She chuckles a little and teases, “The Black Widow was scared?”
“She’s dead, Tami. She died on the day Tank took on the world for her. He has been our hero. But Kat was scared, she’s still scared. Tami, I love you like a sister. I don’t want to lose you.”
“We are okay. I love you, too, and I am happy you are home now.”
“Are you okay?” I tentatively ask, wishing for a miracle.
“No. I am better, but far from okay.”
The sliding door opens and Vegas, Dana, Harley, Jenn and Emilia step outside and greet us. Vegas is the first to wrap her arms around me, then followed by the rest. They bring in bags of food and sit with us.
Even though there has been so much loss, there has never been so much good either. Vegas’ twin boys and little Maddison have their one-year-old birthdays coming up soon. They chase each other, crawling around the backyard, not interested in food anymore. If anyone could bring Tami back from heartbreak, it would be these ladies. I’ve never been more grateful for them.
Harley takes Cash from Tami and cradles him to her chest, kissing his sweet baby cheeks. Looks like he is the healing miracle. We sit around and tell stories of what happened while we were apart, leaving nothing left unsaid. Through the laughter and heartbreak, we put ourselves back together and strengthen our bond.
I’m in the middle of laughing at what Vegas and Dana did to one of the new prospects while they were on their house arrest when the door opens and my heart stops at the sight of my little angel.
“Eli,” I call to him with my arms held open. He hesitates for a moment and my heart drops, wondering if he forgot me already. Something resonates though and he comes running into my arms. “Hey, baby boy, did you drive your Tio Fuego loco, mijo?”
“Este niño, that boy needs twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
I chuckle while he slaps a wet kiss on my cheek. “I know, he’s a lot better when Tank is around.”
His little head whips around, looking for the big guy, and I feel bad he wasn’t here when he came home, “Tank—”
“Tu padre,” Fuego’s mother interrupts me. “I spent the last two months talking about his madre and padre. You are going to confuse the niño pequeño. It’s about time you,” she points a finger in my direction, “give that man the respect he deserves, mija. That’s his bebé, too.”
“Sí, abuela.” I swallow the rock in my throat. “Tu papá volverá
pronto, your dad will be back soon, okay?” I sweep his feather soft hair away from his forehead.
“Sí, madre,” he says, wiggling out of my grip when he notices the other kids playing in the yard. I put him down and he runs after them. When I stand up, I see the humor hiding in all their eyes, but I wait until after abuela walks over to love on her other great grandkids.
“How in the hell am I going to tell Tank he is now called padre?” I smack my own forehead and groan.
“I think he is going to love it,” Jenn smiles. “Just be careful. He can take things overboard and, before you know it, he will get you into calling him Daddy. In which case, I never want to hear about it.”
They all agree that yes, this will be the highlight of Tank’s week and also my demise.
Chapter 27
Tank
We didn’t want to have a memorial for Solo at the graveyard. He had meant so much to all of us. We hung a picture of the group of us in the garage and the bar. We toasted to the picture in the bar with beers in hand like he was sitting right there with us. We took turns telling stories and laughed about the fun times we all had.
His cut is in the safe for now. Blade still hasn’t decided what he wanted to do with it at this point since there is evidence of his last few moments still alive on it. We all feel the void of him being gone. He had his place here in his own way, and now, there is nothing. Since we lost a brother, we had a special patch made and sewn onto our cuts. A single wing attached to an S.
The MC took a long ride around Lake Tahoe. We loaded onto our bikes and took a memory run to respect a fallen brother. I can’t help but think of the irony of how many runs he went on by himself, and how, this time, it was a solo trip into the next life.
We rode for about an hour and the brothers went back to the club while Blade and I dropped down from Tahoe into Carson City, then straight to see Pawn.
Blade stays outside to wait for me. I think he knows that I need to see Pawn alone.
After the guards let me in, I wait for him to join me at a table. His stride seems a little slower than normal when he finally walks in.
