Blackjack

“Motherfucker…” Fist states lowly.

“Let her go––” I growled as I took a step forward.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Harry snickered before giving Ashley another yank of her hair, she didn’t make a peep, but I could see the discomfort flash across her face.

“Someone fucking stop him!” Zane hollers.

I felt like a dog on a short leash, being forced to watch my woman in that vile man’s hands. I had to hold my anger back and as I did, I found myself grinding my teeth practically to the bone as I watched him sneer. 

Ashley’s hands were on both his wrists, straining for him not to hurt her any more than he already had. I examined her from afar, looking her up and down, her face looked fresh with color without so much as a bruise with the exception of a cut across her lip and the thin line of blood dried upon her forehead. When I glanced at the asshole next to her it looked like Harry had gotten more of a beating than her which meant she’d put up a good fight whenever the hell he jumped her.

Grizzly’s eyes were set on the two of them, his expression changing from strain to an odd look of relief. Had he planned this all from the very beginning? Is this why I didn’t see any of his men with weapons? Did he think we would just stand by and let this happen? No. He had to have known better than that. We fight for our family, and we’re sure as fuck fighting for Ashley Monroe.

I looked to Fist as our eyes met at exactly the same time, this was bad. The one bargaining chip that we had stolen back from them was practically ripped out of our hands. So help me, I will kill every single one of these fuckers if they so much as hurt her and our baby, I seethe in my thoughts.

“God help your damned self.” Cracker exhales hard. “To think you would bring her into this. Have you lost your fucking mind!”

“Don’t look at me, old dog.” Grizzly holds his hands up, a laugh cracking from his foul chest. “I hadn’t a single clue what our boy had in mind when he told us he’d be showing up late to his own party.”

“That’s horse shit!” Kade shouts from behind.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s horse shit or bullshit, m’boy.” The Bears’ Prez scoffs.

“You’ll lose everything tonight” Fist snaps, “We may match each other in numbers, but you know my men are better with guns then your little shits. We hunt, and it seems that bear is on the agenda tonight”

“Look at you Lloyd, making threats when we have your lovely lil’ girl.” Grizzly gestures to Ashley with a knowing leer. “It’s up to you. Your daughter or war?”

“Oh, fuck you!” Ashley spat at Harry’s feet only to send Grizzly a poisonous glare, “You honestly think you’re going to get away with this when you can’t even get dumbasses like him to get a job done in the first place?”

“You bitch…” Her captor hisses through clenched teeth. Harry’s expression spoiled into rage when he heard her mention him. His fingers released her hair for a moment before he struck her hard in the face till she collapsed to the floor. At the sudden hit, Fist started to move forward, and I spotted Grizzly reaching behind him. He had a gun this entire fucking time.

He was a sly fucking snake, that’s for sure. However, this could be the advantage that we’d been waiting for. I needed to be smart….acting too quickly would only hurt my girl. No, we needed to strike at the right time and at the same moment.

Harry retreats a couple of steps, shaking his hand after hurting her. He wouldn’t have a hand left after I was done with him. I watched him carefully, every breath in my lungs growing still for a moment as he looks to his wounds and back to Ashley.

“You see what you do to me, you fucking cunt!” His voice grows loud as he hisses at the swollen state of his wrist. “You leave me and go out spreading your legs like a fucking minx… making me drag you back to where you belong! Was it your fucking brothers?!”

“Keep your mouth shut before I cut out your tongue and feed it to the dogs, boy.” Fist growls lowly.

“Harry bites back, Lloyd.” Grizzly warns.

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Zane whispers, shocked at what was unearthing before him. “This piece of shit has lost it.”

Harry didn’t look like he heard a word of what was being said between both of our Prez’s as he dropped his wrist to give Ashley a good look. He lowered his arm down and takes Ashley by the shirt, dragging her up to his face as his lips drew into a thin line. “You tell me who the hell he is.” He demands in a hiss as he curls his hand back up to her neck, “Or so help me––”

Everyone’s breath stopped the second he drew out a gun from behind him and poised it to Ashley’s temple hard. The click was initiated, and I automatically felt myself lose it in that moment. Ashley’s breath picked up quickly and I could feel her adrenaline rise with the panic. Only, it wasn’t panic that made her breathing rush through her lungs.

It was a choked resemblance of a laugh as she leaned her head forward into her ex-husband’s gun, almost like a dare. She looks up at him now, blue eyes cut like the coldest steel I’d ever seen.

“Do you think I’m stupid, Harry?” Her smile measures up to her lips, almost sad. “You don’t search every house on my Dad’s properties for your ex-wife unless you think you lost her to another man––and yeah, you did.”

“Shut the hell up!” He nearly launches forward, repositioning the gun to the back of her head as he takes her hair again. “You don’t know shit!”

Ashley’s face twists in pain but she continues despite it. “Are you really going to kill me because you can’t admit to yourself that I had the best passionate sex with someone who wasn’t balls deep in a whore or a 4-inch beer bottle for crying out––”

“YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH.” He roars, the weight of his voice echoing through the entire warehouse. None of us moved or even dared to say anything as she continued.

