Gary

 

“Goddammit!” Gary screamed, tearing up the sides of his throat by the sheer volume of his voice, right as he slammed his foot into the hard wall. He kicked it again and again and again, until his toes throbbed with pain, his body practically screaming at him to stop. “Fucking! Shit!”

 

“Sir…” one of his top lieutenants, Bobby, said tentatively, hesitantly stepping forward a little.

 

“Don’t!” Gary yelled, putting his hand forward to tell all of the MC members in the room to stay where they were. “Don’t fucking say a goddamned word. How the hell did that fucker even get in here?”

 

Nobody answered, each set of eyes looking hurriedly around the room to avoid eye contact with Gary, everybody attempting to shirk responsibility for the catastrophe that had just happened in his goddamned office. “Nobody hears about this, do you understand me?” Gary said. “I said, do you understand to me?”

 

“Yes, sir,” several of the men said in one voice the second later, still sounding hesitant, like they weren’t sure if they were allowed to speak.

 

Gary shoved past them into the main room of the bar, rushing over to the stack of drinks against the wall and grabbing bottle after bottle, smashing each of them against the far wall, causing the gaggle of stupid bitches standing there to shriek and shrink back, terrified of being struck. But Gary couldn’t stop himself. He had to keep going, keep destroying everything in this path. How the hell had this happened? How had he been so utterly humiliated in his own goddamned territory? Now all of the Nightwalkers would hear about this. They’d all know that he’d had a gun pulled on him like a weak little bitch. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to live this down.

 

No, fuck that, he said to himself, stopping himself from smashing another bottle against the wall and opening it instead. He lifted it to his mouth and drained a quarter of the liquid in less than a minute, feeling a familiar burning sensation at the base of his stomach as a result. Fuck that. I’m not going to be humiliated. I’m not going to fucking take this shit.

 

He had to fix this somehow, if only so that his inferiors didn’t think he was weak or soft. That just couldn’t be allowed to happen. He had to make someone pay. There was Pax, of course. But that fucker had said he was leaving town. For all Gary knew, the asshole was already halfway out of the state by now, heading for God knows where.

 

And anyway, he wasn’t the one who’d betrayed him. He wasn’t the one who really humiliated him, who’d treated him like a piece of shit. Jessica. That fucking whore. That fucking idiotic little slut, prancing around like she had a life without Gary, like Gary was nothing to her. That bitch had to fucking pay.

 

Gary took another huge gulp of whiskey, suppressing his gag reflex to finish half the bottle before smashing it at his feet. “Clean this shit up,” he yelled over to the group of girls still cowering against the wall.

 

“Where are you going?” one of the newer MC members, someone who clearly hadn’t been taught well enough to be scared of him, asked as Gary approached the main exit.

 

“To mind my own business,” Gary spat out in response. “I suggest you do the same.”

 

He hopped into his car, despite his now-blurry vision and trembling fingers, speeding as fast as he could over to Jessica’s place. She had to answer for this shit.

 

In the back of Gary’s mind, there was a little spot of hope. Maybe Pax was just lying. Maybe she hadn’t fucked someone else. Maybe she was still his girl, not the property of any other random guy in town. He’d have to ask her to be sure.

 

He rolled to a stop in front of her apartment complex, but not before side-swiping a car in the parking lot. Fuck it. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be here long anyway.

 

He went up to Jessica’s door, pounding as hard as he could with both fists until he heard her indistinct, muffled voice on the other side of the door. “Open the fuck up!” he shouted to her. He was entirely out of patience, incapable of pretending to be nice to her right now. She had to answer for some shit. Even if she hadn’t fucked Pax, she’d befriended him. She’d let the motherfucker feel superior by letting him into her apartment the night she’d forced Gary away. This was all her fault, and she was going to have to be punished for it. “Open the goddamned door right now, Jessica, or I’m coming back with the whole MC to knock this fucking door down. Now, dammit!”

