by Deja Voss
“You better watch yourself, girl,” she says with a laugh.
“Listen, I might have been raised in a cement room, but I’m no dummy. I can see the sparks between you two from a mile away, even when I’m drunk off my ass.”
“Shut up and drink your tea,” she says, but the smirk on her face is undeniable.
“Is your fireplace gas or electric or do we have to do this old school? I’m proficient in all of the above, just so you know.”
“You’re serious? You really want to help me get rid of all this?”
“It would be my honor. We’re all getting a clean slate, Anita. Every single one of us. Maybe some of us deserve it more than others, but I think we should give everybody the benefit of the doubt right now.”
I need to forgive my sister. I need to forgive Ransom. I need to suck it up and realize that being “Auntie Step Mom” might just be the reality of my life. Who gives a fuck as long as everyone I love is safe? I was never destined for white picket fences, but until I met Ransom, I was never really destined for anything at all. I was just coasting through life, waiting to die.
Now I have so many reasons to live.
“Get rid of all this, and then we’ll get rid of the source,” I say. “That’s the most important part.”
“Now you’re an accomplice to all this too, I guess,” she teases.
“I’d like to consider myself the catalyst,” I say proudly. “Well, me and your son. You know I owe my life to him.”
“I never wanted him to end up like his father, and I think he did everything in his power to make sure he did the opposite of whatever Stoney would do. I was furious when I found out he brought you here to do the dirty work, though.”
“He didn’t make me do anything, Anita. He let me. Now let’s get this party started.”
I jump up from my stool and take off down the hallway, back to the creepy little office. I pull whole drawers from the filing cabinet and heft them back into the living room where Anita is starting a fire in the fireplace. I run back and forth until I’m sweating, finding a strange glee in disassembling this man’s private space.
I always thought I was here to save the club, but now I truly feel like I’m completing my mission.
We pass the bottle of rum back and forth as we dump drawer after drawer into the fire. We don’t even look at what we’re destroying, but occasionally a file folder flops open with a ledger or a photo of evidence, dead bodies, drugs, guns… I’m sure if I tried hard enough I might find some dirt on Ransom, but I don't want to see it.
Clean slate starts tonight for all of us.
The fire roars as we flop down on the floor, watching the flames dance up into the chimney. Anita’s face looks so much younger, her shoulders relaxed as she smiles.
“Is my mom’s folder in there?” I ask. “I know Romeo said you found it.”
“It is. It’s right where it belongs. She can rest in peace now. I knew your mama well enough to know raising you like that probably damn near killed her every day. She might have been a free spirit but when it came to her family, she took that very seriously. She did everything in her power to protect Pearl from the club and your dad’s affiliation with it.”
I feel kind of disappointed knowing I’ll never know the nuts and bolts of what went down and how. I guess it doesn’t matter how much they sold my mother for or how far along she was with me when it happened. None of that matters, because we came out on the other side alive.
“I do have a whole scrapbook of stuff from when your mom was still with us, though. It’s amazing how much you two look alike. Even more than Pearl. Even your mannerisms. She didn’t take any shit from your father. She would’ve been the first person over here helping me get rid of this stuff. Hell, she probably would’ve burned the whole house down while she was at it just to spite him.”
I chuckle. “She never wanted me to seek revenge. I talked to her a lot about it. Every time your son would come visit us or check in on us, I wanted nothing more than to figure out a way to pay him back. If Stoney hurt us so much from afar, I can’t imagine the things he did to you guys. Can I see the scrapbook?”
She smiles sadly and puts her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently. “You’re gonna have to talk to your sister about that.”
I grimace and hang my head. “It hurts too much right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Anita. I don’t know if I’m strong enough of a woman to raise another person’s child. I spent my whole life resenting people who had a normal happy upbringing. I’m afraid I’m not beyond that yet. I’ve only just started figuring things out.”
