by Kiki Leach
As Chino started to regain consciousness, he raised an arm to shoot, though I wasn't sure of the actual direction he was aiming for. But before he could release any of his own bullets on me or anyone else in the room, Laz jumped over the couch and shot him square in both shoulders; he snatched each gun from his hand and sent another bullet straight through to his chest. Within seconds, he was gurgling spit and blood and had begun coughing up both.
Once the bullets stopped flying, the other brothers rushed over to check on their women. River rushed over to my side and stared down at my hands, my face, my eyes, legs, my entire body as I was practically covered in Courtney's blood. He bent down to gently lift her lifeless body off of me and slinked a hand around my waist to haul me up from the floor. He pressed one hand against the back of my head while keeping his arm tight around my waist. And he pulled me so close to him that I could feel his anxiety practically slamming into me straight down to my bones.
"Jesus Christ," he said in a panic, his voice shaking, "I thought I'd lost you, baby. Jesus fuckin' Christ, what the fuck were you thinkin' offerin' yourself up to him like that?"
"I don't -- I don't know. I thought that maybe if I distracted him, you could..."
He squeezed me even tighter and rolled his face beneath my jawline. "Shit no longer matters." He skimmed his nose and mouth back and forth against my skin and just breathed me in. And despite the fact that I wanted him to both hold and release me, I draped my arms around his neck and combed my fingers into his soft head of hair. There was sort of a release in having done so, for the both of us. He was clinging on tight while I could slowly feel myself letting go. "Jesus," he murmured again. He pulled back from me, gradually, and brushed my hair out of my face. "Did that motherfucker lay a hand on you before draggin' you out here like that?"
I shook my head at him and unwittingly turned my eyes to every dead body sprawled out on the floor of the club, including Courtney's. There was so much blood everywhere it looked as if they had all been dumped into a tank full of sharks.
"Babe," said River. "Hey." He moved his hand beneath my jaw and turned my focus back to him. "All eyes on me, babe, now alright? Now he didn't lay a goddamn single finger on you?" I shook my head again and he wrapped both of his hands around my face and stared deep into my eyes as if he was trying to find something that we both knew wasn't there and never truly existed inside of me in the first place. "Come here." He brought me over to one of the stools in front of the bar and I sat back. Then he walked back over to Courtney and slid one arm beneath her legs and the other around her back.
Gently, he picked her up from the floor just as easily as he had with me and carried her over to the door.
That's when Shiver walked up. "I got her, VP," he said, stepping away from Candy's side to take Courtney into his arms. Without River saying a single damn word to him, it was as if he had already known what to do, known exactly where to take her, which was outside of the club. After that, I wasn't so sure where they were off to.
"Hey," said Miranda as she walked over to me. She had pulled out a cigarette post-chaos and by now had smoked it down to the tip. She stared at me, waiting for me to speak to her, but for some reason now, I couldn't seem to find my voice. She ran a hand over my hair and brushed it down to the edge of my neck, then dipped her head and eyed me with a concerned glance. "This ain't the first time shit like this has happened here," she told me. "And it won't be the last. Just a heads up, but if you're planning to be in this life for the long haul and with that man, especially considering his ranking, you're gonna have no choice but to get used to it and then some."
"What if I don't want to 'get used' to it?" I said in a sharp tone, though I had no real intention of being nasty to her. "I am covered in another woman's blood, who's now dead. I just watched heads exploding in front of me all over this room. This is the kind of world your children grow up in, but I... I can't imagine Avery growing up in something like this. I can't imagine her living in a life like this every day and, I... I really can't imagine why the hell I would even let her."
"If you love River enough, you will."
That was exactly the problem, but she wouldn't know it. I loved the man enough. In fact, I was starting to think that I loved him maybe a little too much. It was the only way to explain why the hell I was still there, and why I hadn't bolted from the club the minute I had my first chance that night.
"Yo, what the fuck is that buzzin' sound?" asked Snake as he leaned over the table. "Anybody else hearin' that shit?"
