Amends
Making amends is extremely difficult, especially with someone we dislike. Usually we are led down the path of forgiveness out of our own sense of responsibility. Still apologies can be cleansing. They can even make you a better person, if not a bigger one.
BREEZE
SHAME HAD CALLED a club meeting last night and was gone before I woke up. I was curious what was going on. I didn’t know anything about him. Not the real Shame. I knew the man I lived with but not the man who lead other men and who would die for his club. In truth, as exciting as The Bastards used to appear, they scared me. Shame flat out frightened me.
After my stunt last night, I rededicated myself to getting out of this messed up town. Shame was right. If I stuck around, I would end up like all of them. If I didn’t get picked up and sold as a sex slave, I would end up an old lady to someone like E. I owed Shame for making me understand I wanted more and I deserved better.
As I sat at the lunch table, staring across the tables to the group of Lance’s friends I used to sit with, panic set in. Kelly wasn’t at school. I immediately sent Shame a text message.
Breeze: My friend who was with me last night isn’t at school.
Shame: She isn’t my problem.
Breeze: We have to help her.
Shame: We only help our own.
Breeze: Then consider her one of us. Please.
Shame: Fuck! I’ll talk to someone, but I won’t make any promises.
Breeze: Thank you.
I felt guilty because after I learned about Dixon’s business I didn’t go back for Kelly. I should have, but I was more worried about Shame. He all but lost it with the news his mother was a Villain. As soon as he said it, I realized why she seemed familiar to me. Shame looked so much like her. He wouldn’t discuss it, but I wasn’t completely naïve. I knew there would be consequences. I only hoped Shame could set aside his personal interests and not get himself killed, because I honestly believed I would die without him.
Afterschool, I found Sabina alone at Shame’s. She was never there without him and I wondered if he knew. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for Shame,” she said casually.
“Cool.” I strode quickly to my room with my head down.
Right as I reached the door, she called out, “Breeze wait.” I turned around, letting my backpack slip off my arm and fall to the floor. “Can we talk?” she asked. I examined her expression for a trace of her intention. She smiled at me with sincerity. “Please.”
“Okay,” I answered, staying grounded to the spot in front of my door.
“I want us to stop fighting. Please, come sit down.”
I kept searching her gaze for some ulterior motive, but found none. She appeared genuine enough that I allowed my legs to carry me to the chair next to the couch. For a few passing seconds, we looked at each other in silence, until she finally laughed. “Wow, this is hard.”
“Yeah.” I laughed, too.
“Look, I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch. Shame’s a hard guy. He frustrates me, and I took that out on you when I should’ve been your friend.”
I took in each word, knowing I should proceed cautiously, but it felt good to hear her apologize. “It’s okay, I haven’t exactly been nice to you, either.” I paused and took in a breath, knowing my next statement was going to hurt. “He cares a lot about you.”
Her pursed lips showed she wasn’t all that convinced, but I knew he did. It was why I disliked her so much.
“He’s complicated,” she said and smiled. “And he wants us to be friends, and . . . I think I would like that also.”
“Me, too.” I probably agreed way too easily, but Sabina was around quite a bit. It would be nice if at the very least we weren’t plotting against one another all the time. Maybe I would even like her if I got to know her. No. I doubted that, but I could be civil.
“Good.” She smiled. “So, how do we do this?” she asked.
“Got me.” I giggled.
“Okay, well . . . How’s your boyfriend . . . Lance is it?” she asked.
I frowned, glancing at my hands. “Oh, we broke up.”
“Ah, that’s right. I forgot. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
I lifted my gaze and shook my head. “It’s no big deal.”
“Uh, oh . . . That’s code for he broke you heart.”
“A little.” I sent her a faint smile.
“The first one always hurts,” she said softly. “I mean, sex always seals the bond, but that first time stays with you, even when you don’t want it to.”
“Oh, Lance and I never had sex.”
She looked mildly surprised. “I assumed since you were together for so long.”
“Nope. I wasn’t ready.”
“Is that why you broke up?”
While we were attempting to establish a friendship, I didn’t want to talk about such personal things with her. Who else could I talk to though? Chatting with a woman was nice. “No, not at all. Lance was a great guy. I think we grew apart.”
That was all I could offer. Underneath the new, nice version of Sabina, I knew lied a woman possessive of Shame. If she knew I was in love with him, our friendship would end on day one.
“Oh, sweetheart. Are you still a virgin?”
My jaw went slack. I couldn’t believe she came right out and asked me. For some reason, I laughed. “Haven’t found the right guy, I guess.”
Her eyes narrowed, slightly. It was weird, as if she was processed my words to consider if I was being honest. Maybe I was paranoid and looking for the old Sabina to make an appearance. Before I could get too hung up on her demeanor, her phone rang.
“Excuse me for one second,” she said and answered her phone. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”
She smiled at me as she slipped the phone in her pocket book. “Trouble at work. I have to go.” I stood when she did. “I’m so glad we had this talk, and you have time you know. You don’t have to rush into sex.”
“Thanks,” I said, but a strange feeling came over me.
