Lana
The rain has cleared when I wake up in Kade’s arms. Sunlight fills the room, just like in my fantasy; it blooms in all corners of the room. I sit up and look down at Kade. He is sleeping peacefully, despite the situation with the Italians. If there is one thing Kade never does, it’s sleep peacefully. He sleeps in fits, consumed my dreams of his father, dreams of Duster. He never just sleeps. But now, his face is content, a small smile on his lips. He makes a snoring noise which is so cute I want to jump around the room going, Awwwww.
Instead, I stand up and go into the shower, have a quick wash, and then throw on some sweatpants and a hoodie. The thing about being pregnant is, when hunger comes, it comes quick and with a vengeance. I woke up wanting a bite to eat. As I leave the dormitory wing and make my way to the bar, I am ravenous.
But I do not enter the bar. I’m in the hallway area when the smell of coffee hits me. If I was writing about that in my book, hits me is the phrase I would use. It pushes through the door to the bar and slams right into my nose. I take a step back, gagging. It’s like I can feel coffee grinds lodged into the back of my throat. I know it’s not true, but the feeling persists. Coughing, I make for the front door. I need some fresh air, if only a moment of it.
It’ll be safe enough, because there are Tidal Knights guards posted all over.
But as soon as I walk into the parking lot—barefooted, like a fool—I realize I’ve made a mistake.
The first thing I see is a Tidal Knights pledge. Is he smiling? I ask myself this question several times. He must be smiling. He looks like he’s smiling. The brain is strange like that, I guess, because even as I ask myself the question I know the reality. One side of my brain registers the Tidal Knights member with the upper half of his face completely torn away by a gunshot, the lower half twisted into a macabre grin. The other half of my brain keeps seeing a smiling man lying on the concrete catching the morning rays. I look across the parking lot and see two more dead Tidal Knights, both just as mangled as the first one. And then I look up, and see that the parking lot is filled with about twenty Italians, maybe thirty. Once I get past ten, it is hard to tell. Grey-suited men, most of them holding guns, standing in a circle around the bodies, looking at the clubhouse calmly.
Enrique—it must be him—stands at the front of his men. He is short for a man, around my height. In one hand he holds a machete. His other is curled around a gold knuckle duster. He wears a shirt tucked into grey trousers, unbuttoned to the chest to show a gold chain. I want to scream, but my throat seizes at the sight of him. Kade told me about how he casually punched his son across the face, about how he killed Mountain. He did not give me the details of Mountain’s death, but he told me the fact that the big man was dead. Mountain was huge; it was hard for me to accept that anybody could’ve killed him. But looking at Enrique, holding that machete, I can see it. There’s something vicious about the man, something apart from the fact he murders without remorse. It’s his eyes; there is nothing in his eyes. A blank stare. No—an almost blank stare. A glint of sadism flashes at me. Or perhaps I just see that. I don’t know. I am too scared. Thought has become difficult.
I try and scream again. This time a hollow, ‘Ah,’ comes out, but nothing else.
Enrique grins at his men. “Look how happy she is to see us, gentleman.” He skips over to me, slicking his hair back with the knuckle-duster hand, swinging the machete like a cane. “This is an unexpected surprise, madam.” He stops so close to me I can smell blood on him. His chest is thick with black hairs, hairs which have turned crimson with blood. Sweat and blood. I keel over, vomit on my bare feet. “Oh, dirty American whore!” He growls and takes a step back. “You have to understand, friends, that these American girls are always whores. They will do anything. Italian girls—well, they have a little more self-respect, you understand? But American girls will do anything for a few dollars. My father taught me this when I was a boy. He took me to whorehouse and showed me what these girls would do for forty dollars! Forty dollars!”
I take a step back, vomit squishing between my toes. That’s sick; it’s too sick. I keel over, belly a knot, and vomit again, this time onto the concrete. Stones dig into my feet. Everything hurts. Everything seems slow and drawn-out. I scream, try to scream. Damn my raw throat. Damn this paralyzing fear.
