by April Lust
“Did you know him? I mean, did you ever have to meet with him or talk to him?”
“Oh, sure. I killed his second-in-command, and I almost killed him.”
“No fucking way.” Randy looked impressed with me. I shook my head.
“It’s nothing I’m proud of. And it was either him or me—anybody could have seen that. I had to stop him. Vitaly hated me. I never knew why—maybe because he hated Axel, and he knew I would take over for Axel one day. Maybe he wanted me dead to cut the legs out from under the club. The worst part was not knowing, I guess. Not knowing why he wanted me dead the way he did. But he definitely did.”
“No shit. So they came at you?”
“Yeah, they came at me. It was fucking brutal. They tried to run me down with this big car. I just got out of the way in time. I pulled out my piece and fired before they had the chance to turn around. I killed the driver. He crashed the car. I looked inside, and there was Vitaly, bleeding all over the place. He hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt, so he hit the dash pretty hard. I don’t know why I didn’t kill him when I had the chance. I really don’t. I guess I figured he was practically dead already. I’m not a hitman, you know? It felt cold, putting a bullet in somebody’s head when they were half-dead and couldn’t defend themselves.”
“Shit. I would’ve done it.”
“You say that,” I snickered. “I hope you never have to find out for sure one day what you would do if anything like that ever happened to you.”
“What did you do after that?”
“I got the hell outta there. The police were on their way. I never heard from Vitaly again—nobody did. I guess I was okay believing he died. I didn’t wanna think about him still being out there somewhere.”
“What do you wanna do about this now?” I looked around the room at my guys. All of them looked ready to fight. I thought about the war we’d had with Vitaly, how bloody and awful it had been. How many men we’d lost. I didn’t wanna go through that again, not the way Axel had. I wouldn’t be responsible for more bloodshed. There had been enough of that.
“I have to follow up on this alone,” I said. The guys let me know how they felt about it the way they always did. I wouldn’t back off, though. “Listen,” I said, holding up a hand for silence. They stopped arguing and cursing long enough to hear me out. “I love that you wanna go after this piece of shit, but this isn’t your fight.”
“Sure it is. You’re our prez. We have to stand by you.” Every man in the room agreed.
“I won’t go down as the president who got half his crew killed. I won’t be another Axel.” I got up, looking out the window. “I’ll find this son of a bitch, and I’ll make him pay for what he’s doing.”
My phone rang. I was tempted to ignore it, but I didn’t wanna miss anything from Tori. When I saw her name on the ID, I held up a hand for quiet. “Hello?”
Silence. Then, “Eli?” A small, scared little voice. It felt like the bottom dropped out of my world.
“George? What is it? What happened?”
Chapter Twenty
Tori
By the time I finished telling the whole story, Daniel’s mouth hung open.
“Holy shit, Tori. Holy shit!” He held his head in his hands. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why did you let him think you left him because you didn’t love him anymore?”
“Because it was the only thing I could do.” I had to make him see. “Honestly, do you think he would have let me go if I had told the truth? Do you think if I had stayed and told the truth, he wouldn’t have gone after whoever it was on the phone? I didn’t know who the Vipers tangled with in those days. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to take care of it myself. So I left. I had to protect him. And I had to protect the baby, too.”
“What if this guy had killed him after you left?”
“Daniel, I told you, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was pregnant. I had just found out. I had to make a choice. Besides, at the time I thought, what if I’m gone? Whoever this is won’t have anything to use against him anymore. I wouldn’t be a pawn. Just something to hurt Eli with. If I told him, he would have gotten himself killed along with me. There was no other way out of it.”
Daniel looked sick. “All this time. And it was okay with you, knowing how much he would hate you when you left?”
I nodded. “I had a lot of time to think it over, Tone. Years. I knew he hated me, but I knew he was better off without me if it meant he could stay alive. It sounds corny, but that’s the only thought that’s kept me going. Knowing that I did it for the right reasons. I had to protect the men I love.” I shrugged.
“You have to tell him now. You’ve gotta.”
“I’ve gotta do no such thing. I didn’t tell you so you could guilt me into telling him. I told you because I thought you were my friend, and I had to get it off my chest. I wanted somebody besides me to know the whole truth. It’s a lot to keep to myself, you know?”
“Great, now I have to keep it to myself. You know I was never good with secrets, Tori.”
I smiled. “Try, okay? Discipline yourself a little bit.” He made a face, and I giggled. Then I stopped, fear tugging at my heart. “Do you think he’ll come back, whoever he is?”
Daniel looked at me with a frown. “Who, this caller? I don’t think so. Eli doesn’t have no enemies now. The club’s free and clear. Axel’s gone, all the bad blood is good. It’s been a good three years.”
“Just the same, I have to wonder if I’m not bad luck to him, somehow. If the person who called me all those times were watching me…what if they found out we got back together? Not saying we’re back together right now or anything, but what if it happened? What if they wanted to hurt him, still, after all this time?”
