Reaper

by K. L. Savage

  Tool is coughing, rolling around to his hands and knees to try to catch his breath. I’ve never seen a man as big as Tool vulnerable on the ground, but when your throat is in the hands of the MC President, there isn’t much you can do besides submit.

  “I volunteered. I wanted to take the punishment,” I say, touching Jesse’s shoulder. “I wanted to take it. Boomer is injured enough.”

  Jesse cups my face, bringing his lips to my cheek. “You’re insane for doing that. Tool has killed people with one hit.”

  “If I would have known that, I still would have jumped in front of it to protect my brother.”

  “No.” Jesse steps back. “I don’t ever want you to threaten your life like that again; do you understand me?” He points at me. “I can’t live without you. I finally have you, and I’m not going to have you taken away because Boomer and Tool can’t get their shit together.” He swings his gaze toward the two men. Tool just now got to his feet, only to almost fall to his knees again from the power and dominance Jesse’s presence brings.

  Even injured, Jesse isn’t a man to be fucked with.

  “I want retribution, Tool.”

  Tool nods. “I understand, Prez. I apologize. I would never hit a woman. I know it’s one of our most sacred laws. I feel terrible about it.” His eyes shine with regret as he stares at me. “I’m so sorry, Sarah.”

  “I wanted it. Stop this! No retribution. I challenged it. I’m Boomer’s champion. I’m allowed to take his punishment if I see fit.”

  “And if you were any other member, I’d allow that. But you’re not. You’re my ol’ lady.”

  “Don’t hurt him,” I beg quietly. Tears brim my eyes as I plea for Tool’s life. “Please.”

  “I’ll be thinking about punishment. I’m too fucking tired to deal with it tonight, and I have a mafia boss to see, I understand?”

  Tool clears his throat, his eyes, if I’m not mistaken, have a bit of glisten in them too. “He is downstairs, Prez. Eric can only keep him conscious for a little while longer, and then he will be putting him in a medically-induced coma.”

  “Can someone please bring me a bottle of whiskey? What the fuck does a man have to do around here? For fucking sake, I survived an explosion.”

  I press my hand against Jesse’s chest and give him a stern look. “You’re being mean.”

  “It comes with the job.”

  Tank, the poor guy, nearly trips on his way back from the bar with a new bottle of Jack, and he holds it out with shaky hands. It surprises me because if he wanted to, he could flick Jesse and send him flying.

  To put it in perspective, Reaper, my Jesse, is a towering six-feet-four, and Tank is nearly seven-feet-tall with more muscle than three bodybuilders put together. The man has a heart of gold and is soft. I’m not really sure what he is doing in the biker life, but they love him, so he is family and belongs here.

  Jesse twists off the cap and chugs a third of the bottle down, and then he hisses from the burn. “Fuck. That’s good. Okay, take me to the man.”

  As we walk, Jesse turns up the bottle of whiskey and then curses. “I need a new fucking cut! I want it two days from now,” he shouts from the basement staircase. His hand lands on Tool’s chest and gives him a slight push. “I’ll deal with you later.” Jesse is slowly walking down the steps. His shirt is off, the mean ugly marks on his back are deep, and some are bleeding. The burns on his arms need rebandaging, and I can see his leg is bothering him.

  He’s in a lot of pain.

  “I’ll handle him, Tool. Don’t worry.”

  “I deserve it, blondie.”

  “Tool, you don’t. He is in a lot of pain and is being an ass. I’ll take care of it.”

  “And I’ll take what he thinks I deserve. I deserve it.” The massive amount of guilt on his shoulders makes Tool seem smaller than usual. Tool walks away, heading to the main room where everyone else is. With a sigh, I enter the basement.

  When I get closer, I hear Jesse and Eric arguing.

  “Get in the bed, Reaper.”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “You aren’t fucking fine. You need at least three days of bedrest without moving. You can get an infection. You could die. Your wounds need debriefing and cleaned. Sit the fuck down, Reaper.”

  “No. I need to talk to Moretti.”

