Where Souls Spoil (106 page)

“Duke,” Jerry says flatly.

Beside Duke, Ian’s right hand hangs loose at his side and twitches intermittently. Even though Ian doesn’t talk much, he’s far more likely to pull out his gun first, which raises my hackles more than a little. The way Ian is with the people he cares about is both admirable and terrifying. He’s one of the few people I know will have my back regardless of how I fuck up in life. Once that asshole bonds with you, he’s the most loyal dude I’ve ever met.

Doing my best to contain the situation, I meet Ian’s eyes and slowly shake my head. He can’t pull his gun first and make this shit even worse than it already is. As much as I’d love to give my brother the gift of relieving the tension, we just can’t go down that road right now.

“Apologize to my sister.” Ian redirects his attention to Jerry, who shifts in place. There’s a muted clicking sound coming from behind us that makes my stomach sink. I know that sound damn well. It sounds like Jerry’s getting too big for his britches.

In an instant, I let go of Cub’s hand and shove her backward while withdrawing my thirty-eight from the back of my jeans and spinning around just as Jerry is withdrawing his gun. Duke and Ian step forward, both drawing their guns and pointing them while sandwiching Cub between them and Jeremy. In less than a minute, we’re surrounded by Jerry’s guys pointing their pieces at our chests. Fuck.

“Should have left her in the van,” Duke grinds out through clenched teeth.

“You told me to get her out of there.” My voice strains to remain calm when I just want to get in his fucking face for being so stupid. I should have anticipated this. I should have protected her better. For months—for fucking months—she’s been bugging me to let her be involved in some way. I could have found a different way had I not been so pissed this afternoon when she’d brought up my attitude and then so fucking weak because she’d let me get it in.

“What the fuck’s going on out here?” The office door swings open, and Jerry’s boss walks out slowly with a rifle in his hands. Not the most practical weapon he could carry, but it’ll blow a big enough hole in a guy to make sure he’s not talking about how it got there later. Jerry’s boss is in his sixties, if I have to guess, with a quickly receding hairline and a lazy eye. If Jerry runs the ranch’s day to day operations, then it’s Jerry’s boss who makes sure Jerry and his guys are honest and not skimming off the top. That’s basically this no-name fuck’s entire purpose in this world—making sure the numbers add up to where they’re supposed to.

“Tell your man to stand down,” Duke says. We stand tense like this for a long moment before we’re joined by three of Jerry’s guys. They each have their guns at the ready and drawn but not raised. When they get close enough, Jeremy lifts his AR-15 and points it at them.

“Too close,” Jeremy barks loudly. The men back off and drop their guns into the dirt beneath their feet.

“Stand down,” Ian orders. “Only way this ends is with you both dead and the ranch with two job openings.”

“Jerry,” the old man orders in a stern voice. He slowly lowers his rifle and props it up against the door frame to his office. He didn’t get his job without having some brains, and this move proves he’s not a total idiot. His buddy Jerry, though, doesn’t move. Fucking moron.

“You have ten seconds to lower your piece,” I say. Jerry’s eyes are wild, bouncing from me to Duke to Ian and then to Cub. He can’t seem to keep himself focused despite the situation. He moves his foot in what is almost a tap, and his limbs jerk slightly.

“How much blow have you done, Jerry?” I ask, trying my best to sound less irritated than I am. Maybe he’s just nervous, and maybe he’s not as fucked-up as I’m thinking he is, but either way, he’s off his game, and that creates a new danger. If he’s high, then he’s fucking unpredictable. Shit. I could use some blow to get through this fucking day, but then I wouldn’t be on point, and for Cub to be here I
have
to be on point. I won’t risk her safety any more than I already have.

“Fuck you!”

“Shit, he’s tweaked,” Duke says. “I hate having to put down a sick dog.” A guy loses his cool and fucks up, we don’t mind taking him out. Most of us dabble in some powder, and we all enjoy the bud, so we’re no stranger to a little self-induced therapy, but a guy with a habit is a disaster waiting to happen.