“Then we’re dealing with a pretty sick cookie. I can’t imagine who would do something like that.” He shrugged. I wanted to take his word for it. I wanted to so badly. I needed to hang on to some sort of hope that Eli and I could be a family with our son.
“I don’t know how much longer I should let George sleep,” I said, glancing at the clock on the cable box. “It’s almost three-thirty. He’ll be up all night.”
“And you don’t want that, do ya?” Daniel winked at me. I scowled.
“You still have a dirty mind, I see.”
“And you still blush when you’re embarrassed.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I hadn’t laughed so much in one afternoon since I didn’t know when. Being around Daniel again had given me a huge boost. I believed I could be happy with Eli again. I believed we could forgive each other for the past. I believed we could be a family.
“You hungry?” I got up from the couch, walking to the kitchen. “There’s a bunch of empty boxes in the cabinets, but I could probably find you something. Or we could order.”
“I remember the first time I ever came over here, and I was so happy because I thought Eli had Cinnamon Life cereal in the cabinet. Empty box.” Daniel shook his head.
I laughed. “It was like a cruel joke, right?” I shook my head at Eli’s habits. There were some things he would just never grow out of.
Daniel got up, stretching. “You look around. I’m gonna go take a piss.”
“Stay classy,” I muttered, going through the cabinets. There were a few cans in there, but I guessed they were past their expiration date. What the heck did he live on?
I heard a noise coming from the fire escape, and a first thought nothing of it—birds had been landing there all day, making noise, flapping their wings. Another, louder noise got my attention. I froze, my back to the window. A third noise, that of the window opening, spurred me to action.
I whirled around, a can of soup in each hand. I threw one at the first man who came through the window, missing him but hitting the glass. It shattered, hitting a second man who ducked to avoid getting cut. The second can narrowly missed a third man.
I reached around for a knife, but it was too late. I didn’t scream. I never screamed. I couldn’t risk having G
eorge come out to see what the trouble was. I would do anything, take any punishment without making a sound as long as it meant he would stay in his room. I struggled silently, kicking, punching, knowing Daniel was only a room away.
He came rushing out when he heard the glass break, but there was nothing he could do. Two of the three men attacked him, hitting him over the head with a tire iron. The man holding me had his hand over my mouth in a vice grip, like a metal band. I pried at his fingers, trying to open my mouth wide enough to bite him through his glove, but it was no use. I watched with a sinking heart as Daniel crumpled to the floor, bleeding heavily. He didn’t move. Had I just watched my childhood friend’s murder? I let out a long, low sob from behind the hand clamped over my mouth.
“See that? You did that.” The voice was a whisper in my ear—a familiar whisper. I let out a small, soft cry as I realized who held me. It all came rushing back just as though it had happened yesterday. And we were just talking about it, weren’t we? I wanted to ask Daniel if he was so sure of himself that there was nobody left who hated Eli.
I heard laughter in my ear, cold and snide. It sent shivers down my spine. It didn’t sound human. “You were stupid to come back, Tori. You should have stayed away.”
I glanced in the direction of the guest room. None of them seemed to understand the significance of the closed door in the hall. Good. Let them think George wasn’t there. I didn’t want them to think about him at all.
“What, you didn’t think I knew you left? You didn’t think I kept an eye out to see if you would come back? I knew you wouldn’t stay away forever. You made it even easier than I ever thought to trap. All these years, and you came to me. I couldn’t believe it.”
What the hell was he talking about? I couldn’t ask, of course. I could only wait for him to reveal more to me. Maybe he didn’t mean to take me anywhere, or hurt me. Maybe he only wanted to send a message. I glanced down at Daniel. Message received. I didn’t need any more incentive to get the hell away from Eli before things got even worse.
I felt the hot breath of my captor against my ear. “Now that you’re back, I’ll have to do what I threatened to do all those years ago. I’ll have to kill you, and then I’ll kill Eli. Don’t worry. You can be together in the afterlife.”
The thought of leaving my boy an orphan was enough to give me a second wind, and I fought for all I was worth against the arms of the man who held me tight. It was no use. He was just as strong as Eli, if not stronger. I was no match for him.
“Let’s go,” the man said. His partners opened the door, looking both ways down the hall before waving us on. Stay in the room, stay in the room, stay in the room. It was all I could think as my captor dragged me through the front door and down the hall to the stairs. I didn’t put up a fight anymore—all I cared about was getting away before George showed his face. I didn’t care what they did to me. He had his father to care for him. I couldn’t bear it if they saw him and took him along with me.
It wasn’t until my captor threw me into the trunk of a car that I started fearing for myself. Nobody would know what happened. Daniel was probably dead. I was done for. Oh, God, please look after my little boy.