“How are you holding up, brother?” There are some bruises that have faded into an ugly orange around his cheekbone and he has a small cut above his eye.
“It’s been rough but nothing I can’t handle.” Pawn self-consciously runs a hand over the cut and sits back in his seat. “Did everything get settled at home?” Meaning, did we get Matias.
“Yeah, everything has worked out.” I rap my knuckles on the table. “We are behind you all the way, Pawn. We all feel the loss with you and now with Solo leaving us. I feel responsible for this mess. I am supposed to be the big dog of our pack and I failed my brothers.”
“Don’t,” Pawn interrupts. “I put myself here because of my choices. I fucked her and made Cash, and didn’t see the setup. Solo tried to get me to leave and I didn’t listen to him.” His head hangs before looking up again. “If I hadn’t been stupid and had listened, he might still be alive because I would have been there to have his back.”
He looks away, shaking his head like he’s trying to make up his mind. I know what he’s thinking right now, and, in all the months he’s been here, he never asked the question. Until now.
“Has she sent anything?” I think he needs to hear from her that she is okay. But I have to give him the truth.
“No. It’s been rough on her. She was there when it happened, and she stayed with him until his last breath. She saved Eli, and Solo saved Axl, and, in the end, Solo gave us everything.” Pawn intently listens to every word and looks down in understanding.
“You would say to us, ‘We aren’t born until we battle.’ Don’t leave Tami alone. Watch over Cash for me, yeah?”
“Always and forever, brother, they are my family. We’ll keep them safe. Why don’t you write to her, let her see you?”
He shakes his head, “I don’t want her here. This is no place for her or Cash. Makes shit harder for me seeing them, would give me hope.” He stands and lifts his chin, “Thanks for coming.”
“Remember what I taught you, hit them with that left uppercut you got.”
He takes a few steps back but keeps his eyes on something behind me. Standing, I turn to my left to walk out and see a large dude watching my movements. Outside the doors stands a guard we put on our payroll to help keep tabs on Pawn while on lockup. The door shuts and, as I walk by, I say, “The Black Rose, Friday night, twelve midnight”
He hands me my cell and wallet, “Have a nice day,” and gives me an affirmative nod.
What the hell is happening now?
Blade, who waited for me by our bikes, stomps out a smoke as soon as he sees me walking out. “We have a meeting at the Black Rose tomorrow night with Blackbird.” Which is the guard’s codename, we never use his real name. “Someone is putting the beating on Pawn and we need to find out why.”
“Fuck, Tank, when will this shit settle?” Blade answers while swinging a leg over his bike.
“With our business, I’m guessing never.” I sit on my bike, and, before I crank it on, I throw out one more thought. “I’m beginning to think that we were the suckers to take over this territory and your old man made the job of the Prez look like a keg stand.”
“Say fucking what again?”
“A keg stand, like a cake walk.” I shrug and put my helmet on, then crank my girl on. Blade’s laughter is barely heard over the noise, and he signals with a finger to head out. The Prez and the Road Captain take the road back home to the clubhouse. On
e task done but my day is far from over.
At the clubhouse, I grab the rock crawler truck and throw in the back some rope, wood, screws and a camera with a battery pack. “I think that’s about it.” I pull the ties down tightly against the wood for the journey and toss the screws into the truck along with a drill.
“What’s that about?” Axl asks, walking out from the garage.
“I’m doing a little construction up at the mine. Matias needs to see what it is like to be cornered. You coming?”
“Hell yeah, I’m in.” Axl jumps in the front passenger seat and I drive us up there. We take the long run through the mountains.
Axl holds on to the handle and I hit the gas to propel us over a small hill, with sagebrush scraping under the truck. He hollers, “Motherfuckin’ asshole!” Our heads almost hit the roof and we come down with the truck bouncing off the ground. We skid left, then right before I gain control of the vehicle.
