Baby Bitch (Bitches and Queens) (11 page)

“I love him,” McKenna cried.

“Then you have a very important decision
to make,” Hannah retorted evenly as her hand fell away McKenna’s jaw. She
reached for her hands and held them between her own. “You can either love a
living man or a ghost…” Hannah paused. Her eyes narrowed to lethal slits. In
the span of a heartbeat, everything about her changed. “If you chose to see him
again, talk to him again, or contact him in any way, by the time I am finished
with Trevor, he will be crying out to Satan to drag his vile soul to hell just
to escape me,” she growled ominously.

Later the evening, McKenna was lying on
her bed crying softly while Willow patted astringent on her bruised face. “It
stinks,” she grimaced with disgust.

“Witch Hazel will help the bruise heal
faster.”

“Have you seen her yet?”

“No,” Willow murmured. “Not since we left
Sam’s house. I’m sure your mother had a few words for him.”

“That was hours ago. Where has she been?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Willow
whispered.

Willow knew exactly what McKenna was
thinking, and she couldn’t say that she wasn’t thinking the same thing.
Good
Lord, did she go after him?
There were parts of Hannah that she would never
fully be able to comprehend. Those aspects of Hannah’s personality both drew
her in and scared the living shit out of her. She knew Hannah had traversed
many dark paths and had experienced cruelties beyond imagination. Those years
of torment split her personality like a two-sided coin. There was the Hannah
they knew—a wonderful, kind, loving, generous mother and wife. And then there
was the other Hannah—a soulless creature capable of inflicting pain and
suffering without blinking an eye. For years, her dark side at been held at a
bay, but Willow was very much afraid that the sight of her daughter’s beaten
face had flipped the coin.

“I’ve never seen her like this. She
scared me,” McKenna confessed.

Perhaps, scared wasn’t a strong enough
word. Hannah had terrified her. The part that frightened her the most was that
she hadn’t sounded crazy. No instead, she was calm, rational, and rather
matter-of-fact about the whole thing, which made McKenna wonder if her mommy
hadn’t gone insane.

“That wasn’t your mother. That was Hannah
Fairbanks,” Willow explained softly. “Now you understand why she didn’t want
you to become like her.”

“Willow,” Hannah called out, surprising
them both. “It’s time for bed.”

Willow leaned down and kissed McKenna’s
uninjured cheek. “Good night, sweetheart.”

Hannah pushed away from the doorjamb to
let her pass. As she walked by, Hannah reached for her hand. “I have your bath
ready.”

Nodding lightly, Willow left the two of
them alone. Hannah proceeded to walk over and sit down on McKenna’s bed. With a
tight smile, she tucked the blankets around her body. “Do you remember what I
said earlier?” she inquired calmly.

“Yes.”

Leaning down with a devilish smirk,
Hannah whispered, “Good. Because I meant every word of it.”

As Willow sat alone in the bathtub, she
decided that there were infinitely worse ways for her wife to chase away her
demons—other women, drugs. And to think, years ago she had been revolted by
this simple act. Now, she might almost consider it somewhat relaxing… almost,
if the woman bathing her wasn’t fucking insane. Talking was never part of the
ritual so both women remained silent as Hannah went through the motions of
first bathing her and then drying her off to dress her.

Willow waited until Hannah climbed in bed
beside her before asking, “Do you feel better now?”

“I will feel better when Trevor’s soul is
writhing in hell,” Hannah gritted through her teeth.

“Yes, well, it is comments like that that
scare me,” Willow muttered.

Hannah glanced over impatiently. “I won’t
promise you anything. So don’t ask.”

