by Genovese, CM
“What? I will tell him.” He seemed happy to hear he’d live. After all, everybody knows, you don’t kill the messenger.
“Tell him it’s his move,” I said.
I turned to look down at the man’s stretched out cock, and without another second’s hesitation, I leaned my entire body into that blade and rolled it over him. He split apart so easily it was like I was cutting through ground beef. The skin stretched at the final piece, his now bloody dick trying desperately to keep itself intact, and BP nearly lost his footing when the head came off in his hand.
The Russian shrieked and thrashed so hard my brothers could barely hold him. Russ passed out. The blond on the bar screamed too. Blood was everywhere, squirting across the table and all down the man’s dress slacks.
He couldn’t hear me over the sound of his own screams, but everyone else did when I said, “Put him on his knees.”
Pipe, Slitz, and Nugget held him down. The man looked up at me with tears running down his face and mixing with slobber and the blood from his torn lip where he must have bitten through it. He cried and continued to scream.
“I am not cruel enough to let you go through life like this,” I said.
He screamed in my face, spit flying, begging me in his mother tongue. Or, so I assumed. None of the words made sense to me, and he was so hysterical he could have actually been speaking English and I wouldn’t have understood.
“The women you hurt,” I continued. “Some are dead now. I’m sure many are still being raped and tortured. You did that to them. You are not innocent. You are a cruel, heartless bastard. And you deserve to die for what you’ve done to them. All of you do.”
He continued to wail.
“But I’ll start with you,” I added final words before I wrapped my hand around the ulu knife handle so tightly my knuckles went white. I brought my arm back behind my ear, gritted my teeth, summoned all the rage I had inside, and slammed my fist downward, shoving the blade straight through his lips and down his fucking throat.
My brothers dropped him onto the tarp where I let him thrash around like a fish tossed into a bucket. He gurgled as he drowned on his own blood, and he deserved every fucking second of it.
Slitz kicked his foot. “Calm down, bruh. Just go with it.”
“That was some sick shit,” Pipe said as he slapped me on the shoulder. “You get it out of your system?”
“Not yet,” I said.
14
Cassie
I was 100% in love with this man. I didn’t quite understand how it happened so fast, and I had no idea where it would lead, but I knew he loved me already. And he drove me wild. To top it off, he’d agreed to talk to Arnie and Nia. I couldn’t wait to tell them.
Feral passed me in the hallway at work that day as I was headed out. He walked right by and then I heard his heel turn in the old burgundy carpet and his foot click into place before his voice called out, “Where you going with such a pep in your step?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “Lunch break. I’m thinking of hitting up Taco Bell.”
“Want some company?”
I wasn’t going to Taco Bell. If I were, I would have enjoyed the company, but now that I’d told him that, I couldn’t take him with me out to the camp. The sight of him seemed to put Nia on edge. She’d relaxed into our conversation, even if only a little, the last time we spoke. Taking him along would set me back, and with the great news I had today, I couldn’t allow that to happen. If all went according to my hopes, not necessarily my plans, I would have the two of them out of that camp before the weekend.
If I pressed Rain hard enough, he’d come up with a way to help me.
“I would love company,” I lied, “but I’m not only going to Taco Bell.”
I quickly pulled up my brain’s internal internet search engine and mentally typed: Quick. Help me find a way to ditch my coworker. My mind was on point because it actually came up with something that at least kind of made sense.
“I have an appointment with my gyno,” I said. “You know, personal issues of the female kind. I didn’t really want to shout that out.”
Even though I was, pretty much, shouting that out.
“Oh, wow. Yeah,” he replied. “I get it. Raincheck then? I love tacos.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond before turning and walking away.
Tacos.
So, I drove out of the Taco Bell drive-thru with a bag full of tacos, burritos, and cinnamon twists. I couldn’t resist once I had the damn food on my mind. I figured it would be a good way to warm up the young couple. It had probably been a long time since they’d had someone bring them a meal.
As I drove toward the camp, my phone rang, and I saw my own grin in the rearview mirror as I answered it, knowing it was Rain.
“Hello handsome,” I said.
“Ba… where… where you at?” he asked, his voice crackling with bad reception.
Downtown Anchorage had great cell service, but out in the wild, it diminished greatly.
“I can’t hear you so great,” I said. “I’m on my way out to see Nia and Arnie, to tell them you might be able to help.”
“What?”
I repeated myself.
“I can… ly… hear,” his voice broke up again.
I repeated myself once more.
“No, don’t go there,” he said, his voice coming out clearly this time.
Aww he wants you to come back and climb into bed with him again.
“I have to, baby,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll come see you right after. I’m gonna stop by the store and pick up some toys for Slushy too. Can’t wait to see you.”
“No…” his voice wouldn’t come through this time.
My phone beeped. The call was shut off. He really was amazing. He was probably going to offer to come with me and talk to the kids himself, but I wanted to get out there today before it got any darker, and make sure they knew I was on their side and doing what I could to help.
It wasn’t until I drove onto the road leading to the camp that my last visit came back to me. I hadn’t forgotten, but since being with Rain, I guess I felt protected.
