by Naomi West
“Hmm-mm,” the men mumble, all of them.
“Well said,” Alfred adds, voice gruff, his age seeming to add importance to the words.
They all turn to me, waiting for my response. A few hours ago I agreed with them—I wouldn’t have put Yazmin in danger, but telling the Scorpions about her had been my plan—but now, I get angry when they bring up the idea. I’ve shared with Yazmin now. I’ve opened up to Yazmin now. And Yazmin is carrying my child now. A man who allows his child to be bargained with is no man at all.
“No,” I say, keeping my voice level, unwavering. I have to stand strong on this. “We’re not doing that.”
They all turn to me like I’m crazy. I can see it in their eyes, looks that they’ll usually reserve for the more naïve pledges flitting across their faces. Part of me wants to roar at them, “Don’t look at me like that!” But that’d made me seem even crazier. I remember Sonny putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me that if a man could stay strong, no matter what, the men would respect him. Well, I’m staying strong when it comes to this. Yazmin is my woman now. She has my child in her belly. Already I’m discovering that that changes a man.
“We’ll go with Knuckles’ plan,” I say. “We’ll plan a raid on those pieces of shit. Justin, Alfred, Knuckles, I want the three of you to work out a plan. I want every damn thing accounted for, down to what color boots each man’ll be wearing on the night. This is going to be a military operation. Slick, clean.”
And when those Scorpion fucks are dead, I think but don’t say, we’ll have no reason to use Yazmin. She’ll be safe.
I stare down the men for a long time, waiting for them to nod. Kieran nods first, the new officer eager to not annoy the boss. Next, it’s Red-Eyes, because Red-Eyes can always be relied on to agree when there’s battle involved. Knuckles nods next, eyes turning inward as he thinks of the raid. Alfred says, “It’s time we had some fire in this place.”
“But are we sure?” Justin asks. “Is hitting them really the best idea?”
The men try and shout him down, but I wave them quiet. “Let him talk.”
Justin shifts awkwardly when all the men face him, but he doesn’t look away. “From a business perspective, what possible benefit is there in attacking their clubhouse, in slaughtering them all?” He’s speaking in an off, tight-lipped way, as though angry or frustrated for some reason.
“If they’re dead,” I explain slowly, “they can’t mess with our business anymore. That’s the business benefit, Justin.” I feel foolish having to explain something so simple. “Unless you’re planning on dating Snake, and this ruins your plans of romance, eh?” I try at a joke, hoping for Justin to laugh and diffuse the tension. A VP shouldn’t make himself look this stupid.
He laughs, after a pause. Even if the laugh sounds forced, it’s better than staring at me offering up bad ideas. “Of course,” he says, smiling vaguely. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. Sorry, lads, but you know me. I just had to be sure before we started in on the killing.”
“We’ll tear these bastards to pieces!” Knuckles roars. “We’ll cut them from ear to ear—”
The door slams open and a man with red streaks across his cheek stumbles in, panting heavily. “Our club in town . . . Scorpions . . .”
“Fuck.” I growl, throwing on my leather, checking my gun holster.
“Fuck,” the men agree, doing the same.
“Looks like the killing will start sooner than you thought,” Alfred says, watching us go.
Chapter Fifteen
Yazmin
I dream that I’m sitting with my ear pressed against the wall, listening to my mother on the telephone. I remember the feeling of the wall against my skin, cool in winter, getting colder the more I stayed that way. I remember thinking I should just go to bed, or read a book, or something, and I remember remaining where I was just in case . . . just in case it wasn’t one of her nurse colleagues she was talking with, or one of her boyfriends, just in case it was my father and they were talking about me.
In the dream she says, “We’ll surprise her. I’ll pretend I’m taking her to get new shoes—hers have holes in them, so it’s a believable lie—and then you’ll show up pretending to be the man who’s measuring her foot, and then, wham, we drop it on her right there. Then we’ll go to the fair and have the best time ever. It’ll be amazing.”
