Violet Ends

by Jisa Dean

  "Will do, Boss."

  He wouldn't stop searching for the man who sold his men out. If it took the rest of his life he would find who did it and make them suffer the way the men he lost suffered.

  Epilogue

  ____________

  I heard her last night talking to my brothers' girls about weddings. I myself have already put my call into my brothers so that when we arrive at Neptune's house we'll be married. An odd thing happened when I was on the phone; my brother asked if I caused the leak of the Senator's records to the media. They received a package with the names and numbers of people the good Senator did business with and those that he's not killed will be rounded up and brought in for questioning.

  "Not us. We had one whole blissful day to do nothing while Kronos had someone clean the plane out. Must have been Archer."

  "Who the hell is Archer?" my brother of the blue hair doesn’t like uncertainties and unanswered questions. It comes with being young and dumb, or so I tell him every chance I get.

  "That is a question not for us to answer. Let someone else figure out who Archer is and let's just worry about our women and keeping them happy." Don't ask me why I feel like I have to steer my brother away from Archer, the man inspires loyalty in everyone he talks to it seems. Just like Kronos. Again the certainty that Archer and Kronos are the same person comes back to my mind. But that's for another time; right now I am more concerned about getting my sleeping lover home safely and a ring around her finger by nightfall of tomorrow.

  ***

  As soon as the door to the house is thrown open Cherry was out of the car and running to hug and kiss and scream with the other women. My brothers are slower to come find out about me, "What, no kiss?"

  "Fucker, you had us worried there for a minute. Who else would bitch and nag at us like an old lady if something happened to you?"

  "Ah, Hades, I see you haven't changed the hellfire blue color of your hair yet. You disappoint me, I was sure you would be a flaming orange by now." Giving my brothers shit was what I live for, that and being with my girl. I look over at her standing with her friends, it's good to see her smiling and laughing and having fun. She deserves fun.

  "Oh my fucking God, you dyed your hair purple!" her voice is high and happy as she picks some of Poppie's hair off her shoulder. The girl twirls to show the violet hues that peek out from the flaming orange of her own hair - the natural color for her might I add.

  "Do you like it? Henry almost killed me when I did it."

  "Who the hell is Henry?" there was so much to catch up on and to teach her.

  "He goes by Hades but don't let the name fool you, he's really a kitten." I have to choke on my laughter but I'm not quite fast enough and from the look on Henry's face I will pay for it later.

  Poppie doesn't slow down though, "He likes it the way it is. I got spanked so hard."

  My girl's eyes widen as she takes in her friend holding my brother's hand. "He..." I brace myself for whatever is about to happen. I know how she feels about things like this and even though she allows me certain privileges I can't say how she'll take my brothers' kinks and quirks. There will never come a day when I put my brother above my woman but I definitely want her to understand who and what he is.

  "He does that to you too?" her fingers go to the collar I placed around her neck in Spain. All the contents, the time jumps, the blood and she still hasn't asked me to take it off.

  "Oh my God!!" Poppie's eyes land on it and she lets out a squeal that makes me glad I am not Henry. I like the fact that my girl is a little calmer until you get her in the bedroom or an alley, or an airplane bathroom, or...never mind. The two women compare collars while me and the guys go in to talk business before the nuptials happen. But before I go I hear my girl ask Sally, "You don't have a collar?"

  Poppie is the one who answers her and I kind of want to turn back to see her face when they try to explain just what my brother Neptune likes. "Her man isn't into collars and stuff but you will never believe what he is into?"

  "Judge should be here within the hour." Hades tells me, "He got caught on the freeway or he would have been meeting us out there and it would already be a done deal. If you're like us you're going to have to hold her down long enough to put the ring on."

  Neptune leans closer to whisper to me like a fucking kid in school, "They're runners."

