Buttercup (14 page)

He squeezed his eyes tight as her ass quivered in his hands and her vaginal contractions gripped him relentlessly. Unable to survive another moment, he exploded deep within, coating her with his seed.

He collapsed in an exhaustive heap on her. “I love you,” he said.

He heard her mumble the same, before he closed his eyes.

Time hadn’t moved all that fast. Even though for Della it felt like an eternity in his arms. She lay next to him with her fingers intertwined in his, her head resting on his chest. She counted the rhythmic beats of his heart, putting them to memory. “Sil?”

“Mmm…” he said.

“Did you really come for me?” Della lifted her head and looked at him to see the answer as well as hear it. Silvio kept his eyes closed. His breathing was easy and his face relaxed. But her chest burned for the answer. She pressed her lips together to keep from answering for him and waited.

“Yes,” he finally said.

“But why? We knew each other once, and your friend dead ‘cause of it…”

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it.” His eyes opened. “I only said those things to you, because I wanted to hurt you.”

“I understand. Still. I haves to know. Why would you look for me?”

Silvio put an arm behind his head. She rolled over on top of him, getting between his legs. Her face rested on her hands that pressed flat to his chest. With his free hand, he touched her face. “Because you got me through.”

Della didn’t understand. She frowned at him, and he smiled. “In the can, men had ways of surviving. You were mine. You and your hooch dance.”

“You saw me?”

“You danced for me every night,” he smirked.

Della grinned. She believed him. She had her dreams too. They were her escape “Sometimes the fantasy is better. Isn’t it, Sil?”

“Not always. This here is real. And it’s best.”

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

Gunfire exploded. Men yelled, and someone, male, screamed. Like a cannon blast, it blew their serenity apart. Della jumped, startled. Silvio rolled her to her back and got up in a flash. “Get dressed. Pack light. It’s time.”

“No. Wait.”

“Get dressed, Della. You comin’ with me. The boys…” Silvio paused at the photos sticking to his feet. Della sat up in bed, holding the sheet to her. She watched as he scanned the images of her holding a baby.

He settled on a more recent one and turned the picture toward her. “Who is this kid!”

“Silvio, please wait.”

“This kid! Who is he?”

“He my son,” she said softly.

He froze. The gunshots blasted once more. Men were screaming and yelling. But he stood there in disbelief. “Then you were lying. You never cared. Never was mine.”

“I’m yours,” she said, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes.

“Always will be.”

“Then what the fuck is it? You a prisoner here in this carnival. That freak treats you like a slave. Now this! You lied to me. You like being his bitch in heat on that stage and a whore for every dollar that comes by!”

Della dropped her eyes. “No, I don’t like it. I’m a slave, Sil. I’m a mother, too.” She looked up at him. “I had a boy. When you left, you left a part of you. I never lied. I never told the truth. Sylvester is yours.”

Della watched the blood siphon from his face. Gathering her sheet, oblivious to the war raging out the doors, it was just them, and the truth.

At last she could say it to his face and see what kind of man he really was.

Della got to her knees and collected the pictures. Rising, she presented them to him. Silvio didn’t accept them at first. He stared down at the offering as if it weren’t his to accept. “His name is Sylvester. I named him for you. They couldn’t stop me.”

Silvio took the pictures. He went through them one by one. Slowly, she watched the color return to his cheeks. But his eyes glistened when he landed on the final picture. “The pick-pocket kid is mine?” he mumbled, his eyes stretching, watering, a slow smile forming on his lips.

“Pick-pocket?”

“Boss!” came a pound to the door and then more gunshots. The window to the left of the train car exploded in glass shards. Silvio knocked her back to the bed. He forced the photos on her. “Stay low, but get dressed. Do it now.”

“What about…”

“Now!”

“Boss!”

Silvio put on his clothes the best he could, then released the latch to the door, throwing it open with his gun ready. Della pulled down her dress just as a young man stumbled in, bleeding. “Red is dead. Touchy is holding them back. They ambushed us. There’s a mob of them, boss. They came from everywhere. I did as you said, but they had an ambush back at the ride. We did what…what you said.”

