him kill Chop?” I asked. “Why go through all this trouble? Why try and kill me too?” I stared her down, daring her to answer my questions. “What the fuck did I ever do to you?” I wanted nothing more than to snap the neck of the tiny woman holding the big gun.
“Because,” Sadie said, her eyes glassy. “You were my little boy. My Abel. I couldn’t let you be just like him. I wouldn’t, and when Gus told me how much you really were like him, the things you did. I knew I had to end it.”
“So you would rather Isaac or Eli kill me?” I asked, feeling sick. “You wanted them to kill me so I wouldn’t end up like Chop? Do you even know what those sick fucks did to me?”
She didn’t answer. Stepping over Gus she briefly peered out the window to the soldiers below, oblivious that the person they really needed to kill was one floor above them and wearing a fucking skirt. “Yes. I failed you, and I’m sorry, but it’s too late now. It’s all too late to change it now.”
A realization hit me. “You’re the reason Preppy’s dead. I should fucking end you right fucking now you fucking cunt!” I said, pushing the desk aside and almost knocking over Chop, who I was inadvertently dragging with me.
Sadie aimed her gun at my chest, and if I didn’t care about ever seeing Ti again, I would have ran right through a spray of bullets to rip my mothers head off. “See?” Sadie asked, pointing at me. “Just like him.” She sighed. “All I ever did was love you and try to give you a better life, and then he took it all from me!” Sadie paused, her eyes glassed over. “I loved you!” she cried, her hands again shaking. To my surprise she wasn’t looking at me when she said it this time. She was looking at Chop. “I love you and I gave you a son and you ruined it. You ruined everything! All I wanted was for you to leave the club, the life. I wanted us to be a family. To be together.”
“So that’s why you turned rat in the first place.”
Chop cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. I took Sadie’s temporary silence as an admission.
“I love you, too, you know,” she said, this time to me. “I—”
I cut her off. I’d already heard more than fucking enough. “YOU are NOTHING to me!” I roared, pulling at my own hair in frustration. “I don’t give a fuck where you’ve been or for how long or what the fuck Chop did to you. There’s only one fucking thing I care about right now.” I narrowed my eyes and gave her one last warning. “You better tell me where the fuck she is, and if you so much as laid one fucking finger on her—” The sound of bullets grew even louder, but I didn’t care. They could be sailing through the room and I still wouldn’t have taken my eyes off of the bitch who had my girl.
Sadie’s shoulders fell, but it was like I wasn’t in the room. The conversation she was having was entirely one sided. I didn’t know what I needed to do to get her so she could tell me where the fuck my girl was. “I came back for you once, you know,” she said. “Escaped all on my own.” Chops eyes widened like he hadn’t known that. “I disguised myself. At first I was going to take you away with me, that time for good. You were sixteen at the time and when I finally found you, you were at some biker bar. Some whore was sitting on your lap. You were snorting that shit up your nose off of her legs. That’s the very moment I knew it was too late.” She searched my face, “You looked just like him sitting there. A spitting image. I knew then there was no saving you. I could have just left then. Disappeared. But I didn’t. I had to make sure that the two of you were put down and the best way to do that was from the inside. So I went back down into my hole before Chop even realized I was gone and I put up with his abuse every single day knowing that I wouldn’t stop until I took every last one of you leather-wearing psychopaths down.” She turned her nose up at us. “Especially the two of you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great speech. Now, where the fuck is my girl!”
Sadie laughed and stepped to the side of the door. “I’ll tell you. But you need to move, outside. NOW!” she ordered, and when neither of us budged she fired at the light fixture, sending glass raining down around us.
Chop moved first, and I followed. Sadie stayed out of arm’s reach, as we stepped through what was left of Gus and made our way out to the balcony of the second floor, which overlooked the courtyard where sporadic gunfire was being exchanged.
A monster of a man wearing overalls with no shirt underneath walked casually beside the pool on the floor below, holding a semi-automatic in each hand, and I could have sworn I heard him whistling, but when I looked down again, he was gone.
“On your knees,” Sadie ordered. I lowered myself to the ground but only because she still hadn’t answered my question about Ti, and Chop did the same, because we were cuffed and he didn’t have a fucking choice. “I’m on my fucking knees, bitch, now tell me where the fuck my girl is.”
Sadie clucked her tongue and moved to stand beside us. “Unfortunately for you, I needed the girl in order to get you here, and since Gus was so insistent on joining me here tonight, he hired outside help to do the sick shit he wanted to do her and tape it. I’d show you the tape, but something tells me you won’t be around long enough to watch it.”
“I’ll fucking kill you!” I shouted, rising off my knees. She fired, sending a bullet straight through my thigh and sending me crashing back down to the floor.