  “You can talk to him when you agree to our terms.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Doc.” Jesse takes another gulp of the whiskey and tries to push by him to get to Moretti.

  “I agree with him,” I say, knowing damn good and well that it’s hard for a biker to disobey his ol’ lady. We are the people they kill and die for. Saying no to me, that will never be a good thing. Jesse stops in his tracks, shoulders sagging, and drops the bottle on one of the bed trays. “Reaper, you need to rest. You can lay next to Moretti and ask him questions. Please, for me?” I rub my hand over his shoulder, the one that isn’t damaged and bleeding. “Please, baby?”

  The moment he exhales, I know I’ve won. It may seem like a small victory to some, but with a man as powerful as Jesse, this is a huge feat.

  “Only because you asked so nicely.”

  “You’re such a grump.” I come to his side and help him to the edge of the bed where he sits down. The mattress dips, and the metal holding the mattress up groans and creaks. All of us stop breathing, watching the bed to see if it breaks from Reaper’s weight. He’s so fucking big.

  Crap. I want him again. Right now. And now’s not the time and place.

  “First things first, I need to clean the wounds again, alright?”

  “Nope,” Reaper says, snagging the whiskey bottle off the tray. “I want to talk to Moretti first, and then you can do whatever you want to me.” Reaper snorts. “And that was directed to Sarah, Doc. Not you.”

  “You deal with him. I’m going upstairs for a beer. I’ll be back in five minutes. Five, Reaper. That’s all you get, and then I’m putting him in a medically-induced coma.”

  “Five is all I need.”

  Eric slides the curtain, letting Moretti come to view. I jerk my head away when I see how bad his injuries are. I don’t know how he is alive. Half his face is draped in bandages, and his scalp is raw. Even through the white gauze, I can see the blisters and parts of his skull. The slight lingering smell of burnt flesh is in the air, but the ventilation system Doc wanted installed does a great job at circulating the air to keep it fresh.

  “Damn, Moretti,” Reaper says in sympathetic awe.

  Moretti’s teeth chatter when he tries to speak, his body unable to regulate the temperature. His nerves are exposed and raw. The pain he must be feeling … I can’t imagine. I hold down the emotion and bile choking my throat, barely, and sit on the bed Reaper will be using in a few minutes.

  I can’t look at Moretti. It’s too much.

  “Reaper. I didn’t”—he takes a raspy breath—“betray our agreement.”

  “I need you to tell me what happened. Can you do that?”

  Moretti wheezes again, teeth still clanking together like nails in a rust bucket. “My stepson. He said he would kill my daughter if I didn’t call you. Natalia is everything to me. I tried to warn you. He is insane—” Moretti coughs, and a horrible, heartbreaking noise leaves him, making me smother my own cry by lifting my hand to my mouth. The man sounds so broken, and I can’t help but wonder if death would be friendlier than this. “Only a few of my men are alive. Their home was the hotel. They have nowhere to go.”

  “We will figure it out,” Reaper reassures him.

  “You don’t understand.” The monitors start to go berserk, and when I finally look at Moretti, he has ahold of Reaper’s wide wrist, staring at him with one eye, the other covered with bandages. “He is coming after you. He is coming after her—” He starts to violently shake, and his eyes roll to the back of his head.

  A bottle crashing from behind me has me jumping, and Eric jumps over the rail, bypassing the last half of the stairs as he runs toward us. Beer hisses and
bubbles, spreading over the steps like a virus.

  “Reaper! Lay down and get out of my way. You had your minutes. You’re in my house now. My territory, President or not, you will listen to me. Sit the fuck down.” Doc loses his shit on Jesse.

  No one ever does that, but Reaper takes as step back to let the Doc work. He closes the curtain, leaving us blind to what is happening. Reaper wraps his arms around me, spreads his legs, and settles me between them. “He said you were in danger.” His finger lazily travels up my arms, and the move is natural, reminding me of a habit. It’s something we have never done, but it feels like we have done it a hundred times.

  “He said you were too.”

  “I don’t care about me. I care about you.” His hands fall to my ass, leaving his palms on each cheek. “I finally have you. I can’t lose you now.”

