JACK
My arm throbs like a son of a bitch, but I close my eyes and let the pain roll off my shoulders. Last night was a fucking nightmare.
Next to me, Sal wipes his head with his hand, a bead of perspiration on his upper lip. “I’m sorry, Jack.”
“You warned me.”
I sprained my shoulder lifting up one of those fat fucks who tried to rob me. Even after Ben and I took care of their bodies, I still had to empty a few chambers into that fat fucking asshole to vent my rage.
“It was a bad idea to go alone.”
“Yeah, well, John’s made it clear that he doesn’t really give a flying fuck about finding out what happened.”
Sal was the one who fed me the information. Some guys from the Popeyes MC claimed they heard about a made guy ordering a hit on someone in the family. He told me it was probably bullshit, but I couldn’t stop myself from meeting them. And almost getting robbed by them.
Another dead end.
I grab the stiff drink poured in front of me, and I toss it down my throat.
“How’s the marriage going?”
I shrug, somehow irritated by the question. “Not bad, actually.”
“Really? You and the biker girl?”
The look of incredulity on Sal’s face bothers me.
“She’s a good wife.” I make myself grin. “Turns out biker wives heel quite nicely.”
“Are you fucking this broad?”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do with her?”
“Tabarnak. I don’t think the MC will like that.”
The MC can suck my dick.
There are too many guys sitting close to me to tell Sal the truth. She’s not just a club daughter I’m banging. Sure, I wanted to fuck her the moment I met her, but it’s much more than that. I live for watching those blue eyes light up when I come home, and the circle of her embrace. Now she’s a person who I enjoy being around. Fuck, she makes me happy. Why is that so hard to admit?
“Speaking of your wife.” Sal points across the room to Johnny’s table.
A thin blonde woman sits across from my boss, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
What the fuck is she doing here? Why is she talking to my boss?
I set down my drink and immediately slide off the stool, making a beeline for my wife. My mood, always testy these days, is like a trail of fire leading to a barrel of gasoline. I can feel it racing forward.
The look on Johnny’s face momentarily paralyzes me as I get close. He seems subdued. What the hell did she say to him? Beatrice jumps as I walk to her chair, sweeping my hand over her shoulder.
“What are you doing here?”
“She was looking for you.” Johnny smirks at me as he plays with the ring on his finger. A sick, hot swoop of rage hits my abdomen as he meets my glare with a bored expression on his face. “Said it was urgent.”
Her skin looks moist, as though she just stepped out of the shower and dressed herself in a hurry to meet me.
Johnny sits there, waiting for her to speak, but she stands up. Her blue eyes are so wide that I’m lost in them.
“I’ll give you an hour, Jack.”
“Fine.”
She winces as I grab her upper arm and drag her out of the restaurant. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
“I needed to see you!”
“You should never come here alone. I don’t trust John.”
We stand outside in the rapidly heating sunshine and I shove my hands in my pockets as I watch her stand there. She wears a small black camisole with no bra, because I can see her tits if I look down. Her hair is up in a loose, messy bun. The blonde tendrils and her wide eyes make her look so fragile—and beautiful. I really am lucky to have her. My hand slips underneath her jaw and I thumb her thick bottom lip.
“What is it, hon?”
“Not here.”
The way she avoids my gaze gets me riled up. I don’t like waiting, but her lips tremble and I don’t want her making a scene out here. I take her arm and we enter my car.
“What is it, Beatrice?”
“Not here!”
She shakes and my heart splits in half when I hear that desperate sound coming from her chest.
“You’ll tell me when we get home?”
I can only fucking guess what it is. The whole way back, she shakes with sobs and I take her hand in mine, trying every variation of, “Stop fucking crying,” because it hurts me to see it. It hurts more than I ever could’ve imagined.
“Tell me. What the fuck is wrong?” I nearly scream at her. She’s starting to freak me out.
I slam my brakes in front of my house and park as she slips out of the passenger seat and runs up the stairs, using her key to let herself in. Damn it.
I follow her, slamming the car door shut. Then I burst in my apartment and see her standing there, red tear streaks all over her face.
It tugs at my heart. I rush forward to gather her in my arms, but she shakes her head and backs away.