“I know you might think I’m crazy for saying this because Lord knows I don’t come off as the most Christian woman, but all you can do is pray. You pray for the outcome you want, or you pray God sends you help if things don’t work out the way you want them to. Sometimes getting through shit is better than coasting along.” She wraps me in a hug. “I prayed for so long someone would send me help. All I got was a husband I couldn’t stand and a son locked up for at least twenty five. But I didn’t stop. I could’ve run away any time I wanted. I’m a nurse. I could’ve gone anywhere in the world, made good money, started all over again. This club is my family. It kept me here. And I prayed and I prayed. I just tried to do the right thing every day, tried to just stay strong.”
The fire starts to taper out, a pile of smoldering ashes all that’s left of the wreckage.
“I always said Kid was my guardian angel,” I say, hugging her back.
“You’re an angel, too, baby,” she says. “You just never got the chance to get your wings.”
“I think I want to go home now,” I say. I don’t like being angry with Ransom. The thought of spending the night without him makes my heart hurt.
“I really don’t think you should do that,” she says, pulling away from me, cupping my chin in her hand. “Even angels can let their old men take a night and think about what they did.” She laughs, and I see the mischief flickering in her eyes. “You can’t ever let a good fight go to waste. It’ll just make him that much happier to see you when you do come home. He’ll be groveling at your feet.”
“Besides,” she says, chugging down the last of the bottle of rum. “There’s no way either one of us are driving. You can sleep here. It’ll be nice to have some company. The house has been really quiet lately.”
“I can do that,” I say, squeezing her hand. Maybe she lost her husband, and for the time being she lost her son, but maybe she’s right. For some twisted reason, I got sent here into her home, and even though I brought some chaos along with me, there’s no reason why we can’t be friends. Maybe my own mother got taken away from me too early, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be happy for the replacement I was sent.
I climb up on the oversized couch, and she covers me with a big fluffy blanket. I’m so exhausted and yet so relaxed, I can barely keep my eyes open. I see out of the cracks in my eyelids her just standing in the corner, watching me with tears streaming down her face. I know I need to finish my job as soon as I can. I know I need to do whatever it takes to make sure this woman doesn’t have to cry like that ever again.
I know more than anything, I am exactly where I need to be
35
Ransom:
I show up outside Anita’s house at 6 AM, flowers in hand, which is obviously not an easy task to pull off but there was no way in hell I was getting any sleep last night. I let my motorcycle idle in the driveway, knowing there’s a good chance if I knock on the door and wake Anita up, she’ll probably shoot me.
I see the curtains in the living room move and I light up a cigarette as I wait patiently for her to come outside. Old Ransom would’ve just went inside and took matters into his own hands. I don’t know if I like “New Ransom” but I hope Annabella does.
I definitely said some shit I shouldn’t have. I guess when you’re used to being with a woman who’s purposely as hurtful as possible to you all the time, you get used t
o snapping back with rude shit, like an instinct or a reflex. She doesn’t deserve to take the brunt of my past.
The front door of the mansion swings open and I hop off my bike and run up the stairs. Anita is standing there in a leopard print bathrobe, rollers in her hair, and a lit cigarette dangling from her lip. “Boy, you look about as thrilled to see me as I am to see you,” she says, raising her thin eyebrows.
“Where is she?” I ask, peeking over her shoulder.
“Where is who?”
“Anita quit fucking with me,” I growl.
“Maybe you should come back when you’re in a better mood,” she says with a sneer, slowly swinging the door shut. I wedge the bouquet of flowers inside before she can slam it all the way.
“She’s in the shower,” Anita says, grabbing the bouquet from my hand. “I’ll go see if she’s ready to talk to you.”
I go to push my way inside but she slams the door in my face dramatically. I hear her cackle as she hits the lock. I laugh, too, knowing all this is just a page straight out of the biker bitch playbook. How many nights has Stoney slept out on the porch for putting his dick where it doesn’t belong? We all know he had to do some real fucked up shit for her to end up in a house like this.