  I stop and think about all me and Nat have been through. "I think my girl is done with running. After all, she asked me to marry her." Both men stand in shock. "Maybe you're women didn't like you as well as mine likes me. It happens..." I pat both of their backs at the same time. They double team me and we wind up in the floor wrestling like kids.

  "If you got a few I'll call Jeremy. We guessed at what time you would be back and told him to stand by."

  "Jeremy? Jeremy?" I try to put a name with a face but draw a blank until Neptune brings up the New Year's Eve party the club threw a couple of winters ago. "No shit, he's going to be working with us. He's one more mean son of a bitch." And for men like us to say that you can imagine what that New Year's was like.

  When the screen comes on Jeremy is sitting next to a little woman with big eyes and dark hair. She informs us that we can now start and that she'll be taking notes so if there is something important tell her and she'll write it down. Halfway through the meeting Jeremy's mind is elsewhere and the girl is squirming so hard in her seat that it's pretty fucking obvious just were Jeremy's mind, and hands, are.

  He eventually suggests we call back and after one lewd joke from Neptune about rising penises, we pick dates that all of us agree on. I'm over the meeting just about as bad as Jeremy is. I'm more interested in getting married than in talking business. Earning Natasha's love will be my greatest achievement bar none, everything else pales in comparison.

  Epilogue ii

  ____________

  It's been nearly five months since I saw her walk down the aisle to me. The wedding was perfect. Fucking Sally has a talent man. She decorated a gazebo outside in a side garden and my girl walked down a cobblestone walkway to meet me at the end. Sally had somehow gotten a gown that was perfect. It was classy and sexy and there was just a hint of pink to the thing which only made my Cherry look sinfully divine and harkened back to her nickname. Even now when I think of how that dress hugged her curves I pop a boner. Every time.

  Our ladies are all back on campus now that school has started back again. None of them wanted to take time off even though Sally and Poppie found out they're both pregnant. As far as we can tell both women got pregnant right away and now Hades and Neptune are taking bets on whose baby gets here first. Shit, Henry and Niles, I got to get used to using our given names again. It helps when the ladies are here and they use them instead of our more godly monikers. I snicker when I say Niles' name. Niles. Man did his parents hate him or what.

  We just got out of a business meeting with Jeremy and the guy he brought on, another club-goer, Tray. The guys have some real talent and combined with our stories and insider knowledge of what it takes to actually live that lifestyle, we should be ready to launch the first beta versions of the game within weeks.

  The reason I'm sitting here outside my girl's class has nothing to do with a game or any of my brothers or their girls. She text me and told me to meet her because she had something she was freaking out about. What the hell? How do you send a message like that and not give a person a hint if it's good freak out or bad freak out? My girl has a sadistic streak in her but that's one of the things among many that I love about her.

  I'm not sure if it's something about the Senator's trial or if she found something that upset her. I know the Senator can never reach her or Poppie or Sally ever again. Last night on the news a report came in that the Senator had an untimely accident in his vacation home - a fucking farm. What the hell is a man like that doing anywhere near a god damned farm? I put in a call just to make sure the guy wasn't getting ready to run and would come for us to clean up loose ends.


  As he promised, in no time Kronos was calling me back with the assurity that it was, in fact, someone working for and with him and that the Senator would not be hurting anybody ever again. Whoever took him out I hope the son of a bitch suffered. When I see her walking out of the building she teaches in I can't stop the smile that blooms on my face. That's my Cherry. When she sees me her smile matches my own.

  I brace myself for anything. You never know with Cherry. As soon as her little butt is in the seat she turns to me and blurts out, "I'm pregnant."

  I don't have a facial response for this one. All I can think over and over in my head is her saying she never wants kids. When we talked about it before I emptied my first load into her I checked to make sure she was on something. She's been getting the shots since she was fourteen to regulate her periods. I just assumed that she would be protected from this happening.

  Her smile falls off her face and worry hits her tiger eyes. "Is that okay?"