What the fuck?
“I have to tell you something I should have told you weeks ago.” She spits it out bitterly and wraps her arms around herself.
“Why are you telling me now?”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
Holy fuck.
It’s as though the world turns on its head. I grasp for the nearest wall, suddenly dizzy. “You’re sure?”
“I took a bunch of tests. They’re all positive.”
My heart thuds against my chest. If that’s true, why does she look so miserable?
Jesus Christ, I’m going to be a dad.
Warmth delicately unfurls like petals from a flower. Beatrice cringes from my touch and acts as though the whole thing was a mistake.
“Why aren’t you happy about this?”
“I am happy about the baby, but…” Her voice trails off and liquid blue eyes tentatively meet mine. “You’ll never talk to me again.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“It’s about your brother!” she finally bursts out.
My mood shifts, skirting dangerously close to the well of rage I reserve for my brother. “What about him?”
Haunted eyes stare at me. “I saw what happened. I was there in the hospital.”
“What?”
My hands shake.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid.”
“Tell me.”
She opens and closes her mouth, and flinches when I yell at her.
“Fucking tell me, Beatrice!”
“I—I was in my cousin’s room, right across from your brother’s. I saw three men in leather cuts hanging outside the door. They went in and out. It was very fast.” Her voice breaks and she doubles over, clutching her stomach. “I didn’t know what happened! Then suddenly I heard people screaming for a code blue. I didn’t put it together until we met. It was him, Jack!”
I grab her throat and pin her against the wall, waves of searing-hot rage licking up my sides. I want to bash this bitch into the wall. How fucking dare she?
“You knew all this time and never said a word?”
Her high gasp hits the air. “I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid of you.”
I dig my fingers into her flesh. “You’re fucking lucky that you’re pregnant.”
I’m no wife beater, but I’d like to give her a slap across the face.
“Jack, I’m sorry!”
I bite my lip, forcing myself not to scream. “What did the men look like? Did you recognize them?”
“N-no! I think they were f-from another MC, but it was dark and I couldn’t see the pattern on the cut.”
“God-fucking-dammit!” I plunge my fist through the drywall next to her head, and she screams. White powder explodes, and my knuckles bleed. Beatrice stumbles away from me, clutching her face.
“I’m sorry!”
“Think really fucking hard, Beatrice. There has to be something you remember. Some small detail that might help me.”
She witnessed his murder and a part of me won’t ever forgive her for keeping that secret from me, no matter what her intentions were. My heart rends in half. She lied to me for weeks.
Beatrice sits on the floor, her chest heaving. Tears fall silently down her cheeks as she stares at the tiles and shakes her head. “I can’t remember anything significant, I’m sorry. They looked normal to me. I don’t think they had any tattoos on their sleeves.”
“No tattoos?”
She shakes her head and a lightning rod hits me, because how many patched members of an MC gang don’t have tattoos on their sleeves?
“What else?” I bend down to her level, my heart hammering against my ribs as I search her face. I don’t even care about the months of wasted time, I just want to know the truth.
“I just glimpsed them really quickly.”
“Think, Beatrice.”
“Wait—one of them might have had a small tattoo on his bicep.”
My stomach tenses. “What?”
“A horn, I think.”
Energy hits my chest. “A horn pointing down?”
“Yes, do you know what it means?”
Of course I know what it means. Every Italian knows that symbol. Jesus Christ. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the family was involved.
I feel my insides caving in as if my guts vanished. My own brothers—the family I dedicated my fucking life to—betrayed me. It wasn’t the MC. Johnny, that two-faced bastard who has been running me around all year on jobs without backup. But why?
She grasps my arm as I stand up, and my heart clenches painfully. Even she betrayed me.
“Jack, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you so many times.”
“But you didn’t.”
Her touch on my skin is painful. Like a deep burn scorching away the muscle underneath. Her glittering eyelashes bat at me, and she looks down, stifling a hiccup of a sob.
She’s not as innocent as she looks.
For a while she was the only light in my life. A candle flame, flickering that burned hotter as I woke up with her every day in my house. Now that’s extinguished like everything else in my life.
Disgusted, I turn around. I head for the door, but then a thin arm wraps around my waist and a female body presses against my back. Every inch of her curves folds into my body. My chest tightens.
