by Naomi West
“So that’s all you want? To be kingpin around here, or whatever the hell?”
“Well, now Iam kingpin — or whatever the hell. And yes, it’s rather nice.”
“Not yet, you’re not,” Pistol said.
Kong gave him awhat the fuck are you doing?Look.
“You’re right.” Leonard looked down at Kong disdainfully. “There are still a few more hindrances I need to dispose of.” He jostled Kong. “You, Pedro, have been particularly helpful. A dog I didn’t even need to train; who just came to me knowing how to roll over and beg.” He yanked Kong’s gag off. “Anything you want to say to me?” He traced the muzzle of the pistol in a little circle around Kong’s temple. “C’mon! It’s your last line. Make it a good one.”
Kong’s eyes flashed. “You won’t get away with this, Leonard. Karma is a bitch.”
“Ah, Pedro.” Smith pressed the gun even harder against his head. “That was weak. Let’s get this maudlin Scooby Doo episode over with, shall we?”
Pistol had to think fast. “Katrin doesn’t want you dead,” he blurted.
Smith snapped his head away from Kong and met Pistol’s gaze. “I beg your pardon?”
“After all you’ve done to her, she still cares about you. She says you’re the only family she has left.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet.” Smith was trying to maintain his sneer, but Pistol saw something flicker in his gaze. This was it. The way to get to him. Through Katrin.
But dammit, what did he say now? Hadn’t he watched enough of this hostage negotiation shit onLaw and Order to pull something out of his ass?
“I think you care about her. In some weird, twisted way. Or you would have killed her and made it look like an accident, instead of trying to keep her safely out of the way while you did your dirty work.”
“Well aren’t you perceptive,” Leonard fairly growled. “Where is my lovely daughter, by the way? I heard about your daring escape from my men. Even heard that she was the one up front on the bike.”
Pistol half grinned, but without any mirth. “Bet you loved that.”
Leonard grimaced. “I always told her to stay away from those things. They’re dangerous.”
“So true. But you might be interested to know that Katrin’s pregnant.”
Smith’s eyes widened slightly. “Excuse me?”
“Your wish came true. You’re gonna be a granddaddy. How exciting, right? Cigars, balloons…”
Smith glared. “You’re lying.” He sounded uncertain.
“Nope. Dead serious. So you might want to consider putting the gun down.”
“And why would I do that?”
Pistol took a deep breath. “Because. Put a bullet through my president’s head, and I will destroy you. Put a bullet through my head, and my fucking ghost will destroy you. Either way, you’re not going to last long.”
Smith laughed. “I do like your determination. You know, there really was something I saw in you the first time we met. I believed you truly could be a good match for my daughter. And you’re quite right, I did want to keep her safe from all this. She was getting curious about what I did and where I went. I didn’t want to have to send her the way of her mother.”
Pistol’s chest tightened. “What?”
“Her mother,” Smith said it casually. But it was a forced casualness. He was becoming agitated, his free hand clenching and unclenching. “Started snooping around. Asking questions — not of me; no. She asked around behind my back. Suspected I was lying to her.”
“Well, you were,” Pistol pointed out.
“Yes, but only to protect her,” Smith snapped. “A sorry excuse, perhaps, but it was the same sorry excuse she used on me when I discovered she’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer and hadn’t told me.” His gun hand shook. “She was waiting for the righttime.”
Pistol had a sick feeling that Smith was about to reveal something he wasn’t going to want to hear.
“Sounds to me like that was her business,” Pistol said coldly.
“Yes,” Smith mused. “And this is mine.”
“What happened to her?” Pistol was stalling for time, trying to figure out if he could draw the pistol in his waistband and get a shot fired while Smith was distracted doing all of his “this was my master plan all along” posturing. He knew he couldn’t risk it. Smith still had the gun to Kong’s head, and was about to pop off a shot any second, by the looks of it. But what other choice was there? If he didn’t allow Kong to be a possible sacrifice, they’d all die, unless Pistol could think of something quick.
Smith rambled on, “I didn’t want to hurt her. All I wanted was for her to stop asking questions. Stop digging in my affairs. We could have had a good life together, if she’d just left it alone. I would have taken care of her, bought her anything she wanted…”
The sick feeling in Pistol’s gut increased. Jesus fuckingshit. “Did you kill her?”
Smith offered a feral grin — wolflike, terrifying. “She had to be hospitalized, suddenly.” His gun hand was shaking out of control now. “She was doing better, and then, all at once…” He took a breath, his eyes red rimmed. “I couldn’t deal with that, not again. It was an impossible situation. I couldn’t stand being jerked back and forth between hope and despair. Hope, every time it looked like she’d beat the cancer, and despair each time she had to return to the hospital. But if she were to recover, she’d find out what I was up to. I decided the easiest thing to do would be to simply … let her go.”
