Dante

 

I run into the hospital, and when I see them, I stop. Ogre pauses, and Kayla glances down at her hand within his as though suddenly ashamed.

 

We stand on opposite ends of the hallway, a couple of nurses between us. I stare at them for a moment, and then Ogre tugs Kayla in the opposite direction.

 

But I’m not fucking around. I have ridden too hard too long to fuck around. I charge down the hallway, roaring at the nurses to get out of the way. Ogre glances back at me, but he’s too slow, the big fuckin’ oaf. He reaches for his gun, but then I launch myself through the air like a football player sacking the quarterback, tackling him into the wall. Kayla lets out a scream and jumps back as I drive Ogre into the wall, working his torso, my fists coming quicker than I can ever register them.

 

“Fuckin’ animal!” I roar, pounding into his meaty torso, one punch following the next so fast Ogre lets out a series of grunts which sound like the rat-a-tat of a machine-gun. They were leaving. Goddamn, they were leaving, which means I could’ve missed them, which means he would’ve had Kayla and my daughter. God fuckin’ damn it.

 

Ogre pushes me away. The man’s strong. I stumble back into the wall. Down the hall, nurses are screaming. Somewhere off to the left, Kayla is screaming. But I hear nothing but Ogre’s grunts. His face is twisted in pain from my strikes. He comes at me with a big right hook, which, if it connected, would kill me. Not just knock me out, but kill me. But he’s slow. I dodge it, and he hits the wall instead. He punches straight through the wall, throwing plaster and wood everywhere.

 

I spin around behind him, jabbing him twice in the back of his head, then landing a haymaker just as he turns around, smashing him in the nose and sending him to his knees. His nose makes a loud, sickening crunch noise and he brings his hands to his face, bleeding through his clasping fingers. I take out my Eagle and lay it against his head.

 

“You threaten my fuckin’ family?” I growl, pressing the barrel of the Eagle firmly into his forehead. “Kidnap my fuckin’ daughter? Take my fuckin’ woman? Betray the fuckin’ club?”

 

I stroke the trigger, getting ready to send his brains against the hallway wall, getting ready to see the big lump of shit collapse.

 

“No,” Kayla says. “Dante—no.”

 

“No?” I laugh, my voice gritty from the ice and the rain and the stress and the possibility of losing my family before I ever really experienced what it was like to have one. “No? Kayla, this piece of fuckin’ shit—”

 

“Deserves to die,” Kayla says. “But if you kill him you’ll go to prison. People are watching. There are cameras. They will show that he was on his knees when you pulled the trigger. It won’t be self-defense.”

 

I growl again, but I know she’s right. Fuckin’ hell.

 

I lean down, gun still pressed against his head, and hiss into Ogre’s ear: “Where’s Silvertongue’s money, you fuckin’ giant sack of shit? Let me tell you somethin’, I can do the fuckin’ time for killing you. It ain’t a thing to me. So if you don’t tell me where Silvertongue’s money is, you’re a fuckin’ dead man.”

 

I expect him to put up a fight, but the tooling up has made him realize that he’s human, and he tells me where the money is in a shaky voice. Buried deep next to the flowers just outside the club. All this time, buried right under my feet.

 

“Kayla,” I say, standing up and keeping the gun trained on Ogre. “Call the police.”

 

Kayla leaves the hallway, and returns in a few moments with a sleepy-eyed cop. The cop pulls his weapon and trains it on me, and then Kayla explains who I am, what the situation is, and he trains it on Ogre, instead. I step back and put away my gun, but the cop won’t let me join Kayla until backup arrives, just in case. So for about ten minutes Ogre and I kneel side by side, hands on our heads.

 

Then a cop called Cohen arrives and Kayla explains the situation to him. Ogre is handcuffed, and I’m allowed to climb to my feet. I swear, the quick hug which Kayla and I share is about the sweetest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. As the cops drag Ogre away, he roars over his shoulder: “Vengeance is mine, and retribution. In due time their foot will slip, for the day of their calamity is near. And the impending things are hastening upon them!” He’s still roaring when they take him out into the parking lot, his voice mixing with the rain and the sirens.

 

Kayla, Officer Cohen, and I go to the Macy’s room. Kayla rushes to Sandra, picks her up, and hugs her close to her chest, kissing her on the forehead. “I think Ogre might have given her something,” she says. “She’s too calm.”

 

Officer Cohen goes and finds a nurse, and Sandra is looked over.

 

The three of us sit in the waiting room, in the dim yellow light. I look at myself in the reflection of the vending machine, at my ragged, crazy beard, my wide black eyes, my soaked-through clothes. Then I turn to Kayla, and she is smiling at me, even if it is a tired, exhausted smile.

 

“You protected her,” I say. “You protected our daughter.”

 

She laughs without humor. “I did what any rodent would do.”

 

“No.” I lay my hands on her hands, squeezing them tightly. “You did what any damn good mother would do.”

 

Now she smiles for real. Officer Cohen takes me away for questioning, and it’s the first time in my life I’m not pissed off by talking to the police.

 

When we return—Officer Cohen couldn’t find any holes in my story—Kayla is holding Sandra in her arms once again, both of them asleep, snoring sweetly. I sit down next to them, watching over my family.

 

I can sleep later.