Holding On (54 page)

“
Oh no
fucker you’re awake for this, all of it. I’m going to help you out
a bit though. You hurt my sister, you
touched
my sister, cut her, beat her,
and put your hands on her without her consent. You nearly raped her
and you were looking forward to it had Warren not caught you.
Tonight you’re done. You will die today, there is no question to
that.” He doesn’t say anything because he’s going in and out again.
I go to the box for a hunting knife and find this damn thing is one
of the sharpest hunting knives I’ve ever seen. I unzip his pants as
he comes to again, instantly he’s begging to stop me because he
knows what I’m about to do.

“
Hem I’m sorry. I’m so
sorry, man. You’re right, I did those things, I confess. I’m so
sorry.”

“
You think you’re getting
outta here with an apology? No less, a weak apology?” I laugh, a
full bellied laugh.

My thoughts start to
consume me and my world gets dark. Remembering those pictures of
Cherry, the mental image of Mace and what she told me he did do my
Mama. I had originally planned for this night to last, but my rage
inside won’t allow that. I’m so fuckin’ pissed I need him to just
stop breathing.

I grab his cock in my hand
thinking how he sure as fuck isn’t turned on now, when the
positions are changed and he’s tied up. With one swoop I cut him
and the head is removed. He screams loudly in pain and passes out.
I work the salt again to bring him too, he’s bleeding all over, and
every heartbeat sends more blood onto the floor. He’s paler now. I
take the knife to his left cheek. This mirrors Mace’s scar. The
scar this animal put there and I mark him, exacting the location
and size of what he had done to Mace. Again these mental images of
him doing this to her are replaying in my mind and I’m fuckin’
pissed. I then take the knife and insert it into this throat, just
past the artery. I want him to die slow. He lets out a gasp and
he’s forming words. After a few seconds I start to recognize what
he’s saying. He’s fuckin’ praying for his soul to be
saved.

“
Fuck that asshole. Rot in
hell. I then start at his torso, moving the knife in and up, in and
up, in and up. I’m creating chaos inside and I can feel I’m hitting
organs. I don’t care, I’m channeling all my anger at the entire
situation and he’s getting it full force. His head slams down and
he’s out. He’s no longer breathing.

Although I will admit I’m
half pissed I let him off so easy, I’m also relieved this fucker is
dead. The animal has finally been put down.

I’m not a smoker but I grab a pack
from the box, stepping outside the shed and light one up. I call
Warren as we agreed, letting him know it’s done and his boys need
to come clean the mess. Also setting up a time that I’m to go to
him.

“
It’s done. Same spot he
was left in. Have your boys retrieve him and clean up as we agreed.
Tomorrow night 6 p.m. I’m yours. Coming directly to you unarmed and
alone as you have instructed. I’m not going back on this, you gave
your word and I’m giving mine. Once this happens no threat of harm
remains to any of my family. We good?”

“
Good.” Click. With my
word, Warren is finished with this and we are set. Tonight I will
pray. I will give my promise to God to be the man who saves my
family and hope he promises to watch over them in my
absence.

Chapter Twenty
Two
:

"You're a very small god with a face that
breaks my heart."

--Ernest Hemingway

This morning I wake up,
look at my beautiful wife beside me and my heart breaks in my
chest. I’m leaving her today and delivering myself into the hands
of a monster. She will never forgive me and her anger even in
death, is something I don’t relish. She will feel as though I’ve
deserted her, she’s not alone though. She has Mace and Shame and
soon she will have our child. She’s lying beside me and her gentle
breaths are steady. Tonight I may not come back, the thought hasn’t
escaped me that she will never be the same woman I’ve loved all our
lives. She knows I owe her everything that I am. When things in my
life were shit, she was there to get me through the darkness. I’m
planning to repay her by leaving her. I cannot tell her this out
loud. She wouldn’t understand why I was doing this, and then her
life and those of all that I love would be in danger. I can’t ask
for their protection.

