Chief lies in the grass, coughing, his chest pooling with blood. His eyes are swollen shut, and there’s a bullet hole in his stomach. His lungs wheeze and his frame shakes. “I’m sorry, Brother,” he says. Letting out one more cough, his body shakes, and then he goes limp. I want to grieve for him, but I can’t bring myself to. This is exactly the shit I was talking about earlier, priorities changing when a brother hooks up.
Snapping to, I rush back into Cub’s room to PJ’s incessant barking. I trained her to only bark like this when there’s trouble. On the other side of the bed, PJ is barking and whimpering. I round the bed and drop to my knees. There, lying in a pool of blood, is Tegan. Her chest heaves in shallow breaths. Blood slowly drips from the cut across her neck. PJ’s cries tear me apart as I watch the life slowly drain from Tegan. Scrubbing my face to hide the onslaught of tears from everything that’s just happened, I let out a scream and vow to kill every fucking one of them. Those fucking bastards took my brother, they took my dog, and they fucking took my girl. I better find her in one piece, because I have plans for her—for us.
They’re going to fucking suffer.
Chapter 26
Alex
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu
Earlier that day…
BEING WITH RYAN, in whatever capacity we’ve been together these last few days, has been amazing. He’s so good at distracting me from the hell that’s about to be brought down on my life, and even worse—those around me. My family. I catch him watching me, just like he watched Jim and Ruby the other day. There’s a longing in his eyes that he doesn’t want me to see. And I don’t really understand it. I want to know what screwed him up so bad that he shut himself down. It won’t last for too long though, I can tell. I’ve been prying past his protective armor. Maybe I should have warned him that I’m persistent.
But right now isn’t about Ryan and me, and it isn’t about Ryan’s issues, either. Looking in the mirror, I take stock of my appearance. For the first time in days, my eyes aren’t red with sorrow. There’s so much to be sad—even scared—about, but Ryan’s right. Avoiding Ruby—my mother—will only make the waiting that much more difficult.
I look down at Tegan, who’s lying by my feet, and snap my fingers. She sits up, chest puffed out—confident, in control—and waits for another command. I’m envious of her confidence. This is really damn pathetic, being jealous of a dog who sniffs crotches as a way of greeting.
“I guess we have to just do it, huh?” I ask. She doesn’t move until I snap my fingers again and pat my leg twice. Leaving my room and walking into the kitchen, slowly, with Tegan at my side, I can’t help but fidget. I spent two months with Ruby, growing to love her, willing up the courage to ask her about my mother. All the while not knowing, never really suspecting. Looking back, I suppose there were myriad clues, had I been paying attention.
I round the corner of the fridge and come into view, and wait to be noticed. It’s an old nervous habit from life with my father, a man who didn’t like to be interrupted unless it be absolutely necessary. Ruby stands at the peninsula, chopping carrots and tossing them into a commercial-sized pot beside her. Her hair is up in a butterfly barrette, and her face is free of make-up. She looks tired, worse than I’ve ever seen her. Selfishly, I hope she’s worried about our relationship and not the impending threat. I hope she wants to be my mother as much as I want to be her daughter.
I can’t kid myself though. I don’t envy her position. She has three children—four if you count Ryan—and one of them might have to hurt another one in order to protect me. What might happen isn’t something I can process, so instead, I avoid thinking about it.
“Hi,” I whisper, praying like hell she hears me. Then when she stops the knife in mid-air and slowly lifts her head, giving me a soft smile, I almost want to disappear. It’s so different now, knowing who she is, knowing what she did. She’s still Ruby, but now she’s something else, something bigger. And I’m—I don’t really know who I am or how I fit anymore.
“Hey,” she says back, just as softly, setting the knife down.
“Do you need any help?” I ask, pointing to the pot. It takes her a moment before she nods her head and waves me over. I cross the kitchen and get to work chopping celery after she hands me a knife. Standing here like this reminds me of Gloria and how much I miss her. I shut the thought down immediately, knowing I won’t come back from that place if I let myself slip into those kinds of thoughts.
“The guys eat like pigs,” she says. “I don’t know when was the last time I cooked something that didn’t feed an army.” The evening after Ryan and I made love for the first time, six more guys showed up. Jim has a total of ten men on the house. The only change since they arrived was that now Ryan has the man who was on my sliding glass door down in the grass. It was my decision. I told him I wouldn’t be able to be intimate with him if somebody could hear us.