped it would be a time of celebration for them.
They got into his truck and he turned it on, frowning. “Shit, I need gas. We’ll get some real quick, okay?”
Kristie nodded and then he drove out onto the street. There was light traffic since it was a Monday, and she looked out the window. For some reason, the town looked differently to her today. She realized it was because she was always hurrying. She would get up for work and get ready and get to her car as quickly as possible. Whenever she drove, she kept a solid focus on the road to ward off accidents. Always hurrying, she thought.
But today Kristie didn’t have to hurry. It had been ages since she had been in the truck with Gray. She found herself admiring the dark sky, clearly ready to burst with snow. There was light foot traffic. She wondered what everyone was doing outside today – what had brought them outside and where they were going. She wondered if their lives were messy, too.
Gray pulled up to a gas station. With a start, Kristie realized it was the same gas station that Gale and Ben had cornered her in. That had been almost a year ago but the sudden flashback made her throat go dry. Gray headed into the shop to pay for the gas with cash. Kristie’s eyes were watering from the sudden burst of cold when Gray had opened his door. She began to look around for a napkin in an attempt to focus on something else besides the memory from last year.
Making a mental note to ask Gray if he would want to clean his truck this weekend, she opened the glove compartment. There were no napkins but instead a handful of red envelopes and crumbled up paper. Her heart skipped a beat. No way, she thought to herself, wondering if she had discovered evidence of something terrible. Would Gray really take another lover?
She banished the thought and glanced up at the gas station. Through the window she could see him stuck in line to pay. She reached toward one of the notes and with shaking hands opened it. It was typed up and simply said: The bullets were meant for you. Next time they won’t miss.
Kristie gasped and dropped the paper. Heart hammering in her chest, she pulled the others out of the glove compartment, opening them up quickly and reading each one. All of them were typed up threats. What is this? How long had this been going on? Why did Gray have them? A million thoughts ran through her head and she wished that it would all stop.
Trembling, she heard the door open and Gray leaned in to put his change away. He froze as he saw Kristie with the papers in her lap. She looked at him, wanting him to say something first.
“Kristie. I can explain. They’ve been coming in the mail. I don’t know from who. So I was holding onto them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice wavered.
“I didn’t…I didn’t want to make you nervous. With everything else going on, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t feel scared at home, too.”
“We’ve been getting these at our home?”
Gray cringed, as if he couldn’t believe the slip up he had made. “Yes. But Kristie, they mean nothing. Probably just some kid playing a prank.”
Irritation blazed up in her. “Do you think I’m stupid? These are from Armand, aren’t they? At the very least the Infernos. They got to our mailbox. They got inside, past the buzzer. What is to stop them from coming into our home?”
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew you’d get worked up over it, and I didn’t want any more stress on you.”
Kristie fell silent, biting back her anger. Was she lashing out at him or the situation? She knew that Gray was trying to protect her. That was all he had ever been trying to do. If anything, she knew she should be pissed off at Armand and the Infernos. She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes briefly.
“Let’s get gas and get to the appointment.”
***
Gray watched as Kristie filled out paperwork. Kristie’s back was straight and her shoulders stiff. He knew that even though she had dropped the subject of the notes in the truck, she was still dwelling on them. Not for the first time in the last twenty minutes, Gray cursed himself for holding onto the stupid letters. But there had been no other place to put them. The warehouse was burnt up and the bar was destroyed. I should have just thrown them out. Why did I even keep them?
Kristie finished the paperwork and held onto the clipboard, chewing her bottom lip. Gray wanted to say something to her but wasn’t sure what to say. It didn’t help matters that the waiting room was small and had three other women in it. Anything he said, everyone else would hear. Better not to talk. Kristie didn’t touch the book she had slipped in her purse, and Gray ended up pulling out his phone to play a game on it.
Finally they were called to the back. They sat down in the room to wait for the doctor and the nurse came in to ask questions. Gray let Kristie answer most of them. He didn’t want to say something stupid, especially when he knew she was emotional right now. The nurse left and they were alone.
“Gray,” Kristie mumbled, “I understand why you didn’t tell me about the notes.”
“You’re probably right that it’s Armand. I mean, no one else would send something like that. And I know you don’t want people getting into the apartment complex but it isn’t high security.”
“I wish you would stop this.”
Gray didn’t want to fight right now, in the doctor’s office, yet again about how she wanted him to pull away from the gang. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t grasp why he had to make sure to take care of the Infernos and Armand. After everything they had done to them, including shooting her, he had thought she would understand more than anyone else.
“Not now, Kristie. We’ll talk about that later.”
Thankfully, she fell silent. There was a soft knock on the door and then the doctor came in. It was an older-looking woman with graying hair who had a kind face. Kristie visibly relaxed. Gray hoped maybe this appointment would end up going okay after all.
***
When they got home, Kristie had lied and said she wanted to nap. Gray had let her head to their bedroom. She flopped down in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Snow was gently falling outside the window. Gray turned on the TV in the living room and the sound relaxed her. It was nice knowing he wasn’t going anywhere and was nearby.
