by BT Urruela
She pulled the gun around just as Pyro burst into the room.
Epilogue
The smell of burgers sizzling on the flat top grill filled Archie’s Diner, making every stomach in the place growl.
The front door jingled, and AJ passed a wave with his free hand to Jacoby as he came through, his other hand holding a spatula.
“’Bout time, fucker,” AJ griped, flipping a few burgers. The small radio on the shelf above his head played old fifties rock.
“Traffic was a nightmare,” Jacoby responded, nodding his head toward Dalton and Tank, and then slapping hands with them both. “I’m assuming I’m not too late?”
Tank shook his big bald head, a beer mug in his mitt. “Nah, Pyro should be back with him any minute.”
“Awesome,” Jacoby said, grabbing a seat at Knuckles’ booth. He passed a few waves toward Dimitri, but Dimitri was in La-La-Land.
“Yeah, not even worth tryin’,” Knuckles said, chuckling, his elbows on the table between them. He ran his hands down his cheeks warily. One of the hands was heavily bandaged, some fingers stitched and still black and blue. “There is no Dimitri anymore. It’s like The Last Starfighter. We have an android named Beta over there.”
Jacoby laughed, eyeing Dimitri, who remained blissfully unaware.
He was too busy admiring Annalise as she danced to the radio in her seat across from him, the mid-morning sun pouring in from the plate glass windows in front, bathing her in a rich tapestry of light. She’s here, in this place where I practically grew up, he thought, sitting in the booth Pops claimed back when Archie Senior was running the place. He ogled over her—almost wanted to pinch himself—as the beers in front of them went relatively untouched. He was too distracted by her, too caught up in the surreal feeling of it all. Like, at any moment, he’d wake up and be right back in that desolate basement, right back to killing people who probably didn’t deserve to be killed. As if Robbie would be back at any moment, and Preach too.
He found himself thinking of Preach often, especially with he and Annalise staying at the old apartment. Dimitri could still feel Preach there. Not in a haunted, eerie way, but like Preach might have been looking out for them still after all.
“You’re beautiful, you know?” he said, catching her in the middle of bopping to the King.
She laughed. “And you’re still full of shit, but I love it.” She blew him a kiss and grinned.
“I don’t think so,” he said, feigning offense, and then the stupid grin came. “I may be a professional bullshitter, but that is just a fact. You are crazy fucking beautiful, especially when you’re dancing.”
She grinned ear to ear when he mentioned dancing. The way he smiled at her made everything else in the room disappear except him and the music. “Thanks for helping me to remember how much dancing means to me.”
She reached out and rubbed his fingers with hers. Seeing him like that, smiling, in his element, her heart was so full. Even in her wildest dreams, while she was locked in that basement, she never dared believe life could be this good.
“You belong on that stage, Annalise.”
Annalise beamed. “I think … I belong with you.”
He grinned ear to ear. “And I with you.”
The door abruptly opened and the loud bell caught their attention. Pyro popped his head in and said, “All right, guys. He’s coming.” He held the door for a moment longer before he opened it wide.
Trigger wheeled himself in slowly, in one of those cheap blue wheelchairs the hospital gives you. His beard was scruffy and in need of a comb through, but his grin was wide and genuine. He stopped in the foyer of Archie’s and threw his thick arms into the air victoriously. “What’s up, shit stains!”
“Heyyy!” The lot of them cheered, approaching him excitedly, each one broken either physically or psychologically—or both—from their endeavors a week before, but none more so than the man in the wheelchair.
His right leg had an external fixator on it, a mess of titanium that held his right knee together while it healed, his foot bandaged up and the rest of his leg was half-covered by a pair of button-up Adidas pants; only a few at the very top and very bottom able to button up around the ex-fix. The other leg was fully buttoned, but the pant leg went flat where a foot should be, and flat where a knee should be, and all that remained was the hump of his residual limb, cut right at the end of the femur.