  “Don’t say that. I want you to always care about your life because I need you alive. I never want to lose you. I need you to be smart and get well before you do anything stupid.”

  “I promise not to try to do anything stupid.”

  I tug on his hair and yank his face forward. The tip of his nose touches mine, and I rub them together. “That doesn’t sound too promising.”

  The curtain finally opens again, and Reaper spins me around until I’m sitting in his lap, his chin on my shoulder. “How is he?”

  Eric is sweating, his scrubs have dots of blood, but nothing too worrying, not like the dark circles around his eyes. The man is going to keel over; it’s only a matter of time. He rips off his face mask and tosses it. “I don’t know. His chances of survival aren’t great. This isn’t a burn unit, but I can’t take him to the hospital because apparently doctors there can’t be trusted and will kill him; his words, not mine. Time will tell.”

  Time is a real fickle bitch, and I really don’t like her.

  19

  Reaper

  “Ow,” I grunt as Doc changes my bandages for the third fucking time in a few hours.

  He digs the tweezer a bit harder than usual in the burns on my arms. “Stop being such a baby. You’re fine.”

  I mock him as if I’m a child, and Sarah slaps me on the back of the head. “I said be nice,” she scolds, even has the nerve to shake a finger at me. I pretend to bite the tip playfully and then kiss it.

  Fuck, finally.

  She’s finally mine. No one knows what it feels like to be in my shoes, to wait as I did for her, to struggle, to hate myself, to love someone I couldn’t have. I convinced myself, or I tried to, that being with her meant betraying Hawk, but that’s not the case at all. She’s safer with me, with this MC, more than anyone else, and I’ll die protecting her.

  Hawk would know that.

  So I stopped feeling guilty about him a while back.

  My soul is finally complete, which is ironic since I’m called Reaper, and I like to take souls, but none of them were meant for me. They were, they are, a job. Sarah owns me. She’s the keeper of my soul, and I’m not scared one bit to give to her.

  Because she handles every dark, jaded, and haunted part of it.

  “I need to talk to you,” Boomer’s voice comes from the bottom of the steps.

  I manage to look over and see him standing there, watching Sarah’s fingers play on my arm. He glances away, and it’s obvious he is pissed because of the tic in his jaw. Doc puts down the tweezers and lays the last bandage over the burn on my arm.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me.” Boomer marches to the end of the bed, staring at us with disbelief. “You’re with him? He is twice your fucking age, Sarah!”

  His words are salt in an almost healed wound, making it raw and tender again. I’m not sure if the age gap is something I’ll ever get used to. I’m old enough to be her father, but I’ll still give her whatever she wants, anything she wants. I love her more than how much I worry about the damn age difference between us, so that is what I’m going to focus on—the love that’s bigger than worry and what society thinks.

  Damn them.

  Sarah’s mine, and I’ll love her every day until the rest of my life.

  “Not here.” Sarah presses her hands against his chest. “Not now. We can talk about it later.”

  “No. We will talk fucking now. I knew it. I knew something was going on between the two of you these last few years.”

  Sarah shakes her head. “No, Boomer. It isn’t like that. Not at all.”

  I try to sit up, but the wounds on my back sting in protest which makes me stay where I am. “Listen to her, Boomer. I never touched her, not once; I’d ever do that. I waited.”

  “You waited? Oh, that’s fucking rich.” He tries to push by Sarah, but she blocks him again; she’s stronger than she looks, that’s for sure.

  “I’m going to go,” Doc says awkwardly. “Holler if you need me.”

  I wait until the stomping of boots is at the top and the door closes, so I know we are alone. “What do you want from me? I waited. She’s eighteen—”

  “Right, she’s only eighteen. Hasn’t been eighteen for two days. Waited.” He shakes his head.

  “I fucking waited as long as I could!” I roar so loud my chest starts to ache. I put my hand over my heart, where Doc took out a piece of steel from my bike that almost punctured my heart. “I waited.” I’m seething at this point. No one understands the agony I felt. It was more than the pain I feel right now. “I waited until the moment I could touch her and not a second later.”