Miranda frowned and instantly, everyone looked around the room at each other with complete suspicion until River went over to a barely breathing Chino and dug around the inside of his cut. When he found something small and plastic around the size of a wedding ring box on the inside pocket, he examined it for a few seconds and puckered his brows.
"VP--" started Snake. But River pressed his index and middle fingers against his mouth and shook his head.
He snapped his fingers after stuffing that small plastic box inside his jacket and pointed around to different areas of the room, and as if they had all suddenly become a pack of bomb sniffing dogs, they started searching the place for what I assume were bugs or mini cameras or both. Unsure of if or how the hell I could even help them since I didn't have much of a clue as to what any of the devices even looked like, I watched as they ransacked their own place, shifting couches, lifting the pool table and checking the pockets, knocking over chairs and picking up lamps. After a few minutes of clear misses, River managed to find two bugs beneath the bar, while Blue, Snake and even Candy and Miranda found bugs hidden in the cracks of the walls all throughout the room.
Once they were all finished checking the entire place from back to front and had come to the conclusion that the club was now safe, at least morally speaking for them more so than physically, each one handed their bugs off to River. He went over to the sink behind the bar and dumped them, along with the black box, down the side of the drain containing the garbage disposal, then flipped the switch. As the plastic and wires crunched together between the teeth of the disposal and broke into tiny pieces, he turned on the water to make sure they were completely diluted.
"Shit." After flipping the switch to turn it all off, he wrapped his hands around the edge of the sink and lowered his head. "Fuckin' piece of shit," he muttered.
"Yo, VP," Blue called out. As soon as River turned his head to him, he pointed down at the floor, at Chino, who had suddenly tried to move his legs and arms, despite being all but paralyzed by the bullets and blood surrounding him that he continued to cough up.
River rounded the bar, walked over to him and stared down into his face, watching as he had gone from a nice soft tan to pale white. Then he roamed his eyes up and down his body and tucked his feet right beneath his arm. "This motherfucker got somethin' he wanna say before we end this shit for good?" he asked him.
Chino blinked twice and hesitantly, River dropped down in a squat to get closer to him.
"VP," said Blue. He slightly shook his head at him in worry that he might've been getting too damn close.
"I'm good, brother," said River. "All good. Ain't much that this motherfucker can do to me now, not when he's jacked the fuck up like this."
"You'd be surprised about that shit, asshole. You know a snake never stays dead even after you cut off the goddamn head."
I glanced over at him and soured, thinking about Verna's words to me that day in the kitchen, about how even after you cut off the head of the snake, it doesn't mean that the rest of him will die off just as quickly.
River bent his ear down to Chino's blood soaked mouth and listened in as he whispered something into his ear that was too damn low for any of the rest of us to hear. His face contorted in confusion as he listened to him, and just before he pulled back, Chino started laughing; or as much as he could despite the blood spewing out from either side of his mouth, back into his ears and onto the floor.
I got up from my chair and walke
d over to the both of them, though Blue attempted to hold me back from getting too close. River kept his eyes locked on Chino's smiling face and grumbled. "Son of a fuckin' bitch."
"What did he say?" I asked River.
When Chino turned his attention over to me and tried to speak, River was quick to wrap his hand around his throat, forcing him to choke on his own blood, spit and air.
I turned from them both in downright shock and covered my mouth as vomit mixed with the blood and spit suddenly started spewing from his mouth. I wanted to gag. I wanted to scream and cry and dig my hands into something all at once to keep them from shaking. I couldn't believe what the hell I was seeing, even though I knew I should've. I knew what this world was like in just having seen it from the outside. But living it, being a part of it, experiencing it for the first time on the inside; it was enough to make my stomach churn and send me flying out of not only the room but from River's life forever.
Once Chino finally stopped breathing, River brought his hand up to his face and dropped his lids over his eyes. Then he looked at me over his shoulder and jumped back up to his feet. He walked over to me and I stared up at him as if he was a stranger, as if I didn't know who the hell he was, but I knew, I did, straight down to my core. I just wasn't sure if I even wanted to anymore.
"You good?" he asked me.