“Dead?” Della repeated. Her eyes stared at the train car door. The young man spit up blood, but he looked at her with mixed shock and relief. He nodded. “Excuse the intrusion, mam.”

“Bloodshot!” An angry shout called from outside. “It’s over! Ya hear! Come out!”

“That’s Tiny,” Della warned, putting on her shoes.

Silvio tended to his friend. Della watched the blood pool beneath him. He was a goner. She was certain of it. And now Tiny had his guns

“It’s okay, kid. You gon’ make it.”

Della hurried over to apply pressure. “It’s pretty bad, boss. I’m sorry. We done what we could.”

“Buttercup! You okay in there?” Tiny shouted. “Let her go or your man out here dies!” the midget boss ordered. Silvio’s jaw locked in defiance at them. She had to help. Della tried to ease the bleeding man’s suffering, but there was so much blood. She didn’t have to say it. One look into his eyes and it was clear that the kid wouldn’t make it. Still she did what she could. Silvio rose with his gun in his bloody hand. Della’s eyes stretched. “What are you doing?” she shouted in a loud whisper. “You cain’t go out there. They’ll kill you!” she warned.

“Not if I get that fucker first,” he said, checking the chamber for enough bullets.

Della got to her feet, grabbing at his arm. “No, please…”

“Stay inside. It’s me they want. And I want him.” Silvio’s eyes glistened with a horrifying purpose.

“Didn’t you hear me? You have a son! You have us both! You gon’

go out there and get yourself shot afta everythin’ we feel. What about us?”

He wavered. She knew Tiny would fill him full of bullet holes before he stepped foot out of the train car. This time she wouldn’t let it happen. She shoved Silvio and bolted for the door. Nothing could stop her. As soon as she entered the night, she froze. Her heart stopped at the sight of him. A dead man lay not far from the train car. His throat cut and his scalp gone. She stumbled back in horror. Tiny had lied. She was right.

It was an ambush. She looked up and saw her people. Guns. Lots of guns were pointed, not at her, but at Silvio who came out after her.

“Buttercup, out the way!” Tiny ordered.

She backed up against Silvio. Throwing her arms back around him, she kept hold of him. “No! I won’t let you hurt him, Tiny. Not this time. I won’t!”

Several of the carnies that knew her since she was a baby witnessed the blasphemy and wavered. Some guns were lowered. But Tiny, the man she saw as her father, didn’t. He stepped forward on his cane.

“Let me deal with him. You have to be safe for our boy,” Silvio whispered in her ear, then tried to move her. Della squeezed her eyes shut and held to him with all her might.

“Noooo…not this time,” she begged.

Tiny stopped.

“I say move, gal,” Tiny ordered.

“Let’s you and I deal man to man,” Silvio said, again trying to move Della.

“NO!” she shouted at them both. She looked at Tiny with pleading eyes. “Please, Tiny, no more violence. No more of this. It has to end.”

“You don’t speak to me about the end.” He pointed his cane at her.

“There’s only one end for you both if you don’t obey me now!”

Della sucked down a deep breath. Her arms, pried from her lover, were pinned at her side. She stared Tiny in the eye and shook her head no.

“I see myself dead first,” she said, and an audible gasp escaped the crowd.

Tiny smirked, “That so?” He looked back. “Joyce.”

To her horror, Joyce appeared, pulling her son in tow. Tiny grabbed her child’s hand and snatched him to his side.

“Sylvester!!” Della shouted. She almost ran for him when Silvio’s hand went around her and kept her back. Della screamed in agony that Tiny would go this far. To bring her son in the middle of a gunfight was a frightening new low. “Joyce, please. Get him! Take him back. Please!”

Joyce didn’t move. She stood to the other side of Tiny with her cane. Della closed her eyes as tears leaked from the corners. “How could you let him do this? Why are you doing this!”

“We family, Buttercup. I gave you that name when you were born.

I raised you,” Tiny snapped. “I protected you against them townies that wanted to harm you. Twice you spit in my face. Twice you disobey me and spit on our family! Afta’ all I done to make you a star.”

“Let him go,” she pleaded.