Meanwhile, my captor looked down at me, sneering. I took in his slightly paunchy build, his balding head, his dark, empty eyes. I could finally pair a face to the voice on the phone. A voice that had filled my nightmares, just as Eli had filled my happier dreams.
“Hello, Tori,” he whispered. “My name is Vitaly Ivanov. But you know me as Joe Green.” The last thing I saw before he slammed the trunk shut was his cold smile.
Chapter Twenty-One
Eli
I couldn’t get my bike to move fast enough. Why the hell wouldn’t it go faster? And why wouldn’t everybody get the hell out of my way? Didn’t they know I was in a hurry?
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t slow down. I couldn’t get the sound of George’s voice out of my head.
“I think they took my mama. They hurt Daniel. Please come. The bad guys were here.”
The bad guys. Yeah, they were the bad guys, all right. Very bad. If I knew Vitaly was behind the whole thing, I wouldn’t have left them alone. Even with Daniel. Hell, I would have gotten them out of town. Maybe out of the country. No wonder he wouldn’t leave her alone. No wonder it felt so personal. It was personal for him. Why, I never really knew. Why he couldn’t let it go. Why he couldn’t leave me alone. Why I hadn’t fucking killed him when I had the chance.
My fault. My fault. All my fault. If I had just killed the son of a bitch when I had the chance. No, I left him there. Why? It would have taken two fucking seconds. Less than that, and he would’ve been out of my life forever. Out of my family’s life. They didn’t do anything do deserve it. Why was he back? Why did he have such a hard-on for me and the people I loved? I would think he’d give me a fucking break since I spared his life. I shouldn’t have. God, I shouldn’t have. I would never forgive myself for letting him live.
I roared, screaming into the wind as I rode faster than I ever rode on a crowded street in my life. Cars swerved out of the way for me, and I didn’t pay attention to the way they sounded their horns and yelled at me. They were nothing, less than nothing. It didn’t matter. I needed Tori. I needed to get to Tori.
I knew Spike and Marco were behind me. I didn’t know who else followed. I hoped there were enough to go with me to follow Vitaly—not that I thought I needed backup against him, but I didn’t know how many guys he had. If somebody had taken Daniel down, there had to be a good number. He was a big guy. I had seen him fight off two, three men at once. I needed all the help I could get.
I was hardly in a parking space before I jumped off my bike and ran for the doors. My kid was in there. Alone with a guy who might have been dead. Daniel. What did they do to him? I took the stairs two at a time instead of waiting for the elevator, my feet pounding down the hall as I ran for my apartment.
“George?” I shouted his name before I got through the door, and he ran to me. I picked him up, held him close. “Oh, thank God. Thank God you’re still okay. Where were you when it happened?”
“In the bedroom. I was taking a nap. I heard noise out here, and I got scared, so I hid under the bed.”
“Oh, smart kid. Smart boy. I’m so glad you did that. I know your mama would be, too.” Where had they taken her? I didn’t have the first idea. “Did you hear anything, George? Anything they said to her?”
He shook his head. I put him down, going to Daniel. He was a mess, blood all over the floor. George cried a little, and I told him to look away. “It’s okay, buddy. He’ll be all right. It looks worse than it is.” I hoped I wasn’t lying to the poor kid. I didn’t know how bad it was or if Daniel would ever wake up. Or if he would be the same guy when he did.
I held my fingers to the side of his neck. He was breathing, at least. I smacked his cheeks with the backs of my fingers. By that time, the others came in. I motioned for them to help Daniel, while I went to George.
“My friends are gonna help me find your mama,” I said, crouching down so we were face-to-face. “And we’re gonna bring her home, okay?”
“Do you know where they took her?” he asked. I couldn’t lie to the kid.
“No, I don’t. But I’m gonna find out. I can promise you that.”
“How? How can you find out?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “But I will. I’ll find a way. I would never let anything happen to her without trying my best to help her. I can promise you that, George.”
“Do you love her?”
I didn’t think twice before answering. “I do,” I said. “I love your mama very much. She means a lot to me.”
“To me, too.” I hugged him, felt the way his body shook. My kid. My boy. I wanted so much to tell him who I was to him, but I didn’t dare. He had been through enough already that day. I didn’t need to scar him for life by dropping that bombshell on him.
“He’s coming to.” I let go of George,
told him to watch TV while I talked to Daniel. I only hoped he could tell me something, anything at all.
“Hey, brother. What happened here?” I tried to keep my voice light for George’s sake, when I really wanted to ask him what fucking army he allowed into the apartment that they would be able to take my woman away like they did. If it was anything less than an army, I didn’t want to hear anything about it.
It took him a minute to get himself together. It looked like he couldn’t focus his eyes very well—and his head kept going back and forth like he couldn’t keep it steady. I wondered if he had a concussion. From the blood coming from his head, I wouldn’t doubt it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. It was the first thing he said when he finally spoke. “I’m so sorry, Eli. It’s all my fault. I let it happen.”