Slowly, Jerry lowers his gun, giving me a moment to fucking breathe. Duke and Ian both nod, and the three of us withdraw our weapons as well. Everything else happens so fast. It’s either Jerry or his boss who grabs for the rifle first, I don’t know, but they lunge for it at the same time and it goes off. Loud and ricocheting into the barn’s rafters, the bullet lands somewhere above us. Jerry and his boss glare at each other with murderous intent in their eyes.

I take a step back to get Cub away from the danger, shielding her body with mine, and get my hand in position, close to my gun, just in case. Jerry moves for his handgun that’s tucked into the waist of his jeans. He takes a step back, but he’s not far enough from his boss, who goes to knock the gun out of his hand. Duke and Ian raise their pieces just as Jerry’s shaky hand lifts his gun at me. If I pull my piece now, he’ll shoot me. I’ve known Jerry long enough to know that.

“Signing your own death warrant,” Ian tells him. It makes no difference. Jerry is spiraling, and there’s nothing that can save him now. I should have trusted my instincts and paid better attention to his demeanor when he met us at the van. But I didn’t, and me being distracted didn’t help us diffuse this situation. I have to do better.

“Doesn’t matter. Mancuso’s putting pressure on us. Forsaken’s putting pressure on us. Everybody’s fucking pressuring us,” he sputters out. The gun shakes in his hand as he keeps it trained as best he can on my heart. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I barely notice my gun being removed from the back of my waistband. It’s Cub. I can tell from her small hands and delicate touch. Even if I didn’t have her standing behind me, I’d know it was her. I wait for her to slyly hand the gun to me, but she doesn’t. Instead, I hear the cocking of my own fucking gun as she steps around to my side. She wastes no time in firing off two shots hitting Jerry in the arm that’s holding the gun. He drops it immediately and stumbles backward, shaking his hand, his face red from the surprise and pain of the bullets slicing his forearm. The blood drips onto the hay below. Despite the amount of blood, it doesn’t look too bad. I’ve seen gaping wounds enough times to be able to determine the difference between a flesh wound and something fatal.

With Jerry disarmed, I reach around Cub and grab my gun back from her. I’m half-horrified that she pulled that shit, but mostly proud. She’s never been able to hit a target in all the months we’ve been working with her.

“I shot him,” she says quietly. Her face is a mixture of confusion and excitement. Again with the fucking excitement. Will she ever learn that this isn’t a game?

“Very humane,” Duke says to her as he passes. He grabs Jerry by the collar of his shirt and takes Jerry’s boss with him into the office.

“Could have killed him,” Ian says. She flinches at his words but stands her ground.

“I was aiming for his torso,” she admits. She didn’t hit her target, but that doesn’t seem to encroach upon the thrill of
finally
fucking hitting something.

“Baby, I shot him,” she whispers and finally takes her eyes off the spot Jerry stood in just a minute earlier. Pride swells in my heart, though I don’t let her know it. I can’t encourage this kind of reckless behavior. I need her to be safe. She carries everything that matters to me in her small frame, and one fucking day, she’s going to take my name, too.

“I was upset. I didn’t want him to hurt you. So I shot him.”

I give her a few minutes to process what she’s done, but once the van is loaded, we have to go. I slowly coax her out of the barn, surrounded by my brothers, and get her into the back of the van. It doesn’t smell like anything, but now there’s crates packed into the back with packages of beef inside. Only the people here at the ranch and the club know that inside the packages of beef, sealed and wrapped, is our real product.

Jeremy takes the driver’s seat once again, with Duke in the passenger seat and Ian near the back door. Cub and I also take our previous seats, though this time closer to the back. The crates take up a lot of space but not so much that we can’t move around well enough. We have four crates in here, each with two pounds of high-grade product, roughly valuing twenty-four grand or so on the street. We don’t grow shit, and we don’t sell shit. Unlike some bitch-ass clubs, we damn well stand by our product.