  He launches for me, but Sarah blocks him again with her small body. “I trusted you, and you do this!”

  “He did nothing wrong,” Sarah says. “Boomer, please. I love him, okay? I love him.”

  My heart monitor jumps when I hear the words. They stun me, and while I’ve known for a few years that she liked me, I always thought it was a crush, but love? To have my feelings returned… It’s more than I ever dreamed of.

  Boomer holds her shoulders and dips his head to meet her eyes. “You don’t know what love is, Sarah. You’re too young. He will hurt you. That’s what he does. He doesn’t know anything else.”

  “What? That’s what you think of me?” His words make me feel like I’m dying all over again. “Was life here with me that bad, Jenkins?” I swallow down the hurt and the emotion. I consider him my son. He may not be blood, but he is the closest thing I’ve known to having a kid. I drop my head on the pillow and blink away the tears. I’m not a man who cries, but when the man you’ve helped raise from a boy hates you that fucking much; it’s hard not to let it get to you. “I love you, kid. No matter what you think of me.”

  “Love shouldn’t hurt this fucking bad!” He shoves Sarah away, and she yelps, slamming against the corner of the tray. She falls to the floor, and hearing her whimper of pain has me launching off the bed, ripping the IV from my arm.

  Blood flies everywhere, and the stitches holding my skin together rip apart. It won’t stop me. I grab the end of his shirt, before he can go up the steps, and jerk him back. He crashes against a beam that supports the floor above us, and I wrap my hand around his throat. He claws at my hand, bringing blood to the surface, but he should know by now…

  Pain doesn’t bother me.

  I lift him by the neck, and his feet dangle from the floor. “I’ll allow a lot of things, Jenkins. I’ll allow you to feel pain, to say what you want to say, to feel how you want to feel about me, but you will not hurt her.”

  “I didn’t mean to. Sarah, I’m sorry!” He kicks to try and get free. “I love you, okay? I’m sorry.”

  “Put him down,” Sarah yells, pulling on my arm to try to get my grip free. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

  I only release him because she tells me to and when he drops to the floor, he coughs so hard he gags, but he doesn’t puke.

  “If you weren’t so important to me, I’d fucking kill you, kid. Do not think about harming my ol’ lady.”

  “Your…” His laugh is sardonic and full of hate. “What can you give her?”

  I bend down,
my skin splitting more, and blood starts to drip down my body and onto the floor like a broken faucet. “Everything,” I break down the word into small syllables so he can understand me. “Fucking. Everything. You should know that.”

  “Boomer—”

  I don’t call him Boomer because right now. He doesn’t deserve it, but Sarah does. Jenkins struggles to get up and stops her from saying anything further, lifting his hand and silencing her. I don’t like anyone silencing her.

  “No. I can’t… I can’t be here knowing you’re with him.”

  “What does that mean?” Sarah sniffles and reaches for her brother, but he moves away, only hurting her further.

  Jenkins seems lost, confused, and doesn’t take another look at her as he runs up the steps. The last time I saw him look that betrayed was when we buried his father. He trips as he runs up the steps, still not bothering to give us another glance. When the door slams shut, and it’s just me and Sarah, my body buckles from the pain, and I fall to my knees.

  “Jesse!” She catches me by my side, supports my weight, and grunts as she lifts me up.

  “Fuck, that hurts.” My head swims, and sweat breaks out all over my body. My feet drag every few steps, and right when I think I’m about to fall over, Sarah lays me on the bed.

  “Baby, your back. I’m going to go get Doc, okay?”

  “No, you can do it. I don’t want anyone else’s hands on me. Eric told me you wanted to be a nurse. Now is the time to practice.”

  “What? After I had training. I don’t know what I’m doing, Jesse. I’m not ready for that.”

  I can hear the tears in her voice still. I reach around and take her hand. “Come here, doll.” She trips over herself a few times as she comes in front of me, wiping away those tears that Jenkins caused. That asshole. I want my hands around his throat all over again.

  “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

  “How do you know?” she asks.