Chapter Thirty-Seven
Blaze
“There he is.” Makaveli announced when he noticed Mackie pulling into the lot. I could tell the minute Mackie realized the place was swarming with cops, he hit his brakes so hard he slid a little and zipped it to the left in a big damn hurry.
“Fucking dumbass.” Mak laughed, before stepping out from under the clubhouse canopy and waving him over.
Mackie parked nearby and jogged toward us, “What the fuck–?”
“Nicky boy had an accident.” Mak explained.
Mackie visibly relaxed before asking, “Oh, was it an expensive one?”
Mak grunted, and then grew serious, “Only five K. Listen, I need you and Blaze to get an address on that middleman of his for me, ask around the club tonight.”
Mackie nodded and glanced toward me, “You ready?” He slowly cut his gaze across the illuminated parking lot.
I glanced that way and groaned, holding a hand up to shield my eyes, “Fuck, those things are obnoxious,”
“Ain’t they. Even more so when they’re bouncing off your bedroom walls. Keep that in mind,” Mackie quipped.
“Yeah– Will do.” I nodded, while giving the back of his head a ‘ what the fuck ’ look.
Makaveli laughed at us, and I hurriedly fixed my face and fell into step beside Mackie.
“Ah, look at them two hoodrats,” May’s hyper voice split the melody of police radios as he moved away from a rusted, white van in what would have been the third row if the police had parked in proper order.
“Fucker, if they catch you here–” I started.
“‘Catch’ is the key word my friend, and you know I give them a damn good run for their money when they’re trying to catch me,” May sang with a smile.
I shook my head and laughed.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a car turn into the massive parking lot and veer toward the Steel Disciples building.
“Marchella?” I squinted at the mustang as it rolled at a snail's pace and bumped into Mackie’s bike.
May hissed like it had physically hurt him.
“I’ll beat her ass,” Mackie announced before tearing off at breakneck speed.
“Wha–?” I snapped into motion behind him, barely having time to process what he’d said.
I was a little winded by the time we got back to that side of the lot, so when he rounded the mustang, I slid my ass right across the hood in an effort to get between him and my wife.
I wasn’t fast enough, though, he was pissed!
He ripped the door open and just as he grabbed her, I threw my arm around his neck from behind and dropped my weight. His breath left in an audible rush, and he landed on top of me like a fucking boulder, with the woman sprawled on top of him. My eyes snapped closed at the impact and I gasped in an ugly, deep way.
“Holy shit, holy shit,” May sang as he scrambled to join us.
He slowed and sounded confused when he asked, “W–who the fuck is that, March?”
I realized Mackie hadn’t killed me and hesitantly opened my eyes to see a very disheveled, and battered woman before us. Her green eyes were haunting. Her strawberry-blonde hair hung in greasy clumps and when May helped her right herself, I couldn’t help but notice that she was visibly pregnant.
Mackie was staring up at her like he’d seen a ghost. His face was frozen in this horrified expression, but his eyes were so soft. He’d put a hand to the pavement, and lifted his torso, but he was still very much sprawled over me.
“Nikki?” he quietly asked, while shifting his weight in an effort to get up.
I groaned and moved to keep him from inadvertently grinding my hip further into the pavement.
“Get the fuck off me!” he snapped, shrugging me away.
He shot to his feet and slowly gathered the woman in his arms. She clung to him and quietly sobbed. I was so stunned by such a show of concern coming from him that I just laid there and watched as he touched her face and searched her over for more injuries. Her eye socket was purple, and she had a terrible gasoline smell coming off of her.
“Who the fuck is that?” I quietly asked Marchella when she came around the car and offered me a hand.
I refused it and rocked to my feet, dusting pebbles off my elbow and shirt as I did so.
“Nikki Roberts. She was his first girlfriend when we were kids,” Marchella whispered.
“I’m sorry. I was scared and I didn’t–” Nikki’s voice was so distressed and thick with emotion I had to think about the sounds after she made them to catch her meaning and words. “I didn’t know where to turn, Mack. You— you’re the last place I felt safe and right and I–”
Mackie brought her in close and shushed her, stroking her hair and back while the woman collapsed against him and cried.
“Let’s get her inside. I can get her some ice water and something to clean up with,” March suggested.