Do you mean protected from everyone else except him?
That wasn’t fair. My mind was forcing rules in place created by my past self. Put there by my mother and friends. What a man should be. How about what a man becomes after dealing with serious trauma? Didn’t Rain deserve at least one free pass? In his defense, I’d snuck up on him in the darkness when he thought he saw someone trying to break into the house.
So, you’re not going to ever approach him from behind? You’re not going to grab hold of him lovingly? You’re going to walk on eggshells and fear surprising him?
Surprising him. The thought made me laugh. I definitely wouldn’t be setting up any surprise parties. God forbid he come into the clubhouse, the lights are off, and we all jump out and yell, “Surprise!” He might open fire on all of us.
That’s not even funny, Cassie. Where do you get this morbid sense of humor?
It didn’t matter. I loved the son of a bitch.
Love? Oh, boy. You went straight to love so soon?
It hadn’t occurred to me. Not saying it hadn’t even been an option. In the past, with other men, saying those words seemed forced, or at least I’d needed to convince myself it was the right time to think such a thing. With Rain, wow, they slipped out that easily. Could I be in love with him already? Was that even possible? What was it about him that made me want to be his? What made me want to take care of him?
Maybe that was it. I wanted to hold him and be there for him in ways nobody else could. His brothers were his coat of armor, but I wanted to be his backbone. The one he came home to and told his real and true feelings to. He might be mean and have a nasty attitude sometimes, but I could handle that. All I needed to do was find the buttons that needed pushing in order to bring him back to me. Back to us. Besides, I told him about my past and he didn’t even flinch. He was angry, of course, th
at I’d been hurt, but he didn’t think any less of me because of it. So, how could I treat him any different based on his past?
He probably wasn’t even as violent as I gave him credit for. Maybe this was one of those MCs that cruised the streets together, played some drinking games, and did community service projects. Not all MCs were hardened criminals. Not all were, what were they called? One percenters.
No, Rain definitely flies that 1% patch proudly on his kutte.
No matter how safe he made me feel when we were together, approaching the camp brought the anxiety back from the other day when Arnie verbally terrorized me. He wanted me to understand how dangerous these visits were. It wasn’t that he cared about me. He wanted to scare me away so I wouldn’t pry so much into their lives. I only wanted to help, but he sent me scurrying away with thoughts of Russians chasing me all over the city.
When I parked in the usual spot, I sensed something was wrong. The place was always quiet, but this time was different. It seemed like the world was frozen around me. The usual snow clung to the tree branches and ice puddles dotted the snow-covered dirt road. The path was still cluttered with random pieces of plastic, cardboard packaging, and aluminum cans of all colors. What was it that bothered me?
Get back in your car. You don’t owe these kids anything. They have families somewhere. If they really want to reach out, they can. They haven’t. That means they’re okay with the life they’re living.
My mental voice told me these kids didn’t need my help, but I knew the truth. All my training told me the quietest ones were the ones screaming on the inside. If I had to guess, Arnie stuck around because he felt he had no place to go. He’d probably been kicked out of his house and his father yelled something like, “You get out of here you worthless piece of shit. You’ll come crying for me to help you in a day or two.” That, of course, would cause Arnie to never ask for help.
Nia was a sweetheart deep down, and she would go home if she absolutely had to. Only she wasn’t accepting help because of Arnie. They’d fallen in love out here trying to stay warm and survive the elements together. They only had each other to depend on, and I believed she stayed at the camp only because she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Arnie alone, and she knew he wouldn’t sink low enough to ask for help. His pride and her love would kill them both if I didn’t assist them.
Sure, Nia’s other reason for staying was what she’d done to her stepbrother, but she was only scared. It had to be a self-defense case. She couldn’t live her life on the run because she had fought back against a predator. She’d killed him to save herself and all the other women he’d hurt. I wondered if Arnie used that as a tool to keep her close to him. The amount of anger in that boy was palpable. I could totally see him reminding her constantly, “We have to stay out here, Nia, because if we go back to society, they’ll arrest you for what you did.”
These thoughts only convinced me I needed to step in before it was too late. Rain would help me. My desire to aid these kids shoved aside the trepidation, and I found myself marching over crunching snow on my way to see them. The first tent I passed was empty. The next was the same. The following two had people in them but they looked to be injured. One older woman held an old man in her arms. He was bleeding at his midsection.
Blood splatters covered the ground in front of me, dousing the white snow in a crimson spray.
I stopped, turned in all directions, and saw the camp was almost completely evacuated. Blood was everywhere. People had abandoned their tents, left their belongings, or they lay dead with them.
A man was sprawled out on the ground a few feet away, in a giant stain of red that had begun melting through the snow around him. His blood was still warm. This hadn’t happened long ago. This was recent.
“Cassie?” a soft voice squeaked out my name.
Up ahead, in front of their tent, Nia sat with Arnie cradled in her arms. I rushed over to her, dropped my sack of food onto the ground, and crouched down to be at her level. Arnie had been beaten to a pulp. His right eye was completely red, filled with blood inside, and his orbital bone was smashed. His other eye was fine, but his nose was shattered. His lips were busted, swollen gummy things that trembled under his stuttered breath. He’d lost several teeth.
