by W. Winters
“Is she okay?”
“We have to go to the hospital,” I tell him and make my way to my car. My throat’s tight and my jaw clenched as we walk past the last few onlookers.
“We see her, get her home, and then we have business to attend to.” Feeling his eyes on me, I turn to look at him. A chill sweeps across my back, blowing the cold down my spine as I lower my voice. “We’re killing Wright tonight, but first we need information. We need to know what he’s been telling people and if this is Mathews’s doing.”
“Fuck.” Derrick’s response is accompanied by a mix between a groan and a snarl. With both hands running over his buzzed head he turns to look at Laura’s old house. I watch it sink in. The disbelief, the outrage and then the guilt.
He swallows hard and looks down at the asphalt before looking back at me.
“We get her safe and then we settle this.”
“Wright will be easy. If this is because of Mathews…” I trail off and shake my head, knowing that’s a fight I’ll need heavy backup for.
“We have Fletcher,” he reminds me as I open my car door. “And cash to buy men who don’t have a dog in this fight.”
Looking between him and the rest of the scattered crowd, I wonder how easy it’s going to be to get to Mathews. To get revenge and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“I know we have men and the arms to do it,” I finally respond and meet his gaze. “I just want it for myself. I want to kill this prick myself.”
Laura
Seventeen. I keep thinking about the number and checking every plate that drives by the Club as I sit here in the front corner booth. I swear the worn amber leather smells like smoke. Everything smells like smoke still. Even after I washed up and put on clothes that had been tucked in drawers at Seth’s house for a year now.
All I smell is smoke.
Another car rides by and it’s not black, it’s a dark red SUV, but I still check its plate. I’ve been doing this all day. I don’t need to find its owner though, not if what Derrick said in the hospital is true. Still, I watch, I check. I’m on guard and trapped here in this booth.
Seth doesn’t want me to leave the Club; I think he’s having Roman keep an eye on me.
I’ll be better when they find that car. I remember that feeling I had. Why didn’t I listen to it? Gut instincts happen for a reason. That air of danger was meant to warn me. I know it deep down. And yet, I couldn’t even remember more than two numbers. It’s okay though, if what Derrick said is right.
Cami’s voice jostles me from my thoughts about last night. “Hey, you good?”
“Yeah,” I answer her as quickly as I can. I have to clear my throat and take a drink of the Sprite she set down in front of me.
“Ugh,” I groan and nearly spit it out, not expecting the strong taste of vodka. With the back of my hand over my mouth, I barely keep it down.
“I thought you liked vodka?”
“You spiked it?”
“You need a drink,” she says, emphasizing the word need before sitting down next to me. The seat groans and I watch another car go by. It’s black this time, but another SUV and not a sedan. Still, my heart starts to race, pounding against my rib cage. I want them to find whoever it was so I can stop worrying that he’ll come back. That’s what it comes down to. I fucking hate this feeling that claws at me.
“I know you’re shaken up,” Cami says, trying to soothe me. She has no idea. I have no intention of telling her that it wasn’t an accident. She doesn’t need that worry in her life. But I wish I had my friend to confide in.
As she consoles me, telling me the insurance company will pay out and how she’s certain some things will be able to be recovered from the house, I wonder if this is what Seth feels like when I try to talk to him after a hard day. Her hand lands on my knee under the table and she looks at me with wide, innocent eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” she tells me like she means it. Like she knows for sure it will.
I’ve heard it so many times. It’s going to be okay. It never is.
“I hope so,” I answer her weakly.
She pats my knee, giving me a sweet smile.
“You know it will,” she says with a raised brow, and a look on her face that says, we’re choosing to be positive.
In this moment, I almost want to tell her the truth just so I can see that look fall.
I want to tell her how I told Seth about the black sedan and how Derrick knew right away who it belonged to, or at least he thinks he does. I want to tell her all this shit happened because of the men we love. Dumb for dick. It’s a saying Cami has when certain women come into this bar. We are dumb for dick.
That would take that smile right off Cami’s face and wake her up about who she’s dating.
All the snide thoughts ping-pong around my head and I know they’re only there because I bit my tongue when Seth leaned down to kiss me before he left. I didn’t have the words to give him last night. I felt it all bottled up, but nothing would come. This morning though, I’m full of plenty of words. They aren’t meant for Cami though.
“Right,” I tell her, forcing a smile to my face. “I know everything will be okay,” I lie to her.
She grabs the edge of the open textbook on the table, dragging it to face her so she can read it.
“I’m not sure you’re going to get much enjoyment from Physiological Integrity by—” I say as I grab the book so I can lift it up and peek at the spine of the textbook.
“I don’t even know how to pronounce the first word,” Cami says, cutting me off and then she laughs. It’s contagious so I end up laughing too, for the first time today. She glances at the papers in front of me.
“Applications,” I say, answering her unspoken question. “I got a really good score on that practice test I took so I’m applying. I’m really going to do it. I think I have a good shot at getting into a lot of good schools.”
“Oh.” Just like that, her happiness vanishes. “Where are you going?” she asks and her hands find her lap. She picks at her thumbnail—a nervous habit she’s had for as long as I’ve known her.
