21. Julie
twenty-one
Julie
The world went quiet after the shot, and the quiet lasted for almost a minute.
The only sounds were the wind riffling through the Joshua trees on the perimeter and the soft, regular tick of the cooling gun in my hand.
The Colonel’s head bled out in a way that surprised me: not a gusher, not a spray, just a slow, steady run that blackened the gravel and made its way into the cracks.
I watched it spread, trying to guess if the stain would outlast the day or if the sun would suck it dry before I got back. If I got back.
My legs shook, and I let myself crouch, knees apart, elbows on my thighs.
The gun—Bram’s—hung loose in my hand. He was on his feet a few paces away, and I could feel him watching me, could feel that rigid, deliberate calculation he always did when he wasn’t sure if the next move would be a kiss or a bullet.
“Easy,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I really am.” I really wasn’t.
I’d not only killed a man, but that man was my father.
An abusive father, yes. A horrible excuse for a human being, yes.
What nobody around me understood was that the single shot washed away so much of my other pain.
It wasn’t gone. It never would be. But I never had to worry about this man touching me again.
I didn’t have to worry about him touching anyone.
“It’s over, babe.” Bram put his arms around me. “I got you.”
“Forever?” I asked.
“To the moon and back, baby. To the fucking moon and back.”
The sirens started as a low moan somewhere down Main, gathering up force and volume as they got close.
You could always tell the difference between a call for help and a call for control; this was the latter, an operatic shriek meant to clear the roads and warn the world that the law was on its way.
My hands didn’t shake, and I counted that as a win, all things considered.
“I’m not letting them take you,” he said.
I shook my head. I’d been a DA long enough to know the process. “It’ll be okay. Just promise me you’ll fucking still be around when I get out.”
“When this life ends, it’ll be with us fucking the morning away.”
He kissed me hard enough to make my nose ache, and my heart skip a beat. His cock surged right there in front of all the club members exiting the building. “Tell me you love me, you asshole.”
Bram smiled. “You love me, you asshole.”
We laughed in pain and continued to laugh until the sound of sirens was upon us.
Three squad cars, Barstow PD. A fourth rolling up behind, County.
Lights going but sirens now off, which told me two things: they already knew who I was, and they didn’t expect anyone to be alive when they got here.
The lead car pulled up hard, stopping at an angle so the doors made instant cover.
Two officers out on foot, weapons at the ready, but not raised.
My brain categorized them—Stocky Cop, Ex-Military; Younger Cop, nervous, probably two years out of the academy.
I put the gun on the hood of the nearest car before they could ask.
“Hands,” said Stocky, and I lifted them shoulder-high, splaying my fingers like I was about to play a piano.
“My name is Julie Sparta,” I said, clear as I could, projecting. “District Attorney, Barstow County. I just shot a man. The gun’s on the hood.”
Younger Cop looked from the gun to the body to my face, registering each one with the dawning horror of a man who’d expected some kind of standard traffic stop and walked into an execution. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
“Step away from the weapon,” Stocky said, and I did, walking backward until I felt the heat from the hood of their car on the backs of my legs.
Younger Cop kept his gun pointed at my chest. Stocky moved in, patted me down with the sort of thoroughness that said I looked exactly like someone who would have a backup piece taped to her thigh.
He found nothing but sweat, gunpowder, and the edge of a bandage below my ribs. His hands were brisk and impersonal.
“Turn around.”
I did, hands still up, and he clicked the cuffs on—tight, but not cruel. The pressure made my pulse pop against the metal, and I concentrated on the rhythm, measuring out seconds the way I always did when the adrenaline threatened to blur the edges of my sight.
“Weapon registered?” Stocky asked.
“Registered to Bram Jackson. He’s the one bleeding and breathing,” I said. “The body’s my father. My biological daddy.” I glanced at Bram, and he gave me a subtle wink.
The cop made a noise that was not quite disbelief and not quite sympathy. He must have had the brief, or at least a warning—nobody sent this many units for a simple domestic without a heads-up. Maybe the Chief had called ahead. Maybe someone in the DA’s office had tripped the silent alarm.
More officers arrived, moving around the scene in a coordinated dance: securing the perimeter, snapping photos, tagging evidence. I watched it all with the detachment of someone watching their own movie, the script already written and the ending already spoiled by the reviews.