Dimitri found himself struck by the sight of the empty pant leg as he came to show his respects, and fought his eyes away from it.
“Hey there, Trigger.” Annalise came up behind him. “I got you a little something. Bit of a get well present. Dimitri said you were fond of them.” She handed Trigger a box wrapped with a white ribbon.
Trigger eyed her suspiciously and took the heavy box, carefully opening it. As soon as he got the top off, a big goofy grin spread across his face. The box was jam-packed with cans of ravioli and Toblerone chocolate bars.
“Holy shit, you are amazing!” He grabbed the Toblerone and eyed it liked a prized possession. He eventually replaced it with a can of ravioli and held it out for Dimitri. “Some ravs, bro?” he asked, his eyebrows dancing.
“Only if you wanna see me vomit, Trig.” Dimitri laughed, brushing him off.
“Sounds entertaining enough. Hey, why is it this wonderful young lady here brought me a gift and you ass-clowns have yet to even put a beer in my hand.” Trigger scowled, returning the can to the box.
“What about your pain meds, dude?” Jacoby asked.
Trigger quirked an eyebrow. “What about ’em?”
“You guys are heartless. Trigger, what kind do you like?” Annalise asked.
“Cold is my only requirement,” Trig said, smirking as he gently grabbed her hand and patted the top of it. “Thank you very much, darlin’. You’ve obviously got a lot to teach these Neanderthals.”
“I’ll be right back,” she answered, squeezing his hand.
“I’ll go with you, babe,” Dimitri said, following her. “Everybody needs a beer right now. No more white walls for Trig, we have to cheers to that,” Dimitri said, making his way to the counter.
“You got that damn right!” Trigger shook his head, a disgusted look on his face.
“Hey, Trig, do you think any other patient has ever had more nurses complain about them than you?” Pyro asked, grabbing a seat at the counter across from AJ, who placed burgers atop plated buns.
Trigger laughed loudly, clapping his hands together. “Not a fuckin’ chance, dude!”
“I don’t know, Trigger, you looked pretty cozy with some of those nurses. The redhead asked me to call her if you needed anything,” Annalise added, raising her eyebrows up and down and shimmying as she started toward the counter.
“She’s the only one I liked.” Triggers eyebrows danced. “I love the short ones. And that uniform? And a redhead! Put a goddamn fork in me. You be sure to give her my number, huh, doll?”
“Sure thing.” She winked and followed Dimitri.
Dimitri doled out beers to Pyro and Tank, who had grabbed a stool beside him. “Don’t ever say I didn’t give you anything,” he said to them with a smirk, and then he filled two more for Knuckles and Jacoby, as Annalise took a beer to Trigger.
AJ started lining the plated burgers on the countertop. “Come and grab ’em while they’re hot. That’s all the cookin’ I’m doin’ for today!” He held two plates out for Annalise as she returned to the counter, and he asked, “Hey, hun, can you get one to Trig for me?” He winked. “And one for you.”
She grabbed the plates and nodded, passing him a smile. She gave Trigger his plate and set hers down on a table beside him.
“Hey, AJ, can you turn that radio down for a second?” Dimitri asked, handing a mug off to Annalise.
“Sure thing,” AJ said, lowering the volume on the small radio above his head.
Dimitri grabbed his own beer and lifted it in the air, his free arm wrapping around Annalise’s shoulders, and he cleared his thro
at. For a moment, he could feel Preach’s presence, his love, his strength. It invigorated him. “Guys, I can’t tell you what it means to me to have you all here celebrating Trig’s release. We lost a lot of good guys out there, for no good reason at all. I don’t want their deaths to be in vain.
“Now, as we discussed a few days ago, I was ready to end this whole thing and be done with it, but you made it clear the patch still means something to you, which means a hell of a lot to me. As a club, we will move forward from this moment on, in the memory of the good men who died that day, and never again operate in the way that brought us to that day in the first place. Too much senseless loss. Cheers to those men, and to Trig making it out of the hospital and on the road to recovery,” he said, and he took a drink.
