Where Souls Spoil (72 page)

The man beneath me twitches. His arm moves toward the gun. I take my eyes off Grady and look at the man, whose face is covered in blood and caved in on one side. He’s alive. I can’t.

I can’t let him go. He doesn’t deserve to live.

It feels like forever ago that Grady told me about the men he’s killed. Every one of them must tear at his soul. He says he remembers them all, and I know that, given half the chance, he’ll kill this man, too. That’s just another burden for him to bear.

Seven men he’s killed, but none of them just because he could. They all died for a reason, but it doesn’t matter. It weighs on him. My man does what he has to do to protect his brothers, the mother of his child, and me. I want to be good for him. I want to show him how much I love him and that I can handle this world. I want to be strong enough to take care of myself and to take care of my man. That means not letting him shoulder anymore burdens than he has to.

I won’t let this man be number eight.

The brick is heavy in my hands as I grip it with all my might and bring it down onto the guy’s face. I pound the brick in so hard and so many times that his bones crack from the impact and his features cave in. Blood coats my arms and clothes in a way that would have made me sick to my stomach just yesterday. The pungent smell of iron is everywhere, but I don’t stop until Grady crosses the room and pulls me off of the guy. The brick drops onto the man’s chest and it’s only now that I really look at what’s left of his face. There’s little more left than a swollen eyeball that’s been forced out of its socket and the opening of his mouth, though I can’t see any teeth through the blood and torn flesh.

“Stop looking, baby,” Grady says and shoves my face onto his chest. I wrap my arms around his neck and lose myself in a sea of tears and screams. I did what I had to do to protect my man, but the sight of what used to be a man’s face eats me alive. I killed him. I took a man’s life, and, even though I can’t say I’m sorry I did it, the sight of all of the blood and destroyed facial features won’t stop assaulting my brain.

His number is seven.

My number is one.

Chapter 28

Grady

EVERYTHING IS SILENT
here. Nobody is speaking. Even Tyler, who normally comes out and chats with me, has been distant. As the owner-bartender at The 101 Club, he’s a staple around here. He’s gruff at first, but once you get to know him, he’s good people. But today he’s barely come out to check on us, even though we’ve been here for over an hour.

Granted, he’s probably not used to having such a large crowd of respectable looking individuals in his establishment mixing with the outlaws. I grab a French fry from Chey’s plate and dare her to say anything about it. Her eyes widen as she stares at me from across the table, but with a quick glance to Holly, she calms down. My right arm is stretched out over the back of Holly’s chair. My fingers lightly rub her shoulder blade, which seems to help keep her calm. On her other side is Ian, who, unlike most of my brothers, is only too happy to help my woman get over her shit. The rest of them show up and eat their food.

They’re kind to her and they treat her like she’s one of us—because she is. But Ian’s the one who makes sure they stay quiet as they eat. He’s the one who demands they respect her wishes. My woman wants quiet, and I try to give it to her, but when I get tense, she starts to panic. So Ian has my back when my brothers are around. I don’t really get it, but when things get noisy, she whispers twisted shit like the number one and the number seven until things quiet down. But Ian gets it. If anyone knows about being fucked in the head, it’s him.

On my opposite side is my mother, Ruby, Jim, Ryan, and Alex. Alex won’t meet my eyes when I look her way, but I wish she would. So much has been destroyed in the past six months. I don’t have the energy to worry about her and Ryan, nor do I think it’s worth it anymore. She’s sent Ryan over with homemade soup and pasta so Holly could have a home-cooked meal without us having to cook it. Normally my mom does that stuff, but with Holly being so skittish, we’ve resorted to eating take out almost exclusively. Certain noises just set her off sometimes. She’ll be fine and then something happens—it could be anything—and she retreats. I fucking hate it.

Across the table is Nic—who’s gained a little weight everywhere but is basically all belly—Duke, and Jeremy. Baby Boy has scooted a little
too
close to Chey, who is on his other side, under the guise that his sister is annoying him. Duke, who normally would handle that shit immediately, just laughs. He knows Baby Boy’s game just as well as I do. I just hope he doesn’t mind me taking out his future brother-in-law if the idiot gets the balls to actually make a move.

Chey is sandwiched between Jeremy on one side, and Naomi Mercer—Holly’s mom—on the other. Between Ian and Naomi are Edgar—Holly’s dad—and her brother, Theo. Sweets wasn’t sure about inviting her family to dinner with us, but they had been calling every day to check on her. Naomi mostly talks to my mom when she calls, as Holly isn’t much for shooting the shit with her mom these days, but we’re making progress. Chey seems to like Naomi well enough, but then, Chey likes everybody when she’s in a good mood. Edgar keeps glancing nervously at his daughter, though he doesn’t say a word. Sweets has managed to talk to her dad and brother on the phone at least once each since it happened. Her family doesn’t seem the least bit comfortable in our company, but they’re going to have to get used to it.