A blanket covered him, and I was afraid to pull it back, because it was soaked through with blood.
“Nia, what happened?” I asked.
“They… they came for me,” she replied, her voice shaking on its way out.
“The Russians?”
She nodded. Snot dripped from her nose, tears ran down her cheeks, and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I grabbed them both over Arnie’s body and tried to calm them.
“Ar… Arnie told me to run,” she said. “He… he said, ‘Run Nia.’ And I did.”
“Thuh, thuh… kill… ever… body,” Arnie managed to get out.
“And took some women,” Nia added. “Killed the ones who wouldn’t go with them. Or the ones too old and not pretty enough.”
It all seemed to hit me at once. The weight of what was going on hadn’t fallen on me when I first walked into the camp. It was like I’d been staring at the world through a TV screen. I’d been trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Now, all the blood… all the bodies…. it all came at me full blast.
Panic kicked in. I glanced at each tent around us and stared at all that blood. The entire camp had been destroyed. Arnie was bleeding out in front of me. Nia was fucking shaking. I needed to get a hold of Feral. Or anyone at the office. I needed to call the police. Or… or… Rain would know what to do. He and his brothers could come out here and help me. He was the only person I had. I would call the cops, and I would call Feral, but Rain… Rain would be the one to know what to do. I would call him first. He would come out and help me.
My heart raced and I couldn’t breathe. I was close to having another panic attack. This was bad. It was so bad. I closed my eyes for a second and focused on my breathing.
Relax, Cassie. Stay in the moment. Don’t go there. Don’t go to that dark place. You’ve got this. These kids need you. Pull out your phone and call him.
“We need to get you both out of here,” I said as I slid my phone out of my pocket and dialed Rain’s number.
On the road out here, there hadn’t been great reception, but it was worth a try.
“Babe, where the fuck you at?” he asked.
“Rain, listen, I’m at the camp… at… at um… tent city. Chester Creek Trail. With Nia and Arnie. It’s bad. They said some Russian guys came and… God, you should see this place. They killed everybody. Took some girls. Arnie’s beaten pretty badly.”
“You should hang up that call,” came a Russian accent at my back.
I froze with the phone in my hand, feeling the cool steel of a gun barrel touching the back of my skull.
“Cassie?” Rain yelled out. “Cassie, what’s going on?”
“We’re not alone,” I whispered. “They came back.”
“Who…” his voice crackled. “What… are…”
“The phone, please,” the Russian voice said.
I turned to look up into the face of the meanest looking man I’d ever seen in my life. His jaw was square. His eyes were like charcoal. Cold. Colorless. He had a scar that ran from the corner of his eye across his cheek and to his earlobe. His hair was thin, going bald. And he had to be at least 6’4”.
Behind him, with guns pointed at Nia and Arnie, were three other men, all dressed in black and looking nearly as menacing as the big guy closest to me.
He gestured for me to give him the phone with a rapid flutter of his fingers curled toward him.
“Rain,” I said. “I’m in trouble.”
“Rain,” the big Russian said as he took my phone and put it to his ear. “I know this name. This is great coincidence, no?”
The Russian listened for a second and then said into my phone, “Hello, Rain. I heard you were still alive. That is good news for me.”
; Silence.
“Yes, it is me, Palach. You can try. But remember this. I have your woman. I will cut her the same way I cut you, I will fuck her, and I will kill her.”
“Rain!” I yelled.
But the big man brought his gun down against the crown of my head and the world went black.
15
Rain
“Rain,” a man with a deep voice and with a Russian accent said in the background. “I know this name. This is great coincidence, no?”
Somewhere on the end of this phone call, Cassie was face to face with the motherfuckers we were hunting. The second I heard the voice telling her to give him the phone, my heart sank, my blood boiled, and I wanted so badly to reach through the phone and gouge his fucking eyes out of his sockets.
Heavy breathing. I knew he was there listening. It had to be him. This was fate in some sick and twisted form. We were meant to clash. Only an hour ago, I’d killed his nephew. Cut off his cock and shoved an ulu blade down his fucking throat. Now, Palach had my woman.
“I’m going to fucking kill you. I hope you know that. I hope you understand that every time you touch her is one more time I’ll shove a cold blade directly up your asshole and twist it.”
My throat hurt it was so raw. Every word that left my mouth carried so much anger and rage it felt like metal claws slicing open my throat. I needed to calm down, but I couldn’t.
The Russian continued to breathe and listen.
Finally, he spoke. “Hello, Rain. I heard you were still alive. That is good news for me.”
“This is Palach, right? You didn’t do so good at that executioner shit the last time, did you? I’m coming for you motherfucker. You’re dead. You hear me? You’re fuckin’ dead.”
“Yes, it is me, Palach. You can try. But remember this. I have your woman. I will cut her the same way I cut you, I will fuck her, and I will kill her.”
“Rain!” Cassie yelled in the background.