  "I don't know, is it? I know how you feel about children and..." this is my fault. I should have been wrapping the god damned thing up.

  "Oh," she relaxes back in her seat and giggles a little bit, "I changed my mind. I stopped taking the shots around August."

  I try to do the calculations in my head but my brain isn't working.

  "We're about seven to eight weeks along. I wanted to surprise you." She throws herself at me across the console and wraps her arms around me, "Surprise!"

  I give her a squeeze back but she can tell something isn't right. She pulls back from me. "You still want a baby, right?"

  "I...," want her to be happy, "want what you want. Are you sure? What changed your mind about this so fast?" tears brim up in her eyes and threaten to spill over.

  "You're not happy about us being pregnant, are you?"

  "I'm fucking tickled and excited and scared. I'm a whole lot scared. I just don't want you to do this and be resentful."

  She slaps my face and I think I might not make it through these rapid-fire mood swings if this is a pregnancy symptom. "Zander Brian Strickland, what did you tell me when I said the same thing to you in Laos."

  "I just want to understand what changed your mind, sweetheart." I splay my hands out palms up so she can tell I'm just trying to understand.

  "Oh," that calms her down a bit. "Well, I woke up one morning and walked in on Poppie puking so I helped hold her hair for her," We've all been staying with Niles until we can have houses built on land that shares borders with his land. It gets a little crowded and the girls have started calling it The Compound and Niles' house is Headquarters. Smartasses.

  "I realized as I was helping hold her hair out of vomit that I'm not alone anymore. That if I got sick someone would always be there to hold my hair for me too. I...feel safe. If we have a baby look at how many eyes we have to help us watch it and raise it and love it. Uncles and aunts and in the future cousins." The girls have adopted our use of the family theme and now call each other sisters. "You haven't just given me my life back, Z, you gave me a family. Mind you a crazy, bizarre family, but they’re ours and I love them."

  I smile at her and this time when she smiles back I swear it reaches her soul. She's beautiful.

  "So you want the baby?" she asks, still a little timid.

  "Want it, hell I want to go home now and practice giving it a brother or sister in the future. You know you gave me just as much as I gave you, right?"

  She answers me the best way she can, with a kiss that drives me psycho.

  Bonus Epilogue

  _____________

  Being surrounded by people you love is one of the greatest gifts in the universe. I was there to witness and help both of my sisters with their pregnancies and they've been here for me. And let me tell you, Zander's baby is picky about everything. Which way I lay, which foods I eat, which smells doesn't make me throw up half a restaurants worth of food - it feels like half anyway. Zander has been great. Giving me foot rubs, helping me around the college, telling me I'm beautiful when I feel like a hot, sweaty, beached whale. I'm not sure how but somehow that man finds me smoking hot even with my huge old preggo belly.

  Everyone has been meaning to move out or to at least start building the other houses but the men decided we are safer all together during our pregnancy. I think they like the closeness as much as we do. Poppie already had her baby, making Henry the winner of the bet he and Niles had going on who could get their kid to come first. The guys will bet on anything. It's a sickness with them I swear. Most of the 'bets' are between Niles and Henry but my man gets in there sometimes.

  With little Rose, no one could have bet on how much she gets loved on. I swear that baby is a carbon copy of her mother, bright orange hair, big green eyes, soft and delicate and full of piss and vinegar. Even though she's only been here a month, she's shown us all that she is going to be one more opinionated little woman when she grows up. Henry couldn't be happier. He beams when you start talking about her or Poppie. I'm so glad they found one another.

  I'm equally glad Sally has Niles. He's good for her. Most people would think given the age difference that Niles would be the stable, calm, focused one. And they would be wrong. He's a clown and it's what Sally needs to lighten up a little. She gets so wrapped up in work that sometimes she forgets to take time to laugh and have fun but not for long. Niles always comes looking for her and there's always the inevitable shout of 'Daddy' when it's all over. They're supposed to be having a son any day now. As far as I can tell the poor kid will be a junior, it's a family name or some shit like that.