Willow gasped softly as she felt a little
piece of her heart splinter. Hannah was so remote, so removed—right there
beside her, but not really there at all. Yes, Hannah had gone through hell and
back to become healthy, but it wasn’t as if she was sitting around waiting in a
pretty garden for her to come home. Except for a few short weeks, Willow had
been right there beside her. Hannah had dragged her down the spiraling depths,
but they had managed to escape the madness together. Hannah had already jumped
off the cliff, but she had better think again if she thought Willow would stand
by helplessly.
‘Where you go, I’ll go…’
 They had made that pledge to
each other years ago, and Willow still sincerely believed each and every word
just as strongly today as she did then.

“You already promised me everything, or
did you forget our wedding vows? When I asked you to marry me, I had no
intention of becoming a prison wife,” Willow spat angrily.

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Hannah
hissed.

“And?”

“And what? What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that you will not get
involved in this,” Willow exclaimed.

“How can I not get involved? This is our
daughter.”

“I know,” Willow shouted and then let out
an angry puff of air. “I know that, and trust me, there is nothing you could do
to him that I wouldn’t want to do myself. But there are these little things
called laws, and I don’t want you to get arrested. We need to let the police
handle this.”

“The police,” Hannah scoffed. “For fuck’s
sake, you heard her. She
loves
him. She won’t speak against him, and it
will be our word against hers.”

“We will file a restraining order.”

“And like that will fucking work. Those
rarely do shit, especially when neither person involved wants to be
restrained.”

“Then what?” Willow declared. “What do
you suggest we do?”

“We don’t need to do anything,” Hannah
said. “The problem has already been taken care of, or will be tomorrow.”

Willow eyes widen in horror. “What did
you do?” she whispered painfully.

Hannah rolled her eyes impatiently as she
pounded at the pillow and then rearranged the blanket. “I didn’t murder him if
that is what you are thinking. I’m buying our daughter out. I spent the day
with our accountant. It wasn’t easy to do on a Sunday, but he did manage to get
his hands on three-hundred thousand dollars in cash. I forced Sam to throw in
two-hundred thousand as well because he lied to me.”

“So now what? You’re going to give Trevor
five-hundred thousand dollars to stay away from McKenna? Do you think it will
work?”

“Trevor won’t see a damn penny of that
money,” Hannah hissed heatedly.

“I don’t understand,” Willow questioned, confused.

“I hired a private investigator a few
weeks ago. He discovered that Trevor is an affiliate of the outlaw motorcycle
gang, Devils Kin…”

“Good Lord,” Willow cried.

“I arranged a meeting with the club’s
president tomorrow. I am giving him the money, and in return, he will keep Trevor
away,” Hannah finished.

“But what if Trevor refuses to stay
away?”

“He won’t,” Hannah reassured calmly.
“Once the deal has been made, if Trevor tries to contact McKenna, he will be signing
his own death warrant.”

“Oh my God,” Willow exclaimed as she started
to panic. Her heart was pounding against her chest, and it felt as if someone
had reached inside and squeezed her lungs tight. Normally, she was able to keep
a tight leash on her fears, but there were just many ways for this to go
terribly wrong. Unable to fight the onslaught of emotion, tears sizzled down
her cheeks. “I don’t want you to go there alone. I will go with you.”

Hannah reached out and pulled her close.
“Shh,” she whispered against her lips. “Please don’t worry about me. You know I
hate it when you get upset. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“But… but…” Willow stammered.

“I promise.” Hannah kissed her quivering
lips. “I’m not going there alone.”

“Who is going with you?”

“That’s not important. The only thing
that matters is that this nightmare will finally be over tomorrow.”

Hannah slammed her car door shut. The
steel-metal complex that was surrounded by a barbwire fence was everything she
imagined it would be. As she waited beside the security camera, she glanced
down indifferently at the pair of snarling Rottweiler dogs. Not that she held
this band of rag-tag criminals in her highest esteem, but whatever opinion she had,
had fallen at their sight. No true offender ever left the work of men for
mindless beasts.

A few moments later, a pair of dangerous-looking
bikers slowly ambled towards the gate. As with the dogs, they did little for
her. She had seen worse. Hell, she had been worse.