She left and I sat back in the chair, pulled my knees up and hugged them. I replayed our conversation but couldn’t pin point a reason for me to feel uneasy. I decided it was nothing, and I was simply still worried about Kelly and anxious to hear from Shame.
Other times there is no possibility of making amends. The relationship is beyond repair. There is too much hostility, too much history for forgiveness. We would rather die than give in.
SHAME
“You better have good intel,” my sister barked and pulled me into her condo by my arm. “If anyone sees you here—”
I had called Maddie to tell her about Breeze’s friend, but I didn’t want to talk on the phone. She was hesitant to let me come over, but anxious for information.
“You know this makes me a rat,” I said, removing the beanie from my head.
“Bullshit. A rat turns on his crew. You don’t owe Dixon a damn thing and definitely not your respect or your loyalty.”
I plopped down on her couch and held my beanie in my hands. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“How so?”
I hated having to tell her, but she had a right to know. “Maddie. I found Ma.”
“What?” The shock I expected came over her expression as she sat next to me.
“Breeze snuck off to a party. She met E and then his mother came and threw Breeze out. She told me her name was Patrice.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s Ma.”
Her eyes got a little glossy. Of course she wanted to believe different. Admitting our ma shacked up with the guy who killed our pop wasn’t an easy thing to digest. I had had twenty-four hours and the news was still sour in my stomach. Her being on the other side diminished any small hope my siblings and I harbored for making amends with the woman who gave birth to us.
Robbed again, but it didn’t matter. Maddie needed to know. “This woman was white,” I explained.
“No.” Her head shook frantically. “No way.”
I leaned forward. “Think about it, Maddie.”
“She wouldn’t do that to Pop.”
“Hear me out.” She nodded. “Remember when Ma showed up for a few weeks and we thought her and Pop were getting back together?”
“Exactly, so why would she betray him?”
“It wasn’t Pa she betrayed. It was Dixon.” She looked at me like she wasn’t getting it. “If she’s E’s mother, her and Dixon were together. She shows up wanting Pop back and then a couple of weeks later he’s gunned down. Dixon suddenly doesn’t care about gaining our turf. It all makes sense.”
“No.”
“The war was never about turf. It was about Ma.”
“Oh, God.” She stood up and paced the floor a few times. “How do we find out for sure?”
“I’m working on it.”
“That makes Eddie Dixon our brother.”
I had barely become comfortable with having Maddie in my life again. Letting Ma in would be nearly impossible, but no way would Eddie Dixon ever be a part of my life or my family. “No. Blood doesn’t make us family. You know that better than anyone. The guys . . . they’re our brothers. We choose family.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I have more.” This was the news I was there to deliver. As close as Delarosa had gotten with Dixon’s crew, he hadn’t turned up any info that would help nail Dixon. Maddie had been under immense pressure to make something happen. “Breeze was with a friend last night at the party. The girl didn’t show up at school and I called Bobby at the station. He said her parents had been in. The girl never came home.”
My blood boiled as I considered how easily it could have been Breeze who never made it home. I tapped my foot. The anxiety coursing through me made it hard to focus.
“You think Dixon has her?” she assumed correctly.
“That would be my guess.”
“Fuck, Shame.” She sat again, her knee bouncing. “We have nothing. Michael doesn’t know where Dixon’s holding the girls.”
“I might,” I admitted. “There’s a warehouse in Lowell. Don’t ask why I was there because I can’t tell you. It was empty then but there were mattresses and shit buckets. The floor was littered with clipped zip ties and old syringes. They used it before for sure.”
“I can’t order a raid without proof.”
I put my hand over hers. “I’ll check it out first.”
“You don’t have to do that, Shame. Lowell isn’t Bastard turf, and you’re not an informant.”
I appreciated her concern, but I wanted to help her, especially if it meant helping Breeze’s friend and screwing Dixon in the process. “This isn’t about turf. This is about Pop and hurting Dixon.”
She nodded, assuring me she would wait for my call and have a team on standby.
After I left my sister’s, I stopped and picked up Tank and Dozer.
“Tell me why we’re doing this?” Tank asked.
“Dixon picked up one of Breeze’s friends.”
“And? . . . She isn’t one of us.”
“But Breeze is. We would do this for any of our friends. She counts too.”
“Breeze isn’t a Bastard.”
I glared across the seat. “The hell she isn’t.”
Tank shot me a hard look. “I love you like a brother, but this kid is fucking with your head. I like her too, but she works for us, that doesn’t make her one of us.”
It was tough to keep my hostility in check, but I knew if I stayed composed I could convince Tank. “Viv works for us. Are you gonna to tell me she isn’t one of us?”
“Fuck,” he grumbled. I had him.
“We check on the warehouse, call Maddie if there’s girls there and she takes out Dixon. For Pop. That’s what this is about,” I reassured him.
“Fine, but we don’t go inside. Dixon isn’t stupid. If any more of his guys turn up dead, he’s going to figure out what’s up.”
“Agreed. We’ll scale the receiving wall on the side. There’s a window above where the loading dock is. Quick peek inside and we’ll know.”
