by Tillie Cole
“Why did you leave?”
Tanner closed his eyes at my question. He slumped back down to the bench. “Fell for a Mexican bitch.” I knew this. But I didn’t believe it was the whole reason. Looking at him now, I knew I wasn’t gonna get more than what he was offering. He ran his hand down his face. He laughed without mirth again. “She’s Quintana’s daughter.”
“We’re at war with Quintana.”
That pained laugh again. “I know.”
I eyed him. “We’re at war with the Klan.”
He stilled. “I know.”
In that moment my hatred for him fell away. I had Sia and Cowboy. Looking at Tanner, big ex-Nazi body slumped in defeat on the old wooden bench, I knew he was in a whole world of pain.
He was fucking alone.
I’d been there. Fuck, I’d barely survived it.
I sat next to him on the bench. “What you gonna do?”
Tanner lit another smoke, but he didn’t even bring it to his lips. Just let that fucker burn in his hands. “Fight,” he said, his voice a rasp. He looked at me. “I wasn’t lying when I joined the Hangmen. This is my home now. My place. And I’ll stand against my father, uncle, and even my brother if I have to.” He shook his head. “What they’re doing is wrong. I get that now. So I fight.”
I lifted my hand, and hesitated. Tanner must have seen the gesture; he tensed. Then, breathing through the memories of that night, of the pictures, of the hoods and the torches, I let that shit go . . . and put my hand on his shoulder. I squeezed. “You got a fucking hard road ahead, brother.”
“I know,” he whispered.
I got to my feet. Just as I opened the door to the bar, he said, “I keep the tattoos as a reminder.” My hand tightened on the doorknob. I looked at Tanner, but he kept his attention straight ahead on the mural. “To remind me of the lives I destroyed for a cause that turned out to mean shit.” He breathed deeply. “They don’t let me forget. Forget the fucking asshole I was for most of my life.” He turned his head and met my eyes. “They’re not because I support white power. But because I hate them.”
In that moment, I felt nothing but pity for Tanner Ayers. Because he was about to go through hell during this war. I left him alone and entered the bar.
Cowboy waved from next to Vike. As I walked to them, Vike threw his arm around my neck and said to Rudge, “Rudge, this is Hush, my blue-eyed milk-chocolate brother.”
Rudge shook my hand. “Good to meet you, mate.” And with that, shot after shot was poured. Brothers from all over the south coming together for one good night before the war came calling and we all took up arms.
As brothers.
As a family.
As the motherfucking Hangmen.
Epilogue
Hush
I heard a truck pull up around front. I wiped my greasy hands on my jeans and put down my tools. I’d been giving my bike an oil change while Sia and Cowboy were out on the ranch. There was a ton of work to be done on our new place, but it was home.
And I fucking loved it.
My feet came to a sudden stop when I saw it wasn’t Sia and Cowboy. A cab was parked in front of our house. When the back door opened, I fucking held my breath. Climbing out of the cab, dressed in a white dress, was my grandmother.
I was frozen. A fucking mute, as her eyes met mine and a smile spread on her face. I looked down. I had no shirt on, dressed in oil-stained blue jeans. But I could see by the look on her face she didn’t give a shit. She said something to the driver and shut the door. The cab didn’t move; the engine kept running.
Finally, my feet started moving when she walked, still with that limp, toward me. I reached out to take her hand. She smiled, and my chest almost caved in. Because that smile . . . it was my mamma’s.
“Mormor.” I leaned in to kiss her cheek. She smelled of perfume. When she moved back, I saw her face was free from bruises.
“Valan,” she said, and just like when I met her that night in Louisiana, I saw tears build in her eyes. I guess we both saw my mamma in each other. I guess we both still felt that our hearts would never fill completely now she was gone.
“What . . . what are you doing here in Texas?”
My grandmother glanced at the cab. “I’m going home.” My heart fell, because I knew she wasn’t talking about Louisiana. I swallowed, trying to shift the lump in my throat. I hadn’t even had a chance to get to know her. I’d done as she said. Stayed away from Louisiana until my grandfather’s case had been dropped. The police believed my grandmother—at least, they had no evidence to prove anything else.
