by Sweet, Izzy
Holding onto Allie’s limp body, I try to fend off the furious little kid swinging and kicking at me. If I had any doubts about this kid being mine before this moment, him being such a little fucking asshole erases them.
He’s mine, no question about it.
Looking up to see my brothers just staring at me, Grem smirkin’ and Poster Boy just standing there with that eerie indifference, I really fucking struggle not to shoot the both of ‘em.
“Grem, a little fucking help here?” I snarl as I push the kid back again to keep him from getting anywhere near my balls.
“What do you want me to do? I ain’t gettin’ dick-punched,” Grem says as he raises his hands.
“Motherfucker. Poster, get on the phone with the Sheriff. They’re going to have a couple of squad cars racing for us,” I snarl and slowly drag Allie further into my arms.
The little kid, Levi, is screamin’ and hollerin’ like no other. Fuck, I didn’t know half the words he’s using against me when I was ten, and he can’t be older than four or five.
“On it,” Poster Boy says before calmly walking over to me and the kid.
Grabbing onto the back of the kid’s shirt and pants, he lifts him up and throws him onto his shoulder. The boy freezes in confusion and stops screaming long enough for my fucking ears to stop ringing.
Poster Boy walks toward the kitchen with the kid slung over his shoulder and asks him, “Whatcha hungry for?”
Grem looks me in the eyes and we’re both too fucking stunned to talk.
“What the fuck?” I finally ask after a couple of minutes when the kid doesn’t put up a fuss.
“Kid ain’t making noises, though,” Grem says. Then, looking to the kitchen, he shouts to Poster Boy, “I’ll handle the Sheriff.”
“Sure,” Poster Boy replies before he goes right back to talking to the kid about food.
I can’t understand how that kid ain’t goin’ fuckin’ nuts, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m not exactly crazy about that fuck being near my kid either, but I ain’t got a lot of options.
Fuck.
“Grem,” I say, and motion with my one free hand before I sweep Allie up into my arms. “What the fuck happened?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he motions for me to follow him into the dining room where the former tenants left behind a shitty dining table.
“Fainted, most likely,” he says and helps me lay her down on the table.
“Like in them old movies and shit?” I ask.
“Looks like it,” he says as he bends down to peer at her head. “Coy…”
“What?” I ask as I watch him lick his thumb. Then a low, dangerous growl comes out of me when he gently uses that licked thumb to rub around the skin beneath her left eye. “Why you fucking touching her?”
“Look at this,” he says, and motions for me to come closer, ignoring my angry words.
Moving around to his side, I see his thumb is wiping off her makeup and revealing something dark underneath it. “What the fuck?”
Straightening away from her, Grem walks over to the window closest to us and yanks the bedsheet off the rod. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he swipes at the screen and pushes it a couple of times.
“I’m gonna call Sheriff Jones. You might want to take stock of what’s been done to her,” he says and walks by me. “That makeup ain’t coverin’ the black eye she was trying to hide.”
A black eye.
“What the fuck, Allie?” I ask her unresponsive face.
“Poster, call Pappy’s wife and get her over to my house. I need it cleaned, pronto. Then call Pappy and get this shithole cleaned and fixed up. Tell him to use the prospects and whoever else ain’t on a job,” I say loud enough for him to hear me in the kitchen before turning back to Allie.
“Sure,” he calls back.
Fuck, what the hell happened to my fucking girl?
Pulling a bandana from my back pocket, I jog over to the kitchen and turn on the tap water. Thankfully the water’s still runnin’. Wetting the cloth quickly, I look over to see Poster on the phone with one hand while the other is helping the kid peel a banana.
What the fuck? I swear I’ve walked into the twilight zone.
Levi looks up at me with some fucking dark blue eyes though when he notices I’m watching him. “Are you going to hurt mommy like Mikhail did?”
My body goes stiff as a fucking board at that question—am I going to hurt mommy.
“Who?” I ask.
Poster Boy puts his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone and motions to get my attention.