“You heard her!” Silvio snapped. He forced her aside. “Let the boy go. This is between you and me.”

Tiny’s brow winged up. He addressed Della. “All this time, I kept you safe, and you let him in here. You know the law. You made a choice.”

“Let him go,” she shouted through her tears.

“Go inside,” Silvio said to her, through his teeth. His gun in his hand tightened on the grip. “I’ll handle it.”

“No!” she moaned. She couldn’t risk it. Not this choice, her child or her man. Why would the man she considered a father force her to.?

“Please, Tiny, let him go. Please, Joyce, please… help me.” She dropped to her knees, now at Tiny’s and Sylvester’s level. “I beg of you. I’m beggin’.”

“Ma!” Sylvester said, trying to run to her. But Tiny yoked him back.

The child began to cry. “Ma!” he said reaching for her.

Joyce dropped her head in shame. Tiny grinned wickedly at her.

“Here’s the deal,
Bloodshot Garelli
.” He looked up at Silvio this time when he spoke. “I hear you got some loot stashed away. Plenty. How much her life worth or his?” Tiny shook the child. Della winced. All guns rose again and aimed at them both. She looked at the carnies in sadness. They would defend Tiny to the bitter end. All of them would. It was hopeless. “I can tell you now. Killin’ your men was pretty easy. You ain’t so tough,” Tiny chuckled. “You want out? You give me that bounty that made you so famous and I’ll consider it.”

“I want the boy and Della. They come with me,” Silvio said.

“They carnies. They stay here. You give it to me or we take it. Your choice. Your only choice.”

Della knew that Tiny would kill him either way. There was no choice. Silvio looked her over. “I’ll die for you, but you promise me that you’ll take my son and be free,” he said.

“No, don’t.”

Silvio tossed the gun.

“No!” she yelled, fearing the spray of bullets that was gong to tear him from her heart. But in a flash Tiny was face flat on the earth. A stunned silence followed. Della blinked through her tears to make sense of it. She looked up to see Joyce standing over him with her cane raised.

She’d hit him to the back of his head and cracked his skull for her efforts.

Not even Lone Wolf made a move against the unexpected violence. Tiny was their God. Barely three feet tall, he towered over them all in life. No one ever moved against him. No one ever even considered they could.

Now, one of their own had. Her son, freed, ran right into her arms. She held his small body to her as he shook through his sobs. Joyce’s voice rose above all.

“It’s done. You hear me. All of you! We don’t live as family to be prisoners to each other. Tiny was wrong. That’s not the carnie way!” Joyce faced the few that kept their guns raised. She spoke directly to the lot. “If we can’t be free with each other, then what are we?” She took a step toward them, and guns slowly lowered. “Della deserves her chance. Tiny or none of you will take it from her.”

Silvio lowered to Della’s side. She felt his presence. She opened her eyes and locked hers with his over their child’s shoulders. She pried his little arms from her neck and turned him. Silvio took him into his arms.

Sylvester cried but allowed the stranger to hold him. He rose, holding him. Della got to her feet. She wiped at her boy’s wet cheeks. His eyes opened and he looked up at his father. Della sniffed back her tears of relief. “Sylvester, this here is…”

“We met,” Silvio informed her.

“I’m sorry I took from you,” Sylvester said softly. Della looked between them both and suddenly the comment ‘pickpocket’ made sense.

She shook her head at her son.

“It’s cold, Della, and,” Silvio said, watching closely the others that still glared his way, “we need to go. No buts about it woman. You and the boy are coming with me.” Joyce and Lone Wolf approached. Silvio set Sylvester on his feet. The boy went to his mother immediately, hugging her hips. Della stroked the top of his bushy locks. The others carried a bleeding Tiny away. He looked hurt, really bad. Despite it all, she prayed he wasn’t. He was one of their own; he’d forgotten that for greed.

“Is he going to be okay?” Della asked.

Joyce leaned on her cane. “Don’t you worry about Tiny. We’ll see to him. But you two needs to go. Pack your things and leave now. You got another six hours of the moon,” Joyce said, looking up to the sky.

“My men?” Silvio asked.

“They all dead,” Lone Wolf answered.