It was just enough of a distraction to get Gareth to move away from Michelle. Not far, but far enough. That was my opening.
I lunged at him, knocking us both to the floor. Michelle screamed.
I screamed, too, but not the way she did. “Spike!” I called out, wondering who fired the shot. “Get in here!”
Gareth got his wind and lashed out at me, slashing at me with the knife. I rolled out of the way, the blade missing me by less than an inch. I shoved his arm away, then hit him across the face. He reeled back, but the knife stayed tight in his fist. I got to my feet and kicked him in the ribs. He rolled to protect himself, and I got him in the back.
Footsteps. I turned to look just long enough to see Pete rush into the room. “Get her out of here!” I ordered.
It was just long enough for Gareth to slash at me again with the knife, and this time, he caught my calf. I went down, grimacing with pain. Only I landed on him, and I heard the wind leave him in one big gasp.
He pushed toward me with the knife again, trying to stab wherever he could land the blade. I took his wrist in my hand, pushing him away. We struggled, both of us grunting and groaning, as the knife got steadily closer to my throat.
Then, another gunshot. His reflexes were shit because he jumped again. Again I had the chance to take advantage, and I used that momentary loss of focus to regain control.
I took his arm and slammed it over and over into the floor, using all my strength. After the fifth or sixth slam, he let go of the knife. I threw it far away.
He bucked me off him, and I fell to the side. He rolled on top of me, taking a swing which I blocked with my forearm. He put his hands around my throat, cursing and muttering all sorts of things I only half heard. I clawed at his face, gouging his eyes. He howled and let go of me, hands over his eyes.
I pulled him toward me by the collar of his shirt. As soon as his hands moved and I had a clear shot, I cocked my fist and drove it into his face. Blood spurted out of his nose. He staggered, falling away onto his back.
It was my big chance. I got up, sitting on his chest, and took a few more shots while he was down. I drove my knees into his sides, muttering my own string of curses and taunts. It was for Slash, and Spike, and me, and Michelle. And Michelle. And Michelle.
It wasn’t enough. My rage was too strong. I wanted him to die. I took his neck in my hands and squeezed until his eyes went wide and he clawed at my arms.
My hands tightened around his throat like they were somebody else’s hands. I felt like I was watching from far away as I strangled the life out of him. His eyes bulged, his face turned purple. He stared up at me. Yes. I wanted him to look me in the face as I killed him.
Then I stopped, my hands loosening. I’d already been to prison for killing a man. I didn’t want to go back, even if it meant getting rid of Gareth for good. He gasped for air, coughing, wheezing. Eventually, he went quiet, eyes closed. I wondered if I hadn’t accidentally killed him after all. I put my fingers to his throat. He was out cold but had a strong pulse. He only passed out.
I looked around for something to do with him, and saw the ropes sitting on the floor in a pile. “Let’s see how you like it,” I muttered, hauling him up into the chair. I tied him the way he tied Michelle, and made sure the knots were secure before getting in one last shot against the side of his face. I heard bones break, and I was glad.
Spike walked in. “You okay?” He was breathing heavy, and his knuckles had blood on them. I wondered how many guys he took out before getting to me.
“Yeah, I’m fine. He got my leg.” That reminded me of the knife, and I looked around for it. I found it across the room and took it, since my blood was on it.
“Who fired that shot?” I asked.
“I did. Things were getting way outta hand in here,” he said. “I knew you weren’t ready for me to come in with the troops, but I had to distract him somehow.”
“It was perfect,” I said with a grin. “Just enough to throw him off. He was just about to slice her open.”
Michelle.
“Where is she?” I limped out of the room, pushing past Spike, looking for her. “Did you see her?” I asked, looking back at Spike.
“No, brother. I was a little busy.” He shook his hands out, and I thought about his arthritis. It took a lot for him to get into a fistfight, and I couldn’t have loved another man more in that moment than I loved him for what he did.
I looked around the main room of the clubhouse, hoping to see her. I saw a few unconscious bodies here and there, all members of Gareth’s crew. My guys came through like they always did.
“Pete took her outside,” Joe said.
“Make sure he’s secure,” I said, nodding back to Gareth. Joe smiled grimly—I had the feeling he would enjoy the hell out of it since it was Gareth’s men who knocked him out earlier. The rest of the guys I ordered out of the clubhouse. “We have to get out of here,” I said, and they understood what I meant. The cops would be around soon—somebody would report the gunshot, even if the block wasn’t all that busy at night. There was always a witness somewhere. Everybody else filed out, Joe included.
“He’s good,” Joe said. I nodded and pushed him out the door. I had to find Michelle.
I stepped outside to find most of the crew getting on their bikes and speeding off. Still no Michelle. My heart sank. She ran away. I couldn’t blame her.
Pete saw me and came over. “She got in a cab,” he said. “She went home.”
“What?”
He nodded. “She said she wanted to be with her mom.” He must have seen what could only have been shock on my face, and he put a hand on my arm. “It wasn’t because she was afraid of you or hated you. She was worried about her mom, that’s all.”
“Right.” I clenched my jaw. He couldn’t see how undone I was by what she did. I didn’t wanna look weak in front of him. All I wanted was to hold her in my arms and make sure she was all right, and she ran away. I couldn’t even say I was sorry.
“Where are you going?” he asked, as I got on my bike.
“I’m going to her,” I said.
“You should get your leg looked at,” he reminded me. I had almost forgotten about Gareth slashing me.
“It’s not deep,” I said. “I’ll have Spike look at it later, when I get back.” I didn’t wait for him to argue with me, riding away in the direction of Michelle’s house before he could say another word.
