Avis directs the men holding me to a small seating area that overlooks the quarry. It looks like one of those picnic benches you find at shitty conservation campgrounds complete with peeling paint and wood that shoots splinters into your ass on principle. With my torn jeans, sitting on the damp, prickly bench seat isn't comfortable, but I do it. Anything is better than moving around with a nerve exposed in my jaw.
Avis perches on the edge of her seat, ready to fly into motion at the slightest provocation. She's staring into the middle-distance, not appearing to look at anything in particular, but I can feel her peripheral attention focused on me. If I try to run, she'll shoot. Maybe not to kill, but I'll add a hole in my calf or my knee to my laundry list of injuries.
"You're fooling yourself, you know," Avis says mildly when the silence stretches taut between us.
"Am I?"
"You can't fuck remorse into a man like Calamity Gardel, no matter how much you want to. Men like him are monsters. Always have been and always will be."
"Monsters aren't born, they're made. So what made you a monster, Avis?"
I'm honestly expecting her to sock me in the jaw, just to shut me up. It seems like the M.O. around these parts. But a flinty grin settles on Avis' mouth instead, and she answers me.
"Men like Calamity Gardel made me a monster, Penelope. Men who had enough power to get away with what they did. I broke my rapist's jaw with a Louisville slugger when I woke up and found him on top of me at a frat party. And somehowIended up being the one serving jail time. You can't fuck goodness into someone."
But what if there was good there beforehand?
"If you hate men so much, then why are you following Marcus? You heard what he threatened to do to me."
"He won't get a chance. Because once the dust settles, I'll kill him. Right after I end Calamity Gardel and your brothers."
Well, I have to admire a woman who has her priorities in order. I can't even say I'll mourn him. But it's the steps before his demise that bother me. Where is Calamity? Is he all right? How the hell can I get a warning to him in time?
And, I note with some guilt, why is he the one I'm willing to fling my body in front of as a shield? I love both of my brothers. I've loved them longer than I've loved Calamity. Whatever we have is new, fragile, and frightening.
I just hope my world doesn't go to pieces before I get to figure it out.
18
Calamity
Walking through the Spade's part of town is a surreal experience. So much time has passed, and yet so little has changed in the long run. The streets still look as I remember them, except for my old neighborhood, which has somehow, inexplicably, gotten shittier. I have to imagine this is what alumni felt when they return to their high school years after the fact. The location is the same, there are familiar routines and faces, but so much time has passed that you don't recognize the person you were when you were there.
The Spade's clubhouse used to be a tattoo parlor before they shut the guy down for health code violations and summarily jailed for illegal business practices. It's how I got the place for a steal. Staring at it, I feel that same burning sense of injustice. They built this place with my blood, sweat, and tears, and I never got the respect due me for it. Instead, I was hung out to dry by my four closest friends.
There are only a few bikes parked outside the entrance tonight. One of them is a distinctive Iron 883 that I've seen before. Ryker. It's flanked by two Eagles and a blue Street 500 that I recognize at once. My heart squeezes painfully in my chest, and my concern for Penelope abates for a fraction of a second as I realize what that means.
Brooklyn. My little girl is inside the clubhouse.
Of course, that also means that Kase is there. The matching bikes must belong to the brothers, which begs the question why they're not at the boundary line. I guess there is only one way to find out.
I pull open the door and slowly descend the steps that lead down to the entertainment area. It's laid out in almost exactly the same way I remember, the only changes I can spy are a few bumps here and there where someone has been shoved through a wall. It somehow adds character to the place.
"Get out of the way, Brooklyn," one of the twins snarls. "I don't care that he's your father. He sold her to the Hellions. He's gonna die."
Ah, so that's the fiction they're peddling.
"I love you, bro, but if you take one more fucking step toward my wife, I'm going to knock your teeth in."
Wife. It hurts far more than I expect it should to hear that word applied to Brooklyn. It makes it official. She's chosen a side, and it's not mine.
But we weren't on opposing sides any longer, are we?
I pause at the end of the stairwell, peeking around the side to get an idea of how many are in the room and how many bullets I may have to dodge.
Cruz, I have to assume it's Cruz because it's not Brooklyn standing next to him, is pacing the length of the bar, the neon lights of the Budweiser signs throwing his angry features into sharp relief. A woman perches on the barstool nearest the door, watching him anxiously. It's eerie how similar to Brooklyn she looks. Her hair is more gold, and she's not as tall, but otherwise, Cruz and Kase seem to have fairly similar taste in women.
Ryker is here, though his wife is glaringly absent. On his other side is Harman. Harman has lost most of his hair, and what's left is going gray. He's not aged as gracefully as Trent or I. Worry lines carve craggy furrows into his face. He's not looking at anyone in particular at the moment, contemplating the checked floor as if it can provide answers.