Unlike our last visit, there were plenty of cars parked in front of the building. We opted to leave the Camaro on the street like before. Thankfully, it had been an easy winter and the walk wasn’t as treacherous.
Tank boosted me up the wall and I balanced on the ledge as I made my way to the receiving dock. Voices came from inside and screaming that made my anxiety increase. I knew what I would see before I glanced in the window. My imagination didn’t prepare me for the show inside. The brutality made me want to puke. Those girls were helpless against the sheer number and size of the animals abusing them. I hopped off the ledge and dropped eight feet to the ground.
“Let’s go.”
The three of us sprinted to the Camaro. After I put some distance between us, and Lowell, I was still breathing heavy.
“What’d ya see in there, man?” Tank asked.
“Bunch of sick fucks.”
I couldn’t verbalize what I saw and I couldn’t get the vision out of my head. There had to be thirty girls inside. Worse, my subconscious played tricks on me, and they all looked like Breeze. They were strapped to poles, unable to defend themselves. All of them being whipped and tortured and fucked by men, no monsters, fucking animals that I wanted to murder. If my crew had not of been so outnumbered, I would have gone inside and killed every last fucking one of them.
Any of those girls could have been Breeze. She had been too close. I feared if word got back to Dixon Breeze had been near his kid, he would find a way to get to her. But she was fucking mine, and I would die to protect her.
I whipped out my cell phone and sent Maddie a text I was coming over, and then dropped Tank and Dozer at the clubhouse.
“That was fast,” Maddie said as she glanced around over my shoulder and pulled me inside.
“The girls are there,” I said, out of breath after taking the stairs because the elevator was taking too long.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fucking sure.” I would never forget what I saw in that warehouse.
“How many girls?”
I shrugged. “Thirty, at least. Maybe more. And at least that many in Villains and Kings.”
“Are you all right?” she asked, putting her hand on my arm.
I scrubbed my face, not sure if I was all right. That was some heavy shit. “I’ve seen some horrible things, sis. But I ain’t ever witnessed anything so brutal.”
“We’re gonna get them. I have a team ready. Two hours tops before we go in.”
“And then what?” I shouted. “Someone else takes Dixon’s place.”
“I won’t lie,” she said, grimacing a little. “Trafficking is a lucrative business, Shame. Prostitution is the oldest profession.”
“Those girls aren’t hookers. They didn’t choose this,” I shouted, not necessarily at Maddie, but more to vent my anger. I couldn’t fathom the appeal, not to run the business, or of the men who choose to purchase women. It was a freak show of the filthiest kind.
“They are to Dixon and others like him,” she stated as if that made it acceptable.
“How can you stand it?”
“I take it one case at a time. One girl at time.” She frowned and then a small smile formed. “I focus on those I’ve reunited with their parents.”
I balled my fists. “I want Dixon dead.”
“I know you do. This is good though. He’ll be locked up for the rest of his life. He won’t be able to hurt anyone again.”
“You’re not that naïve, sis. We both know he can run ops from inside.” I shook my head, frustration swirling in my thoughts. Maddie seemed passionate about her job. She needed this. “I’ll let you break the case. Be the star agent or whatever fucking thing you’re looking to gain here, but once Dixon’s inside, I make no promises. He has to answer . . . the street way, not how the law deems fit.”
She nodded. “I’m okay with that.”
“Good, because you can’t stop it.”
“I love you, Shame.” She slipped her hands around my waist and hugged me. My arms remained at my sides, still jaded with my sister for a past I no longer understood. When Pop died and Maddie bailed, a wall went up. I didn’t know how to break it down without weakening the man my club needed me to be. “I know I said some pretty cruel things when I left, but I didn’t mean them.”
“I know you didn’t,” I whispered and finally lifted my arms to return her embrace. I had missed her so much. We were two entirely different people now, but I wanted peace with her. I needed a relationship, because she was my family, and we had been taught to depend on each other.
“Go to the clubhouse,” she instructed, pulling back. “I’ll contact you as soon as it goes down.”
“Breeze. Are you here?” I yelled into the air.
She shot out of her bedroom, worry highlighting her expression. “Hey,” she said and then paused to study me for a moment. “Did you find her?”
“No,” I admitted, feeling an abundance of nerves and agitation. Her friend might have been in the warehouse, but I didn’t want to give Breeze hope, until I heard from Maddie. “But we need to talk.”
“Okay.”
I grabbed her arms and gently shook her. “You can’t break the line, not ever.”
“I know.” She pulled back, her forehead wrinkling with confusion.
“I’m serious, Breeze.”
“I got it.” She frowned.
“If anything happened to you. Fuck.”
“Hey—” She embraced my arm in her palm. “I’m fine.”
I took a step away from her. “I haven’t been honest with you. You’re almost seventeen. You aren’t a kid anymore, not that you ever have been.”
Our eyes locked. I knew what I had been denying all along. I was in love with Breeze, and the thought of anything happening to her terrified me.
And sometimes, it is only ourselves we need to make amends with. This is the most difficult relationship to repair.