Enrique steps around my vomit, not wanting to ruin his expensive-looking shoes, I expect.
He stands close to me.
“Do not take another step away from me,” he says. He speaks casually, but I get the sense that if I were to take one more step, he’d hack at me with that machete without a second thought. I do as he says. “Good girl.” He giggles, weirdly girlishly. Worms crawl over me; he reminds me of Scud.
“Don Enrique, she is the president’s puttana.”
I do not know what puttana means, but I don’t think it’s good. Enrique grins at me with a new appreciation.
“Yes, I see now. She is the pregnant one.”
“How do you know—”
“I have eyes everywhere. They call me spider-eyes.”
He lays the machete against my belly.
The second the blood-covered metal touches me, I scream: “Kade!”
Enrique backhands me across the face, sending me sprawling into the concrete.
Everything happens very fast then, as I’m lying on the concrete. Enrique jabs me twice more in the nose, my head lolling, and then drags me to my feet and throws me into a group of Italians. Three of them catch me, holding me up. My nose is numb; my entire face is numb. One of the Italians casually squeezes my ass. At a time like this, just squeezes it. How could a man get excited enough to do that at a time like this? These are dim thoughts, faraway. I’m only able to look up when I hear Kade’s voice.
He runs out of the clubhouse barefoot, wearing nothing but shorts, holding a handgun.
“Enrique,” he says, walking into the parking lot. “You better let her go right fuckin’—”
“Tut-tut.” Enrique waves his machete like a schoolteacher waving a pointer. “That is not the way to speak to a man who has something you want.”
Kade throws his handgun overarm into the parking lot. It crashes into one of the bikes, and then lands on the floor.
“I killed your brother,” Kade says. “I killed him on purpose. I slaughtered him for no other reason than I could.”
No, Kade. Don’t. Stop it. He’ll kill you.
Enrique growls. “What? What are you saying? Are you a mad man?”
“I killed him.” Kade walks across the parking lot, opposite twenty-something Italians, right up to the machete-wielding leader. “Don’t you want to get some vengeance, Enrique?”
“I will kill you and your woman,” Enrique says, but even from where I stand propped up by three Italians, I can hear it in his voice. Kade has his attention. I know Kade is afraid. He must be. But he does not show it. He stands there, shirtless, arms at his sides, smirking at Enrique.
“I want to make a deal with you,” Kade says.
“What kind of deal?”
“I want to give you the chance to get some real vengeance, some hard-gained vengeance. Men like these, Enrique,” and Kade waves a hand at the Italians, “they don’t know what real grit is. What real fight is.”
“Yes, that is true, but neither do you.”
“No?” Kade spreads his arms, exposing his body. “I will fight you, me and you. I will use my bare fists and you can keep your knife and your duster.”
Enrique tilts his head. “You really are a madman. Why would you agree to this?”
“’Cause I need your word that, no matter the outcome, you’ll let that woman go.”
“She is nothing to me. I do not care for her. If you mean what you say.”
Kade. No. Don’t. Stop. But my face is too numb, speech impossible.
“I will let her go,” Enrique says.
“Let her go now,” Kade says. “We will fight after.”
“You are trying to trick me.”
Kade shakes his head. “Just tryin’ to make sure you keep your end of the bargain. Get a couple of your men to point guns at me. The fuck am I going to do—run?”
Enrique considers this, and then shrugs. “Let her go,” he says, gesturing with his machete. These are tough men, holding me, killers, but the second Enrique gives the command, they let me go. I spring across the parking lot, ignoring the stones which cut into the soles of my feet, and make to throw myself into Kade’s arms.
“No.” He pushes me gently but firmly toward the clubhouse. “Go. Be safe.” He glares at me, stretching his neck from side to side. “I said go.”