“Not far,” I reassure her.
“Right,” she says and nods her head with her eyes closed and that simper reappears. “Seth wouldn’t want you to go very far.” With her worries eased, I add another to mine.
The school I want to attend, one I thought I’d never be able to get into, is across the country. Maybe I could just leave for a little while. The voice in my head is small and hesitant. Just a little while, just to get some distance.
“Hey.” Cami’s voice brings me back to the moment. “It’s going to be all right,” she says, encouraging me.
“I know,” I answer her and snag my pen as if I’m going to fill out these applications. I’ve been staring at them all day and I can’t bring myself to do it. I lie to her again, but it feels easier this time because I picture Seth telling me the same, like he has so many times, “It’ll be all right.”
I’ve never thought of myself as strong. Never.
I grew up surrounded by men with guns. Men who made threats and made jokes about women who looked like me. Jokes about how easy women were. My father would tell me that all men were pigs but him.
He was a pig too, though.
I suppose it didn’t bother me that I wasn’t a strong woman until tonight. Until I’m here sitting cross-legged on the floor of Seth’s living room, sunk into the deep blue rug I picked out for him, staring at cardboard boxes filled with my few remaining possessions that weren’t destroyed by the fire or the water damage.
“We can get the smell out,” Seth tells me from the kitchen. I listen to him open the fridge and get a beer. It’s followed by the sound of a drink being poured and I figure that one’s for me.
The words I’ve been thinking all day are stuck somewhere deep down my throat. Like I’ve swallowed them, even though inside I’m begging for them to come up. He needs to hear exactly what I’m thinking.
He needs to know.
I have to stare at the large black imprint on the cardboard box to say it. It comes out all wonky, like it’s scratched its way up. “I want you to get out of the business.”
“What?” I hear him reply from the kitchen and close my eyes. I feel lighter already having gotten that off my chest. Even if I know exactly how he’ll respond.
“You need to get out.” My voice is louder this time, stronger, and for a moment I question if I was really so weak. Until I see him.
Seth makes me weak.
“Get out?” he questions but it doesn’t sound like it. His expression is emotionless at best, and disapproval riddles his gaze.
He hands me the drink he made. Smells like Sprite, and I imagine there’s vodka swirling in it alongside the ice cubes. He knows it’s my favorite, which makes this conversation hurt all the more.
I can’t say it again, not while he’s looking at me like that. It feels like my chest is hollowed out. Like my own damn heart abandoned me. My throat’s dry when I try to explain, but still nothing comes. Yeah, I was never a strong woman.
“You want me to get out of the life,” he says, repeating my words back to me with no emotion behind them and then stares straight ahead, still standing while I’m seated. His gaze is on the blank TV screen that’s hanging on the wall when he takes a drink of his beer. “It’s not like that, Babygirl.”
“Then what is it like?” I ask him, listening to the ice clink against the glass and taking a heavy gulp and then another. There isn’t enough alcohol on the West Coast to save me from this moment.
Seth’s quiet and so I lift my gaze to his. “Because I don’t like the way it feels anymore. I don’t think—”
“You knew,” he says, cutting me off, and his tone is accusatory. It’s what he always goes to. I knew he was in the life when I started seeing him. I did. I admit that. Times were different then. It was kill or be killed. There was no in-between. I fell in love; how could I not? I’m not the strong one. I was never the strong one.
The bottom of his beer clinks down hard on the coffee table. The cords in his neck tighten as he swallows and looks down at me. He opens his mouth, but he doesn’t have any more words for me.
It hurts so fucking much. “I love you,” are the only words I can whisper. That’s what it always comes down to for me.
And so it’s a stalemate, but I can’t face a stalemate anymore. I’ll take the hit. I’m terrified, but I’m trying to be strong.
Dropping down to his knees, he cups my jaw in his hand. I don’t even realize my bottom lip is trembling until his thumb is there, running over it, caressing me and gentling the pain that keeps me from looking into his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper and he whispers back, “Don’t be. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand and I can’t say it.
It’s this life or me.
I can’t say it because it’s wrong. I can’t. I can’t do it.
The first kiss is gentle, caressing. I’m eager for it, but when he deepens it, I pull back, covering my hunger for him with my hand over my mouth. Bracing myself on my left hand, I lean backward and dare to meet his gaze.
A raw desire, coupled with a primitive agony, stares back at me. I swear I must have known this man in another life. He was made for me and I for him, but I don’t want this life.
“I can’t live like this.” I don’t know how I manage to speak, each word dangling there between us like easily broken threads. “I want you to get out of it,” I repeat. “I need you to.”
Seth takes a moment, watching me, considering my words before standing up and turning his back to me.
He’s silent as he heads to the kitchen and I continue watching him from where I am. I watch him finish the beer and then grab his keys from the blue bowl.
“Don’t go,” I say. The next words rush out of me. “I need you.” How selfish I feel in this moment is almost unbearable. Especially when he turns to look at me again.
He raises the hand holding the keys in the air, to point at me. “And I need you,” he says like it’s a confession that will bury him.
