“Quiet, Tabby, we’ll have our words later.”
Okay, and now it was even
worse.
I decided the best thing to do at that juncture was shut up, so I did.
Shy looked to Lee. “You turn him over to me. Whatever happens, whatever blowback, it’s on me. Not you, and this does not have fuck all to do with Chaos.”
I turned pleading eyes to Dad, but Dad had his eyes locked on Dog. Then he moved his gaze to Lee.
It was then Lee said to Shy, “Don’t make a mess.”
Oh God, God,
God!
Worse!
Shy jerked up his chin.
“Usual Chaos drop-off, bring him there. I’ll be waiting,” Shy ordered.
Usual Chaos drop-off?
Yikes!
I didn’t have a chance to process the scariness of that. Shy shifted, his eyes moved through me, through the brothers, all of this like we weren’t even there and he prowled out of the Compound.
I will repeat: his eyes moved
through
me.
Never, not once, not even back in the day when I had a crush on him and he was too old for me, did Shy make me feel invisible.
Never.
My feet moved to launch me toward Shy, but I didn’t even get a step in before Dad’s hand locked on my arm.
I tipped my eyes up to look at him.
“Go home, darlin’, wait it out. It’ll be okay,” he said softly.
“I think he’s going to—”
Dad’s face dipped close, his eyes were dark, intense, he was feeling a lot of things but still his gaze was somehow gentle on me, and he reiterated, “Go home, Tabby. I got this. The brothers have this. It’ll all be okay.” He held my eyes and when I licked my lip he whispered, “Tab, trust me.”
“I don’t want to be visiting him in the penitentiary,” I whispered back.
“You won’t,” Dad told me.
“You either,” I went on.
“You won’t be doin’ that either,” Dad assured me.
“Or anyone,” I carried on.
Dad’s look, still gentle, flashed with impatience. “Tabby, honey, your message is clear. I get you but we got this. Do you think we don’t got this?”
I held his eyes.
Then I nodded.
He had this.
I hoped.
“Okay, Dad.”
“Got shit to do, darlin’. Go home.” His fingers tightened on my arm, they didn’t hurt but they sent a message. “Your man will be home tonight.”
I stared up at Dad and read it in his eyes.
My man would be home that night. What would happen when he got there was up to me, but my dad and his brothers were going to get him back to me.
I nodded.
He held my eyes before he said, “I see your play and it was filled with beauty. But, darlin’, I’ll say this once, we won’t go over this ground again. Shit like this is kept in the family.”
I got him. Boy, did I get him.
Luckily, there was only one man who murdered Shy’s parents and thus messed up his life, so this wouldn’t happen again.
“You won’t have to say it again, Dad,” I assured him.
“That’s my girl,” he muttered then used my arm to start propelling me to the door. “Now, get home.”
I looked through the guys. They were moving, shifting, huddling.
Planning.
They had this.
I looked up at Dad. “Love you,” I whispered.
“Same,” he rumbled.
I smiled and it was shaky.
Dad didn’t smile, he jerked up his chin.
I took in a deep breath and got the heck out of there.
* * *
The Harleys roared around them as Lee Nightingale and Kane “Tack” Allen stood close next to Lee’s Explorer.
“Not stupid, man,” Tack said, his eyes locked to Nightingale’s.
“Know that, Tack,” Lee replied.
“You still got my girl’s money?” Tack asked, and Nightingale jerked up his chin.
“Every penny.”
“You gonna pay that back or hold it?” Tack queried.
“Your call,” Nightingale answered.
Tack studied him then remarked, “You told my girl you stopped lookin’ but you never stopped lookin’.”
Nightingale’s face went hard. “Man loses his family, he should know who took them from him.”
It was Tack’s turn to jerk up his chin. “Do as he said. Take him to the drop-off. You won’t see any brothers but we’ll be close.”
Nightingale nodded.
Then he asked, “My team delivers him, we’re clear of this. Our part in this didn’t happen. Can you assure me of that?”
“Absolutely,” Tack confirmed.
Nightingale nodded again.
“Chaos marker,” Tack offered.
“That’ll do,” Nightingale accepted. “I’ll return the money to you.”
This time, Tack nodded.
Negotiations over.
Deal struck.
Lee Nightingale swung up into his truck.
Tack prowled to his bike, threw a leg over, made it roar, then he headed out to take his brother’s back.