Oh hell no. Every time Pistol thought this bastard couldn’t get crazier, he came out with another gem that made Pistol want to puke. Kong seemed to have slipped into a sort of trance, as though he didn’t particularly care what happened from here. Time was almost up.
“So you did?” Pistol tried to keep the contempt from his voice. Smith was losing control over himself, which could either work in Pistol’s favor, or could ruin everything. “You killed her?”
“I had her put in a coma.” Smith’s voice was flat. “And from there, she slipped away. No pain.”
Pistol opened his mouth to tell Smith just what a piece of shit he was, when something caught his eye.
Jesus Christ on the fucking cross.
Katrin stood at the edge of the yard. She wore a light blue sundress that ruffled in the breeze. Her dark hair was tangled. Her cheek still bore a scrape from her fall, and her mouth was set in a grim, determined line. He could see from the absolute fury in her eyes that she’d heard her father’s confession. Pistol’s gaze traveled down, to the large, sharp rock she held at her side.
Pistol wanted to yell at her to run, to get the hell out of here. But he couldn’t do that. He could only watch as she crept closer, and then he had to pull his gaze away before Smith noticed he was distracted.
But Smith wasn’t looking at Pistol. He was focused on Kong, dragging the barrel of the gun from the old man’s temple down to his throat.
“I didn’t want to, you understand,” Smith said. “But circumstances left me no choice. Just as I had no choice but to eliminate your brothers. You would have stood in my way. Nobody has the sense to just get out of my way when they should.” He positioned the muzzle under Kong’s chin. Kong closed his eyes.
Pistol saw Katrin approaching. She moved silently, until she was almost directly behind her father. A couple of the other Souls also seemed to be having a hard time not looking or making a sound.
“You don’t have to do this,” Pistol said gruffly. “You’ve won. You outnumber us. You could let us go. We’d leave town; you have my word.”
“No.” Smith smiled slightly, still looking at Kong. He turned to Pistol. “No. You see, you’re the sort of man who wants reparations when he’s been wronged. I knew this about you, Pistol. It’s why I waited for you to come find me here. I knew you’d come. To avenge the deaths of your men.” He was shaking badly, but he looked oddly euphoric, as though he’d reached a moment he’d been waiting for. “I also knew you’d do anything to keep the survivor
s alive.”
Behind him, Katrin raised the rock.
Pistol’s heart pounded wildly.God, Katrin, please let it work. Please.
Smith noticed that Pistol’s gaze had flicked away. He started to turn, but it was too late. Katrin brought the rock smashing hard into the back of her father’s head.
Smith’s eyes widened for a moment. Then he collapsed forward onto his knees. Pistol could see the dark patch in his silvering hair — blood and flecks of skull. Katrin smashed the rock down again, this time into Power’s temple. The gun fell from the man’s hand, and Pistol whipped out his own revolver and fired two bullets into Leonard Smith’s mangled head.
The man’s body jerked, then went still. Rhino whooped through his gag.
Pistol looked at Katrin, breathing hard. She stared back at him, looking surprisingly calm. He flicked the safety on the revolver and threw his arms around her. The bloody rock fell from her hand, and she wound her arms around him too.
“What are you doing here,” he whispered against her neck. “I wanted you to stay safe.”
“I wasn’t going to let you do this alone,” she murmured. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”
Pistol glanced down at Smith’s body. Felt Katrin start to follow his gaze. He shielded her. “Don’t look.”
“I want to,” she replied firmly, stepping back and looking down. Her voice started to shake. “I didn’t know he’d killed Mom. I didn’t know that.”
“Shh.” Pistol put an arm around her again. “It’s over now. He’s a fucking bastard, but you don’t have to deal with him anymore.”
She nodded, pulling herself together with visible effort. “Let’s go free the others.”
Pistol reached down and grabbed a utility knife off of Smith’s corpse. Then he and Katrin walked over to where the Blackened Souls were tied. He freed Kong first. The old man didn’t say much, just rubbed his wrists and the corners of his mouth where the gag had been. Then Pistol freed the others.
“Jesus fuck,” Ford said, standing. His swollen eye made him look vaguely lizard like. He slapped Pistol’s back. “I thought we were goners for sure. You sure do like to keep us in suspense, huh?”
“I knew he’d come through,” Viking said through lips cracked and bleeding.
“Wasn’t him,” Rhino pointed out. He motioned to Katrin. “If it weren’t for this one, we’d all have a face full of bullets.
Pistol glanced at Katrin. “Gentlemen. My wife.”
Katrin smiled shyly and nodded at the men. “Nice to finally meet you all, formally. I know there … there wasn’t much time for introductions at the wedding.”
Pistol’s brothers all appeared speechless as they stared at Katrin. Ford was actually gaping like a fish working hard to keep his gaze above the chest.
“It’s, uh … yeah. It’s really nice to meet you,” Viking said. “Thanks for, you know…”
“Saving your asses?” she supplied.
