Battle Hearts

by Nina Levine

  I move to sit on the bed. “I think it’s a good idea.”

  She glances down at the bed, stalling with what she wants to say. “How do you feel about doing another IVF cycle?”

  “I thought that was a given.”

  Her eyes are full of doubt and confusion when she meets my gaze again. “I know, but that was before we started all this. I wasn’t sure if you feel the same way after everything we’ve been through.”

  “Nothing has changed for me. If you think you can handle another round, I’m all in. If you’re out, we’ll move to our next option.”

  “Well, I won’t need the hormones next time, so it won’t be as bad or as expensive.”

  We froze two eggs this time, so I’m hopeful we can get pregnant without Birdie having to do the hormone shots again. At this point, though, I’m just as concerned about her mental health if we’re not successful.

  “You want to go again?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Decision made, then. We’ll do it again.”

  She places her hand over mine, her touch like a hit of oxygen. “I never thought anything would hurt as much as losing my last tube and then losing you, but this”—she swallows hard—“has killed me. I don’t want to shut you out. Please don’t give up on me if it feels like I am.”

  My phone rings. I ignore it because this is the first time Birdie has opened up all week.

  “Baby, I’ve told you before, that’s never going to happen. I’m in this with you for life.”

  Her shoulders sag and tears stream down her face. A moment later, she crawls into my lap, wrapping her arms around me. “Thank you.”

  My phone rings again, but fuck me, I’ve got my woman in my arms; no fucking way am I answering it. Whoever it is can wait.

  Her lips come to mine, and she lights my whole damn world up with a kiss that I feel every bit of her heart in. When she drags her mouth from mine, she looks at me through her tears and says, “I love how you love me. And I’m good now if you need to be all practical. I’m not the only one hurting; you do whatever you need to do to pull yourself out of the darkness, even if that means trying to fix shit that maybe can’t be fixed. And I’ll try to be there for you as much as you’re here for me.” When my phone rings again, she says, “I think maybe you should answer that.”

  I wipe her tears, regretful as hell to have to let her go so I can answer this damn call. But the caller is persistent, and that doesn’t fill me faith that this call is just a casual chat, so I leave her to grab my phone.

  Ransom.

  I put my phone to my ear. “What’s up, brother?”

  His voice is full of savage anger when he says, “Ice is dead. It was Zenith. I have the guys who did it.”

  My entire body turns to stone.

  “Where are you?”

  “At the warehouse.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I end the call and look at Birdie with an apology I wish like fuck I didn’t have to give.

  She speaks before I do. “You have to go out.”

  I nod. “Yeah. And I’ll be a while.”

  She smiles, and I know she’s trying hard to let me know this is okay. Fuck, I love her. “I guess that means we’ll need a rain check for dinner.”

  I brush a kiss over her lips. “Yeah, we do.”

  I quickly dress and leave for the warehouse. It takes me a good half hour to get there, and by the time I arrive, I barely recognise my own thoughts. Killing two of my men and wounding more, coupled with being the reason I haven’t been as available for my wife as I would have liked over the last month, has me ready for blood in a way I never have been.

  “What happened?” I demand when I locate Ransom.

  “They went to his house and slit his throat. The only reason we got them was because Hunt showed up as they were leaving. He shot them both in the leg to slow them down, knowing you’d want time with them rather them dead.”

  I do fucking want time with them. I want vengeance for everything their gang has done to my men.

  “This changes everything for tomorrow,” I say. “Call everyone in; we’re doing it tonight. And Ransom? I don’t give a fuck if we have to spill a fuckload of blood. These motherfuckers aren’t taking our territory or killing any more of our men. That shit ends now.”

  He nods his agreement before leaving me to make the calls he needs to make.