  Sally and Poppie started their own business - Goddess' wedding planning, their tagline is 'every woman should feel like a goddess on her special day'. It tickles the guys. I help when I can but teaching is where my heart is. The fact that I can shape young lives and make changes to the world through my teachings is unlike nothing else, aside from the love of Z and my family.

  I rub my stomach as our own little girl rises up to meet my hand. She is impatient for her daddy to come talk to her like he does every night after I come home from school. Speaking of my lover, I push myself up from the couch and waddle through the house to find out if anyone knows where he might be. My feet are swelling and the only thing that makes them feel better is him rubbing them.

  I turn the corner and come to a complete stop. All of my family is sitting at the big round table we eat supper on. When I come in everyone goes silent but I heard their whispered voices hissing and spitting in an argument. Poppie is standing with her hands on her hips staring down Z. I would be upset about it but this is how they always are. They have grown close with Poppie becoming the sister Zander never had. I think maybe she reminds him of someone from his past that he used to take care of.

  "What is going on?" Sally won't meet my eyes. She always gives big surprises away first so it's odd that she's avoiding my gaze. She has a secret.

  "Come sit down, Cherry." All this time, he still calls me his Cherry, even after he took them all. Just like he promised he would. But his voice is quiet and he's not acting right.

  "Is something wrong?" I start to panic. Maybe they found something out I didn't know about the baby and they’re just trying to tell me without me flipping out. Zander notices my hand going to cup my belly.

  "Everything is fine. The baby is fine, Cherry." I might have been a basket case about getting our little lady here for us all to watch over. "I did something and I don't know how you'll feel about it. That's why Poppie is mad at me."

  "Did you kill someone again? You promised you would quit when the babies started coming."

  Neptune chokes off a laugh and gets elbowed by Sally.

  "I found her, Cherry. I found Noel."

  I'm glad I let him steer me to a seat now because I would have collapsed if I hadn't been sitting. "I don't understand. Noel is dead."

  "Yes, she is but I thought you would feel better if you could finally have the last missing piece to help you heal. Not that you've not already healed so much o
ver the last couple of months. I...god damn it, I thought you would want her remains so you could give her a proper burial."

  I have five pairs of eyes looking at me and all I can do is burst into sobs and cries.

  "I told you, you gory son of a bitch! You do not bring dead bodies to women as a push present. You got something wrong up inside your head, Zander." Poppie looks like she is about to come over the table and beat the hell out of Z.

  "No! I...this is...I can't believe you did this for me. How did you find her? How do you know it's really her?"

  "I called in a favor and sent some people looking into the compound Camergo had in Montenegro. Remember how I asked him the exact location of where he had her put?" the very name sends a shiver down my spine that I can't hide from Z. I nod, I remember. I remember not caring at that point because she was already lost to me.

  "I had my guys start asking questions and it turns out one of the women in the compound that worked for Cam...that troll," he's so considerate, "doing laundry took pity on some of the girls. She would give them extra food and water if she could sneak some in to them. She saw the men..." he stops but I know what he was going to say-tossed, like old garbage-but the fact he stops makes me love him more.

  "She saw where they put her and she took the body and had her husband help her bury Noel the best they could. She said she couldn't let her lie out there and rot in the sun like she meant nothing. She knew someone somewhere loved her and so she gave her a burial."

  So much is going through my mind. Tears are running down my face and the faces staring back at me are all wavy and watery but each one of them is showing me love and support in their own way. I'm so lucky to have them. I reach for Zander and wrap my arms around his neck. Through the tears and the sobs, I finally get out, "Thank you. I love you so much."

  "I love you too baby. I would have dug all of Montenagro up for you just to give you some peace." He uses his thumbs to wipe the tears from my eyes as he stared into my soul. "I did, after all, promise you I would find her for you."