I speed ahead on the open floor of the desert and find a sand dune. “Hell yeah!” I yell and stomp on the gas, making a hard-left turn and spinning the truck around a few times before we race out of there and find more mountains to jump.
An hour later, we reach the mine and jump out to unload our supplies, pumped after an afternoon of adrenaline rushing through our veins. Axl holds two boards for me after I put them together. One is about six feet long and the other is two. I continue handing them to him and I screw the open box together, whistling along to the radio I left on inside the truck to drown out the hollering from Matias inside.
The sun beats down on us like a torch. I rip off my shirt to wipe the sweat from my face and toss it aside to look over my work. “Okay, looks good. Help me get the asshole into the box.”
We walk into the mine and find Matias still tied to the table where we left him. Axl takes a knife from the truck and cuts the rope.
He’s so weak that he is barely able to move from his spot. Handing my knife to Axl, I step forward. Matias springs to life with whatever energy he had left to survive. He swings for my face and I dodge his fist and the next. My fist flies from the right and hit his nose.
Blood splatters and he snarls, coming for me again. I don’t give him a chance and take the little puke down. This time, I punch and jab until he falls to the floor. I kick the same bruises over and over, and he yells in pain when my boot connects with his head. It falls to his side and his body relaxes from being knocked out.
I grip the two pieces of rope still tied around his ankles and pull him out the front door. His head bounces off the steps and his body leaves a trail of blood in the dirt.
Axl picks up his arms and we drop him inside the box. I then screw the lid down tightly after placing a small camera by his feet.
How do you torture a man who loves to use his mind as a weapon? You leave him alone to himself, with no one to communicate with. We pick up the box and tie it down in the back of the truck and hit the hills again, hollering like teenagers.
I don’t miss every opportunity I can find to jump the truck. I grin at Axl when we take flight again and the back end hits hard.
“Blade is going to beat your ass when you get this back.” He knows that we will fix it. We find the spot we had dug out on our way up here and finish what we came up here to do.
Occasionally, over the next several days, Matias screams or talks to himself. Driving himself mad with his own thoughts. He is missing fingernails from trying to claw his way out of the box, or rather the coffin I built for him with my own hands.
Matias has been buried alive and left alone in the desert so deep that not even the coyotes can get to him. But they can smell him. I sit on the mountain top and watch them circle around the spot. Only Axl and I know where that is. I’m betting that, since he rests in Native Tribal Land, it will be centuries before anyone could possibly come across it, if ever.
There is a small tube that feeds him water and another for oxygen. If he stopped drinking the water, he would die sooner, but his body refuses to let go of the basic necessity to survive. Some things are not worth your time, and he is something I never want to lay my eyes on ever again.
A Cursed King to the death.
Chapter 28
Kat
“I figured something out,” Tank announces while holding a sleeping Eli in his arms. He fits perfectly snuggled up into his body and his little mouth hangs open. Protected, just like he should be.
As soon as Tank arrived home earlier, he gave me a quick kiss and hug. Then, they played so hard together, for hours, reuniting and picking up where the two of them had left off. Now, Tank has a serious face on that he doesn’t wear often. So, I know this must be important to him.
“Why does Eli have my same name, Lucas?” His eyebrows scrunch together, creating wrinkles between them.
Nervousness takes over and I hesitate to tell him the truth, but I can’t hide in the darkness anymore either. I pat the space next to me, and carefully explain. “After we hooked up for the first time here in Reno, I had your name added to his birth certificate. If I died, for some reason I just knew you would eventually find him.” I bite my lip. “I wanted him hidden from his father, and the best way to do that was through you.”
Tank sits down next to me, with a still resting Eli on his chest. “I blew it with my scene at the car crash.” He heaves out a long breath. “He looked up everything about me and found him that way, and that led to who submitted the paperwork, didn’t it?” His eyebrows raise, relaxing his features a little.