“Did she beg for her life?”
“Man, I got clean.”
“Did he?”
Shy Cage was sitting on his ass on the dirt floor of a shed in the foothills. He had his knees up, his elbows on his knees, his blade hanging from his fingers. His knuckles were split, torn and bloody.
The man in front of him, wrists behind him held together with plastic restraints, had fallen to his side. His position was awkward seeing as his feet were also bound together at the ankles. His face was mangled and bloody. Eyes nearly swollen shut. Blood was oozing from an ear.
At Shy’s question, the man didn’t answer. He simply moaned.
Shy kept questioning.
“She have time to tell you she had two boys at a babysitter’s, playin’ games and eatin’ junk food and watchin’ late movies, havin’ no clue… no…
fucking
…
clue
that they’d wake up in the morning with no family?”
The man took in a wet, sloppy, pained breath but didn’t answer.
Shy kept at him.
“Or did you pop them quick? Did they even have the opportunity to say, ‘please’?”
The man shut his swollen eyes and whispered, “I was messed up back then.”
“Yeah, talk to me about that,” Shy said, his words an invitation but his tone was cutting.
The man opened his eyes, kept his head to the dirt but his eyeballs slid up to Shy. “Smack, man. I would do anything.”
“I know,” Shy agreed. “I know, ’cause to get your fix, you fuckin’ killed my family. That, man, that’s any-fuckin’-thing.”
“I’m clean now,” the man told him again, hurriedly. “I made my way out of that and, bro, I’ll tell you, not a day has gone by where I haven’t remembered how far I stooped and it haunted me.”
“You lose sleep?” Shy asked.
“Every night, man, every single night. I see them every night.”
“So, you remember. You see them, tell me. Did they beg?”
The man closed his eyes.
“He got her earrings, every Christmas,” Shy told him. “Not shit, they were diamonds, emeralds, rubies. After you plugged her, when you rifled through my home, you didn’t get that shit, did you…” he hesitated before he finished with a disgusted “…
bro?
”
The man opened his eyes and whispered, “No.”
“No,” Shy whispered back. “I know. My bitch aunt got them. The aunt my brother and I went to after you murdered my family. The aunt who made us her slaves. Who treated us like shit. Who hated us and let us know every fuckin’ day for six fuckin’ years.
She
got my mom’s earrings.”
“I’m sorry,” the man replied brokenly.
“So am I,” Shy agreed. “I’ve been sorry for sixteen fuckin’ years.”
“If I could take it back, I would,” the man told him.
“You can’t,” Shy replied shortly.
The man shifted, his eyes locked to Shy’s. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything. I get you. I deserve this. I knew this was coming. My penance. It was gonna come, I always knew it. You can’t do what I did and breathe easy. You need to know I’ll do anything you want but please, please man, don’t kill me.”
“If you’ll do anything I want then fuckin’ answer me, did they beg?”
He sucked in another wet, gurgling breath and answered, “No.”
“Tell me,” Shy ordered.
The man again shifted uncomfortably. “I… they, both of ’em… he surprised me. Didn’t see him. I was dealin’ with the clerk, he showed and I just, I just freaked and I…” He trailed off, but Shy knew what he did. He knew exactly what he did. He killed Shy’s father. Then the man told him, “She was in the kitchen. I surprised her.”
“Quick, right? It went quick?” Shy pushed.
“Yeah,” he said swiftly. “It went quick.”
“They didn’t suffer?”
“No,” the man shook his head against the dirt with difficulty. “No, man, they didn’t suffer. She didn’t…” his voice dropped near to nothing “… she didn’t even know I was there.”
Shy closed his eyes.
In his low voice, the man said, “I shot her in the back of the head.”
Shy’s head dropped forward.
“She didn’t know anything,” the man finished.
Shy lifted his head and looked at him. “One minute alive, two boys she loves, a husband who pulls her into his lap for a kiss, she’s just walkin’ through the room, a husband who gives her earrings, the next she’s nothing.”
The man nodded, his voiced hitching when he said, “I did that. I did it.”
Shy tipped his head to the side. “You got family?”
The man’s body jolted and his eyes, even swollen, went wide, filling with fear. “No, man, no. No family.”
“You have family,” Shy said.
The man shook his head. “No. Not before I got clean. After I got clean. Not before, man, they don’t know that me. They don’t even know I was that me.”
