When I crossed the threshold, I couldn’t see anything at first. Gram’s house stayed shaded inside during the day in an attempt to beat the heat, so walking into the waning sunlight had me raising my hand in front of my face to shield my eyes. When I’d acclimated to the change, my hand dropped limply to my side as I registered what I was seeing.
There were Hispanic guys all over my Gram’s driveway and two silver SUVs with spinning chrome rims blocking our vehicles in. For some reason, I couldn’t look away from the rims of those SUVs. I’d never understood why people chose them for their cars, and the way they kept moving, even though everything else was still, felt like an omen.
“Javier,” Poet rumbled from a few steps ahead of me. “What brings you out for a visit?”
“Eh, you know, just taking a little survey in the neighborhood. It seems your neighbors don’t like having bikers clogging up their parking spaces,” one of the Hispanic men answered, causing my eyes to shift toward the group on the ground.
Our guys were standing in a semi-circle around the front of Gram’s trailer, their bodies tensed and ready, but the Hispanic men weren’t in any sort of formation. They were standing around the driveway, some leaning on the vehicles, looking like they were out for a casual stroll. There were so many of them, though, that their appearance was deceiving. Even if they didn’t look like they were ready for anything, their sheer numbers were enough to cause a tightening in my stomach.
Wait, when had I started to think of those bikers as ‘ours’?
“Well, you took your survey, now it’s time to leave. I’m feeling… mellow, today. And I doubt Rose’d like my boys using up a fuck-load of water cleaning blood off her driveway,” Poet growled back, making the hair at the base of my neck stand up.
“Your boys killed three of my men. It’s not something that can go unpunished. You know this,” the man answered back almost gently.
Poet scoffed, “Three? I thought it was four? Well, fuck me. Looks like you left one breathing,” he said, barely turning his head in Grease’s direction.
“Cabrón! I’ll have blood for this. Hand over the girl and we’re even.” The man spit on the ground, and for the first time, looked at me, causing me to sink back.
“Not gonna happen, you little Mexican piece of shit,” Grease growled, stepping sideways so I could no longer see what was happening. “Get the fuck out of here.”
The man started spouting off in Spanish, and I wished for one minute that I didn’t understand the language of my mother. His words cut off when Gram stepped out from behind me, almost shoving Grease aside as she started using Spanish words of her own. I was so surprised that she was fluent, that it took me a minute to register what she was actually saying. It wasn’t until she started using English that everything became clear… or at least, less confusing.
“I’ve got contacts of my own, you little cocksucker. If my boys were alive, you’d already be dead for what you’ve done to my family,” she hissed, yanking me fully behind her as she raged. “You leave my granddaughter alone or I’ll see you in hell!”
“Rosa,” he looked surprised, but spoke respectfully, “who does she belong to?”
“She belongs to me! That’s all you need to know.”
“Ah, senora, that’s not the way this works. You know this. She belongs to Tommy or Chuck, well, that’s one thing. If she belongs to Daniel, that’s an entirely different matter.”
Watching him over my grandmother’s shoulder hadn’t prepared me for his words, and I gasped as he said my uncles’ names… and then my father’s. His eyes flickered to me for a moment, but were drawn back to Gram as she straightened her slightly curved back, making her almost as tall as I was.
“She belongs to me,” she told him again, slapping her chest in emphasis.
“Well, now, I know that’s not true. Imagine my surprise when I heard that she lived at the address of an old friend. It was jarring, really, to hear that name again.”
He looked as if he was remembering something for a moment, but quickly snapped back to the subject at hand when Gram tried to speak again. He cut her off with a wave of his arm and spoke.
“Due to our history, and my history with your sons, I’ll give you two some time together,” he told her kindly, his voice like that of someone talking to a child. “But she’ll be mine, one way or another.”
He gave a nod to his men and started toward the vehicles when Grease’s incredulous voice boomed out from beside me. “You forgetting something?”
“No, I’m not.” The man shook his head, “I’m not concerned with the Aces. You may be here now, but you won’t be here for long.” He waved his hands dramatically as his face broke out in a smile. “Once you ride back to that rainy hellhole you call home, well, I’ll be here… fucking your girl, and then killing her.”
Poet grabbed Grease as he lunged, and both of them almost tumbled down the porch stairs as the Hispanic man laughed and closed the SUV’s door.
When the men drove away and all was quiet, my mind was once again reeling with the new information flooding in. What the fuck had just happened? And more importantly…
How in God’s name did my Gram know those men?
Chapter 19
Callie
For the next few hours, we discussed our plans, arguing and debating the merits of each idea over and over again. If an idea sounded good to me, Gram disagreed with it, and if we both thought something was a good idea, Poet or Asa shot it down. It was frustrating as hell trying to figure out how we were going to get me out of the mess I was in. The guilt ate at me as the sun dropped from the sky, and by the time Gram had dinner on the table, my stomach was so tied up in knots that I couldn’t even eat. I was also too anxious to ask about my uncles’ connection with the men that were after me—the questions I had just didn’t seem as important as getting far away from them as fast as I could.