It was especially nice to know that after what she had found out earlier. Just thinking back to the notes made her incredibly nervous. Kristie didn’t even want to think about them but they seemed to lodge into her brain. Someone from the Infernos was getting to their mailbox. Only a step away from getting into their actual apartment…
She told herself to stop thinking about it, rolling onto her side to look directly out the window. Kristie focused on the snow, thinking back to the doctor’s appointment. They had told the doctor everything about what was going on. She wanted to run some tests for Gray’s sperm count and tests on Kristie as well.
“If there isn’t a possibility of having kids the natural way, we can always look at different options. It isn’t like how it used to be,” she had said to Kristie. “There are plenty of ways to conceive and have children now.”
What if there is something wrong with me mentally? Kristie stared outside. If the tests showed nothing was wrong and Kristie should be able to be pregnant, what would that mean? Maybe she was just going crazy from stress. That would be just her luck.
Kristie wanted to dwell more on the options to conceive. It would be a long rocky road ahead. Things would have to sort themselves out at some point.
Chapter Eight
Kristie ran her fingers over her dress. She admired the way that she looked in the mirror and counted to ten to control her breathing. Tonight they would
be celebrating. Kass had planned a big party to celebrate the day that she had met Rick. It was at a bar close to the one where they had actually met. Kass had been so excited to go that there was no way that Kristie could have turned her down.
How could it have been a year since they had met? She remembered that night vividly. It was the first time in ages that Kristie had seen Kass. She had thought that Kass went there regularly but it turned out to be her first time there as well.
There had been so many firsts that night. It was the first night that Kristie had met the rest of Gray’s gang. That included Armand. Her heart had skipped a beat when she saw Gray. They had bickered, but it had been filled with that underlying passion both of them had been trying to ignore. Then the Infernos had come in and Armand had started a fight.
“You ready yet?” Gray’s voice brought her back into the present.
Kristie looked over as he peeked inside the bathroom. “Almost.”
“We should probably leave soon or we might be a little late.”
Kristie nodded. They hadn’t spoken much since the doctor’s appointment. They both knew it wasn’t truly because of the appointment but because of the notes that she had found. Gray had said they would discuss the gang later on but she found herself unable to bring it up. What would they talk about? The same thing that they always did? Kristie knew she would ask Gray to leave the gang because of his promise when they got engaged and he would counter with that the promise had been made before Armand had shot her. She didn’t have the energy.
“Okay,” she said, putting down a makeup brush. “I’m done.
She turned to see Gray looking at her, smiling a little. “You look gorgeous.”
Kristie felt her face flush. “Crazy to think that it has been a year since the two of them met, huh?”
“Crazy. I was thinking about that night earlier.”
“Me, too. Remember how much we fought?”
Gray walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, looking at their reflection in the mirror. “Isn’t it strange to think of how different everything is?”
“It is. But we’re together now. That’s all that matters.” The light of the bathroom caught her wedding ring and reflected briefly, as if winking at the two of them.
Gray squeezed her hips. “Better head out.”
***
It pissed Gray off more than he let on that the bar was ruined and Rick couldn’t hold his party there. Every time he thought about the bar being bombed, rage filled him. When he thought of Kristie’s face, drained of color, with Armand’s threatening notes in her hands, he felt even worse. What sort of person was he that he couldn’t avenge Kristie for what had been done to her or give her the child she wanted so badly?
His mood darkened as he pulled up in front of the bar that Kass had picked. It felt odd and uncomfortable to be going here, he thought as Kristie slid out of the car. All of it felt wrong. How could things have gotten so messed up in only a year? What was he going to do if Rick truly did move away with Kass?
“Gray!” Kristie called back when she realized that he was staring into space in the truck.
He got out and trailed after her, trying to still his own thoughts. The cops, even if they were humming around him, had no evidence of anything he had actually done. He was sure now that he had a lawyer he had nothing to fear on that front. He knew Kristie wanted him to step back out of the gang world. But staring at this bar…realizing what he had lost…it was a bitter pill to swallow, one that he had brought onto himself by letting Armand in the gang. How could he let Armand go after he had shot Kristie?
Gray’s thoughts were wiped from his mind as he stepped inside the bar. It was family friendly and had a ton of TVs set up everywhere. There was no band playing but top forty rock music piped in from somewhere. The decorations were planned carefully to look carefree and slightly old fashioned, to give the appearance that the place was older than it actually was. It was the type of place that Gray loathed. He wished that they would have picked the bar downtown, the one near his old apartment, where he had taken Kristie in the bathroom.
But seeing Kass hovering over a large table, it was clear that she had wanted something that her other friends and family could feel comfortable visiting. Dive bars didn’t fit into that group. She saw them and beckoned them over. Gray relaxed slightly at seeing how massively uncomfortable Rick looked as well.