I flop down on the rocking chair on the porch, shivering in my boots as the sun slowly starts to come up. I hear the door swing open again, and I look over my shoulder at Annabella, who looks gorgeous as ever even with her hair all wet and her eyes full of sleep. “Let’s go,” I say.
“Not so fast, Ransom,” she says, her hands on her hips and her head cocked. “We have some serious shit to talk about.”
“We can do it when we get home.” I love Anita, but I don’t think she needs to be all up in our business. “In private.”
“Get inside, son.” Anita appears from behind Annabella with a scowl on her face, motioning for me to come in the door. “You know better than to show up at my house and start acting like a caveman. Get in here and I’ll fix you two some breakfast. There’s some things we need to talk about before I hand her back to you.”
The air smells like burning newspaper, and the fireplace is smoldering with ashes. I follow Anita into the kitchen. She starts pulling out eggs and bacon from the fridge, and grabs a pitcher of orange juice, pouring me a glass. Annabella just stands in the corner looking at me like she doesn’t know me. Her face breaks my heart. I guess Romeo was right. I have some serious groveling to do, and a bouquet isn’t gonna cut it, even if it did take me a two hour round trip to get them.
“Come sit with me,” I say, patting the stool next to mine. She walks over to the counter and starts fixing a pot of coffee, her face scrunched up in kind of a grimace. The bacon sizzles as it hits the hot frying pan and it’s shockingly loud, just punctuating the awkward silence, a silence I never wanted between the two of us.
“You said some mean shit, Ransom,” she says. “Some hurtful shit.”
“And you ran away!” I say, pounding my fist on the bar. “You didn’t want to talk it out, I needed to get a reaction out of you, that’s just the way my brain works.”
“Well your brain don’t work right, then,” Anita says with a scowl, cracking eggs into the frying pan.
“Anita, this would be a lot easier without you here,” I growl.
“Of course it would be,” she says, blowing me a kiss. “You know that’s not how I operate, though. I don’t let my kids act like animals.”
I laugh under my breath. She must not have spent any time with her blood son because he is one of the biggest dirtbags I’ve ever met. Still, I know what she’s saying. Anita has always been very motherly to all of us, and I know Annabella is no exception.
“I’m sorry for the things I said, Bella. You gotta believe me. If I’d have known you were gonna be a part of my life, I’d have never… you know…” I trail off. Saying it out loud sounds a lot worse than it actually is.
“Before you potentially knocked up her sister?” Anita pinches her thin eyebrows together and smiles wide.
“Now you’re just being an instigator,” I say. I stand up from the island and shove my hands in my pockets. “I didn’t come over here to get heckled. I came over here because I hurt the woman I love and I want to make it right. Even if it wasn’t really my fault.”
“That’s a sad sounding apology,” Anita says.
“I agree.” Annabella tiptoes her way across the kitchen and stands in front of me, looking up into my eyes. “But I know it’s never going to happen again.” She grabs my balls in her hand and starts to squeeze, grinning at me the entire time. “And if he wants to potentially knock anybody up ever again, he’s gonna apologize proper real quick here.”
“Dammit! Let go!” I scream, but it comes out like a shriek. “You’re fucking killing me woman.”
“I like this one, Ransom,” Anita says. “Now quit with the foreplay and let’s eat some breakfast.”
She slams plates down on the counter and Annabella pours us coffee. I see this flicker in her eye like I know the make-up sex is going to probably fucking kill me. At least I’ll die a happy man. Right now my balls throb, though, and the thought of eating anything makes me want to throw up. I sip my coffee and just sit there in silence, waiting for these two to finish their hen party. I always used to laugh at my brothers when their old ladies pulled this shit but being on the receiving end kind of sucks.
I’ll let her have her moment, though. When she gets home, I’m gonna wreck her pussy like it’s never been wrecked before, and I think she knows it by the way she’s staring at me like she’s going to devour me whole.