I wanted to visit my mamma.
I wanted to visit my papa.
“Sweden,” I whispered.
Her face lit up. “Yes,” she breathed. “Finally, I am going home.”
I nodded but looked away, feeling that lump begin to choke me. I’d just got her back in my life. I wasn’t sure I could let her go—yet. She squeezed my hand. “I wanted to come and see you first. I am flying from Austin so I could see you before I left.”
I nodded.
Her hand brushed my face. She wore white gloves. I tried to pull away, knowing she would get oil on them. She wouldn’t let me. She didn’t care. “I have a house in Stockholm. You must come and visit with your partners.” I nodded, feeling like I’d taken a punch to the gut. “And I will call you, if that is okay?”
“Yeah,” I rasped.
“I want to know you, Valan. Everything about you. Your life . . . the good and the bad.” I nodded again. I wondered why I found this so hard when I barely knew her. But as I looked into her face and saw my mamma staring back, I knew. I wasn’t sure I could say goodbye again.
Grandmother’s lips trembled, and her hand shook. “I cannot stay here anymore, Valan . . .” She sniffed and looked away to pull herself together. “I have some family left in Sweden . . . but it’s mostly because . . .” She inhaled deeply. “Because I cannot live in the place that so cruelly robbed me of my daughter . . . of my son-in-law . . . of years spent loving you.”
And I understood that; I too could never return to Louisiana to live. I too needed to leave it behind.
“Promise me you will come and see me,” she said and kissed my cheek.
My eyes closed. “I will,” I said, then corrected myself. “We will.”
She gave me a watery smile and kissed me again. “I must go, Valan. But expect a phone call soon. She laughed, the sound warming my chest. “I will call so much you will get sick of me.”
“I look forward to it,” I whispered and watched her get into the car. Her hand stayed on the half open window as she drove past me, tears running down her face. The cab stopped, and my grandmother fully wound down the window. “Aubin and Elysia are expecting you at the north field.” She smiled. “Go meet them now.”
I frowned, wondering what she meant, and the car pulled out of our ranch and away to the airport. I turned to get my bike, but I stopped dead. The blood drained from my face. My mamma. My mamma’s grave was on her land . . . and she’d left.
My cell vibrated in my pocket. A text from Cowboy:
Meet us. North Field. Now.
I ran for my bike. I’d see what Cowboy wanted, then I would go after my grandmother, to find out about my mamma’s grave . . . about where my papa was buried. I needed to see them. I needed to see them just one more time.
I needed to see them at rest, in peace.
I cut over the fields, following the newly built white fencing. I followed the road around until I saw Sia and Cowboy in a small cornered-off section of the north field. They were standing at the small cluster of trees. Cowboy had his arms around Sia’s waist from behind.
I pulled my bike to a stop. I opened my mouth to tell them about my grandmother, but Cowboy asked, “Is she okay?”
I closed my mouth in confusion. “Yeah . . .” I said slowly. “She wants us to go to Sweden to see her.”
Sia smiled. “I’ve never been to Europe.” Then her smile fell, and a nervous ex
pression clouded her beautiful face. She held out her hand. Cowboy let go of her.
I took her hand. “What’s going on?”
Sia pulled me closer to her and got on her tiptoes to give me a kiss. Her lips were trembling. I cupped her cheeks in my hands.
“Sia?” I asked, and looked to Cowboy.
“Been talking to your grandmother for a while now,” he said.
“You have?”
“Yeah,” he said, voice breaking.
“Aubin . . . what is it?”
“Come with us.” Sia led me forward. The sun was shining and the weather was warm. I followed them around the small cluster of trees. Then . . . I stopped in my tracks, seeing what was looking at me from underneath the shade of a sycamore tree.
My hands shook, and I knew tears were falling from my eyes as I stared down at the ground . . . at two white marble headstones. One reading, “Aia Durand, loving wife and mother.” The other reading, “Dominic Durand, loving father and husband.” A choked, pained sound came from my throat when I edged closer and saw the picture . . . my picture of them, the one I had kept in my side drawer for so many years; it was engraved into each of the stones.
