Give Me War

by Kate McCarthy

The four of us take him out front, passing irate customers, until we get him in a huddle out of earshot. I try again. “What time did you start work this morning?”

  His gaze shoots around the four of us, his shoulders hunching as if he’s trying to shrink away from our size and the tension emanating from our bodies. “A-about five, I think.”

  I scroll through the photos of my phone until I reach a picture of Evie’s Hilux. I hold it up. “You see this car?”

  Theo takes a look. “I see it often. The girl is a regular.”

  I go through more photos until I reach one of my wife, just weeks old. She’s sitting on our lounge, Wolf in her lap. My kid is asleep and she’s just woken from a nap, her eyes lazy and her cheeks warm and pink. My whole world is right there in that image and for a moment my finger shakes on the screen of my phone, my gut churning. I take a breath and hold up the image. “This girl?”

  Theo looks at it. “Y-yes. That’s her.” He breathes out as I tuck the phone away. “Why? What happened? Is she okay?” He looks around at all of us before coming back to me. “This isn’t about an iPad, is it? She’s the singer with Jamieson, isn’t she? Evie? She comes in for coffee all the time. She always loads the tip jar.”

  “Did you see her today?” Mitch barks. “This morning?”

  He nods and swallows. “Y-yeah. She showed. I always keep my eye out for her. It’s like the highlight of my day. She’s a total babe.

  My nostrils flare. “She’s my wife.”

  Theo shrinks back from me. “I never hit on her. She’s always with some other dude though. Better looking one than you, man. Sorry.” He glances at Kelly. “Looks a lot like you actually, except with shorter hair,” he says, and I know he’s referring to Casey.

  I resist the urge to punch him by folding my arms.

  “Did you see her leave?” Kelly barks.

  He shakes his head. “No, man. We were swamped.”

  “You hear bikes?”

  Theo shrugs. “Always bikes around here. Is she okay?”

  Mitch looks to me. “Kid’s a bust.”

  My chest is tight with frustration as the four of us abandon him on the sidewalk, moving to the next shop. “It’ll be quicker if we all split up.”

  “I’m the only one here with a badge,” Mitch reminds me.

  “Wait!” the kid calls out.

  We all pause and turn.

  “There’s an art shop three doors down. They got broken into ‘bout six or so weeks ago. Stepped up their security. They got cameras.”

  “Thanks, kid.”

  My phone rings as we step inside the gallery. “Travis,” I answer, and hear the growl of his car come through the phone. I glance across the road towards the beach parking lot. They’re all climbing inside their cars, peeling off.

  “We’re heading to the office. Seth is already there. We’re going to make a start on pinpointing all known bases for the Vipers. I spoke to Dad,” he adds. “He’s already got cops checking on the CCTV footage around the area. He’s going to co-ordinate a team alongside Alan.”

  “Keep us updated.”

  I’m hanging up as their vehicles drive down the street, a thunderous procession of bikes and fast cars.

  Alan is Chief Superintendent Rossiter. He’s not only my father’s best friend, he’s a big deal. I’m not surprised dad called him in. My father does not fuck around, and Mitch clearly learned from the best because moments after flashing his badge we were in the stark-white back office of the art gallery, our eyes on their external camera footage.

  “There!” I bark and Mitch slows the speed of the video. It’s Evie pulling into the parking lot. My heart thunders in my chest as she climbs out of the car. The image is grainy and black and white, but there’s no mistaking the Hilux or that long dark mane of hair. I swipe a hand across my face, holding it together. “Speed it up.”

  Mitch speeds the video back up, slowing it down again when Casey and Evie appear in the parking lot again. Just like Casey says, he leaves before she does. Evie goes to her car. Unlocking it, she reaches inside and comes out with her phone pressed to her ear.

  Four sets of eyes are peeled to the screen as we watch her talk for a minute before two bikes rumble in right beside her, one man on the bike closest, two on the other. “There they are. Can we zoom in?”

  Mitch hits pause and zooms in.

  “Sonofabitch,” Coby breathes in horror.

  “I was right,” Kelly says, arms folded, eyes flat as he stares at the screen, looking unhappy as fuck that he was right. “It’s the Black Vipers.”