So here I am, reliving
past memories while she’s in my arms. She is wrapped around me so
tight, almost as if she senses things are off or something
unwelcome is coming. I can feel her tension and I long to take it
away. With any luck, I will be back with her after Warren is dead.
I’ve not given up completely, I’m just absolute in my actions to
guard my family from evil.

I’ve sensed the silent
action among my men. I know they are planning something big and in
my favor. I still cannot tell them what I’m doing. I’ve known
Warren all my life and I know his hate for me has grown for as many
years as I have. The man hates me and is ready to destroy me so
there is no doubt he has this plan and it’s in play until the end.
So whatever my boys are planning, I pray they know what the fuck
they are doing.

Mace won’t understand. She
hasn’t talked to me since the other day in the hospital when she
told me not to hurt Greyson. That good heart of hers didn’t want me
to be tainted and responsible for someone’s death but this was
never a negotiation.

I know my girl sleeps
beside me, feeling secure because I’m here. She has her hand on her
growing stomach, where she’s keeping my child safe inside her. I
swallow a lump in my throat knowing I may never meet him or her. I
won’t know if it has my eyes and Sadey’s humor. Unsure if it will
have my strength but with any luck it will have Sadey’s ability to
love. I’m overcome in grief as I make my way to wake her. God, I
need to hear her voice and feel her again. More than that I need
her to feel me, if this is the last time.

I stand only to remove my
remaining clothes and let them fall beside the bed. She stirs as
she feels the bed dip. “Sadey baby, come here love.” She nudges
towards me again, innocent of my actions. “There’s my girl. So
tired are you?” She hums in agreement, telling me she’s beat. I
move my hands up and down her back and she’s buried to my side, her
head lays in my neck. I know she feels my pulse race above her. I
try to calm myself before laying her out and climbing on top of
her. I’ve done this a thousand times. Every time I’m named a
Caveman for it, so she probably just assumes that I’m taking what I
want again. I smile as I kiss her naked breast. I hear her stir
again, this time with a moan.

I move my hands between
her legs to feel her there, so warm, wet and ready. My hands are
the only hands that have touched her this way and I fight back the
knowledge that it is possible they won’t be the last. I can’t dwell
on the thoughts of who will hold her when I’m gone. How long would
it take her to find someone else to love?

I’m hard for her already,
I want to take her softly before she fully wakes. I position myself
and enter her, getting lost inside her warmth and love. She arches
her back in response to feeling me. She’s with me now, awake and
she’s touching me. She clings to my back with force and looks
directly into my eyes. Although it’s still dark I can see her
through the light coming in the window beside our bed.

She’s smiling up at me,
that beautiful sexy grin she has and she feels me fill her again
and again with a firm pace. God, she’s so perfect for me. “I love
you baby, I love being woke up like this.” Her voice is raspy from
lust and sleep, she will never know what that does to
me.

“
Sadey Girl, I love you.
Don’t you ever forget that. Ever. You’re mine.”

“
Only yours, Hem. Forever
yours.”

The guilt is tearing at me
but I can feel she’s close so I continue. “Come for me baby, let it
go on me. Let me feel my Girl give it to me.” She tenses under me
and I know I have her. I lean down and grab her ass to tilt it and
then she explodes while crying out my name and telling me how much
she loves me. I capture the moment to memory and hold her tightly
close to me as I still inside her giving her this. As I continue
the motion of moving inside her I feel her grab me and lock on from
the inside and I can’t control it. I let myself go and I feel
myself filling her.

I kiss her long, hard, and
passionately. “Sadey Girl, I love you baby. I love you so fuckin’
much. You don’t ever forget that. You’re going to make a wonderful
mother. God I love you.” I hold myself inside her, I don’t want to
ever let her go.

I’m trying to keep it
together so I move from on top of her to her side quickly and then
grab her and hold her close. We stay like this for the next three
hours.

