Tyrant(71)

“The only real family you got is me, boy,” Chop hissed, his face reddening as he focused on the cut in Bear’s hand.

“That’s where you’re wrong, old man. ’Cause whether he wears a f*cking cut or not, King is my brother. And if you can’t respect my family…” Bear looked up to the biker filled balcony. Then he walked over to a broken plastic chair leaning haphazardly against the chipped stucco. With one last reverent glance down at the scrap of leather that meant everything in his world, he set his cut on the chair. “Then I can’t respect yours.”

“Let’s go, man,” I said to Bear. I’d been around the Beach Bastards since I was fifteen. Long enough to know I needed to get Bear the f*ck out of there as fast as f*cking possible. Not just because time was ticking for Pup, but because I knew that once your prospect time was up and you were patched in as a full member of the Beach Bastards, there was no walking away from your brothers.

There was no abandoning your cut.

You were either buried in it…or buried without it.

And if you were buried without it, your death wasn’t from natural causes.

I had to get Bear the f*ck out of there before they remembered that.





Chapter Twenty-Eight




King


At ten fifty-five pm Bear, Jake and I were on our stomachs underneath the tall roots of the mangroves on the back property line. The houseboat in our sights.

That’s where the senator was torturing my girl.

That’s where he was going to die.

“Again, the plan is that you wait ten minutes,” I said. “No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, you wait ten minutes. I can’t risk Pup being killed because I didn’t play by the psycho senator’s rules.” Jake and Bear both nodded in agreement. “I also need to make sure you two both know how this ends. When you come in, and the choice is between me or her, you chose her. You always chose her.”

I will always choose her.

I cracked my knuckles. “I can’t do this unless I know in the end, no matter how this f*cking shit plays out, that she’ll at least make it out whole,” I said.

Looking back toward the houseboat, Jake nodded. “Agreed.”

“No problem.” Bear said. “In the event you don’t make it out though, I’ll take real good care of your girl for you.”

“Jake,” I said. “If I don’t come out of this, shoot that motherf*cker in the head.” I stood and started walking toward the houseboat.

“10-4,” Jake answered.

“What the f*ck?” Bear shoved my shoulder. “You can’t say that kind of shit to him, man. He’ll take you f*cking seriously.”

That was f*cked up, Boss Man. Jake wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit him on his Dexter ass, Preppy chimed in.

“Good. Cause I wasn’t f*cking joking,” I said.

“It’s time,” Jake said, checking the clip on his gun.

I visualized Doe in my bed, naked and half covered with a sheet, watching one of the 90’s action movies she loved so much, turning back to look at me to make sure I was paying attention to all the parts she deemed very important.

It’s that visual and the visual of the senator begging for mercy that I carried with me as I went in blind. I cracked my knuckles again and handed Bear my gun. “Fuck, yeah.”

It was finally time to get my girl once and for all.

No matter what, I wouldn’t be leaving without her.





Chapter Twenty-Nine




Doe


I knew I was in a dreamlike state and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wake from it. I couldn’t open my eyes. I tried to move my hands but I couldn’t feel them. I felt like I was floating and I no longer had use for things like limbs. For a moment, I thought I heard my father’s voice. “Ramie, Ramie wake up,” he was saying. But I couldn’t talk to him. I floated further away until I could only hear the echoes of his plea. I drifted off further and further until I was no longer floating.

I’m nine years old. It’s my birthday. My mom just came out and embarrassed me in front of all my friends. She’s drunk again. She just finished telling my friends that no one wants a fat wife so we shouldn’t eat my cake. She goes back into the house and Nadine finishes cutting slices that none of my friends touch. The music we had been playing has turned off and although we’d been taking turns selecting songs, nobody chimes in that it was their turn to pick another one.