  My hands white-knuckle the empty office chair next to Mitch as the small seed of hope inside me, the one that was begging for Kelly to be wrong, shrivels up and dies. “Fuck,” I mutter. Then I roar the word, flinging the chair across the room in a fit of rage. It hits the wall hard, scratching through paint and denting plasterboard. “Fuck!”

  “Hey!” the arts business owner cries, appearing around the corner at the noise.

  Mitch glares at me. I roll my shoulders, offering an apology before righting the chair. “I’ll pay for damages, okay?”

  The man simply shakes his head and leaves us to it.

  “Hold it together,” Mitch orders as if it’s just that easy.

  He hits play again and we watch the scene unfold, the man closest to Evie climbing from his bike. They start talking. Evie appears to be arguing with him. My brows draw together and I bend down, leaning closer to the screen. It’s as if she knows him. I look at the man but the angle and the pixels make it hard. He turns his head briefly, looking to his biker brethren. “Pause it there.”

  Mitch halts the footage and zooms in on his face, then he frowns. I inspect the biker, rage a hot twisted mass in my gut as I take in the features of the person who abducted my wife. Tall, dark hair, muscular but lean, tattooed, appears to be half-Japanese, standing beside a Harley with a viper gleaming on its paintwork.

  “This guy.” Mitch shakes his head. “I know him.”

  Kelly leans in closer, taking a better look. “Can you take an image and run this fucker on your database for facial recognition? See if you get a match?”

  “No, he’s not a criminal.” Mitch leans back and I can see his mind ticking over at a rapid pace as he rubs his jaw. After a moment his expression changes, recollection dawning, which only causes his frown to burrow deeper. “That’s Lorenzo Rossi.”

  “Who the fuck is Lorenzo Rossi?” Kelly asks as I glare down at the screen, hands fisting by my sides. Whoever the hell he is, he’s a dead man.

  Mitch turns and looks at me, and the apprehension in his eyes sends dread curling down my spine. “Lorenzo is Ren.” His voice lowers. “He’s AFP.”

  “He’s a cop?”

  Coby steps in, shaking his head as he looks at the footage with squinty eyes. “No fucking way.” He steps back, visibly reeling, and looks at Mitch. “You’re wrong. That’s no cop. That’s Renny.”

  Renny? “What the fuck is going on here?” I yell, pushing away from the desk and rounding on Evie’s brother. “Who the hell is Renny?”

  “Her ex, Wild Renny. The one who almost got her killed in that bike accident and walked away. That’s Renny,” Coby says, jabbing his finger at the video with fury. “That sonofabitch is a Viper now?”

  I close my eyes, my mind going back years, to when Evie told me about her past, trying to explain to me why she wouldn’t risk her heart on another man again.

  “I was lucky, Jared, that I actually woke up in a hospital. Lucky to be alive. Renny managed to walk away, and he did it so well that he checked out of the hospital the next day without a backward glance.”

  Mitch’s phone chooses that moment to ring. It’s sitting on the desk of the art shop, right beside the computer we’re all hovering around. All eyes look down at Alan Rossiter’s name lighting up the screen.

  My brother snatches it up, answering, “Rossiter.”

  We can hear Alan talking but I can’t make out the words. It’s not good. Mitch
is swiping a hand through his hair, pulling at the strands as he listens for endless minutes. “Fuck,” he eventually mutters.

  Hanging up, he looks at me. “We got a problem.”

  Like we didn’t have one before? “What is it?”

  “Ren is undercover. A narc.”

  “How the hell is Wild Renny now a narcotics agent, and what the hell is he doing snatching up my sister?” Coby barks.

  Mitch shakes his head. “We don’t know. The issue is that he’s in deep. Been in for a long time. We have orders not to compromise his identity or their operation.”

  I look at my brother, knowing I’m about to mess with his career, but Evie’s more important than some drug operation, no matter how deep or how compromised this Renny asshole is. “Sorry, Mitch, you can bow out if you need to and I’ll understand, but I’m not sitting back, and I’m not standing down.” My voice hardens. “Fuck your orders.”