I cannot ignore the desperation in his eyes: desperation for me and the baby to be safe. And I cannot ignore, either, my own obligation to keep the child safe. Reluctantly, I run to the clubhouse. The second I’m through the doors, however, I scream: “The Italians are outside. Kade needs your help!” My numb face aches as cuts scratch and open and close, bruised skin tugging at me. I run through the clubhouse, rousing the men. By the time I return to the front door, around thirty Tidal Knights are charging after me, all of them holding guns, all of them with murder in their eyes.
I go to the bar, to one of the windows which looks out onto the parking lot, and crouch low. I want to be out there with Kade, but I have to protect the child. The urge to be with my man is strong; the urge to make sure our child is safe is stronger.
When the men get into the parking lot, Kade turns to them and says, “Nobody get involved.”
Enrique nods, and says to his men, “The same to you or I will feed you to the dogs, okay?”
Everybody nods, the Tidal Knights looking confused but unwilling to disobey Kade.
Earl gathers everybody behind him. A sort of circle forms, the corpses of the dead Tidal Knights off to one side, Kade and Enrique in the middle, and the Italians and the Tidal Knights standing around the edges.
Kade lifts up his hands. “Alright, then,” he says.
Their voices are low from where I sit, but the windows are open and they are just audible.
Then the fight begins and all I hear is the terrified beating of my heart.
Enrique, the small man who would look unassuming if it were not for his weapons and his reputation and his bloodshed, charges at Kade like a man possessed, bringing the machete down in an downward-arcing swing meant to cut his head in two. Kade, with no weapons but his fists, watches the swing, judges it, and then steps aside just enough so that it misses him by a hair’s breadth. I hear my breath catch.
A hush falls over the Italians and the bikers.
Enrique keeps on at Kade, swiping up, down, left, right, and each time Kade ducks out of the way, somehow always ending up in the space just beside Enrique swings. The Italian comes at him with the knuckle-duster, too, but Kade just blocks that with his forearm. The crack of metal on bone doesn’t seem to bother Kade. His blue eyes are impassive, focused. His blue eyes are steel.
They dance across the parking lot, and then back the other way, before Kade makes his move. I see what Kade is doing, and I see that is has worked. He is trying to make Enrique angry and careless. After about two minutes—which feels like hours when it’s the father of your child out there—Kade ducks one of Enrique’s swings and punches him so hard in the belly the Italian lets out a catlike yelp. Kade goes to work, then, punching again and again. Enrique lashes out wildly. Kade catches the machete-holding hand at the wrist, squeezes. Enrique yelps again and drops his weapon. Kade leans back, aims his head, and head-butts the man in the nose. Blood showers over Kade’s face. He head-butts him again. Enrique slides to the concrete. Kade falls upon him.
“Touch my fuckin’ woman!” he roars, and head-butts the man again, again, again, until Kade’s head is blood-red without an inch of flesh visible, and Enrique is nothing but a mass of blood and bone.
But still twitching, I notice, still alive.
Kade climbs to his feet, walks over to Earl, and snatches his gun. Before anybody can do anything, Kade paces back to Enrique’s twitching body and places the barrel of the gun against his head and pulls the trigger.
The shot rings out, and the Italian stops twitching.
I expect the Italians to start shooting now, but they look at Kade, at the Tidal Knights gathered and ready, and think better of it. First, a couple slink away, and then a couple more, until in a matter of seconds all of them are pacing down the road toward their cars, leaving their leader bloody and dead in the parking lot.
I run to the entrance just in time for Kade to push open the door.
I jump toward him.
“The blood . . .” His voice is almost a snarl.
“I don’t care about the blood. I care about you.”
I throw my arms around him and bury my face in his neck.
When the weeping hits me, it hits me hard.
“It’s over,” Kade whispers in my ear. “We’re safe. I’ll always keep you safe.”
We all turn at the sound of the door. Terry stands in the doorway to the dormitory, rubbing her eyes. When she sees all of us gathered—Tidal Knights packed into the hallway like sardines—she takes out her earplugs and says, “Did I miss something?”