“
Life had seemed so simple that morning when I
had wakened and found the false spring.”

--Ernest Hemingway

Six months later

--MACE--

“
Jesus woman, aren’t you
ready to go yet? You’ve been in that bathroom for an hour and I’m
out here waiting for you cause you just told me 20 minutes that you
would be ready in 5!” Shame has tried to have patience with me this
morning. He’s all but lost it now.

I open the door to his smiling face.
How long has he been standing on the other side of the door waiting
for me to open it? The man is such a tyrant and being that I’m
carrying his son you would think that he would kiss the very ground
I walk on. I’m as big as a house with his baby boy number one, due
in just a little under 8 weeks. I’m not sure I can grow anymore. I
know I’m supposed to appreciate my man for wanting me all the time
but I’m not crazy, at this stage of baby making I’m a hot
mess.

Sadey had the baby. She had an
adorable boy and when that boy arrived she cried and cried
screaming that she had no idea what to do with this child, let
alone it being a boy and the fact it was Hem’s boy and mirrored his
appearance really freaked her out. The child’s chocolate eyes were
mesmerizing. Sadey took one look deep into them and she gasped!
Although I was there when she delivered, I kept my distance from
everyone. I know the brothers are fed up with my childlike attitude
towards Hem the situation and they feel I should have forgiven him
months ago. I’m working on this now, it’s been a daunting
process.

I haven’t been to see Hem since he
thought it wise to go to Warren alone and unarmed. I was so pissed
at him for leaving us here while he went to play hero that I’ve
shut him out. I thought if I shut him out of my life I could forget
him, or at least forgive him. I haven’t been able to do either.
I’ve only been making myself crazy since then.

Today I’m taking the big step to him.
I’m going to see him and talk to him. I don’t really have much of
an idea how to start or what to say because we have never allowed
this much time to go by not being there for each other as a family
should.

Warren is dead. Shame gutted him
during the raid on the Angels compound to get to Hem. Shame knew
something was up with my brother that week and had set up a small
band of brothers to have him followed that night, leaving Sadey and
I in the dark about what was going on.

Shame moves from the bathroom door in
order for me to get by, “Mace I know that you’re uncomfortable like
this. I’m not trying to be a hard ass here but time is wasting. We
still have to get to the Club before the party starts and I’ve been
waiting for this day for months. Let’s go see your brother,
huh?”

He thinks I’m uncomfortable ‘like
this’. Funny, I still have eight weeks left. He has no idea how
uncomfortable I’m about to be and I’m going to find a way for him
to experience it with me.

“
Yes, I know all of this.
You have given me the same spiel almost daily so now that we’re
really going you could probably stop harping on me for 30 seconds
and let me finish. I can’t handle heartburn, back aches, and you
just being you all at once.” My poor Shame really has been a hero
to me through this.

He was elated when he found out he was
having his first of three boys. I do not believe that he has a clue
what he’s in for. He hasn’t really been around his nephew to know
how much of a struggle a new infant can be. Little Patrick is just
a little over four weeks so sleep and rest haven’t been easy for
those helping to watch over him. I’ve sent Shame to the Club
purposefully to visit him but every time he comes home he is just
happy to have seen him. Little Patrick and I are going to have to
chat. He needs to show Uncle Shame what life in the infant zone is
really about.

“
I’m going to stop and get
Hem a bottle of whiskey, this should help move the peacemaking
along. Maybe not for his sake, I get that. For me it will though.”
Shame stares at me funny. “Just do what I’m asking please Shame.
The faster you do what I tell you to do the faster we get out of
here so you can get to the party.”

“
Fine you crazy woman, get
your shit and let’s go already.” He’s not looking at me, he’s
playing with his phone. He is nervous about me visiting with Hem.
He knows it is taking everything I have to go to him and get this
over with so I imagine he’s trying hard not to over analyze my
mood.