  I head into the main area of the warehouse where we store guns and other shit we need to keep away from the clubhouse. Ransom has tied the two Zenith members to cement columns in the middle of the room. They’ve both suffered a beating and are already bruised and bloody from not only that but also the bullets they’ve sustained. They can barely stand thanks to being shot, but Ransom has tied them in such a way that the rope is keeping them vertical. They eye me with hostility as I stalk towards them.

  Not slowing as I approach, I punch the guy on the left. I hit him so hard his face almost twists around to face the cement column he’s attached to. When he looks at me again, I land another punch on his face. We keep this up and I land punch after punch on him. It’s therapeutic as fuck, and when this guy’s face is a bloody, swollen mess, I direct my fists to the other guy. By the time I’m ready to take a break, I’m sweaty and smeared in their blood.

  “Who ordered the kill?” I demand.

  When neither of them answers me, I grab the guy on the left’s hair and yank his head back. “Tell me who the fuck is in charge.”

  “Go to hell,” he manages to get out.

  I punch him again. A few times. “Tell me!”

  The other one grunts in pain and says, “That’s what you cunts don’t get; Zenith is strong because none of us will ever talk. You’ll never know who we work for.”

  I work my jaw as I grip his face. Squeezing hard, I say, “You’ll talk to me or I’ll bring someone in who’s trained for this kind of work. I recommend you choose me.”

  When neither of them speaks, I leave them to go find Hunt. He’s outside with Ransom. Lifting his chin at me, he says, “You get them to talk?”

  “No, I need you in there.”

  His shoulders square and determination fills his features. Without another word, he moves into action. This is the kind of shit Hunt lives for.

  After he leaves us, Ransom says, “Everyone should be here ready to go within the next forty minutes.” He pauses for a beat. “You sure you wanna spill blood tonight, brother? I’m with you if you are, but it’s unlike you to react in the moment like this.”

  He’s right; it is unlike me. However, this decision has been coming for a while. “If we don’t make a stand now, they’ll keep tearing our club apart, so yeah, I’m sure.” I’ve looked ahead at all the possible consequences and the paths we could take to deal with them. I’m confident we have the back up available from other Storm chapters to do this.

  We spend twenty minutes going over the plan for tonight before heading back inside to see how Hunt’s going. If the screams coming from the warehouse are anything to go by, he’s on his way to dragging the information from them that we’re after.

  Hunt has untied one of the guys from the cement column, placed a hood over his head, tied his hands tightly behind him with a wood board between his arms and his back, and has him squatting. It’s a stress position known to fatigue muscles and cause pain.

  The other guy is copping another beating, and by the looks of the tools Hunt has laid out, and the blood coming from the guy’s mouth, he’s lost a few teeth already.

  When the guy he’s beating passes out, Hunt turns to the other one, catching sight of Ransom and me as he turns.

  “Anything?” I ask, moving closer.

  He comes to me. “They’re both sticking to their story that no one knows who they work for in that gang, but this one”—he jerks his thumb at the one he was beating—“just mumbled the name Bourne to me.”

  My mind races, trying to recall if that name is familiar. “That name hasn’t come up in any of our researc
h.”

  “No, so I don’t know if it’s bullshit or not. I’ll keep working them.” His eyes glint darkly. “We’re just getting warmed up here.”

  “You’re good to stay here tonight?”

  “Yeah. I’m not leaving until I get what we need.”

  Hunt’s only ties in life are to Storm. He has no family I know of and I’ve never seen him with a woman. When I call on him, he never says no. And when I need him for this kind of work, he dedicates himself for as long as it takes.

  Club members start arriving, drawing my attention from Hunt’s interrogation to making sure everyone is armed well. Once everyone is ready to go, we load up the vans and head out. Twenty-five minutes later, we reach our destination. The building looks abandoned and run down, but from the intel we have, we know they’ve been using it for a couple of months.

  I signal for everyone to take their positions. Our plan involves surrounding the building before Ransom and a group enter from the front. Once they’ve got the attention of whoever’s inside, I’ll lead a group from the back. We’re not here to negotiate tonight; we’re here to wipe this fucking gang off the map.