“Don’t leave, Seth. Please, we can talk this out.”
A smile akin to a sick joke graces his face but it quickly disappears. “There isn’t much talking that can change our situation, Babygirl.”
Hopelessness is all I can hear in his tone. He can’t be the hopeless one. I cover my face with both hands, feeling an onslaught of emotions. Tears prick but I don’t let them come.
Be strong, Babygirl. I hear Seth’s voice in my head. Even at my lowest moments, the memory of him is there. It will kill me to lose him. It will kill me to stay.
My shoulders are shaking as I rock myself. I’ve never felt like this. This misery that feels so much worse than mourning. It’s worse because I have control over it. I can make it stop. I can just say the right words. I can pretend it’s okay. I can stay here with him and pretend I don’t feel this ominous sense of dread. That I’m not constantly scared for not just me but him too.
The keys slam down on the counter and within a split second, Seth’s strong chest is pressed to my back. His arms are around me. He rocks me until I’ve stopped. It’s easy to calm down when he’s here. His smell, his voice. The way he loves me even if he doesn’t say it.
I have nothing without him. I have absolutely nothing. I cling to him.
“It’s okay,” he tells me and even with all the misery I want to believe him.
“I have nothing left,” I finally speak.
“I need you to leave because I’m terrified,” I confess to him. “Bad things happen here. I don’t have control over any of it.” My words make him pull back, breaking his hold on me.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I grab the cocktail he made me and practically chug it. It does nothing. There is no relief from this whatsoever.
“You need time—”
“No,” I say, shaking my head and cutting him off before he’s finished.
“You need time for me to show you it’s okay. You need time because it’s been a rough few years.”
“It can get rougher,” I speak without thinking. It’s the truth though, and the look in his eyes tells me he knows. He’s all too aware. I rest my cheek on the sofa, thinking maybe I’ve been like Cami all the time we’ve been together, and I’ve just now crossed to the other side.
I’m not strong enough for this side of things. I wish I were, but I’m nothing compared to him. He should know that. It’s easy to see.
“Hey, come here,” he says and his voice is gentle. He’s always soft with me. This strong man with rough edges and a past that would frighten most… his tone caresses me. I can’t help it. I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
I crawl over to him, settling down in his lap. He’s so tall and his shoulders are so much wider than me that it feels perfect here. He’s warm, and when I lay my cheek against his shoulder, peeking up at him and wondering why he picked me, he kisses me. Stopping my questioning, stopping the pain. It’s all replaced by an immediate spike of heat. An immediate desire.
Does he feel it too? How it soothes every inch of me. How that lust turns to wildfire in my blood and nothing stands a chance in its path. With his fingers at my chin, he keeps me still while he breaks the kiss. When I open my eyes, feeling the forgotten beads of moisture in my lashes, he’s there, staring at me. His light blue eyes shine with devotion. It’s real. I know it’s real.
His cadence is rough when he says, “Let me make you feel better.”
“We have to talk about this,” I tell him as if it’s a demand, but I’m begging him. “I lost everything.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, rushing the words out. “I will make it up to you, but you can’t leave and neither can I.” The resolution in his tone forces me to bury my face in the crook of his neck. I know I won’t be okay either way.
His whisper, his touch, and the air around us are all I have to stay
whole. “Let me make you feel better.”
Seth
What about the chair in the living room? I text Derrick and wait. All I can hear is the sound my foot was making earlier. The tapping on the leg of the steel chair as I stared at Wright’s body.
Four hours of digging for information with Connor’s blade, and he swore he didn’t tell Mathews. He screamed it, he begged for us to believe him. But I didn’t. Hours later, at home in the kitchen, my foot’s motionless but the anxiousness is still there.
The black sedan doesn’t belong to one of Mathews’s men, it belongs to one of Fletcher’s.
I don’t want to believe it. More than that, I still don’t believe Wright, not even his dying words.
I don’t know. It’s in rough shape. It takes me a moment to remember what Derrick’s talking about. Right, the wreckage from the fire.
Try to save it, I text back and inhale as deeply as I can. I can’t even salvage a fucking chair, let alone this fucked-up situation.
If Wright didn’t tell Mathews, and it was Fletcher…
Are you ready?
Ready to find out if Fletcher double-crossed me. Yeah, I message him, I’m ready.
How is she? he messages before I’ve even set my phone down. The whole crew knows; they all know someone wanted Laura dead.
We assumed it was Mathews, but thinking it might be Fletcher… fuck, that means we have no one to back us up. Leroy won’t go after Fletcher. We can’t trust Mathews.
Derrick’s the only one who knows we’re not okay. I lean forward on the counter, my forearm brushing the beer, which is now warm and still full. I can’t move from this spot. I can’t do it.
She was trying to leave me last night. She’s never done that before.
I could see it in her eyes that I’m losing her, so I lie to him, I can keep her; she’s just going through shit right now.
To my right, I picture her there, sitting on the rug and looking up at me with goodbye in her eyes and I lose it. Tears pricking at the back of my eyes, I slam my fist down on the counter.