“They should know,” Shy told him.
The man shook his head in the dirt, his body shifting with agitation. “They don’t know. They only know the me after I got clean.”
“You took three lives, destroyed two more I know of, don’t know what you laid to waste for that clerk. You think they shouldn’t know?” Shy asked.
“I did that. I admitted it. I admitted it to that Native American dude who found me. I admitted it to those guys he set to guard me. I did it and it haunted me, man, it haunted me,” he said quickly. “It haunted me so much, what I was capable of, what that shit drove me to, I got clean.”
“So my parents died so you could learn your lesson and have a good life. You think I’m happy with that trade-off? My brother? You think that will mean shit to him? You think that means shit to me?”
“No, I don’t. I just… I don’t know, man, I just, since then, I got my act together. I got family. I got a reason to stay clean. They need me and I’m just sayin’, I get you, do what you have to do but I don’t wanna die.”
“Right now, you want that gift from me. You wanna keep breathin’.”
“Yes,” the man whispered.
“And you think,” Shy leaned forward, “you think, you shot my mother in the back of her fuckin’ head, you took that gift from her, you think you should get that gift from me?”
“No,” the man was still whispering. “I don’t deserve that. I know it. I just hope you have it in you to show mercy.”
Shy changed the subject. “Too young, cops didn’t tell that shit to kids and my aunt and uncle didn’t share fuckin’ anything. So you tell me. Where’d you shoot my dad?”
“Man, don’t do this to yourself.”
“Tell me,” Shy pushed, leaning further in, moving the hilt of the knife into his palm, his fingers curling around the shaft, movements the man didn’t miss. “Where… did… you…
shoot my Dad?
” he ended his question on a roar.
“Tell him,” Tack rumbled and Shy’s head jerked around.
Jesus, he didn’t hear him.
The brothers moved in behind Tack.
Fuck, he didn’t hear any of them.
“Oh God, oh fuck, oh God,” the man chanted, scooting fearfully away but he stopped when Boz, Hound, and High rounded him at the back and the rest of the brothers circled around him.
Shy pushed up to his feet to stand by Tack.
“I said,” Shy stated, his eyes on Tack, “private party.”
“See you don’t get this, brother, but we’re crashing,” Tack replied.
“Answer his question, motherfucker,” Hop growled, nudging the man on the ground hard with his boot. “He wants to know where you shot his dad.”
“In the aisle,” the man said hurriedly.
“That the info you were lookin’ for, Shy?” Tack asked, his eyes pointed down at the man.
“No,” Shy answered.
The man shook his head.
“Uh… you’re not gettin’ this, dude, but you were in a world of hurt,” Boz spoke up then leaned down toward the man and clipped, “Now you’re in a world of
pain.
Tell my brother where you shot his fuckin’
dad.
”
“Face,” he whispered.
“Jesus, fuck, once we kill him, can I keep stabbing him?” Hound asked.
The man let out a terrified squeak.
Shy stared at Hound then he looked at Tack.
“You been out there awhile,” he guessed.
“Brothers don’t go it alone,” Tack replied, and Shy held his eyes.
Then Shy drew in a deep breath.
Finally, he told Tack, “He’s got family.”
“I heard. Do you care?” Tack returned.
“I been the survivin’ part of a family,” Shy reminded him.
“Vengeance,” Tack shook his head. “Brother, that shit is messy. This fuck we got here doesn’t mean shit but his family, you’re lookin’ at two things. They learn who he was, what he did and know he paid, or they live to have you where he is right now. Difference is, you got your brothers. That kind of shit”—he swung a hand toward the man in the dirt—“unlikely to happen to you. Way it’s goin’, my guess, you’ll have a new family soon. You carry through, suddenly, they’re vulnerable. Vengeance is a circle. There’s no corners to turn, there’s no end of the line. You feel lucky, we’ll deal accordingly. You want this to end here, we get creative in taking his penance and the circle is broken. Your choice. Whatever you choose, your brothers stand with you.”
Shy looked down at the man but felt a presence get close.
“This is not a case for mercy,” Big Petey rumbled.
Shy turned his head and looked into the man’s eyes.
Big Petey kept talking. “But, boy, you make this decision, you get on your bike, you go home, you lie down by your woman. So, right now, ask yourself, next time you touch her, how you gonna feel doin’ it with blood on your hands?”