“Yeah,” Rhino mumbled, wiping some blood from his hand onto his jeans. “That.”
She smiled up at Pistol. “Well, I know how much trouble this man gets into. I had to check up on him.”
Kong stood and approached her slowly. Pistol felt Katrin sink back a little — he didn’t blame her; the man looked like the five hundred pound ape he was named for — but then she stepped forward. Kong put out his hand, and Katrin shook it.
“You’re part of our family now,” Kong told her. “A Blackened Soul.”
Katrin laughed. “A dubious honor, but thank you.”
Pistol nudged her. “Well, youcan drive a motorcycle now.”
She raised a brow at him. “I believe it’s called ‘riding.’”
He grinned. “Smartass.”
She leaned against him. “It’s true. I’ll have to start thinking about getting a bike of my own. Once the baby comes, of course.”
The other Souls exchanged glances.
“Uh, Pistol?” Ford said. “Were you serious about the … the baby thing?”
“It’s true.” Pistol couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “I’m gonna be a father.”
“God help us all,” Kong said, looking up at the sky.
“What?” Pistol mock-protested.
“Come on.” Kong shook his head. “Let’s get out of this wreck and go back to the clubhouse.”
“Which is also a wreck,” Ford pointed out.
Kong shrugged. “Eh. It’s home.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Later, after they’d ordered and scarfed down six meat-lovers’ pizzas, they sat in the shambles of the clubhouse’s meeting room, the guys talking excitedly. As though what had just happened was an adventure; something that had taken place on a movie screen. Katrin had joined in at first, but now she felt distanced from them. On the outside looking in. Did they even understand the gravity of what had happened? Or was it all a game to them?
Katrin had killed her father.Killed him. Okay, maybe Pistol had officially ended his life, but Katrin had done the bulk of it. And not with a gun. With her hands.
She tried to concentrate on the conversation, which had turned to Smith and what the club would do to protect themselves from any attempts at revenge.
“He eliminated a lot of his own minions toward the end there,” Ford explained. “He really wanted to be the man in charge. And he was paranoid other people would take that from him. We heard him inside, taking out a whole bunch of them. Lining them up, and just…”
“Seriously,” Rhino said. “I don’t know where exactly he did it, but there’s at least one room in that house that’s full of corpses.”
“I don’t think he ever had many loyal followers,” Kong agreed. “Just people who were either greedy or scared.” Guilt flickered in his gaze, and Katrin wondered how he was justifying his own role in this to himself. “Still, we’ll have to be cautious in the days to come. There may be another wave.”
Katrin tuned the conversation out again. Part of her couldn’t believe that these men intended to carry on as usual, after all that had happened. Part of her wanted to get out of Rialto as fast as possible. Go somewhere and start fresh.
But look how that turned out last time.
She excused herself and went to the kitchen. She chugged a glass of water, but still felt a little sick. The clubhouse was a mess — broken glass everywhere, overturned furniture, ripped up floorboards.
It’s home, Kong had said.
Katrin wandered out to the clubhouse’s front porch and stood facing the street. An ugly, run-down street, in the kind of neighborhood her father had warned her was a “bad neighborhood” when she was little.
Didn’t greed often come from fear? Fear of the “bad neighborhoods,” a desire to have as many safe guards in possible so that no one would ever pity or look down on you. So that you could sleep safe each night in your gated community. A fear of bad places that was so pervasive it eclipsed your fear of becoming a badperson.
She placed her hand on the railing.
Strange, to know that her father was finally dead. That she’d had a hand in that. She couldn’t stop reliving the moment she’d brought the rock down on his head. Part of her was detached, watching the memory from a distance, like it was playing on a movie screen. And part of her was right there, feeling the weight of the stone in her hand, seeing her father crumple. She’d stood there without flinching as her father twitched on the ground. As Pistol finished him off with two bullets, spraying her with blood in the process. Could she ever be the same after that?
What would she tell her child, if the kid wanted to know who his grandpa was?
You’ll know, said a voice.When the time is right, you’ll know what to say. How to best tell this story.
Katrin crossed her arms under her breasts.I’m scared, Mom. Scared I’ll never really trust anyone again.
You already trust Jax, don’t you? The voice was soft and sweet.
Yes. But I don’t always know if I should. You trusted dad, and he—
Katrin. You can’t live your whole live closed off from love. Cut off from all the possibilities love has to offer. I don’t regret falling in love with your father. I pity what he became. But I don’t regret.
How can you not?Katrin was shivering though it wasn’t cold.If it weren’t for him, you might still be alive.
The world is full of might-have-beens. I wish people spent more time on the yet-to-bes.
“God,” Katrin whispered, wiping her eyes with one hand. “What is that, some inspirational calendar quote?” But she felt the words, the weight of their meaning, deep within her.