"Am I good?" I wanted to laugh. I wanted smack him in the face and in the chest and make him fall down for even asking me what I thought was such a stupid and insensitive question. He knew I wasn't good; I had just witnessed eighteen men being blown to bits with their brains splattered across every wall. How the hell was that supposed to make me good? But I couldn't bring myself to answer him, I couldn't bring myself to say anything else to him. All I could do was fold my arms over my chest and turn away.
He looked behind him and nodded. "Truck," he said to him, "you round up with Tick, Luther and Lex to help get the old ladies back home. I want you personally to get my girls home. But let Mia go and check on Avery after she gets cleaned up. The shit I said about her headin' outta state tonight... I meant it."
"What?" I asked.
He turned back to me. "Your girl, along with Meghan and Alisha are in the cellar at Blue's place. Once I got a feelin' about the Dragons after Laz and his crew showed up and they started beefin', I went off and called up my boy that's lookin' after 'em, and had him take 'em over there for safety precautions. She ain't gone yet, but she's gonna need to be soon enough, Mia." He turned from me again, but I latched onto the sleeve of his jacket and spun him back around to face me.
"Wait a damn second," I said. He stared down at my hand, then arched his brows and looked me in the eyes. "You can't just dump all of this on me and say with a few quick sentences that MY child is being sent out of state in less than a few hours all because you say so, and think that I'm just going to be okay with that."
"You heard what the hell these motherfuckers said, Mia. That son of a bitch is comin' after her and knows just how the fuck to get to her now, just how easily gettin' to her can be for him. She can't stay at Meghan's anymore and she can't stay with us."
"No," I corrected. "She can't stay with you. But there's no way in hell I'm just allowing her to leave the state or go any place that you might think is necessary without me."
He shut his eyes and grit his teeth in aggravation. "Mia," he replied, his tone as sharp as the teeth of a razor. "If you go with her, no matter where the fuck it is, that son of a bitch will find you in no time, alright? He'll know if you're gone and he'll come after you quicker than he would if she's on her own. The only way to keep this motherfucker off his game and off her tail is to keep you two separated for the time bein'. Shit'll throw him off and he won't know what the fuck to do or what direction to take if you don't go with her. Now I know this shit hurts and it's gonna be tough as fuck to say goodbye to your girl. But if you wanna keep the both of you safe from this crazy ass fucker, you gotta stay back, babe. You got no other goddamn choice at this point."
I knew that he was right. He was always right and just like before, I didn't want to believe it. But I knew that deep down if I went with Avery, that Ricky would know it. He'd find us both before we even made it out of the city.
"Hey." He slipped his finger beneath my chin and tilted my head back. I gulped to hold back the tears burning inside my eyelids. He brushed back one with his thumb that managed to escape, and cupped my cheek. "This shit won't be forever, darlin'. Soon as we get this fucker and put him to ground, your girl's gonna be comin' back home with the both of us again, alright?"
I stepped back from him and bobbed my head again, though I wasn't sure if 'us' was even a clear option anymore.
"Alright." He took me in his arms and kissed me so slowly and softly and God, so incredibly deeply and sensually that I almost forgot where we were, or that we were surrounded by other old ladies and members of his club, members of the Stark Bastards and members of the now deceased Dragon Lairs crew. He swirled his tongue around mine a few times before finally sucking my lip into his mouth and pulling away. This man had such a way of making me want him even when I didn't that I damn near hated him for it. "Come on." He turned back to Trucker, who kept his arm around Jolene and along with the other prospects, escorted every woman from the club.
Chapter Forty-Seven
River rested his hand against the face of the door, then balled it into a fist and deeply exhaled a few times before turning back to his brothers. Saying goodbye for the time being to the woman he loved more than his own goddamn life was hard as hell; but looking into the eyes of his brothers again after all the shit that had just gone down, knowing that he was partially at fault, defined being rough. He moved between each of them, with the exception of Tiny and Wolf, with understanding, before turning his focus to a bleeding Laz, who after the stray bullet shot through his arm started to affect him, had dropped down to a chair in the back and ripped the bottom of his shirt to wrap around it. Then he turned to each of the Dragons as they lay dead on the floor in different places around the room and slowly marched back over to Chino. He twisted his head left to right while staring down at him, never noticing or realizing as Snake slinked up behind him until he dropped a hand onto his shoulder.