Cody was willing to drop out of his expensive prep school in order to move with us to Oregon, but I could tell that the thought of leaving was causing him a lot of anxiety. He was adamant that the school wasn’t important, but I knew it was. He’d been away at private school for two years, and the thought of having to start over was scary for my introverted baby brother. He’d already had his parents and his home ripped from him because of my stupid decisions, I absolutely refused to take that from him, too.
The situation left Gram in the position of choosing between us.
If she moved with me to Oregon, Cody would have to leave school. If she stayed in San Diego, I had to move up North all alone.
There was no right answer.
So I didn’t let her choose.
I chose.
“I’ll move up North on my own,” I finally stated, my heart racing in my chest. “I’d be going to college soon anyway. It’s not like I can’t live by myself eighteen months earlier than planned.”
“Callie, you can’t move all the way to Oregon by yourself!” Gram replied sharply, looking at Poet for backup.
“Rose, not sure what you’d like me to say,” he answered her look, “not a whole lot of options open to ya.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “She’ll be all alone in a new town and she hasn’t even graduated from high school!”
“Gram, it’s fine. I can do it. Really. I’ll just get a little apartment and finish school out there. I’ll be fine.”
“Callie,” Gram sighed wearily, looking at me with an apology in her eyes, “baby, I can’t afford to get you an apartment. I’m barely living here, I can’t support two houses.”
Her cheeks tinged red at the confession and I felt like a complete asshole. Of course she couldn’t afford to pay for another house. While I’d been psyching myself up to convince her to let me move alone, I hadn’t even thought about the money situation. Gram was on a fixed income, and even with her social security benefits and my grandpa’s pension, there wasn’t a whole lot of extra cash left after she paid her bills.
Before I could reply
, Asa spoke up from where he was sitting beside me with his hand on my knee.
“I’ll take care of her,” he told Gram before his eyes moved to me, “I’ll take care of you.”
I opened my mouth to say something back, but I looked like a guppy as I closed it and opened it again. I had no clue what I was supposed to say in a situation like that. He’d take care of me? What the hell was he talking about? He’d been watching out for me physically and emotionally from the minute we met, but for some reason, paying my bills seemed like a much bigger deal. It was like the difference between letting a neighbor borrow a cup of sugar and buying them a car. One of those was a completely understandable sacrifice, the other just seemed crazy.
“Asa, you’re a sweet boy, but I can’t let you do that,” Gram stated kindly from across the table.
“I’m a man,” he rasped, looking between Poet and Gram. “I’m a man and I take care of what’s mine.” His voice was solid. Resolute.
I sat there dumbly as they argued. They were talking about me, and yet I couldn’t think of one thing to say.
“You’ve known her for less than a week. She’s not yours. She’s sixteen years old, goddammit!” Gram responded, slapping the table with her hand, frustrated with the entire situation. I think the way Asa looked at me had finally sunk in for her because she looked like she was beginning to worry as she glanced between us. There was a difference between how a teenage boy felt about his girl and a man felt about his woman.
A teenage boy may speak strongly in defense of his girl, full of piss and vinegar and grand dramatic vows of how he’ll protect her—but that only lasts until the boy meets with odds that are no longer on his side. But a man? He’ll make it clear that he stands between his woman and the world, no matter what the consequences are. And then he’ll prove it.
Asa wasn’t making grand promises, vowing to slay dragons or sweep me off my feet. He was making a very serious gesture of commitment, and it was freaking me the fuck out.
“I don’t want to go all the way to Oregon,” I blurted, breaking into Asa and Gram’s staring contest. “I don’t want to be so far away that Gram can’t drive up and visit me.”
All the heads at the table had been watching the interaction between Gram and Asa, but they all swiveled toward me at my declaration, so I decided to keep going.
“Can’t I just go to Sacramento or something? I mean, that should be far enough away, right? That way, Gram can drive up and see me on the weekends sometimes. And I wouldn’t have to leave California, so all of my school stuff would transfer fine…” my voice trailed off at the end as I ran out of steam.
“That wouldn’t—”
“That doesn’t make—”
Asa and Gram’s arguments were cut off by Poet’s raised voice.
“Now that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,” he told me with a nod. “Children need their elders around. Moving Callie so far away that her grandmother couldn’t visit, well, that would be a shame.”
He turned his head to Gram and convinced her with only a few words. “She’d be alone, yes? But we have a chapter in Sacramento that would look after her. And, well, Grease wouldn’t be able to live with her in Sacramento, would he?”
Asa sputtered across the table, realizing that his plan wasn’t turning out the way he’d hoped. He wanted me with him; it was clear by the way he was speaking. And to be completely honest, I wasn’t opposed to that idea, either. I didn’t feel pressured by Asa’s wish to move in together, and at that point, I couldn’t even imagine being without him for five minutes. All of a sudden, the thought of living with Asa didn’t scare me as much as the thought of living all alone.
“Boyo, you understand Callie’s reasoning, yeah? Girl wants to be close as she can to her family and can’t say I blame her,” he said quietly to Asa who still hadn’t said a word. “Question now is how that affects your decision.”