The entire way there, I second-guessed myself. There was no way of knowing how she would react. She might tell me to get off her property, I thought, or refuse to open the door when I knock. And those were the nice options. She might also tell me she hated me and didn’t know why she’d ever trusted me in the first place. She might curse me out and ask why I used her the way I did. If I had only given her the money instead of using it to keep her around, none of it would have happened. She would have gone home and forgotten all about me in time. And I would have forgotten her, too.
I was glad she didn’t go right home, even if it meant seeing her with a gun against her temple.
The fact was I fell in love with her the first night. That was why I wanted her around. I told myself at the time that I only wanted to play with her. Then I told myself it was nice to have her around. Really, I had feelings for her from that first time we slept together. I saw how special she was, and felt how easy it was to open up to her.
I couldn’t tell her at the time. So I made it look like I was fucking with her. Why had I been so stupid? Because she would never have stuck around if I didn’t force her to. I shook my head at myself in disgust, because I knew it was true. If I had asked her to stay with me, and told her how interesting I thought she was and how easy it was to talk to her, she would have left. I couldn’t blame her. If I were her, so beautiful and smart, I would have run like I was on fire. No question about it.
When you loved someone, you didn’t use them like that. You didn’t play games to get them to do what you wanted. But I had. And it had cost us both. Now she would never want me again. I deserved to be alone if that was the way I treated the woman I loved.
I pulled up to the house, bracing myself for whatever I found inside. The house looked dark inside for the most part, with just a light on in one of the upstairs rooms. For the second time that night I took a deep breath before approaching a door.
There was no answer when I knocked. My heart was in my throat. Was she all right? I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered inside. I didn’t see any movement inside. I didn’t hear anything. For a quick, heart-stopping moment, I thought somebody else took her. They might have been waiting for her here, knowing she would run here as soon as she escaped. Was Gareth that far ahead of me?
A car pulled up behind me. I turned to see her climbing out, and I couldn’t have been more relieved. I beat her there—that was how fast I rode.
She looked surprised to see me, then shrugged. “I don’t have my purse. I have no money for the cab. I don’t even have my key, but I think the spare should be in the hiding place.”
I went down to the sidewalk to pay for her, favoring my injured leg, while she ran into the house. I thought the cab driver probably had a lot of questions, between the blood on her face and the way I was limping, but he kept them to himself.
I tried not to take it personally when she ran away from me—I knew why she was in a hurry to see her mom. All I wanted to do was see her and touch her and know she was okay, but she had bigger problems. I could understand that.
I followed her into the house and shut the door, then thought twice and locked it. I knew I had no reason to feel unsafe, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
It was a nice little house. Nicer than mine by a long shot. Cluttered, but I had the feeling that was because Michelle was too busy caring for her mom to worry about throwing out junk mail and magazines, which sat in stacks on the coffee table. Plus, her mom was big on knickknacks. They were everywhere, on every flat surface. She collected owls, and those little Precious Moments figures. My mom used to love them.
Another stack of papers caught my eye, and I went to it. I groaned when I saw what it was, just what I thought. Bills. Tons of them. Thousands of dollars to hospitals, doctors, radiologists. I looked up the stairs, to where I could hear Michelle talking to her mom. She had been dealing with all of this by herself.
I walked up the stairs slowly, taking it easy on my leg. There were pictures everywhere, too, a bunch of them along the wall going up to the second floor. Michelle was smiling in all of them. Graduations, dance recitals. She had been loved by her parents, for sure. It seemed like they took a picture for every milestone, and put every picture in a frame. I wondered if my parents would have done that for me if they had a chance. We were poorer than Michelle, but they had loved me. I remembered that much.
I got to the second floor and heard voices coming from an open doorway. One of the voices was Michelle’s, the other was weak and thin. I decided to leave them alone. They needed private time, and I didn’t think her mom would like a stranger walking in to see her.
I went to another bedroom instead, obviously a girl’s room. Michelle’s room. Pinks and creams, a ruffled canopy over the bed. She even had stuffed animals around. I hesitated before taking a seat on the bed, but since the adrenaline stopped pumping, I was feeling pain again. My leg was starting to scream, along with my arm. A little blood seeped through the bandage Spike wrapped around it, but I didn’t think I tore any of the stitches. It would have bled harder if that was so.
Before long, there were footsteps in the hall. Michelle walked into the room with her arms wrapped around herself. I told myself not to act like a fool, in case she didn’t want to have anything else to do with me again.
“Are you all right?” What a stupid thing to say. Of course she wasn’t all right.
She was kind to me, though. “Considering that I had a gun held to my head a little while ago, I’m okay.”
“Your face.” She turned her head so I could see her cheek. It was just a scratch. “You should wash that off. You never know.”
“You should wash your leg.”
“How did you know about that?” I asked.
“I was watching you fight. What did you think I was doing?” Her chin started to tremble. “I thought he was going to kill you.”
“He didn’t.”
She hesitated for a second, and I saw her move toward me, then pull back. I did the only thing I could do. I held my arms out to her.
She sank to her knees in front of me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I held her tight. It was such a relief. I didn’t want ever to let her go. I wanted to keep her safe forever.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry he did that. I’m sorry it was all my fault.”
She pulled back to look at me. “How was it your fault? You didn’t make him do it.”
“I kept you around because I didn’t want you to leave me. It wasn’t because I was trying to make your life miserable. I love you.”
Her mouth opened, her eyes went wide. I hoped against hope her reaction was out of surprise rather than disgust.
“You don’t have to love me back,” I said. “I’ll pay you the money either way. You need it. You deserve it.”
She smiled and her eyes filled with tears. I knew it was selfish of me to hope she would stay with me anyway, but I couldn’t help hoping. I held my breath as I waited for her to respond.