“Gonna need to talk to you, Pres,” he says before going back to his phone.
“About?” I ask but refuse to look away from Levi.
“Adult stuff I was told,” Poster says.
“Got it,” I say, and I’m bettin’ whatever Levi just asked me has to do with what Poster is going to tell me.
My blood is about to fucking boil when I ask Levi, “Who’s Mikhail?”
Looking me dead in the eyes, he says, “He’s a meanie, but mommy said I have to call him Father.”
“He hit your momma?” I ask.
He nods his head and I can tell the waterworks are about to start, but he crosses his arms and then tells me, “I’ll punch you if you hurt her.”
Fuck me if he ain’t thinkin’ he’s the size of a truck right now. “Nah boy, I won’t hurt your momma.”
Moving away from the sink, I stick my hand out and start to tell him, “I’m your—”
My words falter though. Looking back at Allie sprawled out on the table and then back to my son, I’m pretty sure now ain’t the time to be springin’ more shit on the kid.
“Who?” Levi asks as he looks at my hand.
“I’m Coy,” I say and take his little hand in mine.
“If you don’t want to hurt mommy, why did you yell at her?” he asks and pulls his hand away from me.
Fuck me, how the hell do I answer these fucking questions?
“Who’s Mikhail?” I ask him.
“He’s my stepfather,” Levi says, and it’s almost formal the way he says it. Like he’s addressing royalty or something.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” I growl out as I walk away from my son and his questions.
Questions I don’t have answers for yet, but I do have a fucking name to match with the bruises on my girl’s face.
“Po-po’s on their way out, call got tracked before we smashed it,” Grem says as he inspects Allie’s head with his hands.
“Sheriff Jones gonna run interference for us?” I ask as I walk over to see what’s going on.
“Yeah, luckily one of his lazy assholes was the one who grabbed it. They still have to send someone out because of that whole GPS tracking system in the police cars now,” Grem says and stands up from the table.
“Well?” I ask him as I start to wipe some of the sweat and dirt off Allie’s forehead.
“Did she hit her head or somethin’ when you two were fuckin’ wrestlin’?” he asks.
“No, nothing like that,” I say, and my stomach fucking tightens up hard when I smear more makeup off and see that she’s got a full-blown black eye and bruising on her cheek.
“Then I ain’t got a fuckin’ clue, Coy,” Grem says while running his fingers over the small gremlin bell duct taped to his kutte.
“Fuck,” I growl, and look around this fucking shithole of a house.
This fucking place used to be a fucking nice house, almost as nice as a fucking mansion. Time and scumbag renters have turned it into a pigsty.
“Brother, whatever’s going on, I’ll tell you one thing,” Grem says but doesn’t finish until I look up at him.
“What now?” I ask him.
“Somethin’s fuckin’ off about this whole thing,” he says.
The same shit he said earlier.
“Yeah, well, tell me somethin’ I don’t know. We need to get the fuck out of here, fucking house smells like shit,” I growl and
rub my hand over my face, trying to get some of the sweat off me.
“Yeah, this fucker hasn’t had the air conditioning run in a while. It’s gonna take all night for it to get in cool in here,” Grem says and points to Allie. “And she doesn’t need to be passed out in all this heat and shit.”
“I know,” I say and then look around for a purse or something. “Find her purse and get her keys. I’ll take her and the kid to my house.”
“Coy, don’t you think she might be better at a hospital?” he asks earnestly.
“What? So she can disappear again? Fuck no. And you saw the way she acted, someone’s after her,” I say and then look toward Poster. “That means my boy is in danger too.”
“Now listen to me, there’s a chance—” Grem starts to say, his green eyes trying to reason with me.
“Go fucking look at him, Grem. You go look at him and tell me what you think,” I growl out at him.
Tossing the wet bandana to a corner of the room, I shout, “What’s the news, Poster?”
“Pappy’s on his way out here and he’s got Darlene headin’ to your house,” he says as he comes into the room.