Family is important and one day their daughter is going to take my last name and it’ll be my baby that makes her waddle and gives her stretch marks. I never thought of knocking a woman up the way I’ve thought of it with Sweets—not even when Layla was ready to burst with Chey. Didn’t think anything of it when Sweets mentioned it before everything went to hell, but after? Fuck. I’d shred my own flesh to give her a little happy and to stop the panic attacks.

One of the reasons this is Holly’s first trip out of the house is because the entire town knows what happened at Universal Ground a few weeks back. Incorruptible cop Harry Mercer’s sweet daughter was brutally raped and beaten during one of her shifts. Her friend Aaron Lennox was killed trying to protect her. For such a straight arrow, Harry Mercer sure didn’t ask many questions about how one guy ended up with a bullet in the back of his head and the other’s face was smashed in by a brick. Can’t blame him. His daughter is fucked up in a deep way. She's only just been released from the hospital last week and has refused all visitors.

Because he’s too close to the case, his involvement is unofficial, but that hasn’t stopped him from coming by my house three times in the last two weeks to talk to Holly about what happened. Every time he tries to bring it up, she goes to that fucked place where she’s destroying that guy’s face again. It takes hours to get her back to a safe place where she isn’t seeing blood everywhere. Needless to say, Uncle Harry’s visits have been stopped for the foreseeable future.

She’s just not ready to talk about it. I don’t know if she ever will be. She cries in the night, waking up in a panic, but last night was the first night she didn’t ask me to call Ian. I’m always on edge and worried as fuck when I call him for her. She has him repeat much of the same things he said on the phone that day.

Hang in there, Holly.

We’re coming, we just have to be quiet.

He seems to break the sobbing by asking her to tell him what’s happening. That always shuts her up and calms her down. She’s beside me now with her face shoved into a Mendo burger. This is our first trip out of the house together since that shit went down at Universal Ground. She almost didn’t come today, but Ian talked her into it. They bonded during that phone call where those sick fucks forced her to verbalize Mindy’s assault. As much as I want to be the one to fix her, I’m slightly eased by the fact that Ian is so patient with her. My woman needs kindness and patience while she tries to pull herself out of her dark hole.

There’s some shit I don’t think I’ll ever get over. Like seeing Layla give birth to Cheyenne or the first time my girl walked without falling on her diapered butt. Even her first day of school –all memories that are forever etched into my soul. But it’s the fucked memories that keep me up at night.

Like seeing my woman straddling some half-dead tweaker. Her eyes were wild, her face was covered in tears, and she had a bloody brick in her hands. She looked at me like I wasn’t even there. Her jaw shook, and her chest heaved. With one look down at the man beneath her, she slammed the brick into his face. Not once. Not twice. But again and again until I had to pull her off of him. She fought me, screaming and pushing at me. I still don’t know everything that happened in that room. I know enough—for now. The rest is a nightmare she relives every fucking night. One I can’t save her from.

Another half an hour and there’s light chatter, but they all keep it quiet. Even Ryan keeps his volume at a respectable level, but when a car backfires outside, Sweets curls into herself and grabs onto me for dear life. I give Chey a nod, and she stands with us. The others stand and spread out. Holly recovers quickly, wipes her tears, and laughs at herself, mumbling, “sorry.”

On our way out, Naomi wraps her in a gentle hug and promises to come by in a few days’ time. Her dad, who’s given me two disapproving looks, and has managed to mutter a single, “hey” wanders over to us. He gives Holly a hug then reaches out for my hand. I clasp my hand with his and give him a nod.

“Take care of my girl,” he says stiffly.

“Always,” I say.

Holly and I walk across the parking lot to my bike, Ian stands back in the distance. He has the SUV if she chooses to opt out of riding with me. I rub her back and place a kiss to her temple. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to,” she says with more determination in her voice than I expect.

“She’s loud,” I warn her. Sweets knows my Harley is noisy—all ours are—but I don’t want to scare her. I grab our helmets from the handlebars and hand hers to her.

“I know. I’ll just pretend it’s you snoring next to me,” she quips. For a moment,
my
Holly is there. She’s snarky and raising an eyebrow. A smirk plays at her lips, and her brown eyes gleam. Placing a kiss to her cheek, I leave her where she’s at and swing my leg over my bike. We’re still new and because of everything, Sweets has yet to ride with me. Today will be her first if she follows through with it.