  Kelly nods beside me as he looks at Mitch. “Fuck your orders.”

  Coby steps up too, eyes flat and arms folded. “Fuck your orders.”

  Mitch works his jaw for a moment before rising to his feet. He looks at me and nods. “Copy that. Let’s go get Evie.”

  5

  EVIE

  You’re just some asshole I used to know.”

  Renny sucks in a sharp breath and turns his head, as if my words sliced right through him and he’s trying to breathe past it. I falter, the pain in his expression sending me off kilter. “I guess I deserve that.”

  “You deserve everything that’s coming your way,” I tell him, knowing the Valentines are going to tear him apart.

  “I almost got you killed.”

  My fingers tighten around the gun in my hands, but I can’t seem to stop my eyes from drifting over the familiar lines of his face. The full lips, a mouth that used to savage mine with every kiss. Thick, black lashes that lured me in. Lush dark hair long enough to curl your fingers in. My gaze lowers over the wide shoulders, thick biceps, the tension in his fisted hands. My eyes lift from their inspection to find him watching me intently.

  Renny had walked away from me without a backwards glance. He’s nothing but a bastard with pretty lies and bad boy ways. “So what,” I snap, “if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again?”

  He barks out a laugh. A fucking laugh. “I missed that about you.”

  “Missed what?” I ask, forcing him to keep moving into what looked like another bedroom.

  “Your humour,” he replies, his palms up as he glances behind him, giving the space a quick scan. I follow him in, my eyes sweeping the same space and finding it biker free. There’s nothing in here but a brown sofa bed, a side table with drawers, and musty, weathered floorboards.

  I shift further in and put my back to the wall. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. I’m pissed off. And I have a gun, you know.” I wave it a little, reminding him that I’m the one with the upper hand here.

  “Evie …” He shakes his head, and his dark eyes turn serious as he tucks the amusement away. “I put you in the hospital! What kind of asshole does that to the girl he’s supposed to love? I was no good for you, and Coby and Henry made damn sure I knew it too.”

  My brow pulls together. “What do you mean?”

  “They beat the shit out of me that night. Told me to fuck off and never come back.”

  “They did what?” My voice comes out winded and it feels like I can’t breathe.

  His brow lifts in a sardonic arch. “Oh, they didn’t tell you that part?”

  My brother left me thinking Renny didn’t give a single shit and I’ve carried that with me all this time? “No, they didn’t.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

  My nostrils flare. “Clearly.”

  “Don’t be mad. Not at them. We both know I deserved it.” He takes a step toward me. “I’m sorry, Evie. I’m so sorry.”

  I shake my head. “It’s too late for that.”

  “It’s never too late,” he says softly, sounding like the Renny I used to know. The one I thought I loved with every ounce of my naïve teenage heart. I struggle against the urge to cry and jerk my head at the two sets of drawers that sit unadorned on either side of the bed. “Where do you keep your other weapons? In those?”

  He ignores my question. “I loved you, Evie.”

  I didn’t know that either.

  Oh God.

  My voice comes out hoarse. “Renny.”

  There’s heat in his eyes now when he looks at me, and in another lifetime that look use to burn me like fire. “I did.”

  “Please don’t.”

  But he does, apparently hellbent on getting shit off his chest. “I always thought love was supposed to be something beautiful, but I turned it into something ugly and destructive. And the truth is, even though Coby told me to go, I was going anyway. I know it hurt you.” He rubs a fist against his chest. “But it hurt me too.”

  I want to sink to my knees and weep for the past. I barely gasp out the words. “You have no right to hurt.”

  But deep down I know he does. I had Coby and Henry to force me back on the right path. Renny had no one. He was dumped as a kid. Left by the outside bin of a local burger joint like he was part of the trash he stood beside. Just a boy, his body likely skinny with hunger, eyes dark and scared, and too large for his face. Even now, the thought almost breaks me.

  “Maybe I don’t have that right, but it hurt anyway.”