“Yeah,” Mackie threw the word out there “Yeah, let’s get you inside.”
May and I slowly headed up the rear as the group of us gravitated toward the clubhouse.
Mak spun around in a hurry when we entered, clearly not having expected anyone. He weaved his head to see who all was coming inside. Once the door closed, he grunted, “You fuckers know the party ain’t ‘til the weekend, right?”
“What party?” May squeaked.
“I don’t know. I’m sure you mother fucker’s will think of an excuse before then–” His words trailed off when Mackie drew close with Nikki in his arms. He didn’t speak to her, but his head slowly swiveled to stalk the couple all the way to the office.
“Is that–?” he started to ask Marchella.
“Yep,” she cut him off.
“Damn. Girl lookin’ rough as hell,” he scoffed.
Marchella popped him on the arm, and he bugged his eyes and threw his hands out like he didn’t understand what had upset her.
“She’s clearly been through something. Have some fuckin’ respect,” she scolded her father, filled a glass, and followed along after them.
“Ah, fuck—” Mak smothered a laugh and shook his head, “Fuckin’ boy will drag any stray home. Always has.”
He wandered down the bar and slid onto a stool, close enough to hear what was going on in the office. I didn’t realize he’d set out to eavesdrop, until I planted my ass beside him.
“You don’t think those people will file any reports or nothing, do you?” I tried asking about Nick and those Red Monks, but he held up a finger, bidding me to shut up a moment, as his head tipped toward the office.
“I haven’t seen you since Monty and your mom broke up, girl. You just disappeared…” Mackie’s voice trickled out of the office.
“She was fucking fifteen, Mackie, was she supposed to camp out on the lawn until you were old enough to claim her as your ol’ lady?” March snipped.
“Man,” Mackie’s voice was quiet, but the warning toward March was unmistakable. “Where is that water you promised her?”
“I’m getting it,” March assured.
“Yeah, do that,” Mackie returned, causing me to snort.
Makaveli chuckled, “They've been like that since they were small. Swear to fuck, March was the only one in the house beside me that would confront his temper. She’s all daughter, but don’t get shit fucked up, girl’s got balls.”
I smiled, easily picturing it.
“Yeah, my mom moved us to Decatur after she and Monty split.” Nikki’s voice cracked a little
“That place smells like dog food.” Mackie mused.
“Smells? Sit at certain lights, you can fucking taste it.” March chimed in before bustling out of the room. She slid two beers onto the counter for me and her father, and then filled a glass with some ice water.
May was leaning against the bar post, rapidly texting away.
“You’re either pissed off or making promises you ain’t about to deliver on, texting like that,” March teased, earring a grunt and a brief glance from him.
“How’d you end up back here?” Mackie quietly asked.
It sounded like the girl might hyperventilate, but she eventually caught her heaving and spat out, “I had to go. I had to. It was just one boyfriend after another for Mom, none of them were nice.”
Mackie scoffed and they grew quiet for a moment, causing Makaveli’s left eye to tighten like he was straining his senses.
“You gonna tell me what happened?
She made a noise that sounded like a whimper, and for a minute, I thought she wasn’t gonna tell him anything, but then she slowly began, her voice so quiet and small at first.
“I got into a disagreement.”
“With what, a fuckin gas tank?”
I nudged Mak and nodded, waving my hand under my nose.
He frowned and glanced back toward the office room, hanging on their every word and no longer hiding it.
“No, he poured that on me.” Her voice rose and thinned slightly, before she paused and sniffled. “It’s a fuckin mess, Mackie. I have a four-year-old little girl with him, and I let him have her for a visit because the judge ordered it, but he wouldn’t give her back and–”
“What do you mean he won’t give her back? You’re her fuckin’ mother, right?”
I had to give him credit, Mackie was being patient and calm, in a way I never would have thought him capable of being.
“About four or five months ago, I let her go for a weekend. He found out I was pregnant and wouldn’t give her back.” Her voice climbed until it broke on a sob. “He wouldn’t even let me see her. I’ve seen her one time, and he made me suck his dick in order to have her for that hour.”
I could hear her crying again and Mackie gently shushing her.
“He said if I made any noise, he’d tell the father of the baby that I’m carrying now that I do drugs. He said he’d see that both of my children were taken from me. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore.”