With my helmet on and my eyes fixed with Holly’s, I bring the bike to life. Holly jumps in place, but doesn’t retreat. She straps her helmet on her head and awkwardly climbs on behind me. Her arms wrap around my waist, and her helmet rests against my spine.

“You good?” I ask.

“Yes!” she shouts. I need no further instruction as I rev the engine and we bolt out of the parking lot. I want to take a scenic route, or even just say fuck it and make a day trip out of it. But that would be pushing it and I don’t want her panicking on the highway. So I take us straight home. We sail through the wind and down the streets just like I always do. It’s nothing I haven’t done a million times before, but it’s different with her behind me. Her grip is tight, and I can feel the worried pattern of the rise and fall of her chest, but she doesn’t complain. Despite the horrors inside her head, she’s strong and refuses to let the demons get the best of her.

We roll up to the house, and I cut the engine. Nobody else has made it home yet, and that suits me just fine. I need a few minutes alone with Sweets anyway.

On our way inside, I notice that she’s less twitchy than she was at the restaurant. She doesn’t like to be alone, but too many people don’t sit well with her, either. She insists that she’s ready to go back to work, but I keep making excuses to keep her home. She’s just not ready yet. She needs more time to heal. She can’t see it, but she’s still a disaster.

We set our helmets down on the kitchen counter. She moves for the living room, but I reach out and grab her hand. Turning back, she stares at me curiously.

“Come here, baby,” I say quietly. For the first week we didn’t have sex once. I just jacked off in my bathroom like a fucking kid. I can’t blame her for not wanting to do anything sexual after the shit she saw. In the last week, it was twice. Both times were slow and easy. Still satisfying, just not what I’m used to. And as much as I’d love to bend her over and drill her from behind, she needs gentle. She needs me to be the man she deserves, not the asshole I’m used to getting away with being.

So instead of putting the moves on her, I pull her against me and step to the side. My hands are on her hips and she tosses her arms around my neck. She fumbles awkwardly before moving to the side as well. I do it again, and again she follows in confusion. By the third step, she finally catches on and the smile that spreads across her face is so fucking beautiful.

“We’re dancing,” she whispers. It won’t last, but she’s so carefree. I want to remember this for the next time things go bad.

“Keep your mouth shut about it,” I say. She smirks.

“Where did you learn how to dance?”

“Bee Scouts with Chey. Only people who know I took her to that dance are Chey, my mom, and now you.”

“You’ll do anything for her, won’t you?” she asks.

“I’d do anything for you, too, Sweets. If I could, I’d take away all the fucked up shit that swims inside your head.”

“No,” she whispers and stops in place. “It’s okay.” What does she mean by that? It’s absolutely not fucking okay. Not on any plane of existence is it o-fucking-kay. The shit she went through is not okay.

“I’m going to work through this. I will. I just did what I had to do. I’d do it again,” she says.

“What are you talking about?”

“I love you,” she says. Her eyes search mine for acceptance, I think. Leaning in, I cup her face in my hands and kiss her deeply, but softly.

A knock sounds at the door, causing her to jerk away. I let go of her and turn for the door. Checking the window, I find Duke standing on the porch. He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets and a thoughtful expression on his face.

“What’s up?” I say as I open the door. He gives me a nod and looks over my shoulder then back at me.

“Can we talk?” he says. I nod and step out onto the porch with him and shut the door behind me. He paces back and forth a few times before he speaks. “I don’t think that shit was on Mancuso.”

“Who the fuck else would it be?” I snap. Wyatt’s got Junior at his house now, and has since the day Leo Scavo showed up at the safe house. Wyatt’s getting tired of playing babysitter though, so I don’t know what we’re going to do with him next. Leo Scavo has been missing since that day, when apparently he and Jim swung their dicks around until they both got tired and gave up.

Duke and his theories are getting old, but Mancuso’s silence has been unnerving. He may have been right about Junior, but that doesn’t mean I want to listen to this shit about Mindy’s attack.

“Larry Jennings,” he says. He pulls a plastic hospital bracelet from his pocket and hands it to me. I take it and inspect the information on the label. Sure enough, it belongs to Darren Jennings.

“Where’d you get this?” I ask, feeling my temper rise.

“Someone left it on Nic’s car the morning of Chief’s funeral,” he says. “Didn’t show it to anybody because I wasn’t sure it meant anything.”

My temper gets the best of me, and I lunge and shove him backward. My words come out in a fierce scream. “Guess what, asshole? It fucking means something.”