Cub sits next to me in silence as we start down the dirt road on our way up to Redding for our delivery. Her hands rest on top of her knees, and she’s eerily calm for having shot someone. She’s such a pacifist that I can’t believe this won’t affect her at all. Leaning in close, I hook my pinky around hers and pull her up beside me. I don’t give a fuck if the guys here see us. Pop’s never hidden his affection for Ma, and his men don’t seem to respect him any less than they did before he made her his woman and took the gavel.

She squeezes my pinky with hers and just continues to sit there. I place a soft kiss to her temple and force myself to say what I’m thinking. I need to verbalize it before I lose the nerve. She deserves to hear it, and I need to get it off my chest. I’ve been fucking this up between us, and my selfish bullshit is going to push her away. I can’t let her go, but I won’t force her to stay either. So my only choice is to make her want to stay.

“You shot Jerry,” I whisper.

“He was high. He could have hurt you.”

“But you shot him. My pacifist mafia princess shot some motherfucker she doesn’t know.”

She turns to look at me. Dark brown eyes bore into mine, and she says louder than I expect and full of so much fucking passion and honesty that I try to record it to memory for the next time I’m dealing with shit that makes everything feel too fucked-up for any kind of peacefulness.

“Nobody hurts what’s mine.”

Chills slide down my spine. She’s so much stronger than I give her credit for. I don’t think about this side of her. The woman who defied her father to save her brother. The woman who accepted my family and club as her own without any judgment. The woman who accepts me no matter how fucked in the head I get. She loves me.

No piece of paper is going to make that any different. If she’s not ready, I just have to back off. Grady married Layla and that shit fell apart, so it’s not like marriage is foolproof. I just feel this desperate need in my bones to keep her forever. When I got her nickname tattooed above my heart, I thought that would make her give in to marrying me. Because tattoos are more permanent than marriage and a fuck lot harder to get rid of. But she didn’t budge. She just said she wanted something similar one day soon with my name above her heart. I may not have my ring on her finger, but once I have my name inked on her body, I’ll feel a little bit better. That when she says
forever
, she understands what that means. It means that we live together until one of us stops breathing. And even then we don’t move on. Because I can’t bear the thought of her touching someone else. Or making them smile. Or giving them her body. When I say
forever
I fucking mean it more than anything I’ve ever meant.

“I know you’re not ready,” I say. Shit. I’m turning into some kind of sappy fuck. Normally all these feelings piss me the fuck off, but I’m just so goddamn grateful that she finally hit one fucking target that I’m saying shit I don’t unless my dick is wet.

“I’m ready,” she whispers Her eyes flutter for a moment, and then she rights herself and toughens up. But she’s lying. Cub’s emotional and she’s fucking lying, just saying what she thinks I want to hear.

“No, you’re not. And I’ll wait until you are.”

She nods slowly and bites at her bottom lip. With a deep breath, she thinks on that before responding.

“Once it’s safe.”

That could take a damn long time, but if it’s what she needs, it’s what I have to give her.

“Okay,” I say.

She rests her head on my shoulder and peers up at me. The angle is awkward, but she’s comfortable and her body is relaxing into mine, so I deal with it and look down at her. She’s more than just pretty. She’s beautiful. And she’s mine.

“I, Alexandra Mancuso, take you, Ryan Stone, to be my man.”

They’re not exactly wedding vows, but they’re fucking close. I can’t say anything as I watch her lips form the words. A year ago I never would have thought I’d be here, especially with the chick Ma spent the last twenty years mourning. I didn’t know I could feel this shit. She does things, and it’s like she’s peeling back layers and discovering a human being under the motherfucker I have to be for the club. He’s a man who’s finding out he can not only love, but love deeply. A man who now knows that the love between Ma and Pop can be recreated.

And it has been.

“Forever,” I whisper and press my lips to her forehead, remembering what she did when she told me she loved me for the first time. A kiss to the forehead is a promise of protection. I’ll protect her—every part of her—for always.

Because this shit is forever.

That’s my solemn fucking vow.

The End

-
Sneak Peek-

Where Souls Spoil & Hearts Rot:

An Exclusive Guide to the Forsaken Motorcycle Club and the Bayonet Scars Universe