  I shake my head, looking at the man he is now. Darker. Harder. The tattoo of a viper twisting down his arm. “You can be sorry all you like, Renny Rossi, but you’re a Viper now, and you just kidnapped me and delivered me to the evil lair of your brethren. Maybe leaving that hospital without a backwards glance was the best thing you ever did in your whole entire life, but this,” I jerk the gun, my fingers tightening on the weapon in my hand and my voice rising, “is not doing right be me. This is … this is …” I shake my head, huffing. “This is insanity!”

  He takes another step toward me, getting a little too close. “You have no idea what’s going on here. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “This is you keeping me safe?” I snort. “Dude, have you lost your mind?” I shake off the incredulity and gain some semblance of control. “Renny, you’re a Viper,” I enunciate.

  He tips his chin but doesn’t answer me.

  “I’m in a house of Vipers,” I elaborate, as if that’s enough for him to understand that I am not safe.

  “It’s a safe house,” he tells me.

  My brows fly up. “A safe house?”

  His chin tips again.

  “Who does this safe house belong to?”

  “The Vipers.”

  “So let me get this straight. You’re keeping me safe, inside a safe house, that belongs to the Vipers?”

  His eyes narrow on mine.

  “Right.” I nod. “Sounds great. I feel perfectly safe. Now excuse me while I get the fuck out of here!”

  His gaze cuts to the door and he mutters a low curse.

  My eyes follow his and I curse too.

  “You ain’t goin’ anywhere, little Valentine bitch.”

  Kermit is blocking the exit, and therein lies my first mistake. Jared will be pissed at me for not restraining the biker, but this shit is not my life. I deal in rock ‘n’ roll with a side of mischief and mayhem, not vigilante justice with a side of badass violence. That’s my husband’s department.

  “She’s still got a gun,” Renny barks to the big man.

  I swing it in Kermit’s direction, showing him proof. I even tilt my head and squint, giving him a steely look that would make Clint Eastwood proud.

  “How have you not takin’ that thing off her yet?” Kermit puts his arms up. “Put that fuckin’ thing down, you crazy ass bitch!”

  My brows rise mockingly. “How about no?”

  With my right side now wide open, I’m expecting Renny to come at me. I have no plan for that. I’m just a girl, standing in front of two
big-ass bikers who kidnapped me, asking for a miracle.

  Except he doesn’t come at me. He seems to hesitate.

  “Move!” I bark at Kermit, jerking my head in Renny’s direction. “Stand over there and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “How about no?” he taunts in return, his hands still up.

  I lower my aim a fraction and fire off a shot. The outer side of his right thigh explodes. Blood and flesh spray outward as a shout of agony bursts from his mouth. The injured leg crumples beneath him and he stumbles back a step before going down.

  “Evie, what the fuck!” Renny comes at me now. “Give me the gun.”

  I swing it back toward him. His arms shoot up in a placating gesture while Kermit writhes on the floor, spit coming out of his mouth. “Give you the gun? So you can shoot me? Not on your life.”

  “I’m not going to shoot you,” he growls.

  “Give me the gun. I’ll fuckin’ shoot her,” Kermit gasps.

  “Move him out of the doorway,” I tell Renny, jerking my head at the muppet now blocking my exit.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Do it now, Lorenzo, or you get a bullet just like he did, only I’ll aim it where your heart used to be.”

  His eyes narrow. “Don’t call me that. I’m Renny to you.”

  “Are you crazy? Out of everything I just said, that’s what you take away from it?”

  “That’s the name you cried out every time you came on my cock, so yeah, that’s what I choose to focus on.”

  “Renny …” I start, and then stop, trying again. “Ren. That was a long time ago and now is not the fucking time!”

  “It wasn’t a long time ago to me.”

  What. The. Actual. Fuck.

  Kermit shifts and I point the gun back on him. I’m surprised he hasn’t tackled me to the ground already, even with the wounded leg. I thought he would take a bullet and keep on coming like a Terminator, but the man is giant baby.

  “Well it was a long time ago for me. I never loved you,” I lie, lifting my chin. “Hell, I barely even remember you.”

  I so totally loved him once. But it was a different love than what I have now with Jared. It was reckless and desperate. It wasn’t brave, and it wasn’t all-consuming. It wasn’t my entire world.