Chapter 7
WILLOW
T he second Willow slips out the back door, the night inhales and bares its teeth.
Monster to monster.
I palm my weapons, breathe out and me and my brothers move.
We are out the front door and move low and fast.
Biting cold hits like a fist to the face, but we don’t slow down. The yard is a light show of orange from the burning wall, white from the storm, and black from the tree line where the real danger lives.
Bullets fly in our direction and bark from trees older than I am. Chips fly in all directions. The old pines groan as a gust of wind moves overhead, carrying the metallic stink of fresh blood.
We fan out as one.
“Left flank!” Reaper barks, already cutting right, Beast on his shoulder like a moving wall.
Ash slides low, gun up. Cipher ghosts to the shed and vanishes.
Storm plants at the corner of the cabin, stance textbook, and lays down the kind of fire that keeps me covered as I find the shadows for a second time tonight and do what I do best.
I pull the trigger.
Once. Twice. As many Vultures pitch face-first into the snow with the sound of finality. Another takes a round in the shoulder and spins, mouth open, dark blood misting the night like a bad prayer.
The storm is a living thing. White knives of cold slice through the air and I feel like I’m fighting on two fronts.
Everyone is dropping Vulture crew members where they stand for crossing into our territory.
But it’s more than that, we are all fighting to protect the innocent woman who found her way to me.
Willow deserves to have a fighting chance at happiness.
I love her.
The thought lands mid-step, bright and absolute.
And frankly it fucking terrifies me to the core.
I feel it to the core of my being and I know I will die to save her.
I will kill every last one of these fuckers and stain my soul all to save her.
I never thought he would love again and I am killing for it. What a tricky fucking monster love is.
A bottle sails toward us.
“Incoming!” Storm’s shout breaks me out of thought. I pivot just in time to see the Molotov break against the wall of my cabin. Fuck. My jaw clenches tight. Screw it. It doesn’t matter. Nothing will save it but I’m more focused on finding the fucker that started all this chaos.
From my peripheral, I catch movement just off to my left. Two shadows. One trying to move undetected between the trees. I slide behind the old cypress, and when their muzzles angle toward my president, I step out.
Tap. Tap.
I hit center mass both times. They collapse like puppets with cut strings.
“Two more down,” I call out, voice even.
“Copy.” Ash answers from nearby.
“Right side clear!” Beast yells and I know that man means it. He takes special pride in offing men who hurt those who are weaker. Every Vulture we’ve ended tonight does exactly that and worse. Much worse.
“Tree line,” Reaper snaps. “Eyes sharp. We have more.”
We fan out again. Guns go off and I hear the souls leave Vulture bodies one after the other.
The Vultures came in here hungry and stupid.
They don’t know anything about our land.
They don’t know the dips in the ground where the rain eats, the deadfall that trips a man who’s never run a mile with his life in his hands, the blind corners.
They’re firing at sound out of fear and wasting their rounds.
We’re firing with intent. One bullet. One body.
A Vulture barrels out from a clump of brush, screaming something about my mother.
I put a single round through his thigh to keep him from plowing into Ash’s lane.
He goes down hard, drops his gun, and reaches for it like some dumbass hero wannabe.
Beast’s boot comes down on the wrist. Bones crack like fragile ice.
The man’s howls tear through the night and I have to say, that sounded like it hurt.
I keep moving. There’s only one man I’m really after. There’s no way he isn’t here tonight.
My world narrows to only the surrounding space. He’s close. I can feel it.
The fire behind me roars, eating the roof with greedy orange teeth. I can rebuild it.
Footsteps crunch slowly across behind me.
I turn just as Willow’s father steps out of the trees with that rotten grin smeared across his ugly face. I’ve hated it for a long time now.
“Finally found enough courage to come out and face me?”
Two Vultures flank him, jittery as fuck and scanning the treeline waiting for my brothers to step out of the darkness.
Drudge Caine doesn’t take his eyes off me. He knows better than to look away from the devil.
The aging man is shorter than me, thicker around the middle than I last remember. He has dead black eyes and hasn’t changed his shirt in at least a week. Spittle from his chewing tobacco trails down his chin. He holds his weapon aimed at the center of my forehead.
Good, I don't want to kill a man who doesn’t want to fight back.