Fuck her.
I rip her hands from me and whirl her around, pinning her face against the wall. She cries out in discomfort as her cheek flattens, and I lean in, my voice trembling.
“When I come back, you’re not going to be able to sit on your ass for a week.”
I release her suddenly, hating the way my dick responds when her body is next to mine. I want to grab her hair in a ponytail and bend her over the kitchen table where I can see that tattoo burning right above her ass. I want to slap her around for the lies she told me. Lying by omission.
“I’ll be back later.”
“Jack, I—”
“Enough. I’m leaving.”
She withers under my glare and shrinks away.
The pregnancy. My brother. All of it still implodes in my head. I see myself holding a newborn, and a deluge of panic suddenly swells inside me.
One fucking crisis at a time.
* * *
“Jack, get over here!”
I’m standing in the lobby of Le Zinc, slightly swaying on my feet with the aftermath of Beatrice’s nuclear-bomb confession. François’s voice snaps me to the present, and I look to see him standing in front of me, touching my shoulder.
“You all right?”
A sick feeling claws through my stomach. Who knows, he might have been one of the three sent to hold a pillow over my brother’s face.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Johnny’s going over the exchange later today.”
Exchange. Drug deal. We use so many fucking code words to hide our true intentions. I wonder what phrase Johnny used when he ordered his men to take care of my paraplegic brother.
I follow him, weaving through the white-tablecloth covered tables to where that asshole sits, surrounded by his men. My throat is raw, as though I spent hours screaming. It would be so simple to just kill him right now. All I need to do is reach inside my jacket and aim. Fire.
Of course, I’d never make it out alive.
I examine them. Which one of them did it? I scan their bodies for the tattoo. Why does everyone have to wear suits all the goddamn time?
“Jack, sit down.”
I’ll fucking sit down after I rip your head off.
“What did your wife want?”
How did he do it? How does a man push aside every moral instinct to order a hit on a defenseless person, and not only that, but not have the fucking balls to take responsibility for it? He made them wear leather cuts. He wanted the police—everyone—to believe the MC was responsible. They weren’t.
“Jack.”
Then I forget what the hell he asked me.
Johnny’s lips crook into a grin.
“She’s pregnant.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence and then their voices rise into laughter. It grates against my ears. I see myself reaching for necks and ripping them open with my bare hands.
“He knocked up the MC’s daughter!”
“Hey, that makes two of us.” Johnny’s face cracks with a smile and he leans forward, grasping my shoulder. “Congratulations, Jack.”
Congratulations.
The word slides over me like water on oil.
“I’m glad you took my advice and made her yours.”
I didn’t do it because you told me to, asshole.
The rest of them pat my back, and Sal gives me a look of concern. Whatever. The baby is far from my mind now. I want to find that fucking tattoo.
“We have a big arms deal with the Devils MC today. It’s our first business deal since this alliance, so let’s not fuck this up.”
* * *
There’s nothing but the distant, screeching sound of cars crumpling in on themselves. Piles of flattened multicolored metal surround us, insulating the noise. It’s the same place I buried that piece of shit nurse, and I wonder what he looks like right now. If his bones were ground to dust.
I’m backup, merely standing in the background in case something gets fucked up. Johnny doubled the number of soldiers for this deal. I guess the two-timing prick doesn’t trust the MC.
Crash or Flash or whatever his stupid name is stands in front of François, negotiating. His long brown beard twists around his head, flipping in the breeze whistling through the metal parts.
One of the men beside me rolls up his sleeves. The sun bakes the backs of our necks.
“Sounds good.”
I catch the tail end of François’s conversation with the biker. Adrenaline jolts through my veins and I whip my head when I see a flash, but it’s just the sun reflecting off a car hood. Damn it. It’s distracting. Hard to concentrate.
A crack splits the air and my jacket rips open at the shoulder, spraying blood.
I’ve been shot.
I barely register it before I dive under a heap of scrap metal. The outraged screams of my crew echo in the junkyard as a barrage of bullets smash into metal.
“CEASE FIRE!”
I whip around with my arm outstretched, gun aimed at that Crash motherfucker, but he holds up his hands, imploring us to stop. If it wasn’t them, who the fuck was it? The gunshot came from their side.
