CHAPTER 14
ELI
“Look, brother, stop worrying about it. Nobody hates you,” I said into the phone. Nate had gone back to the clubhouse and I called him before I went to bed for the night to check in. Fury and I had a room to ourselves. Grace and Ryder were in one room and Riot and Wreck were in the other. Slade and Bones had both gone downtown to spend the night with their ladies. They’d all come back in the morning and then we planned to go in and get the first of the girls.
It felt fucking exhilarating to know I was doing something good for once.
Nate, on the other hand, was mortified at the way everything went down and was certain Ryder was just waiting for all of this to be over so he could kill him.
“Look, man, bury me next to Ma, okay?” he asked. “Don’t fucking cremate me!”
“Shut up,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Look, I’m handling things. We’re a package deal. You fucked this one up, but you’ll get the next one. No big deal. The worst part out of this is you getting hurt.”
“I’d hardly call this is an injury.”
“I was talking about your pride,” I joked.
“Fuck,” he said. “I’m glad everything went well today, at least.”
“Yeah, it was easy. Grace did all the work really. I just sat there listening.”
“That’s how it went for me, too, until it all went downhill.”
“Yeah, that sucks,” I said. “Hey — did you meet Snake’s old lady?”
“Sophia, right? Just for a second.”
“What did you think of her?”
“I don’t know, man, what do you mean? She’s probably pretty fucked up to be hooked up with a guy like that.”
“Yeah.”
“Dude.”
“What?”
“Dude.”
“What!”
“Fucking don’t.”
“Don’t what? Shut up.”
“I know you, man. I know you fucking inside and out and I know you don’t ask what I think of a woman unless you’ve been doing a lot of thinking about her yourself already.”
“It’s not like that,” I insisted. “She just didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the scene is all. I was just wondering what her story was.”
“Yeah, well, her story is that she’s hooked up with a really fucking dangerous dude and you need to keep your meaty paws off of her.”
“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes again. “You’re wrong.”
“Sure I am,” he replied, laughing.
“I gotta go,” I said.
His laughter annoyed me. So did his assumptions. He had no idea what I was thinking. He was so sure he fucking ‘knew’ me, knew everything I was thinking at all times, just because we’d come out of the womb together.
I was pretty sure he’d been wrong, at least once.
I didn’t spend much time thinking about it, though.
Fury was fast asleep in the other bed, the television turned down low. I flipped through the channels mindlessly, my head still spinning from everything I’d seen today.
Seeing those girls, all of them locked away like fucking cattle, virtual slaves to Snake and the highest bidder. I couldn’t have been more proud of being a part of an operation like this.
I’d done shit I wasn’t proud of. Selling drugs, trading weapons, even violence every now and then, when it was necessary. I always hated that part, but it took me a while to realize it.
At first, I thought I would enjoy it. I watched our Dad with his guns, and he taught us to respect them. But he also taught us to be afraid. Of him. Of what he could do with that gun.
If Nate or I ever got out of hand, he wouldn’t yell at us. He wouldn’t ground us or even beat our ass. He’d sit us on the couch, usually both of us because we didn’t do much without each other back then, and he’d make us watch him clean his guns. He had at least a dozen, and it would take forever it seemed to our young minds.
He’d do it silently, glancing over at us periodically to make sure we’d not started daydreaming or drifted off to sleep. Afterwards, he’d look at us sternly and give us one fierce nod of his head.
He didn’t need words.
We heard his message loud and clear.
And whatever it was we’d done to fuck up, we usually didn’t do that particular thing again. Because we knew those guns were clean and ready to go at the drop of a hat, or the flip of our Dad’s rage switch.
Because that’s how it was with men like him. He was always under a slow burn, just ready to explode at any moment. He was good one minute and then next — well, you didn’t know what hit you.
I suspected Snake was a man like that. I could feel the tension rolling off of him, despite his friendly, easy-going smile. Men like him were cunning, calculated, calm and collected — until the time came to be something else.
I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to live with a man like that, to wonder what life was like for Sophia. She was flashy, in her tight clothes and high heels, not a hair out of place, her makeup perfectly applied — she was put together like a model — a sharp contrast to all the greasy and grimy guys of the club.
Snake was a dangerous guy, and I knew women were attracted to that kind of guy. I got that part of the attraction. But there didn’t seem too much love flowing between them, not that I could tell.
But who knows what goes on behind closed doors?
I’d already seen behind two of the closed doors at Snake’s place. I shuddered to think what went on in his bedroom. Suddenly, I felt bad for Sophia.
She was a beautiful woman.
I was certain she deserved more than whatever Snake was handing out.
Our plan was to get the girls out, then figure out how to handle Snake. I wasn’t real sure what that meant yet exactly, because I’d made a vow not to ask the Gods too many questions. But I was pretty sure whatever it meant, Snake’s life wasn’t going to be the same once we were finished with him.
Which meant neither would Sophia’s.
Maybe that’s a good thing, I thought. Maybe that’s exactly what she needs.
I fell asleep to the sound of Fury’s snoring and the low din of the television, Sophia’s smile drifting in and out of my dreams…