V: Twenty Year Winter (Blackjack)
Back at the hospital in Vegas, Oki's fist cracked across my jaw. I rocked backwards and hit the floor, feeling several teeth loosening. I stumbled, caught myself against the wall, and spat blood on the tile under my boots.
“This is your fucking fault. You ever come one step closer to my little girl and my grandson again, there'll be a bullet through your head. I'll put it there myself, here in broad daylight, mark my fuckin' words.”
What the fuck could I say? The bastard was absolutely right.
I'd failed her. Gotten too greedy, too blind to how screwed up the club had gotten. Yeah, I'd eighty-sixed the man who'd tried to kill her, but the danger hadn't gone anywhere.
Not as long as dozens of dirty dogs shared my patch. Fuck, not while Fang held the national gavel. He'd be shaken up over his brother, no doubt about it, but he'd find a way to cling to power for God only knew how long.
We had a mad man at the helm, and that meant he'd wreck our shit, including every innocent life we loved.
“Look at you,” Oki snarled, eyeballing me as I stood against the wall. “Shit, I met Jap soldiers who had more to say with a gun at their backs. A man talks, admits his fuckin' mistakes. You're just gonna stand there?”
“I know I fucked up,” I growled. “And I'm sorry, Oki. So fucking sorry, you're getting your biggest wish.”
His eyes went wide, and he shook his head. “What the fuck are you saying, boy?”
I slicked back my long black hair, feeling a few stray pebbles from the dustup in the desert slip out. “Finn and Lizzie aren't coming home with me 'til I can promise they're safe. I'm not having their lives hanging over my head, always on the line, ready to get their throats cut because I fucked somebody over who deserved it, or because this club got itself too damned deep in the cesspool.”
I walked up, well within range of the old man's fists if he wanted to hit me again. Wasn't going to stop him.
I deserved every fucking blow.
“Don't be a goddamned martyr,” Oki said. “You're not gonna single-handedly take out the trash and leave this MC squeaky clean. We've got real dark times ahead – all of us – and it's going to last a lot longer than anybody thinks.”
“Then that's the way it has to be,” I said, staring out the window in the deserted waiting room. Pale Nevada light gave everything a sickly glow.
“I almost got her killed, old man, and I know it. Lizzie deserves better than that, and so does my son. I'm done putting them through the fucking grinder.”
“Damned straight,” Oki said. “Don't know how many years I've got left, but I'll take care of her. Finn too. You keep your filthy ass out of Spokane, and I'll do everything I can to keep the riffraff away.”
Fuck. My heart sank like a stone into my guts. Grim finality set in.
This shit was really happening.
The best way to protect my family was to make sure they never saw me. Had to get them far, far away from me and the club.
I fought the urge to puke right there, so I walked away from Oki instead, heading for Lizzie's room.
“Hey! Where the fuck you think you're going?”
I stopped, turned around, and looked him dead in the eye. “She's awake, isn't she?”
He nodded. “Yeah, finally.”
“She deserves an explanation.”
I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth, that was I going to say what promised to be a very fucking long goodbye.
“Don't upset her, asshole. She's barely coming around after losing half her blood. If I find out you're the reason she's back in a coma, Blackjack, I swear I'll –“
“Yeah, yeah.” I put my fingers against my head, cocked my thumb like a trigger, and growled. “Trust me, old man, I'll get on my knees and suck your dick while you blow my brains out if I make her pass out. Promise.”
Before he could say anything else, I marched down the hall and headed for her room. Oh, I'd be doing some damage, all right. But I'd be doing less than I would by hanging around, making promises I couldn't keep, turning my wife and son into easy targets when I finally got on Fang's bad side.
I had to do this. No excuses, no delays, no looking back.
“Babe...” I took her hand and brought it to my lips, feeling the strange coolness on her skin left by losing so much blood.
Even there in bed, with her long red hair messed up and wearing a baby blue gown, she looked like an angel. Lizzie smiled when I kissed her, bathing me in those green eyes I was about to have ripped away.
“Sam...I thought you'd never come.”
“I'm here now, Lizzie. You're alive and breathing. That's all that matters, isn't it?”
Yeah, everything except the fact that I'm about to rip both our poor fucking hearts out and throw them on the floor, I thought, trying my best to enjoy the moment.