“Probably,” I agree with him and rub his bicep. “I had already figured out that you had found Eli before, when you went away for a while. So, I was betting that, if something bad were to happen to me, you would look harder into his name.”
“Lucas was another clue you had for me.” His eyes move back and forth as a thought takes root, “You’re now Emily Scott, though. What happened to Eli’s mother on paper?”
Tank’s confused face makes me smile and I just stare at him. I know that he will figure it out, and, after a few failed guesses, he’s finally got it. “You died, didn’t you?”
“Yes and no. Technically, I killed a woman named Hillary Taylor. She was written down as his biological mother and you as his father. Eli could never have my real name attached to him. Even though he’s gone now, Matias had many enemies, and still may want to come after Eli for revenge.”
“Whaaaat? Like, he’s all mine and not yours for real?”
“Yes, he is your son and not mine. On paper,” I make sure to point out. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“Can I wake him up to tell him?”
My hand shoots out and I cover his mouth, “Don’t you fucking dare. I am so damn tired; this kid never stops moving.”
I feel Tank’s big toothy grin stretching under my hand, and his eyes alight with mischief. Before I know what is happening, he is up and out of the room, then comes back without Eli and with the phone to his ear.
“Dana, I’m a baby daddy, like, for real!” He stalls a moment, then answers, “Wait, you said that he called me padre earlier and I missed it?”
Tank glares at me from his spot by the doorway, and I raise an eyebrow in response. “Oh, abuela taught him to call me padre. That doesn’t feel right, though, we need to change it to dad.” He goes back to what Dana is saying, whatever she’s feeding his ego with on her end. “He’s really mine! Kat put my name on the birth certificate after we boned in Las Vegas. So, I’m a legit baby daddy.”
This could go on for hours and I miss him badly. I walk over to him and pull the phone away from Tank’s grip and say goodbye to Dana before disconnecting the call. “You can tell everyone about being a baby daddy later. I miss you and want you to myself for a bit.”
There is a knock at the door, and I squint my eyes at him. “What in the world are you up to?”
He smirks and shakes his head at me on the way to open the door for Harley, who’s standing on the other side, smiling. “Hey, Kat,” she walks in and drops her purse on
the couch. “Aren’t you guys headed out?” She looks between the two of us.
The confusion must be written clearly across my face. “We are?” I ask and turn to Tank.
“Yes, we are. Go get ready, I want you all to myself, too,” he answers for me. Harley beams at us both, and her happiness starts to make me uncomfortable, like she knows more than me and that is not how this is supposed to be, not by a long shot.
I walk away from the room, but creep back around the corner and hide a bit to see if I can get some intel from them.
“Ms. Emily Scott, go get your riding gear on and quit hiding in the shadows, woman,” Tank booms from the other room to me.
Peeking around the corner, I glare at Tank’s humorous face. “You,” he points at my face, “Need to start acting like a normal woman and get ready.”
“I think eaves dropping is pretty normal for a woman,” Harley snickers.
“Hurry up. Emily,” he teases.
“Cool it with the 'Emily', Road Dog,” I threaten and stomp off to the room, even though the new names are a little fun.
After I slide my boots and a jacket on, I tie my hair up, and go back only to find Tank and Harley chatting where I left them. I freeze and my nerves hit me hard. I’ve never been free to walk out the door. To live a life that belongs to me and just me alone.
These next few steps are different than before, and it feels like I am suddenly someone else. Tank sees my hesitation at the doorway and, thankfully, doesn’t make a big deal about it. Instead, he grabs his wallet and keys from the mantel, then walks over to me and softly takes my hand in his.
“We’ll be back in a while.” He waves goodbye to Harley and I follow his lead out the door, to his bike in the driveway. “What is it, K-Love?” He gently glides his touch over my skin under my chin and lifts my face to meet his.
Fighting for Forever: Tank & Kat's story, Part 2 (Battle Born MC Book 6) Page 13