 

“Okay, okay!” Jessica yelled from the other side of the door, opening it a crack a second later. “What do you want?”

 

Gary shoved the door the rest of the way open, forcing Jessica to back up into her own apartment just so the swinging door wouldn’t hit her right on the face. “Sit down. We have to fucking talk.”

 

Jessica looked bewildered and a bit worried, but she did as she was instructed. The hope in Gary’s mind grew a little bit as a result of her obedience. She still did what he wanted, after everything. Maybe she was too loyal to do what Pax had said. Maybe she still cared about him, even after everything.

 

“What is this about?” Jessica whispered, her eyebrows furrowing up together as she stared up at Gary.

 

“I got some news today,” Gary said, barely containing himself when he thought about what Pax had told him a half-hour earlier. He was tempted to reach across the room and grab Jessica by the neck, throttling her until she told the truth. But he held himself back, clenching his fists next to his sides, ready at any moment to start pummeling her if she said the wrong thing. “From Pax.”

 

Fear flashed across Jessica’s face, only for a second before she composed herself, straightening up in her seat and nodding at Gary to keep going. “Yes?” she prodded him, nervousness leaking out into her voice.

 

Gary felt like he already had his answer, just based off the way Jessica responded in reaction to the sound of Pax’s name. But he had to be sure. “He said you’ve been fucking him for months. Is that true?” Jessica didn’t say anything right away, but her eyes dropped down to the floor, and her throat worked visibly as she swallowed hard. “Jessica,” Gary said, hardening his tone. He felt like each word that had to leave his throat was a bullet tearing through him, but he pressed on. “Jessica, is it fucking true? Is it?!”

 

He leaned down to lift the coffee table off the ground, flipping it over after exerting his muscles as much as he could, sending the contents on its surface scattering across the living room area. “You fucking bitch,” Gary spat, kicking some random magazines that fell over across the room. “The least you could do is look me in the fucking eyes and admit the fucking truth, you cunt! Did you fuck him?”

 

“Yes!” Jessica cried out, finally looking back up at him, her eyes full of tears. “Yes, okay, it’s true. It’s all true.”

 

“All of it?” Gary asked, his voice dropping low as he considered her words. “So it’s true, then? You’re knocked up. With his baby.”

 

“Yes,” Jessica said, sobbing a little as she bent her neck again, burying her head in her hands and rocking back and forth. “Yes, it’s fucking true.”

 

“Goddammit,” Gary muttered under his breath, inhaling deeply as his blood rushed through his veins, screaming at him to do something with all of the anger that had suddenly mounted inside of him, ready to strike at any moment. “Goddammit!” he screamed, grabbing one of the fallen knickknacks off the floor and tossing it against the wall, smashing it to pieces with the force of his anger. “You fucking whore!”

 

Sobs cracked their way out of Jessica’s throat, getting louder and louder as Gary proceeded to rip her apartment apart, tearing pictures down off the wall, doing everything short of actually hitting her. “What are you going to do?” Jessica said in between sniffles, her face splotchy and red with tears.

 

“What I fucking have to do,” Gary growled, stepping ever closer to Jessica, watching as her chest rose and fell faster as her fear grew, her eyes wide and pleading.

 

“Don’t,” she said stiffly, her voice coming out hoarse and rough after all of her sobbing. “Please don’t.”

 

“Don’t what?” Gary asked between clenched teeth, his fist halfway raised, prepared to smash itself down over Jessica’s head.

 

“Don’t hurt him,” Jessica said. “Pax. Please don’t hurt him, Gary. He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t want me. Please, just let him go. Let him be free of this whole fucking mess.”

 

Gary laughed and shook his head. He was about to tell her that Pax had already abandoned her, but something about the desperation on her face and in her voice made him pause. It was her sadness, the way her entire body seemed limp and useless, like she’d already been defeated. It made him lower his fist and stare at her, looking for all of the signs of the pain she was feeling all over her face and body.