I wake up with a pit in my stomach, furious with Dad. Pacing around the room, I mutter, “You stole that from me, you deranged piece of shit. You stole that from me, you psychopathic murdering asshole!” I almost punch the wall, but something stops me. After a moment, I identify it as fear of hurting the baby. I used to dream of having a family and now, perhaps, I have a shot at one, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive Dad for what he did.
Dad isn’t just guilty of robbing me of my mother, I reflect as I pour myself a glass of water. He’s guilty of robbing me of my father, too. Before I met Snake, I could pretend my dad was some great man, a hero I just hadn’t met yet. Now, I can’t pretend. Now I have to face the truth. Mom’s dead, and Dad’s the devil.
I can’t bear the thought of bringing a child into a world which still has Dad in it. Dad, who killed Mom, who would kill my baby if he got the chance. I need him gone. I think of the naïve girl who thought he was going to be a father to her, and I hate her, I wish she was dead, I wish she had never been born. That woman can’t be a mother. A mother has to be fierce. A mother has to be a tigress. A mother has to have some fight in her. I grit my teeth, head aching, thinking of the bed of blood, thinking of Spike’s family, thinking how life isn’t fair.
“He has to die,” I whisper, hate filling my chest. “There’s no other option.”
I’m about to return to bed when the door busts open, Spike stumbling in with blood dripping down his face. His shirt is torn and flecked with red.
He stumbles to the table and drops into the seat, spitting blood onto the floor. “Fucking bastards,” he hisses. “Fucking Scorpion bastards.”
“What happened?” I go to the sink, opening the cupboard beneath it and looking for a first aid kit. I find one at the back behind some old cleaning supplies. Dusting it off, I join Spike at the table.
“They hit one of our clubs,” Spike says. “Hit it hard, with everything they had. They took down three of ours and gave me this.” He has a thin cut under his right eye. “You should see the other fella, though.”
“I can imagine,” I murmur. Growing up with a nurse as a mother, I learned a fair amount about patching up superficial cuts. Spike’s cut isn’t deep, just nasty-looking. I open the first aid kit and start cleaning it, dabbing it with rubbing alcohol. He winces. “Don’t be a baby,” I tell him.
“Snake,” Spike growls as I wipe away the blood. “Goddamn Snake. If ever there was a name suited to a man, there it is. Snake, that’s what he is. A slithering snake with slithering snake tactics. A coward.”
“He needs to be killed,” I say, voice ice-cold. I see surprise on Spike’s face, surprise that sweet little Yazmin could speak with this kind of fire, perhaps. But maybe I’m done being sweet little Yazmin. Sweet stupid little Yazmin who skips to her mother’s killer hoping for a daddy. “He needs to die, Spike. It’s that simple.”
I bandage the cut. Spike tears off his ragged shirt and sits there shirtless, watching me. “You seem different,” he says. “Angrier.”
“I woke up wanting to kill the man who’s half of me,” I say. “So maybe I’m a little angry, yeah. I keep thinking about the life inside of me, Spike, wondering what it’d be like to bring him or her into a world where Dad’s still at large. At any moment he could snatch our baby away. So I think it’s time I went back to him.”
“Wait, what?” Spike’s on his feet, backing me up against the sink. “The fuck are you talking about now?”
“You heard me,” I say, staring up at me defiantly. “I’m sick and tired of letting other people decide my fate for me. I’ve been coasting for way too long. You wanted to use me
as a bargaining chip but that was stupid. It’d never work. But if I go back voluntarily, pretend that I’ll marry some old creep, he’ll let his guard down and I’ll be able to gather some intel. I’ll wait for something big and then sneak out again, come to you. We can take him down together. And then . . .” I pause, wondering if I should go on. But I’m in too deep now. “And then it’ll be time for me and the baby to go out into the world, alone, to go and find our own path. I need to figure out her future. I’ve never been on my own. I’ve never had to stand on my own two feet. I’ve—”
“No,” he says. “Absolutely not.”