There’s movement to my right. The glare from a biker’s gun. I barely see him, hidden in the heap of junk above me. He aims right at my face.
CRACK!
His head whips back as I fire a well-aimed shot, and I don’t look to see him fall.
“What the FUCK!”
More gunshots thud in the heap I’m hiding behind, connecting sharply and glancing off. I’m going to fucking die hiding behind this thing.
A sear of pain slices down my neck, and liquid warmth blossoms over my skin. Fuck. At least it’s shallow.
They’re all above me. I aim a shot at another guy trying to take me out from above. I get him in the leg and he screams, then I pay attention to François, who blasts Crash’s chest open with his shotgun.
I dive out from the scrap metal and launch myself toward the car as deadly zips thud into the ground. The scrape of a shoe—I clutch my gun and aim around the car, a hair trigger away from firing. Brian points his gun at me.
“Jesus!”
He takes a few seconds longer than me to lower his gun. I don’t like the attitude on his face. We have no fucking time for it.
“What the fuck is going on?”
He ducks behind the car with me. “They set us up.”
I glance once around the car, and a hole the size of my head blasts through the frame. Jesus. Blood trickles down and I think of her hair, tickling my neck. Beatrice. She’s alone at the house. All the things I said. Why did I have to be such an asshole? Why didn’t I tell her that having her around saved my life?
My shoulder throbs and the wound on my throat bleeds freely. The windshield shatters and bullets pepper the interior as Brian hurls himself over the hood and fires.
Fuck this. We’re going to die.
Brain is blasted off his feet and lands on his back, his mouth exploding with color. Fuck! I rush to his side as a dark hole made in his jacket slowly smokes. He coughs up bright-red blood and his eyes roll back.
Jesus fuck.
I take the knife strapped to my ankle and I cut away his jacket and shirt, immediately covering the dark hole in his chest with my palm.
“Come on, you fuck!”
Goddamn it, he got shot in his arm, too. I cut away the jacket completely and roll up his sleeve.
And that fucking cornicello stares at me, right where she said it would be. Shock slowly runs through my body as Brian wheezes for air next to me. His limp hand searches for me. He was one of them. My body burns with white-hot rage.
I dig my thumb into his bullet wound and he opens his red-stained mouth in a wordless, bubbly cry.
“You piece of shit.”
“J-Jack! I can’t breathe!”
His lungs make a horrible wheezing sound. Fuck, I couldn’t ask for a better setup.
“You killed him, didn’t you? Who gave the order?”
But he can’t talk. He just inhales, making that rattling sound. Then I just reach over and pinch his nostrils shut. Brian tries to breathe through his mouth, but there’s too much blood. He weakly grasps my hand and bloodshot eyes beg me for forgiveness as I choke off his air supply.
Drowning in your own blood must fucking suck.
Blood-filled bubbles expel from Brian’s mouth. He gasps, the blood gurgling in his throat. Blue tinges his lips and capillaries burst in his eyes.
It must be excruciating.
I relish in it.
His eyes seem to glaze over and his fingers loosen around me. Then Brian’s hand finally thuds to the ground, limp.
Rot in hell.
This is perfect. Clean. If only I could wipe the panic away.
“JACK!”
One down. Three to go.
A hand violently grabs my arm, and suddenly François’s face swims in front of me. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m calling your name!”
Pops of gunfire crack through the air, one at a time, followed by heavy thuds. I look around the car to see the rest of the crew picking off the bikers one by one.
“Brian!” he drops down to the body and shakes his frozen shoulder.
“He’s dead.”
The temporary relief falls as my neck singes with pain. My head churns as I look at the carnage in the junkyard.
* * *
The lean boss sits behind the desk, a pulse bumping in his forehead as we wait for the inevitable explosion.
Then he slams his fist into the wood, knocking over a picture frame.
“What the fuck happened? How did you manage to fuck this up so badly?”
I finger the patch on my neck, turning over everything in my head. “They shot first. Their guy aimed a gun right at me. That’s how I got this.” I point toward my shoulder.
“It was a setup,” François agrees.
“What the fuck?”