Levi trails after him, looking terrified, but at least he ain’t freaking out yet. Walking over so I can block off the view of his momma, I squat down in front of him. “Hey, little man, I need you to do me a huge favor.”
Little lip quivering, he asks, “What?”
“Can you take Poster Boy upstairs and bring down your stuff? You and your momma are gonna come to my house for a sleepover,” I say as gently as possible.
I’ve never been around kids though, so I’m fucking hoping I’m not about to set off more waterworks. Fuck, my old man would swat my ass for even daring to cry. I think the last time I cried I was three.
“No,” he says in his little frightened voice.
Well, shit.
“Poster, go get anything that could belong to them. Put it in their van,” I grumble and keep staring at Levi.
“I don’t want to leave mommy,” Levi says and then walks right past me to climb up on a chair next to the table.
From the choking sound he makes, I know today is only going to get fucking worse.
“What’s wrong with her?!” Levi wails as he begins to push at her stomach, trying to get her to wake up.
Grabbing his hands as gently as I can, I say, “She’s sleepin’, Levi. She was so tired she passed right out.”
That’s about all I can guess right now because I don’t have a fuckin’ clue what the hell is really happening here.
“Why won’t she wake up then?” he asks. “I wake up when I’m sleepy.”
“It’s an adult thing,” I say.
Levi gives a huge, aggravated sigh. “Oh.”
Fuck, I know that sigh. He’s heard the adult excuse a lot, I’m bettin’. Probably heard it when Allie would try to explain all the bruises.
I bet she’s had a ton of ‘em.
“Any luck on the keys?” I shout to Grem who’s somewhere in the house now.
Thumping down the stairs, he finally responds, “Yeah, I got her purse and keys.”
“Anything else in there?” I ask.
He frowns. “Yeah, her ID.”
“What’s fucking goin’ on?” I ask.
He tosses the purse at me. “Her last name’s Rastov.”
“Find anything else?” I ask.
“Not that I can tell,” he says. “Looks like we smashed her only phone.”
“Fuck,” I grumble.
I bet she she’s not gonna like that one bit.
“Alright, pull the van as close as you can to the front of the house. We’ll get her situated in it and I’ll drive us over to my house,” I say.
Levi is getting ready to snap though; I can see it and feel it. Ain’t no way he ain’t mine with how I can read his emotions just like my own.
Snapping my fingers at Grem as he walks past us, heading for the front door, I say, “Give me your bandana.”
Pulling it from his back pocket, he hands it to me with his eyebrow raised. “What’s up?”
“Levi’s got a job to do,” I say before turning back to Levi.
Touching Levi’s shoulder to get his attention away from Allie for a moment, I say, “You know all those times things were for adults and you didn’t get to help?”
“Yeah,” he says with a sniffle.
“Well, I’m gonna need you to help me like an adult today,” I say and hold up the bandana. “I’m want you to help me keep your momma comfortable.”
“How do I do that?” he asks, and I can tell he’s slowly pulling back from the breakdown he was about to have.
“It’s so hot, she’s sweatin’ a lot. I want you to gently wipe her forehead and face for a bit. Pull all that long hair out of her eyes so it doesn’t get so sticky there. Know what I mean?” I say as I show him what I want him to do.
“I… I can do that,” he says when he takes the bandana out of my hands.
Reaching out to lift him, I ignore his flinch at my touch and sit him on the table next to Allie. “You take care of her like a doctor would, okay?”
Nodding his head seriously, he says, “Okay.”
Thankfully he reigns in those emotions enough to do what I showed him. His hands are so careful as he brushes Allie’s sweaty hair away from her eyes.
Walking away from them to get everything else in order, I hear Poster coming down the stairs with a couple of bags. “This is all they brought. The rest of it is just cleaning supplies.”
I nod my head. I’ve already figured out why there’s not much of their stuff in the house. “This place is a fucking wreck. How’s the upstairs?”
“It’s a fuckin’ pigsty,” Poster says. “The last people that lived here fucked this place up.”