  Moving to the back of the building, I wait for Ransom to let me know to enter. The signal comes through a few minutes after he’s inside, and I relay it to my men. The building is dark as we silently move through it. I note the rooms filled with coke and equipment to distribute it. I also note the other stuff they’re moving: cigarettes and electrical goods.

  Drawing closer to the gunshots and fighting I can hear, we reach the front of the building where Ransom and his team are dealing with about ten guys. A gun sounds just as I duck because I locked eyes on the shooter right before he pulled the trigger.

  At the same time, another guy lunges for me. I see him coming in time to weave out of his way. Turning back, I punch him, causing him to stumble. He gets back in the game fast and comes at me with a punch to my cheek. Pain radiates through me, which I welcome. It reminds me why the fuck I’m here tonight. It reminds me of all the pain these motherfuckers have caused my club. It reminds me I’ve been dragged away from Birdie for this shit.

  Retaliating, I go hard, punching him with enough force to knock him down. Before he can scramble back up, I straddle him and punch his face repeatedly. The rhythm of my moves becomes trancelike as my body takes control. It craves something completely different to my mind. It wants to deliver pain and feel the ache of those who caused pain to me. My body doesn’t care about consequences; it just wants retribution. It wants to punish in the most savage way it can.

  It’s not until Ransom pulls me off the guy that I realise I’ve completely disconnected. I’ve left a bloody pile of skin and bones. Not something I’ve ever done before. My usual way is to get in fast, take care of what I need to, and get out just as fast. Tonight I don’t recognise myself.

  “The building’s empty,” Ransom says as I survey the dead bodies at our feet. “We’ve got everyone.”

  Fuck, I need to focus. For the first time I can recall in this kind of situation, my brain struggles to detach itself from how I’m feeling.

  Glancing around at my men, I finally get my shit together and bark out orders. “Search the building for anything that will give us more details on who runs this operation and how the fuck they do that.”

  I spend the next ten minutes looking for paperwork and information I don’t find. When I locate Ransom again, I say, “You find anything?”

  He points at Striker, who’s carrying a few laptops out to the van. “They’re locked down tight, but I figure Hunt will be able to get into them.”

  “Thank fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll go through them tonight.”

  I want the motherfucker who runs this gang dead and I want that tonight.

  He’s stolen from us.

  He’s taken men from us.

  He’s intruded on my marriage.

  “Burn the fucking place down,” I command. “And load as much of that coke into our vans as we can.”

  Tomorrow Storm goes back to being in control of this goddam city.

  I crawl into bed just before 5:00 a.m. It’s been a long night, and I’m physically and mentally exhausted.

  It took us hours, but we managed to get into all the laptops. It then took us another hour or so to download all the data and sort through it. Robert Dean is the leader of Zenith, and thanks to the photos on one of the laptops, Ransom was able to verify we killed him tonight. We have a list of all gang members and all Zenith customers. Tomorrow we’ll begin the task of visiting them.

  A text comes through on my phone.

  * * *

  Ransom: I got hold of Vic. He knows what he has to do.

  Me: Good.

  * * *

  Birdie stirs as I place my phone back on the bedside table. “What time is it?”

  I reach for her, my hand landing on her belly. “It’s almost five. Go back to sleep.”

  “Did you just get home?”

  “Yeah.”

  She moves closer to me, hooking her arm and leg over my body and snuggling into my side. “I know you have to do it, but I don’t like you being out there,” she murmurs, still half asleep. It’s these conversations we have in the middle of the night when she’s in between sleep that I love. She says things she maybe wouldn’t say when she’s fully conscious. It helps give me a look into her thoughts.

  “I’m hopeful this will be the last night I get called out for a while.”

  “I hope so too,” she says as her hand traces lazy patterns over my bare chest. “I missed you tonight.”

  Fuck, she hasn’t said anything like that to me for weeks. “Did you eat dinner?”