Chop remained silent, only watching as I flailed around on the floor, clenching my teeth together, warring against the agony tearing through my leg. “Where was this girl when I needed her?” Chop suddenly asked, drawing my attention away from the pain. I managed to sit up on my good knee and with my free hand I pushed against the wound to slow down the blood loss. “Where was this girl twenty-five years ago?” he asked. “Why, my Sadie girl? Why did you turn on me? You could have come to me. You could have told me what was going on. What you wanted to do. You had a choice, and you made the wrong fucking one. It’s your fault. You made me pull that fucking trigger!”
Sadie turned to him, her eyes rimmed with red like she was on the verge of tears. “I did what I thought could get us out from under your shit,” she spat.
“But don’t you see?” he asked. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you even when I should have after what you did. So I kept you. I kept you all to myself because you were mine.” Chop shook his head. His face reddened. “You were a rat who deserved to fucking die but I didn’t kill you!” he said, raising his voice to a scream. “You claimed to have loved your kid, but I can see right fucking through you. You never once asked to see him in all the years I had you. You didn’t love him, you were jealous of him. Of the club. Of anywhere else my attention was besides you, and you couldn’t fucking handle that, so you ran to the law with your tail between your fucking cunt like the bitch you are.”
“You still don’t get it do you Chop-Chop?” she asked. “None of that matters now.” Sadie stood behind me and pressed the gun to the back of my head. “I’ll kill your precious son first, so you can watch him die. Then it’s your turn, baby.” She blew him a kiss.
She leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I may not have had the chance to raise you up, baby boy, but I’m not going to pass up the chance now to put you down.”
“Let me do it,” Chop said. “Give me a gun. You can still kill me after. Just let me do this one thing right for you.”
“Fucking pussy,” I muttered.
Sadie was quiet and my head wasn’t blown off, but I couldn’t believe she was even considering what he was offering, and even after all the shit Chop had done, I was mad at myself for being surprised at the offer.
I couldn’t believe it even more when Chop raised up to his feet and was suddenly the one standing behind me with a gun, my arm that was cuffed to his was pulled backward at an awkward angle. “This is for you, baby,” Chop said with a sadness in his voice I’d never heard before.
Chop pulled the trigger.
The sound of the gun shot was fucking deafening.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Bear
The entire courtyard rattled like a cannon had been fired. So did the inside of my head. Wet and warm liquid poured thickly over my head and shoulders. The heaviness that was Chop’s lifeless body descended over me, forcing my face against the rusted railing.
I pushed Chop off of me, his body falling through the broken railing. If King hadn’t appeared and grabbed on to my legs I would have went over with him. “Thia, keep the gun on her,” King ordered, and at the mere mention of her name, I found the strength to hang on. King laid next to me on his stomach leaning out over the balcony under the railing as far as he could stretch. “Pull up as much as you can,” he said. I felt my arm separating from the joint. I pulled up as hard as I could, straining with everything I had in me until King could reach Chop. With a guttural roar he pulled his fat corpse back onto the balcony. My arm and shoulder felt instant relief.
King pulled a machete style knife from his boot and hacked away at Chop’s wrist, blood spurting into the air and all over his face and shirt, until it was severed, and King and I were so covered in blood it looked as if he just starred in a horror movie.
Our horror happened to be very real.
“Noooooooo!” Sadie screamed, and while she was momentarily distracted, I grabbed the gun Chop had dropped and turned it on her. Sadie’s mouth was wide open as she looked from the railing to the pink-haired girl holding the gun.
Ti.
“Thank fucking Christ,” I muttered.
“You bitch!” Sadie screamed at Ti, “What did you do?”
“Same thing I’m about to do to you if you don’t put that fucking gun down.”
I’d thought King had fired the bullet at Chop, but I’d been wrong. It was my girl who’d saved me.
“You leave her the fuck alone,” I said, standing between my mom and my girl. “Put your fucking gun down.”
“Abel,” she pleaded, taking a step toward me.
“Stop,” I warned. “Don’t fucking call me that. You don’t get to call me that.” Without turning my head away from Sadie I called out to Ti, “Are you okay? Did this bitch hurt you? Did Gus hurt you?”
“I’m fine, baby,” she said, her voice snaking it’s way inside of me, making me feel centered, grounded.
Complete.
Sadie looked down at Chop’s handless body. “He’s really gone?” Sadie cried, covering her mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun. A tear fell from her eye and ran down her cheek. “I mean, that’s what I wanted. Him. Gone. But now…he really is.”
“What the fuck did you think was going to happen?” I asked.
Sadie shook her head and took a step back. Her gaze went from me to Ti and then to King. “Don’t know what you were thinking,” I said. “But there ain’t no way you’re walking out of here,” I said, and I meant it.
Sadie wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “Oh, my Abel.” she said, sniffling. “I never planned on walking out of here.” She looked over to Ti. “Take good care of my boy,” she said before placing the gun in her mouth.