“Pappy will get it back together and cleaned up,” I say, and then motion to the front door. “Let’s get the van fixed up. I need you to hang here with my bike till he shows up. I want this place brought back up to pristine condition. He needs to have it furnished and ready for me and my family to move in soon.”
Nodding his head, he doesn’t even question me on calling them my family. Poster Boy is like that. He doesn’t question things; he just does them. His private life never bleeds over into club business and he stays on target with whatever I ask of him. He’s a soldier. But fuck, he’s creepy as fuck sometimes with how stoic and unflappable he can be. Murder, torture, robbery, and I guess watchin’ kids.
Nothing bothers him, he just does it.
We walk out the front door in time to see Grem straightening away from the window of the sheriff’s car.
Thankfully that’s all we see of the law as soon as Grem shakes the man’s hand. The car slowly pulls out of the driveway and disappears up the street.
Walking toward the driveway, I ask, “Everything good?”
“Yeah, just told ‘em it was club business, but we ain’t killin’ any women here. He’s gonna write it up as a crank call from some shithead teen,” Grem says.
“Good,” I say and point to the minivan. “Y’all get some space open for Allie in the back. I’ll get the kid in his seat then drive us to my house. Poster, you go shoppin’ for kid shit when you’re done here. Get some clothes and toys. Fuck, is he old enough for a PlayStation or whatever?”
Poster Boy shrugs his shoulders. “I’ll get him some little kid games.”
Looking at Grem, I say, “You follow me. I need you to help with getting Allie settled.”
Raising his hand up in a wait a minute gesture, Grem says, “Coy, I was a paramedic, not a doctor. I won’t be able to do much besides tell you she needs a doctor if she don’t wake up.”
“What’s your best guess right now?” I ask.
And fuck, I need a simple answer.
“Honestly?” he asks me.
“Grem,” I growl at him.
“She’s got somethin’ up in the head going on. Exhaustion, the heat, and somethin’ happened her brain wasn’t ready
for. Hysterical fainting, maybe?” he says. “Hell, she could be a diabetic? Low insulin or somethin’? Fuck, I don’t know.”
“You see any of that shit in her bag?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nah.”
“She wasn’t one back in high school,” I say.
He motions to the house then to me. “Then she’s probably been overloaded with all of this.”
“Fuck,” I snap at him.
“Call the doc in a couple hours if this shit ain’t changed. I mean, fuck, she could be hypoglycemic for all I know.” He stomps past me to the back of the van. “I’m gonna get this cleaned up so we can get her to your house and not to the hospital.”
Heading back into the house, I can feel his words slamming against my brain. He’s probably right in that we could be doing the wrong thing here. But my gut is telling me that taking her to the hospital would be a bad idea.
I’ve been holding my fucking emotions in check since she passed out. I’ve been keeping myself from going crazy. Right now, I know I can’t afford to snap. I can’t afford to break apart into a thousand pieces of anger and hurt.
Allie’s back in my life, right here and now. For five fucking years I’ve been livin’ the life of a widower. She died for all I could tell, and I wasn’t gettin’ her back. But now she’s passed out on a fucking kitchen table. With a son I never knew I had wipin’ the sweat off her brow.
Fuck, this is some heavy ass shit.
My very soul missed Allie every single day she was gone. And I hated her as much as I loved her. Couldn’t have separated those two feelings even if I tried.
Even now, as much as I want to touch her skin like I did five years ago in my bed…
I also want to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze the shit out of her for leaving me.
She’s been in my mind every day, like some hangover that wouldn’t go away.
Now that she’s here, I can’t figure out which I want to do more, fuck her or kill her.
“Levi,” I say as I move beside him. “I gotta pick up your momma and put her in the van. Can you go get yourself strapped in your seat? I want you to be ready to go.”
“Okay,” he says and gives Allie one last look.
Quietly moving away from her, he hops off the table and walks toward the front door.
Looking down at Allie’s face, it’s easy to see that she must be tired. The eye that isn’t swollen and black from being hit is ringed dark from exhaustion.