  Reaching up to bring her hand to my face, she says, “Always checking up on me.” As the words leave her mouth, she slides her body over mine and straddles me before giving me those lips of hers I would do anything for.

  Her kiss is unhurried, just like she is right now. She takes her time with my lips, with my tongue, with my body. Her hands start out on my face and slowly move down my neck to my chest. Lifting her mouth from mine, she says, “Yes, I ate some dinner. I also ate some chocolate I bought yesterday. It was heaven. I may have left you some. I feel like we need some sugar in our life after starving ourselves of it for months.”

  My hands go to her ass as I think of all the things we’ve been starved of, the fucking least of which is sugar. “Give me your lips again, angel.”

  Her eyes search mine, her anguish still blazing from them. “Are you okay, baby?” She touches the bruises on my face.

  I take hold of her hand. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle a few bruises.”

  She looks at my knuckles that are also bruised and swollen. “This is more than a few bruises, Winter.” Moving down my body, she presses a kiss to the knife wound that’s healed well. “It kills me to see you come home hurt.”

  I move swiftly, sitting and repositioning her in my lap, her legs wrapped around my body. Taking hold of her face, I kiss her, this time deeper, and with all the emotions surging through me. I’m still wound up after the events of the night; the darkness consuming me earlier still breathes inside me. It mixes with the love and need I have for Birdie, causing me to bruise her lips with raw desire.

  “Fuck,” I rasp when I tear my mouth from hers. “I fucking need you.” I move my hands to her breasts, lifting the shirt of mine she’s wearing so I can take her nipple between my lips.

  Her fingers grip my hair. “I need you, too.” Her voice is ragged with that need, coiling my desire tighter inside me.

  I have her on her back faster than either of us can keep up with, and our clothes stripped from our bodies just as fast.

  Christ, I’ve missed being with her like this. I’d walk through fire for this woman; I’d go as long as I had to without her if that’s what she needed from me, but I’d be counting down every fucking second until she gave me one more taste.

  I take my time with her, explor
ing every inch of her skin with my hands and mouth. When I get to her pussy, she arches her back and moans. When I suck her clit into my mouth, she reaches for my hair again. When I push my tongue inside her, she grips my face at the same time that she sits up and pulls my mouth to hers.

  Her eyes are wild, her breaths are coming fast as she begs, “Fuck me. I can’t wait another second for you to be inside me.”

  Birdie needing me as much as I need her reaches deep in my gut. It makes me want to fuck her hard and fast. On her hands and knees. Slamming myself into her. Taking everything from her and giving everything to her I haven’t been able to in weeks. But what I really need right now, above any of that, is to reconnect us. I need my eyes on hers while I fuck her.

  Taking her back down to the bed, I spread her legs and kiss her. “I love you,” I say as I thrust inside her.

  Fuck. Me.

  I pull out and slam inside again.

  “Oh God,” Birdie cries out, her eyes closing.

  I thrust again. “Open your eyes, baby.” When she doesn’t, I growl, “Birdie, your eyes.”

  She does as I say, and I fuck her while our eyes remained locked together.

  We come together, Birdie first, me following straight after.

  Her fingers tangle in my hair when I drop my head to her shoulder and get my shit together. I don’t know what the fuck it is, but my mind is racing with a million thoughts and feelings. A foreign fucking experience to me after sex.

  “I love you,” she says softly.

  I lift my head and find her eyes again. We watch each other silently for a few moments before I roll onto my back.

  She rolls to face me. “What are you thinking?”

  I look at her. “That IVF is a dark fucking road to travel.”

  Her hand slips into mine. “We made it, though.”

  Yeah, we made it through the first cycle, but at what cost? And how many cycles can a relationship sustain before the cracks turn into gaping holes? Because I’m not blind here; I can see and feel the tiny cracks this first cycle inflicted on us. They scare the fuck out of me.

  “Winter?” she says, moving into me. “Tell me.”