“You wanted to use me earlier!” I blurt, dancing away from him.
“That was different,” Spike says. He’s not moving his lips as much when he speaks, on account of the bandage under his eye. “That was before I knew you were pregnant, one, and two, that didn’t involve giving you to the man. That was about using you as bargaining power. What you’re suggesting . . . too many things could go wrong. The answer is no.”
“I don’t recall asking for your permission!” I snap. “Stop telling me what to do! Oh, I forgot, I’m the big bad Spike’s prisoner, aren’t I? I’m just here to smile and look pretty and bounce up and down on your cock. Is that it? I bet you wish I would just shut up, don’t you? I bet you have that exact thought ten times a day. ‘I wish she would just shut up.’ I’m tired of just shutting up. I’m tired of having no say in how my life goes. I want Dad dead, do you understand me? Dead. And going back to him to get some intel is the best way to do that. Think about it. He has no idea where I’ve been. I’ll tell him I was in LA or something. I’ll tell him I’m back because it didn’t work out down there. I’ll be the daughter returning for her father’s help. He’ll love that. I’ll agree to whatever bullshit he says. And then, when I get something we can use to end him, I’ll pass it onto you.”
“No,” Spike says, voice firm. He approaches me slowly. “That’s not happening.”
“You can’t keep telling me what to do!” I snap, throwing my hands up. I move to the other side of the room but he follows. Soon he has me boxed in the corner, looking wild and sexy without a shirt on, blood flecking his skin here and there. The blood shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. This is the father of my child, this is a man who can protect us, this is a dangerous man—my mind fills with sentences like these until I’m almost deafened by them. I try to ignore them. “You don’t own me, Spike. I think you’ve forgotten that.”
Spike’s lower lip trembles. I can tell he’s getting angry. I can tell he’s trying to hold it back.
“What’s wrong?” I stare up at him, unable to restrain my own anger. “You don’t like hearing the truth. Fine, I’ll tell you again. You. Don’t. Own. Me.”
“You expect me to let the mother of my child go to someone like Snake. You really expect me to do that.” His voice is full of disbelief. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? Do you really dream I’d let that happen, Yazmin? I lost a family once. I’m not losing one again.”
“Neither am I!” I shout, trying to push past him. He blocks me with one arm easily. “If we let Dad live, he’ll find our baby and hurt it. He took my family once. He’ll do it again. Your plan was stupid. It never would’ve worked. My plan will work.”
“After my family died, the president before me, a man called Sonny, took me in and trained me for the life. He taught me how to fight and shoot, but he also taught me how to think and lead. He taught me what it means for a man to have an objective and see it through to the end. He taught me what it means for a man to get shit done. And now you’re gonna stand there and pretend that you can take out the Scorpions but I’m a helpless child.”
I back away, going toward the bed. The room seems too small now, boxing me in. I look around it with fresh eyes, at the pile of paperbacks on the bedside table and the meager kitchen utensils arranged on a shelf above the small oven, the under-counter fridge and the small circular table. It looks like a prison. I find it difficult to believe I’ve been here for two months without once kicking up a fuss. Maybe it’s because before I was here willingly. I was here because I wanted to be. Now I want to leave and get my revenge.
“I’ve given you every chance to take my revenge for me,” I say. “Every time I’ve given you a piece of intel, I’ve given you a chance. I’ve sat in this room waiting for news of my father’s death, and when it didn’t come I thought, ‘Okay, maybe next time.’ But now, Spike, I have a baby to think about. It may be a tiny one-month-old little thing inside of me, but I still have to think about what’s best for it. Dad needs to die.”
“I just said I’ll handle it, didn’t it?” Spike approaches me. He’s so big, so intimidating. I remember how he looked that day in the forest, scary and handsome at the same time. “Didn’t I just fucking say that?” There’s some bite in his voice. I’m guessing he’s ashamed, as any man in his position would be. “We’re sorting out a plan.”
“I have a plan.”