Johnny sinks back into his chair, brow furrowed in disbelief.
“They killed Brian.”
No, I did.
“Goddamn it—motherless fucks—putain de merde. They’re all fucking dead! We’re finished. We’re done with the Devils.” He rises to his feet as his face turns beet red. “I tried to end this shit! I gave them another fucking chance because I was sick of our guys getting hurt for no fucking reason, and they fucking spat in my face.”
Something bothers me about it. “I don’t know.”
He whips his head at me. “What don’t you know?”
“It seemed too sloppy. They were going to lure us there? For what? And why send their worst guns and no backup?”
“You said he aimed the gun right at you.”
“I know what I saw,” I snap. “I just think there’s more to this.”
Johnny shakes it off, baring his teeth. “I want them all dead. They wanted a war, and I’m going to give them one.”
Sal leans across the desk. “Frankly I agree with Johnny. They’ve done nothing but disrespect us since we’ve made this alliance.”
“I’m going to blow that fucking compound to kingdom come.”
Jesus.
“John—it’s a bad fucking idea.”
“Who asked your opinion?”
Underneath my skin I smolder. He’s one of them. I know he is. But how am I supposed to get to him?
“Your wife has family there. So does mine.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Since when do you give a shit about bikers?”
Since I married and fell for one of them.
“Do we really need more heat from the CSIS? The Trudeau heist wasn’t enough?”
Finally the guys murmur in agreement.
Why the fuck am I giving advice to this piece of shit?
He sits on his desk and runs his hands through his hair. “All right, everyone get out. Not you, Jack.”
Fuck.
The door to his office closes behind the last man and I wonder how Johnny’s brains would look splattered on the wall behind him. He crosses his arms and eye-fucks me.
“You need to divorce that girl.”
Well, that’s not what I expected.
“What?”
“You’ve got to get rid of her.”
I slowly rise from my chair as fire hot enough to burn my clothes radiates off my body. “No.”
He narrows his eyes. “The alliance is over. You realize that the first thing she’ll do is head over to the police station and tell them she was coerced into a marriage with you, right?”
Never.
I stop an inch from Johnny’s face. “She’s my wife and she’s going to stay that way. Not you or anyone is going to convince me otherwise.”
A widened look crosses Johnny’s face until he lets out a small laugh. “You’re a fucking idiot, Jack.”
Don’t punch him. You can’t do this here in front of everyone.
“Fuck you.”
“You sure you want to take that tone with me?”
“She’s mine. I’m not giving her back.”
I can’t stand another moment in his presence. Slimy fuck. I turn my back on John and wrench open the door, slamming it behind me. Who the fuck does he think he is?
“Jack, wait!”
“What?”
Sal grabs my arm as I storm out of Johnny’s office, pulling me near the exit door in the kitchens. His face is tense and he won’t let go of my arm.
“What did he want with you?”
“He wanted to talk to me about my wife. He wants me to divorce her.”
Fucking idiot.
“Are you?”
“No!”
“Why the fuck not, Jack? She’s a liability.”
“I don’t care,” I snarl. “She’s pregnant with my kid. I’m not throwing her to the streets or giving her back to those fucking deranged lunatics.”
Sal’s face is ashen and a thread of anxiety unspools.
“What?”
“John’s not going to let this go. In his mind, your wife is going to put you in jail the moment she has the chance. You, Johnny, who knows how many others. All she has to do is run to the CSIS and they’ll give her a new identity.”
I slam my fist on the stainless steel counter. “She’s not going to do that.”
She had my name tattooed on her ass, for Christ’s sake.
“Doesn’t matter what you think. He’s going to take care of her, one way or the other.”
Take care of her?
An icy feeling spreads through my veins.
Like Mike?
Oh God.
“He wouldn’t.”
Pleading brown eyes meet mine. “You think he gives a fuck? Get her out of town today.”
“Thanks, Sal.”
I throw my shoulder into the exit door, nausea rising up my throat. My wife and baby are at risk. He’s right. She can’t stay here, not when I’m being shot at and I don’t even know who to trust anymore.
My lungs crush like crumpled wings and I fight to draw breath at the thought of her leaving me. I never stopped to think of how much I needed her.
It won’t be forever.