“Love doesn’t see color. Only pure hearts” was etched on the bottom of each headstone, below the dates of their births and deaths.
My legs couldn’t take it. I fell to my knees. I held out my hand and ran my fingers over the headstones. One at a time, seeing their faces in my head as I did so. But seeing them smiling. Not that night. Seeing them so fucking perfectly. Seeing them when they danced in the kitchen like no one was looking. Sitting on the porch, on the swing, hand in hand . . . and seeing Mamma watching from the doorway as my papa played his trumpet to me as I fell to sleep.
“How?” I whispered, the engravings blurring with my tears.
“Mrs. Moreau and I talked,” Cowboy said. “She agreed that you, their son, should have them be wherever you are.” I stared at that picture, my heart fucking swelling so big I thought it would burst free from my chest. “We exhumed their graves and brought them here, to Texas . . . to you.”
“To us,” Sia added, and my eyes closed.
My head fell forward and my hands planted in the grass beneath my fingers. Nine years. For nine years I had missed them. I’d felt the injustice that in death they weren’t together, when they’d vowed never to be apart. A vow they kept until the choice was taken from their hands.
And then Cowboy and Sia, the people I loved most in the entire world, brought them to me, to sleep side by side for eternity.
Finally together, at last. No more hatred. No more pain . . . simply peace, and each other. My throat was so clogged, I didn’t think I’d be able to speak. But I managed to whisper, “Thank you.” And I knew, although it was real quiet, that they heard it.
Sia dropped beside me first. I pulled her into my arms. She held me right back, her tears falling on my bare shoulders. I laid my forehead on hers. “Thank you, älskling,” I murmured. I pressed my lips to hers and kissed her. Kissed her over and over again until she understood just what this meant to me.
I felt Cowboy sit beside me too. I looked at my best friend, and he nodded. “It was time,” he said. “It was time they came back to us again.” He shrugged, and then said huskily, “I miss them too, every day.” He looked away into the distance. “They were my parents too, in the end . . .”
Wrapping my hand around his neck, I pulled him in. “Merci.” I felt him rub my head. When we pulled back, Sia melted against my side. I held her close, just fucking living in the moment.
As I stared at my parents’ graves, I understood why they did it. How they survived all those years of hatred and abuse. Never losing their smiles, their love . . . never losing hope.
Because the way they loved each other deserved to be fought for, with everything they were . . . and it deserved to be victorious against those who only held hate in their hearts.
They loved and they lived for themselves, and no one else. As I felt Cowboy and Sia on either side, I knew I had that too. And if anyone couldn’t accept us, then I would fight too. Despite years of not believing it, I now knew for certain that I deserved this. I deserved my Sia and my best friend forever by my side.
So I vowed I would live for the parents who didn’t get the chance to grow old together.
And I would love.
I would be happy.
Because I finally was . . . so fucking happy.
The End
Bonus Chapter
Crow
Louisiana
“Welcome!”
I held my arms out wide as the final cunt, Jase Du Pont, walked through the door. His eyes widened, then the same instinct to run kicked into him as all those I’d killed before.
The door slammed shut before he could escape, courtesy of my brother, Thunder, standing outside. Brother had, as always, helped me in this new game of Hades’ Choice.
Du Pont’s head whipped around. I watched, my dick getting real fucking hard, as his eyes found his friends. He stumbled back, and I put my hand in my pocket and ran my fingers over my marble dice.
“What the fuck is this?” Du Pont’s piss-ant voice shook as he tried to push against the door.
I frowned, then looked over at his friends. “What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s a Klan meeting. That’s why you’re here, no?” We’d known the assholes would never have missed a good old Klan meeting. Piece of fucking cake to get them here.
It was fucking disappointing just how easy it was.
