I drew in a deep breath to cry out for help, but the man standing before me pressed his finger against my lips.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’ve got two other men with me, and they really think you’re a pretty little thing, Miss Raven.”
I swallowed hard. “What the hell do you want?”
“I’d tone that attitude down if I were you.”
My nostrils flared as I kept my voice even. “Then, get the fuck off my porch.”
He grinned. “You always were such a spitfire, weren’t you?”
He ran his fingertips down my cheek and I jerked back, trying to control the urge to shove him off my porch. I peeked my eyes around his body and saw a couple of other men on bikes about twenty yards away and they waved at me.
Before showing me the guns they had on their hips.
“Can I come in?” the man on my porch asked.
I looked up into his eyes. “No, thanks. But we can talk outside.”
I tried to step outside, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “I think I’d rather come in.”
I glared at him. “And I think that if you want to talk, you’ll do it outside. Because it feels like you didn’t come with orders to kill me, right?”
His eye twitched. “We can stand in the doorway, that’s fine.”
I knew damn good and well that these men weren’t Dirty Misfits. For one, their leather jackets were black. Not brown. And I knew by the gnarly scars on their faces that they rolled with one of the sickest clubs in Santa Cruz: the Black Flags. Gage warned me all about them during our marriage. He told me of the horrors this club brought down upon the people in their territory, especially the women and the single mothers. They saw women as weaker. As subservient. And if they sank their claws into a single mother, they’d use the mother’s children against her.
The stories alone made my stomach roll with sickness.
But standing in the presence of one of them made me angrier than I’d ever felt in my life.
You can handle your own. Remember what Gage taught you.
“You gonna tell me what you came all the way out here for?” I asked.
The man ran his eyes down my body. “Can’t a man stop by to pay his respects?”
I blinked. “Respects for what?”
He snickered. “For Gage, of course.”
I blinked. “He died five years ago. You’re a bit too late.”
He shrugged. “Better late than never, they say.”
“They do, but I don’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I tried to close the door, but he slammed his hand against it. He shoved the door open and tried to push his way inside, but I jammed my fist into his gut. He grunted a bit with the force before his eyes lit up with anger. And when he swung at me, I jumped back.
“You’re going to pay for that, you stupid bitch,” he growled.
He charged me and I backed up before ducking down to avoid his punch. I kicked my leg out and swept it behind his, knocking my shin against the crook of his knees. He cried out a couple of names I didn’t catch before he fell to the floor on all fours, and I peeked out the door long enough to see his other two friends throwing themselves off their bikes.
The gun. I need my gun from my hutch.
Gage had taught me many things while we were married, and one of those things was how to defend myself. I knew how to combat every punch, every kick, and every move someone made toward me. I also knew how to get out of a lot of compromising positions, like if someone had me pinned to the floor. I also knew how to shoot just about every gun he had access to. Gage taught me how to take them apart to clean them, how to shoot with accuracy, and how to conceal them so no one who came over saw just how many guns I kept in my place at any one given moment.
And the closest gun was the pistol I had in the hutch.
“Oh, no you don’t,” the man growled.
Something wrapped around my ankle before my leg yanked back. And when it did, I went crashing to the floor. I braced for impact, catching myself on my hands. But his other hand gripped my other ankle before he flipped me over. The bootsteps of his friends came closer to my opened door. This man wiggled his body between my legs and pinned my wrists above my head.
“Aren’t so strong now, are you?” he asked.
I snarled at him. “Think again.”
I locked my legs around his waist and rolled him over. Only, the hallway was pretty narrow, so I ended up slamming his back against the wall. It knocked the wind clear out of him and I was able to wiggle away, but I still had to get around the corner into the kitchen for the hutch.
I need a closer fucking gun.
I scrambled to my feet and took off in a dead sprint, but someone grabbed the hem of my dress. The fabric tore as I ripped away, feeling the dress sliding off my shoulder. I threw the hutch doors open and pulled out the pistol, then whipped around and aimed it directly between the eyes of the man that thought he could get the best of me.
And when his two buddies rounded the corner, I pulled a second gun out from the open hutch drawer and aimed it at them.