“Cheers,” they said, and took drinks of their own.
Dimitri set the mug on the counter and took a few steps toward the foyer, his arms crossed, when his father’s image took hold of him, standing right where he was, talking to a group of hardened men, while little Dimitri played around in the booth all the way in the back. He had been so enamored by his father back then, how larger than life he seemed, how every man in that room looked up to him. How inseparable he and Preach were.
“I just want to say, genuinely, my life is indebted to you men,” Dimitri continued. “Pyro, Jacoby, Dalton, Tank, you guys could’ve left, should’ve probably. You had every chance to escape and wash your hands of all of us, and you had every right to, but you came back, and you saved our lives. I don’t know what else to say, other than thank you. I don’t know how, but I’ll repay you one day.”
“Hey, Dimitri …” Pyro said, a bit of burger still in his mouth, and a hand in the air.
“Yeah.”
“If that were us out there, and you had the opportunity to escape, would you have?” Pyro asked.
“No, of course not, but—”
“But nothing. You would’ve been there, just like we were, so there’s no debt to be paid. You’re welcome. But you owe me nothing.”
“Same,” Tank said.
The others nodded in agreement.
Dimitri passed a humble nod and continued, “Appreciate you gentlemen. Annalise, Knuckles, Trig, and me are here because of you. Just know that. As the new president of the South Side Sinners, I want us to go back to the old way of doing things, in honor of the men we lost, in honor of you men and your sacrifices. I wanna go back to the way of my grandfather, where killing wasn’t our business, and risking prison or death every day wasn’t the MO. When putting some good back into the world meant something. Taking care of our neighborhood and the people in it, our priority. Jacoby has come to me with some ideas for the future of 3SMC and I like ’em. I like 'em a lot. Today is for Trigger, so I won’t go over everything now, but we’ll discuss it all at our next meeting and come to a decision.” Dimitri paused for a moment, felt a thick emotional knot in his throat. He cleared it and continued. “Gregor King believed in this brotherhood, first and foremost. Believed in this family. And that’s exactly what I see here … family.”
Annalise nuzzled tighter under his arm at the mention of the word family.
He felt the swell of emotion as he looked over them, the few who remained, and he could almost see them there, the lost among the living. Preach paced the place as he always had; couldn’t ever seem to sit still to save his life, unless he was in that old recliner. Samson heckled AJ near the flat top, and AJ swatted him away with the spatula. Charlie had a book in his hands, of course, in the back booth, just hoping Trigger didn’t come and fuck with him.
He felt the knot in his throat tighten. Only she had seen fully the emotional wreckage he was then, after everything. Only the quiet nights, with the two of them in bed, allowed him to come to terms with all he’d lost, and then she’d hold him, and she’d dry his tears, and it would always remind him of all he had gained too.
“Family,” Dimitri repeated, his eyes lost, his head nodding slowly. “I love you guys. That’s all I’ve got for now. Let’s have a few drinks, blare the music, and celebrate the fact that Trig didn’t get himself a felony charge while in the hospital.”
“Here, here!” Pyro said, taking a drink, and then wiped the foam mustache away.
Trigger lifted his glass and then tilted it back, taking the entire beer down.
AJ turned the radio up, and they celebrated like the Sinners they were—with copious amounts of booze, and raucous bullshitting, ruthless shit-giving, and animated war stories from the week before.
After a while, Dimitri pulled Annalise in as the others drunkenly talked, and drank, and air guitared, and the music flowed around them. “Hey, babe …” he said quietly. “Come with me. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
She took advantage of being so close and stole a quick kiss. “Oh, what is it?” Her eyes lit up.
“Just come with me. You’ll see.” He took her hand and guided her to the back, down the hallway, and past the meeting room. Opening the door with knowing eyes and a giddy smile, he put a hand up toward the basement steps. “You first.”