"Brother," he said. "What'd the fuck that motherfucker whisper into your ear like that? He say some shit that we all need to fuckin' know about?"
"Shit we already shoulda fuckin' known." River kept his eyes on Chino for a bit longer, then glimpsed at Snake and crossed the room.
"Brother?" Snake said again.
River stepped over to the bar and calmly placed his hands on the edge and rocked his feet back and forth. "This goddamn party tonight was used as a distraction, just like the others. That's why he knew that the girls weren't at Meghan's, 'cause he'd sent his own boys out there to snatch up Avery. And the motherfucker copped to bein' the goddamn leak to Ricky on top of every other goddamn thing else," he said. "This whole motherfuckin' time he... goddamn fuckin' played us. FUCK!" He balled his fists and slammed them on top of the bar. "GOD-FUCKIN'-DAMNIT!"
A bewildered Tiny turned to him and made a face. "Why the fuck are you actin' like this shit wasn't bound to happen, asshole?!" He threw a hand in his direction and sneered. "You thought I was just wastin' my goddamn breath durin' church when I fuckin' TOLD you that this dead motherfucker was still on that asshole's goddamn payroll?! There wasn't a single doubt inside my goddamn mind that Chino was bendin' over for that dick waggin' fucker on a weekly fuckin' basis the minute he took Nikko's place! Now he's layin' here dead and it's more clear than fuckin' ever that that asshole was used to infiltrate us just like his goddamn sister, who YOU couldn't seem to stop fuckin' ‘til his goddamn 'baby mama' came along; a bitch that not only changed all that shit for you, but fucked you up along the goddamn way! And now we're STILL dealin' with this shit 'cause of your 'love' for her ass." He angrily shook his head. "I'll tell you what, motherfucker, you sure can pick these bitches, asshole. Unripe and fuckin' impu
re. Jesus fuckin' Christ. You wanna believe this bitch bein' around is helpin' you out, makin' you think clear, makin' you into some kinda better fuckin' man than the rest of us, when in fact, she's fucked you all the way up and not just in that big fat skull of yours. I'm talkin' straight up and down from the goddamn inside out." He dropped his hands down on top of the pool table, then looked over at Laz, who continued holding his shirt against the wound. "You alright, motherfucker?"
"Yeah," replied Laz. He looked over at his boys, then up at Tiny and laughed. "Shit hurt like a goddamn bitch, though. And let me tell you somethin', it's been a long motherfuckin' time since some asshole shot me with the equivalent of a goddamn pellet gun and has been able to get away with it."
"Yeah, he got away with it, all 'cause THIS MOTHERFUCKER" -- he pointed at River again -- "seemed to think that just TALKIN' to his ass was the goddamn fuckin' solution to this very real problem that HE HAS HELPED TO FUCKIN' CREATE--!"
"HEY!" hollered Wolf, whose large voice carried throughout the room. "We all talked to this asshole, screened him and the rest, and assumed they had turned legit--"
"And what the fuck are YOU talkin' about with this 'we' bullshit, Prez, when 'WE'' knew just how the fuck he got to you first?! As a matter of fuckin' fact, I shouldn't even be blamin' that motherfucker over there for this shit. I need to be blamin' you for it."
"Me?"
"YEAH YOU, ASSHOLE!" he hollered, nearly lifting himself from the ground as he jumped up and pointed at him. "This shit wouldn't even be happenin' if you had just left his bitch mother on the side of the goddamn fuckin' road! You always were one for fallin' for that damsel in distress bullshit and your BOY over here turned out to be the same goddamn way," he shot back. "Raised him up in your own goddamn image, just as you always wanted. Too bad his mother never came back around for you, yeah? But then again, you never were the kinda motherfucker that stayed lonely for too goddamn long--"