Not one person around that table anticipated the answer Asa would give, because none of us saw a twenty-year-old man supporting a sixteen-year-old girl who wasn’t related to him—especially if she wasn’t even going to be living with him.
“I take care of what’s mine. Doesn’t matter where she lives,” he told us, giving my knee a squeeze before standing up from the table. He kissed my head gently as he passed by me, mumbling in my ear, “Be right back, Sugar. I need a smoke.”
He walked out the front door as if what he’d just promised was of no consequence at all.
Chapter 20
Grease
I wanted Callie with me. I wanted to come home to her at night, in an apartment away from the clubhouse where I’d had a room for the last three years. I wanted a fucking place of my own where I didn’t have to listen to bitches squealing and brothers fighting at all hours of the night. I wanted a goddamn living room that I could sit in with a beer in front of a big-ass TV.
I wanted a home, for Christ’s sake.
I’d been sacking away money since I started getting paid, so I wasn’t hurting for cash, but there was no way I’d be moving from the clubhouse anytime soon if I was paying for an apartment for Callie. I wasn’t making that much money.
Taking care of Callie would set me back in a big way, but I couldn’t see any other option. She needed me. She needed to be out of San Diego, and I saw the guilt on her face when her brother was trying to bluff his way through giving up that fancy-ass school he went to. He didn’t want to give it up but he was willing to. I respected the fuck out of him for that. But if he gave it up, that would be one more thing she felt responsible for, and the guilt was already so heavy on her shoulders…
Fuck it. I’d handle it. She was only a couple years away from being eighteen, and then she could take care of her own shit. I was hoping by then she wouldn’t want to; that she’d be so wrapped up in me that she wouldn’t want to be living eight hours away. At least that was what I was counting on.
I felt like a selfish asshole when they’d looked at me like I was crazy—like I was so fucking selfless because I wanted to pay her way.
Didn’t they see that I wanted her to owe me? I wanted her fucking dependent on me, and I’d do anything to make that happen. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was wrong with me—I just knew that the minute she didn’t look at me like I was saving her, it would gut me.
I didn’t know how fucked up it would make our relationship. It would be years before I saw how resentment builds from one person being totally dependent on the other and how the beginning of our relationship started a cycle of guilt and blame that would fester and flame out of control.
Chapter 21
Callie
Once the decision had been made, things happened fast.
The next morning, Poet got on the phone with someone from the Sacramento Chapter and set things in motion up there.
Gram called the funeral home where my parents would be sent and tried to move up their service.
Cody slept in.
Asa left for an hour and came back with an empty moving truck.
And while everyone moved around me in preparation, I sat quietly and tried not to cry.
I missed my mom and dad with a depth so overwhelming that I thought if I started crying again I’d never stop. I’d never understood the word sorrow until then. The thought of never seeing my parents again was almost too much for me to handle. Throughout the past few days, I’d known that they were gone. I’d cried and panicked and worried, but I don’t think it had sunk in. It was finally sinking in, and all I felt was… sorrow.
It was such a small word for such a huge emotion.
My parents would never see me graduate from high school or college. My dad would never walk me down the aisle at my wedding. I’d never again sit with my head on my mom’s shoulder after a bad day, or hug her tight while she was cooking dinner. I’d never see her eyes light up with love for me again. And I’d never get to make peace with my dad after the awful fight we’d had.
I’d lost almost everything in one single night
and I didn’t understand it. It was so hard to comprehend the magnitude of changes in my life that I’d gone into shock, and as I sat on my grandmother’s couch, I was finally coming out of it.
Without the need to plan or worry, I was finally able to grieve.
I did it silently and without fanfare. I let myself break apart, feeling the heaviness in my chest and the trembling in my fingers, but not allowing anyone to see it.
It’s a common phenomenon to see a child get hurt while away from their parents and then walk stoically to them to be patched up. It’s almost as if they know instinctively that no one will hear them, so they don’t cry right away. Yet, the minute they see their parent, they burst out in sobs, as if the crying wasn’t necessary until they had someone to hear it.
I was in pain, but I no longer had a parent to hear my cries.
So I stayed silent.
I stayed that way, turned inward and grieving, until Asa sat next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, pretty girl. How you holding up?”
“I’ve been better,” I answered him with a sniffle, unable to hide the frog in my throat.
He pulled me closer to him until I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder. His hand came up to lightly run his fingers up and down my arm, and the motion had me relaxing into his body in relief.
“It’ll get better, baby. I promise. This fuckin’ sucks, and if I could take it away from you, I would. Nothing about this situation is okay. Not one goddamn thing. But it’ll get better,” he mumbled into my hair.
“It hurts, Asa,” I whispered back.
“I know it does, sweetheart,” he told me with a kiss on my head, “lost both my parents, too.”
I jerked at his words but didn’t speak. I didn’t want to ask what had happened. It felt insensitive to ask about it. What if they’d been killed the way my parents had? I couldn’t imagine having to explain it to anyone.