He groans, shaking his head. “Goddamn, Yazmin. Why are you so eager to get yourself killed?”
“Why are you so eager to let my dad live?” I snap, stepping right up to him and staring into his eyes. “After everything he has done, you want to keep him alive. Why? What the hell’s the matter with you? What sort of President are you? What sort of man are you?” I stand on my tiptoes, my face right next to his, shouting at him. “Are you going to protect your girl and your kid, or not?”
“Step back, Yazmin,” Spike says quietly.
“No!” I fall forward, pushing up against him with my body. “You’re angry? Good. Get angry! I’m sick and tired of the Scorpions walking all over us! I’m sick and tired of my dad walking all over us, and all I can do is wait in here like some damsel in a fairytale, wondering when the big strong warrior men will return with news of a win. But it’s never news of a win, is it? You’ve failed, Spike. Every time, you’ve failed.”
“I said step back.”
“Or what?”
His hands dart up to my armpits. He lifts me up as easy as he’d lift up a bag of sugar and carries me to the bed. I kick out with my legs, hitting him in the shin, and smack his chest with his fists. He takes the blows as though they don’t exist, letting them bounce off him, and then drops me onto the bed. I land on the mattress and try to bounce back up, but he sits on my legs, pinning me, being careful not to cause me any pain. I try and pull my legs out, but he’s heavier than me, stronger.
“Get off of me!” I hiss. “This is ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous,” he says. “I agree. But so is getting in my face and hitting me. So we’re gonna sit here until you calm down.”
I lash out with my hand. He catches it at the wrist, grabs my other hand, and pins them both above my head. I wriggle from side to side, struggling to get free, He holds me firmly in place, smiling down at me. “Don’t smile at me!” I’m trying to keep a hold on my anger, trying to fuel it, but dammit, it’s been too long since we’ve had sex, and sometimes anger can be turned into passion all too easily.
As I writhe beneath him, I can’t help but be aware of the muscular bulk of his body, of how utterly under his control I am. I don’t know what it says about me that the thing which frustrates me most can also make me horny. I try and lean up to headbutt him, but the angle of my arms stops me. In the end I just have to lie there, staring up at him, getting angrier and hornier by the second.
“You’re impossible,” I say. “You’re an impossible, ugly, evil, mean, disgusting, brutish, pathetic man.”
“Wow.” His smile grows wider. I feel my lips twitch in response. I try and stop them, but the smile keeps coming. “You really are a master of words, Yazmin.”
“Get off!”
He’s smiling from ear to ear now and so am I. I don’t mean to, but looking into his smiling face is just too much. I try to kill the smile, try to make it so I’m glaring at him instead, but our bodies are taking over.
“Why are you looking at me like t
hat?” he says, his green eyes playful, his hair falling across his forehead in a way that makes him look unspeakably sexy.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“You’re looking at me like you looked at me the first time we met.” He moves so that he’s lying atop me, propping himself up with his arms. I could knee him in the balls now and jump to my feet, but that’s not what I do. Instead, I split my legs so that his crotch is pressed against mine.
“Oh yeah? And how’s that?” I slide down the bed, pushing my pussy into his cock. He’s hard. I can feel it through his pants. I can feel my pussy getting wet, too. A week is a long time to go if you’ve been doing it every day before then.
“You know how.” He brings his face close to mine, his beard tickling my cheek. “Don’t play games with me, Yazmin.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it—”
When our lips touch, I find it difficult to remember why we were angry in the first place. It’s there, far back in my mind, but it’s so far back that it no longer seems worth thinking about, not now anyway. Our mouths open and our tongues meet, lashing together passionately. The feeling of his beard tickling me drives me crazy, makes me think about how manly he is, about how wild. The feeling of his lips against mine makes me feel close to him, much closer because we’ve spent a week largely apart. My body is hungry for him, starving, my nipples hard for wanting him to touch them, my clit tingling, my pussy soaked begging for his cock. As we kiss, I grind up and down against his jeans.