“You here for business or pleasure?” the
tall man with the noticeable limp asked with a smirk.

“I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure
that out yourself.”

The shorter of the two men eyed her up and
down. His eyes finally came to rest midway between her lips and breasts. She
didn’t even want to begin to imagine what it was about her throat that he found
so fascinating. He finally spoke with a raspy whisper, “I would have thought a
pretty lady like you would know better than to come here by yourself.”

“Brains and beauty have little to do with
each other,” Hannah retorted impatiently. “And just so I am very clear about
it, I am never alone.”

“Your imaginary friend wouldn’t happen to
be a loaded weapon because if it is, I’ll have to confiscate it before you’re
allowed on the premises,” the tall man said cockily.

“My
imaginary
friend is more of a
fiend. And he doesn’t kill with bullets unless absolutely necessary. He prefers
to use his hands, blades, and a whole assortment of other torture devices that
I’m sure you have never heard of before. If you would like, he would be more
than happy to demonstrate for you.”

“Just to be sure, I’ll have to check
first,” the shorter man rasped.

“If you even think about laying a hand on
me, I’ll rip your balls off and shove them down your throat,” Hannah gritted
through her teeth.

A second later, his phone began ringing.
The conversation was very short, clipped, and couldn’t have lasted more than
ten syllables. Hanging up, he glanced over at the tall man and shrugged, “The
Prez said to let her in.”

Once the gate was opened, the savage
beasts no longer took notice of her and ran back to their shady patch of grass
under the lone tree. As she didn’t want the images of what she saw permanently
seared upon her brain, she did her best to block them out as she was led into
the complex and up the stairs. She caught only a few brief glimpses of the
people loitering about.

They all looked the same to her—rough,
scarred, and patched, and for a second, she felt genuine terror. But not for
herself, she felt it for McKenna. Hannah had devoted the last eighteen years of
her life to protecting and sheltering her babies, and to think one of them had
almost been snatched away right out from under her watchful eyes. Stolen,
polluted, stained, and corrupted—
no,
that would never happen to McKenna.
She could not let it happen. Even if drastic measures were called for, Hannah
would not let it happen.

Fortunately, she had a guardian demon on
her side. Ruthless and deadly, twisted and sick, the Russian assassin was so
infamous that he only went by one name—Dmitri. Any criminal or organization
worth their salt had heard the stories, which in Dmitri’s case weren’t legends.
He was everything they said he was and so much more. Though their bond of tears
and blood had been forged so many years ago, even Hannah did not claim to
comprehend his tortured soul. Dmitri was the one person, the only person, she
truly feared. He was also the only person she absolutely trusted in times of
peril because she knew he would do anything she asked,
anything.

Unfortunately, there was always a price
to pay for his services, so for now, she wouldn’t be calling on him. He was
more of a measure of last resort. She had not seen him face to face in over two
decades, but they kept in contact. Five years ago when he left prison, Dmitri
was kind enough to inform her, although he had been rather sketchy on the
details so Hannah didn’t know if he was released or had escaped. Occasionally,
he sent care packages with photographs of his
art
. Of course, Willow
knew nothing of him or their association, but Hannah hadn’t been lying when she
said she wasn’t coming alone. Even in spirit, Dmitri was a formidable force to
reckon with.

Once inside the president’s office,
Hannah discovered the leader looked much like his congregation, only perhaps a
bit more wiry and shrewd. His stint in prison had no doubt caused turmoil among
the ranks. On some level, she could almost respect his dogged determination and
will. It could not have been easy to lead from behind bars or take his place
back on the throne he had abandoned.  But he was still a thief, murderer, drug dealer,
and pimp. Their worlds were so different now, but once, a long time ago, she
had resided in a place much like his. She knew him. She could understand what
drove a man like him. So alike, yet so different. Here, in this world, was the
only place he would ever lead. Hannah was a queen. Once a queen, always a
queen, in her world or any other that she might chose to dwell.