Then she did what Chop was too much of a coward to do all those years before, and she ended it all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Thia
Bear limped over his mother’s dead body and grabbed my face roughly in his hands. “Hey, Beautiful.” He turned my chin from side to side and looked me over like he was inspecting me for physical damage.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” I reassured him. “Just scrapes and bruises.”
“Scrapes and bruises would be too much, but I call bullshit. Your cheeks are swollen and you just winced like I slapped you. What the fuck happened?” His nostrils flared.
I ignored his question, my teeth not seeming all that important. “Looks like I got off better than you,” I said, pointing to the bloody hole in his thigh.
“Just scrapes and bruises,” he said, repeating my lie. I rolled my eyes. “Now fucking tell me what happened to your mouth.”
“I lost a couple of teeth. Just in the back,” I added, like it would make Bear’s eyes turn any less murderous. I instantly regretted telling him.
“Who?” he demanded. “Who the fuck did Gus leave you with?” Bear asked, like he needed to know whose name he could add to his list of people to kill. “How the fuck you even get out?”
Both questions had the same answer. “Jake.” Bear’s eyes went wide. “But it’s okay,” I said, grabbing on to his arm. “He rescued me.” I left off the part about him being one of the people to pull those teeth.
“Fuck,” Bear said, pressing his forehead to mine, grabbing onto the back of my neck. “That could have gone either way.”
“But it didn’t,” I reassured him. “I’m fine. I swear.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I am so fucking sorry,” Bear said, pressing a kiss to my lips. He was covered in blood and from what I’d just witnessed I knew most of that blood wasn’t his.
“Bear,” I said, placing my hands over his. “You need to believe me when I tell you that I’m okay. Not just physically, but with all of this.” I looked around the clubhouse. “You’re alive. I’m alive. That’s all you need to know.”
Bear threaded his fingers up through my hair. “Why did you come here? You shouldn’t of.”
I shook my head. “You see, that’s where you’re wrong. I made you a promise that I wouldn’t give up on you, and…”
“And?” he pressed.
“And so I didn’t,” I said, adding, “and believe it or not, there is no place else I’d rather be.” Bear laughed and so did I because although it sounded ridiculous, it was true. Bear tugged on my hair. I stood on my tippy toes and pressed a kiss against the corner of his mouth. His lips didn’t move and neither did mine. We stood there for a minute. Just feeling our connection, breathing each other in, reminding ourselves that we were together now.
Alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Bear
“Bear, come look at this,” King said, putting an end to our moment. Without letting go of Ti’s hand, I walked over to the balcony, dragging her with me, and looked down to what King was pointing at below. I was stunned at the sight before me. Surrounding the pool were Bastards. My former brothers, at least twenty of them, and they were all on their knees with their hands behind their heads while Munch, Wolf, Stone, and several older men I didn’t recognize stood around them, guns at the ready.
Well, there was one guy I recognized in the group. It seemed I hadn’t imagined seeing him earlier. “Ted?” I asked.
“Howdy, there!” Ted called up cheerily, covered in his own fair amount of blood splatter. Thor, who had been a prospect when I left, who was now wearing a member’s patch on his cut, made a move to stand but Ted kicked him in the back of the knees and forced him back down to the ground, never breaking a smile.
I turned to Ti. “Was this you?” I asked, waving at all the unfamiliar men.
She shrugged with a little half smile. “I figured that if you were going to go to war, you should have an army.” She leaned in, her breath tickling my ear. “So I called in an army.”
Before that night I’d already known I was in love with Ti, what I didn’t know was that I could love her more than I already did, but right there, standing in a pool of my parents blood, mixed with some of my own, I fell for her so hard my chest ached with all the love I had for her.
Ted saluted me. “Had more fun tonight than I have in years,” he called up again, tucking one of his semi-automatics into the front pocket of his overalls so he could adjust his trucker’s hat. “Was like rounding up pigs at the fair.”
“What are you going to do with them?” King asked, nodding down to the men on their knees and I knew right away what he was really asking.
I shrugged. “I’m gonna talk to them first.”
And then we’ll discuss mass murder.
* * *
Thia
“They need you,” I said, pulling away from Bear. I was relieved he was okay, but I wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. I knew I had to though, because the men below needed him as much as I did.
He kissed me on the top of my head. “Don’t go too far, baby.”
King tapped Bear on the shoulder in one of those manly, reassuring, this-is-not-a-hug gestures and joined me by the top of the stairs.
Bear turned to his brothers, both current and former. From where we stood at the top of the steps I could see both Bear high up on his perch like an eagle stalking its prey, and the men below, all in different varying stages of dishevelment, all probably wondering what fate was in store for them.
I was wondering that too.