They both greeted Kass, who sat them down next to Rick. There were a bunch of people Gray didn’t know. In fact, as he glanced around the table, he saw that the only people he knew were Rick, Kristie and Kass.
“Where are the other guys?” he mumbled to Rick.
“They’re on their way. Don’t worry,” he said, seeing Gray’s face. “I know we aren’t sure which one of them fed the information to the Infernos about our bar plan. Just keep an eye out.”
“This is all my fault, you know. I never should have let Armand join. Now everything is a mess.”
“It is a mess. Listen, Gray,” Rick shifted to face him, looking at him seriously, “I know you want to keep the group going. Believe me, I wish we could, too. But with both of us married…and Kass is pregnant…you understand what I mean, don’t you? We have no warehouse anymore. No bar. No income from our…car business.” He glanced around the table in case anyone was listening in. “It just seems pointless to keep going.”
Gray’s throat tightened. “You want to give up?”
“Is it giving up if we are happy? If Kass and I move away, then it’ll be just you trying to man a group of people that we can’t even fully trust. I just mean that this whole thing has gotten out of control. Completely out of control. Why even do this anymore?”
Gray fell silent, staring at his friend, who suddenly looked ancient. Rick was only a few years older than him but in that moment it looked as if he had lived three lifetimes while Gray fumbled with his own.
“Think about it, okay? For real. To deliver what you promised Kristie.”
He wanted to fight with Rick, to counter with the fact Kristie had been shot by Armand. How could he just walk away from that? Not to mention how much the group had meant to him throughout the years. Being the leader of the Devils Advocates, even if they had done illegal activities, had been his entire world. Until Kristie, the gang was your entire world until Kristie.
As if sensing he was thinking about her, Kristie looked up from her menu.
“You okay? You’ve been acting off all night.”
Gray forced a smile. “I’m fine. Do you know what you’re going to order?”
***
Kristie knew Gray was uncomfortable. She understood. The bar Kass had picked for the party was a far cry from what the Devil’s Advocates bar had been like. It was commercialized and tried to hide it. She knew he would rather it was just upfront about being a cash grab bar.
But she understood that Kass couldn’t hold all her events at a dive bar. Her parents and friends probably didn’t understand Rick or what he claimed to do for a living. Kass, like Kristie, had to juggle two worlds and blend them together. However, unlike Kristie, Kass seemed to be pulling it off. She had a baby on the way and a happy marriage. You shouldn’t compare.
Kristie ordered something small, not feeling very hungry. Gray’s energy seemed chaotic. She didn’t say anything though. Whenever she had mentioned that his energy had seemed off, Gray would scoff and poke fun at her for believing in such a thing.
“Hey, look, they have cheese sticks,” he commented, leaning toward her and pointing at the menu.
“Oh, damn it, I didn’t see them.” She was a sucker for mozzarella sticks.
“I’ll order some when the waitress comes back.”
Kristie smiled, touched by him remembering such a small detail about her and she took his hand in hers. He smiled back. She decided not to try to broach a serious conversation with him right now. Whatever was bothering him could wait.
“I have to pee,” she mumbled, pushing herself away from the tabl
e.
Kristie made her way toward the bathrooms in the back. The place was growing a bit more crowded, which made her uneasy. She wished she felt okay in crowds but it felt as if every shadow and fast movement held some sort of secret threat known only to her. She heard a loud noise and glanced behind her back to see a family laughing. Stupid, Kristie told herself as she stepped into the hallway that housed the bathrooms. Jumping at everything, terrified of people laughing, what a fool.
She stopped in front of the bathrooms. At that moment, the men’s bathroom door swung wide open and an old man walked out. He was slow and gave a leering smile at her. Kristie suppressed a shudder. Old men – could they ever not be creepy? As he passed her by, her gaze flicked into the men’s room.
She saw him. For a brief second before the door slammed shut behind the old man, Kristie could see Armand’s snake-like eyes on her. He was in the bathroom. It felt as if her entire body had been shoved into a layer of ice. Her vision seemed to dim, and Kristie stepped backward, slamming into the woman’s bathroom. It was thankfully empty.
What do I do? What if I just imagined it? Why in the world would Armand be here? No one has seen him since the shooting. What if he’s going to finish what he started? Kristie felt as if she couldn’t breathe. The door opened and a woman stepped inside. Kristie practically threw herself in the nearest stall, closing the door behind her and sitting on the toilet. The woman went into a stall four doors down and Kristie tried to control her breathing. Her skin was clammy but she felt as if she was drenched in sweat. At any moment, she expected Armand to burst into the door and finish her off.
Kristie counted to ten. When Armand didn’t burst into the bathroom and the woman went over to the sink to wash her hands, she relaxed ever so slightly. If that had been Armand, then it was clear that he wasn’t going to come in here to shoot her. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to leave the bathroom and shoot me then. Her hands trembled as she reached for her phone. Would he really gun her down in a bar? What if she hadn’t seen him at all?
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