Nobody talked to Bram at first. He leaned against Edge’s shoulder while Rusty pressed a wad of gauze to the wound below his ribs.
Edge kept his eyes down, but Rusty looked over at me once, unreadable.
Kodiak, hulking and silent as always, just watched from the edge of the lot, hands in his jacket, observing the police like a man sizing up animals at a petting zoo.
Once the medics finished with the Colonel’s corpse (bagged, tagged, and zipped up before I even caught my breath), Stocky led me to the back of his squad car.
He read my rights, and I nodded at each one.
He asked if I understood. I said yes, and for a second, I saw something like recognition in his eyes—a flash that told me he knew who I was, not just the DA but the daughter, the woman who had just blown her father’s head off in a biker war outside city limits.
The ride to the station was a four-minute eternity.
They didn’t speak except for the standard radio checks.
I watched the town pass in quick blurs—donut shop, gas station, dog chained up in someone’s yard, barking at nothing and everything.
I wondered if the Colonel would have laughed at that, or if he’d have shot the dog just for the principle of it.
They walked me in through the back. No reporters yet, but that would change.
I held my head level and didn’t look at the other cops watching me, didn’t look at the smears my boots left on the tile.
They put me in a windowless room with a bolted table and two metal chairs, then left me to sit, hands cuffed behind my back, the smell of gun oil and hospital disinfectant mingling into something close to nostalgia.
It took half an hour for the door to open. Feldman walked in, suit immaculate except for the sweat stains in his armpits. He didn’t look angry, just tired, the way you look at a cat who’s knocked a vase off the counter and can’t understand why you keep buying vases.
“They going to charge me?” I asked.
He dropped a folder on the table and looked at me. “You really want to do this right now?”
I rolled my shoulders, the cuffs digging in. “We have about eight minutes before Ruiz gets the call from the Chief. Can you get these off me or do we have to do the good cop, bad cop thing first?”
Feldman didn’t smile, but he didn’t not smile. He stepped behind me, fished out a key, and popped the cuffs.
I flexed my hands, fingers numb. “Thanks.”
He sat, hands folded in front of him. “You know how this plays out, Julie. Even with your title, you’re going to spend the night here. You’re not getting released on your own recognizance, not with witnesses and not with that last name.”
“Let them.” My voice came out flat, the way it always did when I’d already run out of emotion. “Just make sure they keep me separate from gen pop.”
“Already done.” He tapped the folder. “You’re in holding, private cell, cameras on the block. No press allowed. You’ll be processed as an at-risk detainee until bail. You want a doctor?”
I shook my head. “Not unless I start leaking from somewhere new.”
He grunted, then gave me a long, slow look. “You did the right thing,” he said. “But nobody’s going to say it out loud.”
“I know.”
He slid a page across the table. “Sign here. Statement of facts. I’ll have Bram and his crew do theirs. If you want, I can get Sally in to talk. She’s at the clubhouse with your sister.”
That almost cracked the surface, but I swallowed it down. “She can wait. I need one thing from you.”
Feldman’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
I leaned forward, dropping my voice. “There’s a lockbox in Sally’s closet. Black, heavy. Get it to Bram. He’ll know what to do with it. Don’t open it yourself.”
He hesitated, then nodded once. “Understood.”
The room went quiet again. I signed the paper, not bothering to read it. It didn’t matter. The story was already out, and the only question was how many people wanted me dead by sundown.
They walked me to the cell. Not even a holding tank, just a single cell with a cot and a toilet.
The walls were new concrete, still off-gassing some chemical stink, and the overhead lights were brighter than any sun.
I sat on the cot, feet flat, hands on my knees, and waited for something like relief. None came.
I could see the end of the hall. No one came down it. I tried to remember if I’d ever felt less alone, and couldn’t. It was almost funny.
Just before lights-out, I heard footsteps.
Two sets, not in a hurry. I looked up and saw Bram, flanked by a uniform I didn’t know.
The cop stayed back, arms folded, and Bram moved to the bars.
His face was pale, stitched up with white tape, his shirt washed and buttoned at the collar like a man who still believed in first impressions.
The edges of his mouth curled, not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.
“You holding up?” he asked.
I nodded. “Is Emma safe?”