“So when are you going to kill my husband?” Anita asks, and I damn near choke on my coffee. “Do you have a plan? Or are you just going to wing it?”
“Anita!” Annabella exclaims, “kind of heavy talk for breakfast.”
“It needs done. It’s the last thing left before we can get everything back on track. I’d do it myself, but I can’t afford to lose my nursing license. That fucker might’ve left me a mansion, but he sure as shit didn’t leave me anything else. I don’t even know how I’m gonna be able to pay the taxes on this place.”
“Why don’t you take out a life insurance policy?” I suggest.
“Then she’ll definitely lose her nursing license. Are you sure you want me to go through with this? It’s not like he’s hurting anybody laid up in the home like that.”
“He’s hurting me just by existing. He’s hurting the club because every day he’s knocked out like that is another day somebody else could swoop in and attack. He’s hurting Old Nasty because his head is so far up his ass he can’t even function. The idiot thinks he’s just gonna pop back to life any time now and everything is gonna go back to normal.”
“Is there a chance that could happen?” I ask.
“Anything’s possible, love. Which is why we need to take care of this.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mumble. “So you’re on board, too. What’s with you people trying to corrupt my woman? Between you and Kid you basically turned her into a hit man.”
“They didn’t turn me into anything,” Annabella says, popping a piece of bacon into her mouth. “They just helped me enhance my natural skillset.”
“You all are ridiculous.” I still can’t wrap my brain around candidly discussing the murder of our President, especially not with his wife. Never in a million years would I think I’d be having this conversation, as many times as I’d fantasized about it.
“I’m a realist, Ransom,” Anita says. “You think I dedicated my entire life to this club, these men, all of this just to watch it fall apart right when things are starting to get good? You boys need to step up and take charge. Even Romeo agrees. You and Driller and Decker and Kid someday if he gets out of jail… you’re the future. Not Stoney who can’t even eat solid foods and Old Nasty who pisses himself every time he gets on a bike. You boys are the legacy. So stop acting like a damn fool, and get to work.”
I feel one part honored and one
part ashamed for not seeing it sooner. My life as a blind follower has been definitely flipped on its side since the day I caught Stoney and Vinnie with Carley, but I spent so much time hiding, not doing anything about it, the club that I love so much is starting to slip away and turn into a pile of rubble.
“You’re lucky this one came along. Just in time, too. Who knows what Stoney had up his sleeve for you guys. It took us hours to burn up thirty years worth of evidence,” she says.
“It was fun. I feel like I got hit by a train but it was fun,” Annabella says. “Anita is good company, that’s for damn sure.”
“What are you even talking about?” I ask.
“Every move you made, every single time you made a transaction, every little semi shady thing you did, Stoney had a record of it. All of you. This house had enough evidence in it to take the club down in a second. You all could’ve been spending the rest of your lives behind bars with Kid.”
“And you two spent the night burning all that up?” I lean over and peck Annabella on the lips. “You sure you didn’t save anything to throw in my face in the future?”
“It’s all up here, babe,” she says, pointing at her head and smiling.
I shake my head as she licks her lips slowly, and I want nothing more than to rip that t-shirt off her body and take her over the counter right here.
“Well that’s the kindest thing anybody’s done for me. I don’t know how I got so lucky to have you two ladies in my life.”
I walk over to Anita and kiss her on the forehead, and she wraps her arms around my waist, resting her head on my shoulder. I don’t know what it is about a hug from Anita, but it seems to make everything in the world right. She’s a true old lady with a heart of gold. It’s a shame so many years got taken away from her by that asshole. I feel like Annabella has really put the spring back in her step, though. I can’t remember the last time I saw her this happy.
“I guess it’s time for us to go,” Annabella says. “I am so thankful for your hospitality. And thanks for saving me from Riley. Next time this guy knocks up my sister, I’ll be sure to call you first instead.”