“All wrapped up just for me?” she asked, matching his grin, “Oh, you shouldn’t have.” Annalise started to descend the steps as Dimitri flipped on the light. The windowless space was filled with boxes and cleaning supplies, concrete from floor to ceiling, and smelled of old mothballs. There was a slow audible drip from the water heater in the back, just beside the cage, which was a new addition to the place, and had a new resident as well. Inside that steel cage, Ronald Hale wept, seated in his own blood, with his arms pulling his knees in tight, rocking.
“Please,” he said in a hoarse, desperate voice. His filthy hands grabbed the bars and his face wedged between them. “Please, Annalise, I’m your father.”
Annalise shook her head. “You never acted like a father. You sold me to Robbie and left me to die. Unfortunately for you, I didn’t die, but my sympathy for you did.” She refilled his water bowl and pushed it through the bars with her foot before turning to Dimitri. “What’s the surprise? And where did all this blood come from?”
Dimitri smiled wide. He walked away from her, toward the high stacks of boxes, and he pulled out a duffel bag that hid among them. He hauled it toward her and set it at her feet, a giddy smile on his face. “Open it,” he said to her, motioning toward the bag.
Annalise kneeled and unzipped the heavy black bag. Stacks upon stacks of hundreds spilled out onto the floor. Openmouthed, Annalise turned to Dimitri. “He cracked?” she asked, eyes wide.
Dimitri nodded. “Turns out, when you start cutting off Ronald Hale’s toes, he starts singing. Tank got to the big toe on his right foot before he told him where he stashed it. Had his part of the ransom in a storage locker in Kirkwood.” Dimitri laughed. “Tank said he wet himself by the second toe, blamed the whole thing on your mom. I can’t put a bow on that, but it could be considered a present.”
She stood slowly and turned toward the cage, her face calm, unreadable. “It was always about the money and the power for you wasn’t it, Ronald?” Her voice was cold, as she stopped a foot away. “Well, the money is gone, and your power just ran out.” A dry half-smile turned up as he slumped onto the brittle gym mat and wept. She turned to Dimitri and smirked, her hand grabbing his, and she asked, “So, what do you think we should do with him now?”
TO MY READERS, I would like to thank all of you for your incredible support. It still feels surreal to me that people actually read my stories. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly four years since I first published and I still recognize so many names from those days, so many people still showing me love and support just as they have been consistently since I started. You know who you are! I could never adequately thank you guys for the strength you give me when I’m down, self-doubting, anxious, or tired. It’s your love and support that keeps me trucking along when I’m on E. THANK YOU!
TO MY ANNE, I wonder every day how I could’ve been so lucky. We’ve been through so much, and I know there were
times that things seemed impossible, but I’m thankful each and every day that we were able to work things out and make love the most important thing between us. Not our own pain, or hang ups, or insecurities, but allowing our love for each other to guide us, and it surely has. I’ve never been so happy in my entire life and that is one hundred and fifty percent because of you. I can’t remember—nor do I want to—what life was like before you. I just know I’m a better man for knowing you, and for loving you, and I promise to love you with everything I have for the rest of my time on this earth. To always take care of you, tell you how beautiful you are, and grow and learn with you. Forever and then some, babe!
TO CD BRADLEY, thanks for taking a chance on me! I know it’s been a long road for us and we both have had our own detours when it came to getting this puppy finished, but WOW… I’m just so thrilled with what we’ve done here and there is just no way I could’ve written this without you! So looking forward to the next one! Your talent, passion, and commitment to your craft is unparalleled!
I would like to thank BT for coming up with this project and for being so incredible to work with throughout the writing process. Your creativity, boldness, and dedication to your art are truly inspiring and I can’t wait to do it again.
The awesome group of teenagers in my creative writing class for putting up with my freak out moments when the daily lesson would inspire something for this book and I would stop class to message BT.
My children for taking care of the house and being cool with pizza dinners when mamma was having dedicated writing days.