Everything else fades away. The fire becomes a hush.
My brothers hold the perimeter. The wind lets up as if it wants to listen, too.
This is my fight and when this man’s soul leaves his body, I don’t want any interruptions.
I want to watch it get swallowed up by the ground and taken straight to hell.
Or wherever the fuck evil men like him end up.
I take a single step forward and full step out of the shadows.
“Everyone good?” I call back to my brothers. “Is anyone shot or dead?”
One by one, they sound off—Reaper, Beast, Ash, Storm and Roman. A chorus of I’m good, clear, standing. Cipher’s voice comes thin from near the shed, pissed but alive. That means he’s probably got grazed by a bullet.
After the last okay, I give all my attention to the man who made the woman I love run through a blizzard.
“I guess that leaves me with only one more task for the evening and then we can wash our hands of the Vultures. We told you the day would come when you would eat a Savage Bullet. I’m frankly surprised we’ve allowed you to live this long.”
Flat lips pull back to show stained teeth. “You don’t have the balls to shoot me in the face while looking me in the eye, boy.”
Grudge spits that wad of tobacco juice at my feet, staining the snow.
“I dare ya to do something that will make that stupid kid of mine see you for the monster you really are.”
I take another step. The Vulture president falters a bit and I take the opening. One second he has a gun pointed at me and in the other his weapon is mine.
My finger twitches over the stainless steel trigger, but something has me pausing. Movement from the treeline catches my eye
Willow breaks out of the treeline and runs past Reaper and runs straight for me. Her boots are three sizes too big, her pants swallow her lower body and the hoodie too.
My whole body clenches as she grabs my arm and peers up at me through the light of my burning cabin.
“I told you to go to the main compound,” I say without taking my eyes off Drudge. My tone darkens the air.
“You did,” she fires back, her hot breath white. She juts her chin up. “I didn’t go. I don’t follow commands and rules. You might want to consider that the next time you bark out orders at me.”
“You don’t want to see what comes next, Willow. Leave now.” I lift my voice. “Ash. Take her away.”
Her grip tightens around my arm. “I’m not leaving,” she says. The stubborn streak in her widens. “And you’re going to want to hear me.”
My finger returns to settle on the trigger. I never place it there unless I have every intention of pulling it. When I cock the hammer back, Drudge’s eyes glint. He thinks he’s untouchable in front of his daughter. Idiot. I will rid the world of him and earn her wrath if it means she is safe.
“All this ends now,” I say, the truth in my voice turns into solid ice.
“If you kill him,” Willow urges, moving closer, putting her body half in front of mine because she’s got more courage than all the Vultures and her father put together, “there will just be another snake that pops up. You know I’m right. You all do.”
“I thought you wanted him dead,” I grind out, and yeah, my voice is a blade now.
“I wanted him stopped.” She doesn’t look away from me. She doesn’t look at Drudge, and that hurts him more than any bullet I could put in him. I know it because I am watching every stutter of emotion that flits across the man’s weathered face.
“He deserves it for what he did to my mother and brother. And I am not going to stop you if you want to end his life.”
Drudge stares at his daughter. From one second to another the hollowness in his eyes is a grave with no headstone. No recognition. No love. Just absolute darkness stares back.
“But if you do,” she continues, steady and strong under the frost, “the Russian will just find another puppet. I suggest you use him.”
Drudge hawks spit into the snow by my boot. “I won’t be workin’ for no damn Savage piece of trash.”
I rear back and crack him across the bridge of his nose with the heel of my weapon before he finishes the last word.
Bone gives, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve heard tonight.
I enjoy watching the blood gush down his face.
He drops to his knees in the snow. Hands fly to his face, his gun drops into the snow. Pain will do that to a man.
“There’s one thing you can hold over him to get him to do anything you want,” Willow continues as she watches her father bleed. Her voice is softer now, like it costs her to say the next words.
“What’s that?” I ask her, wishing I could spare her the pain.
A small shoulder goes up. “A girl,” she spits out as if those two words are bitter on her tongue. “She’s about my age. He kidnapped her from a parish over from ours. She’s his plaything, and she’s as twisted as he is. He took her from the other rival gang. A weaker crew.”
“The Black Thorns?” I ask, keeping my eyes on Drudge and the horizon at once.