The big honcho chuckled. “Cute. He must’ve taught you how to defend yourself.”
I cocked both guns. “Yeah, against men like yourselves. Now, why don’t you calmly tell me what the fuck you want.”
The two guys behind him patted him on the back, trying to get his attention. But he shrugged off their touches and took a step toward me.
“Is he here?” the man asked.
I blinked. “Is who here?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about, little girl. Where is he?”
Is he serious right now? “Gage is dead, but you know that. So, who the fuck are you talking about?”
The man grinned wildly. “Brooks. Where the fuck is your other little side piece of a man? I know he’s here. I know he wants so desperately to see you. So, where are you hiding him?”
“He… desperately wants to see me?”
He cocked his head. “Seems like I have your attention now. But don’t think for one second that I don’t know he’s here. I know he is, even if you don’t know he’s here. So, where the fuck would he be?”
I wrinkled my nose. “That statement doesn’t make any sort of sense. Try again.”
“Where is he!?”
I took a step back. “I don’t know! I haven’t seen the man since before he went to prison, for crying out loud!”
His two buddies pointed their guns at me as their head honcho walked closer. I held my breath and swallowed hard as I aimed my guns directly at his gut, ready to take him out with one pull of both triggers. The man’s abdomen pressed against the barrels of my pistols as he leaned in close. So close, in fact, that I smelled the booze on his breath.
“You’re lying,” he hissed.
I shook my head. “I’m really not.”
He pointed at the guns. “Ever killed someone, sweet cheeks?”
“Don’t you dare call me that. That nickname was for one person, and one person only.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like a plan, sweet cheeks.”
I tightened my fingers against the triggers. “You’ve got one last shot before I leave you bleeding on my kitchen floor. Tell me why you’re here and why you want to see Brooks.”
He licked his lips. “After you answer my question. Have you ever killed someone, Miss Raven?”
I winced. “No. Not yet, anyway. Though, you’re very close to being the first.”
He chuckled. “It’s cute, you know, how tough you think you are. I know differently, though.”
“You don’t know shit about me.”
“I know you still have feelings for Brooks even though you shacked up with his best friend.”
“I do not.”
He smirked. “You’re cute when you lie, but it kind of makes me want to hit you. So, try not to do it again, otherwise my fist might just find its way to that pretty little jawline of yours.”
I scoffed. “I’d have you dead on my floor before your fist got in front of you to try.”
“Which brings me back to my original question, sweet cheeks. Killing a man always sticks with you. His lifeless eyes always haunt you. The smell of blood never leaves your nostrils, and once you realize the kind of power you have with killing someone, the lust for it never goes away.”
I grimaced. “You’re disgusting. Brooks isn’t here, and he never will be. I left that life behind a long time ago. I don’t even associate with that club anymore. Not since they got Gage killed.”
He blinked. “Is that what you really believe?”
I paused. “Is that not the truth?”
Just as that man narrowed his eyes at me, I heard gunshots outside. Three distinctive pops that sent the men flying back out my front door. I let loose the breath I had been holding and I slid to the floor with tears rushing my eyes.
Is that what you really believe?
My guns fell from my hands and I dry-heaved onto the floor. My entire body quivered as more gunshots rang out, but they didn’t phase me. Nothing phased me anymore, except for that.
Except for the notion that those literal assholes knew something I didn’t.
I heard tires skidding against the pavement. It kicked up the smell of burnt rubber that slowly pulled me from my emotional frenzy. I heard a bullet bury itself into the outside of my townhouse and it pulled me from my dizzied trance, so I got up from the floor. I took both of my pistols with me as I sprinted for the front door and slammed it closed, locking it for good measure.
Then, with both of my pistols at my sides, I peeked out the window to see what the hell was going on.
All the while, wondering what the Dirty Misfits had kept silent from me regarding Gage’s death.
Because despite the disgusting nature of the jerks that had just been in my house, my questions caught him off-guard. My statements caught him off-guard.
And in a shocking moment of revelation, that man had given me the first key to unlocking what really happened to Gage that night.