Du Pont stayed silent, his eyes darting from me to his friends. I walked to where they sat and took a white hood off one of their heads. I crouched down, studying his face real hard. My eyes narrowed. “Davide’s here, see?” Du Pont’s breathing came hard, until he moved his head and puked on the ground. I shrugged, then put the white hood back on Davide’s head. “Guess it’s hard to make him out now.”
I stood and approached Du Pont. He scrambled back against the wall. As I came closer, he froze, his eyes like a deer in headlights.
“Who the fuck’re you?” His eyes fell to my cut. “Hades Hangmen? Who the fuck are they?”
I smiled a cold fucking smile. Du Pont’s nose flared as he looked at me . . . the full length of me. I glanced down too, seeing the blood on my arms. I knew it was on my face as well. I could smell it. “You bothered by the blood?” I asked. Du Pont skirted across the wall of the old barn, trying to get away from me. I followed him, tracking him with my eyes everywhere he went. I dusted at the blood on my arm. “It belongs to your friends.” Du Pont stopped dead. I pointed my thumb to the back wall. “Davide, Pierre, Stan. Your friends, right?”
“What the fuck have you done to them?” he asked, voice breaking with fear.
I fucking loved the smell of fear.
My head twitched, and I smiled. “This is it, yeah?” I gestured around the old barn.
“What?”
“Where you tied up my brother.” I pointed to the door. “Just out there. Tied him to a tree.”
Du Pont shook his head. “What the fuck are you—” He stopped mid-sentence, then looked back at his friends. At how they died. The way Hades’ dice had chosen to take them.
“Branded an ‘N’ into his back and then left him to fucking die . . . Ring any bells?”
Du Pont began shaking his head. A desperate smile—my favorite kind of smile—came on his lips. “Valan?” He laughed. “We were just fucking around. We were kids.”
My blood thickened in my veins as the cunt continued to speak, trying to dig himself out of his white-power hole. I didn’t know what the fuck he said. My mind drifted off at the thought of cutting out this asshole’s tongue and sending it to his Grand Wizard in a shiny silver gift box.
Of sending his tiny severed dick to his wife on her birthday.
Feeling Hades’ dice warm in my pocket, I cut the shit and punched the fucker right in his jaw. He fell to the ground, eyes dazed and head slumping to his chest. Dragging him by his c
ollar, I dumped him on a chair in the center of the barn, next to an upturned old barrel. I tied his arms and legs to the chair and waited on a stool on the opposite side of the barrel.
I closed my eyes and inhaled. The dice burned, waiting to be thrown. The smell of charred skin traveled up my nose.
It was a real good fucking smell.
A quick breath came from across me. I smiled before I’d even opened my eyes.
It was time to play.
“Hades has a game,” I said and slowly opened my eyes. Du Pont’s stunned eyes fell on me, trying to focus. I leaned forward, forearms on my thighs. My leg twitched as adrenaline built inside me . . . waiting for the game to begin. I rolled my neck, my cock getting hard at what I knew would be coming. I glanced down at the inked crow on my arm. Its red eyes looked up at me as I lifted my elbow.
The scent of oncoming death filled the room.
“Hades?” Du Pont asked, trying to pull against his ties. “What the fuck are you talking about, you psycho?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my dice. I rolled them in my hand, the marble cubes dancing over my fingers. Du Pont’s eyes fell to them. He swallowed. Sweat dripped from his brow.
“You killed the Durands.” Du Pont’s face turned white as those words slipped from my mouth. He pulled harder against his ties.
My dice rolled faster and faster through my hands. I could hear the fucker’s harsh breathing from here.
It was fucking music to my ears.
“The Dark Lord decides if you live or die,” I shook the dice in my fist, hovering it above the barrel. “Hades’ Choice.” Du Pont watched my hand. My head tipped to the side. “What will I roll?” His eyes quickly searched mine. “What number will they show?”
Du Pont shook his head. “You can’t be serious.”
“Choose,” I snarled, shaking the dice harder. I leaned forward, his friends’ blood mixing with a falling drop of sweat from my brow. Fucker watched it fall to the ground. Du Pont’s eyes flew to his friends, and his face crumbled, no doubt seeing what his future would be if he chose wrong.