“She’s with Sally,” he said. “Edge is on guard. Rusty’s handling the rest. Nobody’s getting through unless they bring a tank.”
“It’s over,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
The guard came back. “Fifteen minutes.”
“You gonna let me inside?” Bram asked.
“Fuck, Bram, I’ll get in trouble.”
“Don’t make me call your mama, Joey.”
The guard sighed and opened the door.
Bram came in, sat on the edge of the bunk, and looked at me. Not at my chest or my face, but the whole of me, as if he was trying to memorize the shape of my body for a later date, just in case. I wanted to say something clever, but all that came out was a sigh.
“They treating you okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said. “It’s only been an hour.”
He smiled and moved closer, his hand going to my ankle, thumb stroking the inside, just above the bone. The touch was so gentle it made me shiver. I leaned in, our knees touching.
“Feldman says the case is airtight,” I said, my voice flat as always. “Justified use of force. I’ll get a lecture from the AG, maybe a disciplinary for not recusing myself. He’s already called the press. Your name is off the record.”
He nodded. “I figured.”
“Take off your shirt,” I said.
His brow went up, then smoothed. He stripped it off, slow and deliberate, exposing the scars across his chest—old knife wounds, fresh staples, the new one high on his shoulder where the Colonel had scored him.
He balled the shirt up and walked to the camera.
With a smooth motion, he reached up and draped it over the lens. The red LED vanished. The hum stayed.
I stood, let my jeans fall, then my underwear, stepping out of both with the kind of practiced economy you only learned in a life where time was the rarest thing. I turned and put my hands on the bars, the metal cold against my palms, and pressed my face to the seam.
He kicked off his boots, dropped his jeans. He was half hard already, and the sight of him—battered and beautiful, the furrow above his brow deepening as he lined up behind me—made the whole world tunnel down to a single perfect point.
He stepped in, lining himself up, and then his hands were on my hips, guiding me back. The angle was awkward, but I liked it; it made every thrust a negotiation, every touch a test of how close we could get before the world said stop.
The first push hurt, but it was a good hurt, the kind that scrubbed everything else out of your brain.
I bit the inside of my cheek and held my breath, fighting the urge to make a sound.
He fucked me against the bars, slow and steady, his chest pressed to my back, his mouth hot on my neck.
I could hear his breathing, sharp and shallow, and it made me want to open up, to let him in as far as he could go.
“Fucking tight and warm,” he said. “Damn, babe.”
“It’s yours,” I said, and something inside him broke. It was as if a rabid animal had been released. He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled back, thrusting harder.
“Fuck me,” I cried out, my cunt sloppy from my building orgasm.
He pushed a finger into my asshole, and it was like a fucking trigger. It started at my core and the wet explosion washed over his cock and balls. He didn’t let go, only fucked me harder, his hips bucking as if he’d lost complete control.
I felt the warm spurts inside me, filling, pushing deeper with each thrust.
I came again, Bram inside my head the way no other man had ever been, my forehead banging the cold steel, breath trapped in my throat.
He followed, his hands squeezing so hard I thought he’d leave bruises, and the thought of that—being marked—made the aftershocks stretch out, every nerve live and raw.
He bit me again, hard and bruise-worthy. “You’re mine,” he said.
“To the moon and back,” I replied.
“You’re fucking amazing, Julie Sparta.”
Although I fought them back, hearing my name coming off his lips brought tears to my eyes.
Afterward, I dressed first, running a finger around the waistband of my jeans to smooth the sting. He watched, then went for his own clothes, moving stiffly, wincing at the pull on his stitches. He grabbed his shirt from the camera and shrugged it on, not bothering to button it.
“You’ll be out by morning,” he said. “Feldman’s already lined up the DA from San Bernardino for the handoff. They’ll want a public apology. Maybe a few interviews.”
“I can do that,” I said. I sat back on the bunk, crossing my legs, feeling more myself than I had in years. “Thank you.”
He looked at me, his expression softening. “You did what you had to.”
“I know.”
He started to say something else, but the guard tapped the door. “Time.”
Bram leaned in, kissed me on the cheek, and then said, “All I want to give you is everything you want, Julie.” He left without looking back. The door closed. The lock scraped. I was alone again, but this time the silence felt full, not empty.
I lay back on the cot, eyes on the ceiling, and waited for the rest of my life to start.