She shakes her head, her tears already dried by now. When she looked up at me, I could feel her eyes grow urgent. They moved from me to Grizzly and it was then that I knew what she was going to do.

Monroe, that’s too risky. I furrowed my brows as my thoughts rejected the idea. There wasn’t an ounce of her that was scared to take the opportunity.

“Oh, Harry..” She exhales at last, “I’ll tell you who he is…”

Harry’s lips pursed, but he waited for her answer. It was then that her eyes raised up to Grizzly and my stomach sank.

“Only if your Prez hears it from me first.” Her voice falls heavy.

Grizzly and Harry both look up to each other. Harry looks down to his ex-wife and takes a second to contemplate her request. She knew that he wasn’t in any position to say no unless he wanted to look like an idiot and undermine his Prez, Ash was always smart like that. It may have been smart but it didn’t leave me any time to think as to what would unravel before me. As Harry’s eyes paced back and forth between Ashley and the floor below them, time was ticking in the barrel of every man’s gun.

“You know what…” Harry scoffs at last, “Have at her.”

He pushes her forward in Grizzly’s direction before standing up to walk off into a corner distance. As Ashley brings herself back to her knees to rise, the Bear Prez himself walks in her direction and I could hear Fist’s breathing grow rapid. When he finally stoops down to the floor, Ashley leans forward to his ear in a low whisper.

The room goes silent as we wait. No one speaks on either side.  I tried to read her lips while a part of me was urging her not to do anything stupid.

The Prez was just about to lean up until Ashley’s hand reaches up to his shoulder, urging him back down. Her voice grows louder with urgency and all of us could see the shocked expressions coming from both, though none of us understood what was shared between the two.

As the Prez’s hand drops to the floor, Ashley looks down for a brief moment and cuts off her speech the second her hand comes up to his throat. What happened next made every man put his gun up to the scene the second they saw blood.

“YOU BITCH!” Harry’s voice bellows in the distance.

None of us saw it coming when she bit down on his ear and ripped it off like a vicious animal. Both the Bears and the Reapers pulled out their guns, trained on one another. Booger, being the trigger-happy bastard he is. started shooting up every Bear within site and soon, chaos had ensured. Bears and Reapers were fighting amongst each other, but I only had one concern. Monroe. As I ran to her, I noticed Harry’s dragging figure coming up just behind her with a gun low to his legs.

Harry grabs her shoulder and my stomach clenches at the sight of his face. My feet ran harder than ever before as I pushed away every fucker that so much as got in my way. Harry tears Ashley away from his Prez before forcing her on her back with his pistol cocked to her forehead.  

“Blackjack…” She mouths in the stark distance.

In that split second, I pulled out my gun and fired at the abusive bastard. Harry screamed harder than a bullet against steel.

It was then that he looked up at me with bulging eyes, shaking in his own skin. “You…” He grits his teeth.

“Let her go, Harry.” I demand, drawing myself from the floor without my eyes leaving him. “It’s over–––look around you!”

He blinks fast, taking in the sight behind me without a word to deliver. “We’ve got the upper hand here! Your men are running out of this warehouse as we speak!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He repeats, scrambling to his pants before pulls out a knife to Ashley’s throat, “Take one more step and I slit her fucking throat!”

I stopped, not daring to move. I believed he was insane enough to do it. He’d lost everything in the last ten minutes, and when people have lost everything – they become unpredictable. 

“You don’t want to do that, man.” I insist.

“Listen to him, Harry.” Ashley urges weakly.

“SHUT THE HELL UP.” He seethes before stopping in his words all too suddenly. “Oh, my fucking God… it’s him isn’t it.”

I watched him carefully, unwilling to respond till I knew he would calm down. As the realization strikes him, his eyes swell up in anger.

“I’ve seen you before! You’re HIM aren’t you!”

“Harry, please.” Ashley whispers and closes her eyes.

“You’re FUCKING him?” His voice turns raw with an ugly tone. Shaking his head, he gives it all up in that moment. “You bitch… thinking you could get away with that…”

The air turned dangerous as he started to push the knife down to her throat. I pulled my gun up, my pulse practically running up to the peaks of my fingers. As Ashley let out a sharp cry, two shots rang out in the moment and the man before her was painted in red.

Fist’s bullet reached Harry’s head before I could so much as aim for the man’s face. Ashley laid there with her chest rising and falling hard. Harry’s last exhale fell with no words against her before he sank to the floor.

I stood there in brief horror of what just happened, the deafening glaze of the bullet still kicking my eardrum into deafness. With his blood caked on her neck, Ashley pulled herself out from under him and kicked him away in a cry of horror. I raced down to her and dropped my gun to take her in my arms before I could so much as see her tears. Her arms reached out to me like nothing else mattered in her life and I could only let her voice replace the silence of the violence before us. Her breaths came out heavy, I tried everything to coax her to settle down. I needed her to, for both her and our baby. 

Fist’s footsteps were just behind me, more ominous of him than I’d ever felt before. As his boots stop an inch away from my back, he put his hand down on my shoulder and grants the only words I felt were necessary in the aftermath.

“Take her home, Rob. Take her away from this shit show”