 

For a second, Gary wondered if he was getting soft, if her sadness actually moved him to feel sympathy. But no. That wasn’t it. Anger bubbled up from Gary’s stomach, bigger and broader than before, overwhelming all of his other emotions like a huge tidal wave. This was the type of anger that consumed everything in its path, that burnt everything up into crispy little black residue. This was the type of anger that started and finished wars. It was the type of emotion that destroyed worlds.

 

This bitch, this fucking little whore, hadn’t just had the audacity to cheat on him, to betray him with her body. No— It was clear to Gary now, listening to her beg for Pax’s life, that she’d betrayed him with her heart, too. She loved the motherfucker who’d knocked her up. And now, she would always love him.

 

Pax had marked his territory, in more ways than one. And Gary had already lost.

 

He started laughing, his ribs aching as tiny chuckles got bigger and bigger, until he was bent over, clutching his stomach as laughter overtook his whole body. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered as tears pooled into his eyes, his whole body going numb, buzzing only with the desire to hurt something. Anything.

 

“Gary…” Jessica said, slowly getting to her feet and approaching him tentatively. “Gary, what’s wrong? What are you…?” She trailed off, her face growing more and more worried as she got closer to him.

 

He just couldn’t stop laughing, his throat burning with it. It was hilarious, really. The whole situation was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. He’d be able to laugh at it without bitterness if he hadn’t been involved himself. It was so ridiculous: Pax didn’t even want her, and this bitch was in love with him. She’d be in love with him forever, Gary knew, judging from the pain in her face. She’d never let go of him, ever. Gary would never be able to have Jessica back, not even if he fucked her every single day for the rest of their lives.

 

Gary spotted some scotch on the edge of the kitchen counter, right up against the living room area. He stumbled over to the bottle, downing a quarter of it in one go, appreciating the way it made things even fuzzier. He couldn’t accept that this was real. He lost Jessica. For good. But more important than that, he’d lost control. It all started with her, but over the past few months even some of the boys seemed unhappier than ever, choosing not to participate on many of the missions that Gary had designed himself. He was losing his power, little by little, and now everybody knew that his bitch was with somebody else. Somebody who didn’t even give a fuck about her.

 

“So you want me to spare him, huh?” Gary murmured as he sipped away at Jessica’s scotch. He figured she wasn’t going to be drinking it anytime soon anyway, not with the bun in her oven.

 

“Yes,” Jessica said quickly. “Please. I’ll do anything, Gary. Just don’t hurt him.”

 

Gary chuckled lightly and shook his head, draining the rest of the scotch. He was already feeling wobbly on his feet, his vision unclear, but he wanted more. He needed his blood to be replaced by alcohol. He needed to be as numb as possible so that when he sunk his fists into Pax’s pretty little face again and again and again, he wouldn’t feel any pain.

 

“Well, darling,” Gary said, reaching into his pocket to grab his phone. “I’m afraid you’re shit out of luck.”

 

Jessica’s face crumpled, her body sinking back down onto the couch as she collapsed into sobs. She was all-out weeping now, her entire body consumed with grief. Gary felt warm and fuzzy, deep in the pit of his stomach, just watching her suffering. He hadn’t even done the deed yet, but he already felt satisfied with himself. That’s right, bitch, he said silently, smiling as he watched Jessica moan in pain. Fucking cry for your dead boyfriend.

 

“He’s a fucking dead man,” Gary muttered as he opened his phone to Arnold’s number, quickly sending a text to his number-one man. At least he knew he had his loyalty, even if he had nobody else’s. But it would all change tonight. Gary would take back the club, proving once and for all that he wasn’t to be fucked with. He’d send a message to the entire fucking town, hanging Pax’s body up from the highest telephone line. The cops wouldn’t bother trying to take him down. They were too scared of him, at least in the part of town where the Nightwalkers reigned. And after Pax’s grisly death, nobody would ever try to mess with Gary ever again. He’d be in control, finally, forever.