The desperation in that woman’s voice had me lifting from the stool and heading that way. The phone was hanging limp in May’s arm, and his gaze was fixed on the office door too. His pupils were blown, leaving him looking much like Mackie had that first night we met.
“Hey, Mackie,” May drew, throwing his tone in a way that made it clear he wanted a word.
Mackie was holding a very distressed Nikki. She was clinging to him, and I couldn’t see her face, but I could see him. He was furious, his brows stitched with rage and his jaw tense.
“I ain’t no dope whore, Mackie. I swear I ain’t no dope whore. I never touched drugs since I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I gave all that up to be a mom, I swear to God.” She wailed. “I tried to be strong. I tried. I went there and kicked on his door until he answered it, and I tried to fight him for her, but he beat the fuck out of me. He poured gas on me while I was seeing stars and laid out on the ground. I could smell it and taste it as it splashed into my mouth– and when I managed to get my eyes open, my daughter was watching from the trailer window.”
“Mackie, where the fuck is this clown?” May snapped.
Makaveli groaned and swigged from his beer bottle. He laid one forearm on my shoulder and leaned toward me so no one else would hear.
“You ready?”
“Hmm?”
“I said are you ready?” He pointedly sniffed, “Where the fuck is that forty-five?”
I reached behind me, beneath the kutte, and he stilled my hand.
“Nah, not yet.” He patted my shoulder and cleared his throat.
Mackie grew quiet and stared out at his father from the office over the top of Nikki’s bowed head. He didn’t say anything, he locked eyes with Makaveli and his father lifted his chin in some silent understanding that sent March stomping from behind the bar.
“Where did you find her?” I whispered, once she’d made it to my side.
“She was walking on the highway.”
“She was driving–” I pointed out.
March nodded, “I couldn’t leave her out there like that, and she wouldn’t get in the passenger seat, and she was freaking the fuck out thinking he was going to come after her. She wasn’t going to trust her life to my hands, or anyone’s— Except Mackie, apparently.”
“Alright, alright, listen–” Mackie spoke up. “You’re gonna call him, Nikki. Tell him you ain’t got nowhere to go.”
“Wh–? I can’t, I can’t go back there–” She instantly flew back to level ten panic.
He shushed her, and took her by the shoulders, “You tell him you’re willing to pay whatever price he wants to make shit right, and you get back in that house with your daughter, Nikki. And when he goes to bed, you stay up. And when you let me in, you’ll go wake your daughter up–”
“He’s not going to let me.”
“He’ll be asleep.”
“What if she asks questions?” Nikki sounded so helpless and scared.
“Tell her there is a fire,” Mackie offered without hesitation.
“A fire–” Nikki’s face gently contorted with confusion.
“There will be.” Mackie nodded, encouraging her to accept the orders he’d laid at her feet. He caressed her face, and then clutched it like she belonged to him, drawing the woman’s haunted, green eyes to his face.
The terror and uncertainty in their depths broke my heart. Somewhere, in a trailer with a waste of air that clearly never deserved a woman, let alone a daughter, her little girl was probably wondering if she’d ever see her mother again.
“She’s four?” I whispered, drawing everyone’s attention toward me.
Nikki nodded and curled her head toward her lap, covering herself with her hands while her body rocked with silent sobs.
My gaze met Mackie’s, as the memories of mob terror at such a tender age came back to me. What the fuck made a woman afraid to call the law in such a circumstance? The moment the question flashed across my mind, I knew I had no business or right to ask it. He tried to kill her, in front of their child, clearly this wasn’t a normal situation in which normal solutions were effective.
No one had a right to shame that woman for what she did to survive and fight another day for her child.
And what of the asshole? What would become of him after Mackie torched his house and taught him a lesson? My mind spun.
Even if they put him in jail, they wouldn’t hold him forever.
Her life would become a constant state of hypervigilance that would leave her looking over her shoulder worse than my mother did. Even if her daughter was unfazed by everything that had occurred, what future did she have with that scenario? That little girl would be no different than me and Marchella, and the idea of someone casually fucking with a child like that, it didn’t sit well with me.
Not. At. All.
I didn’t mean to sound pissed, but I could hear the emotion in my own clipped tone, “What time?”
Mackie lifted his chin to me the same way he had his father a few moments ago, “Two hours.”