CULVER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (19 page)

“Mom! Mom, it’s me! It’s Samantha! Let her go, you
motherfucker! You let her fucking go right now!”

“…requesting backup…suspect in…hostage…backup….now…”
Kevin was speaking into his walkie-talkie as he ran towards me; I turned to
look at him, body shaking, mind a total wreck. And then he disappeared. Or,
more accurately, I disappeared. Into the room. The door inched open and I felt
strong hands pulling me inside, then heard the door slam shut. It was dark in
the room, the only light coming from one lamp on the table. As my eyes adjusted
and my heart raced, I realized I’d made one last, awful mistake.

“Welcome to the party, sweetheart,” came a voice
behind me, right as two big, sweaty hands closed around my upper arms.

~
29
~

A few minutes later, I was tied to a chair, a gag in
my mouth. My mother, alive and awake, was across from me, her eyes bright with
fear. I hadn’t had time to scream or even say anything before Tank had thrown
me onto the chair and the other man in the room, who I’d never seen before, had
slipped the gag into my mouth. Boon was lying on the bed, on his stomach, his
face turned away. He could have been dead. I thought he probably was.

My first feeling upon seeing my mother was relief that
she was even still alive, and relatively unharmed. My second feeling, much
stronger, was panic. There aren’t enough words in the English language to
explain just how afraid I was. If I’d screwed up everything to that point, I’d
really
done it by throwing myself
head-first into Tank’s all-too-willing hands.

The knot binding my wrists was tight, and my shoulders
were aching within the first minute. I stared at Tank, who’d been mostly silent
after those first words. He was bigger than I remembered, looked meaner. His
face was etched with scars, his arms huge and dirty and covered in tattoos. He
had Boon’s clear blue eyes, though, and that was, perhaps, the scariest part of
it all.

“Well, this is a hell of a nice surprise, pumpkin,”
Tank said, leaning down in front of me and taking my chin in his hands. I
closed my eyes, revolted by his face, his hot breath, the feel of his skin on
mine. “This is really, really, just…man, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

He released me then, moving over to my mother. I
opened my eyes again but wished I hadn’t; he was stroking her hair, his massive
hands pulling roughly at her soft hair. I wanted to kill him for laying a
single hand on her.

“My boy showed up an hour ago saying he wanted to come
back. Come home to Papa. But, of course, there’s gotta be consequences.
There’re always consequences. You can’t let your kids just run around doing whatever
the hell they wanna do. Right, Buzz?”

The other man in the room nodded gravely, standing in
front of the door with his arms crossed. Outside, sirens wailed and I heard the
screech of tires.

“Here’s hoping he wakes up soon. I gave him a hell of
a knock. Don’t know my own strength sometimes,” Tank said, now moving to the
window and peeking out.

“WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS
ABOVE YOUR HEAD,” a voice came through the air from a bullhorn. Tank turned
back to me, a grin on his face.

“Cute, ain’t they? Thinkin’ it’ll be that easy. But
now I got the sheriff’s wife
and
daughter.
They can’t do a damn thing,” he said. “Now, the only question is: who gets
shot, and who comes with us? We need one of you alive to secure the getaway. But
which one? Got any ideas, Buzz?”

The man shook his head.

“Me either. I think maybe we’ll let Boon decide when
he wakes up. He’s gonna be the one to do the dirty work, anyway. He’s gotta
prove his loyalty again. You can’t just run off on your family, you know, and
expect to come home just like nothin’. You gotta prove you’re worth taking
back.”

Just as Tank finished speaking, Boon stirred. He
didn’t wake up, but his arm moved slightly. Tank walked towards his son.

“Wakey wakey,” he said, kicking at Boon’s legs where
they lay hanging off the bed. He looked back at me.

“Screw it. I’ll have him kill her first. Then he’ll
get to spend a little more time with you before we drop you off in the nearest
ditch, with some souvenir bullets in your pretty little head. Plus, he’ll get
to see the way you look at him after you watch him slit her tender little
throat,” Tank said with an evil grin. My heart was icy cold, my head pounding,
my breathing ragged and frantic.
This
isn’t happening,
I told myself. But it was.

“Hey, you little fuck,” Tank suddenly screamed,
leaning down and yelling right into Boon’s ear. His body twitched. “Wake the
fuck up. I don’t got all fucking night.”

Slowly, Boon seemed to come back to life. First his
feet, then his legs, then his arms, moved slowly. Finally, his head rose from
the comforter. He turned his face towards Tank, and I saw for the first time
the bright purple mark that seemed to cover most of the left side of his face.
It made me wince just to see it.

“Dad?” Boon said, his voice low, confused.

“Damn fucking straight, now get the fuck up,” Tank
said, kicking at Boon’s legs once more. Boon’s eyes seemed to focus as he rose
and looked around the room; they fell on me and immediately widened, panic and
fear taking over.

“Samantha, no,” he said, his voice still no more than
a whisper.

“Samantha
yes,”
Tank
said snidely. “Now, you ungrateful little prick, let’s get this show on the
road, huh? You come back here to me, want to come back where you belong? Well,
let’s see how much you mean that.”

Tank reached behind him into his back pocket and
pulled out a switchblade, much like the one that Boon had used to threaten the
kids at the Clamhouse. It could even have been the same one. The sound of the
blade sliding out seemed to drop the temperature in the room. The sparse light
glinted off the edge. He threw the opened knife onto the bed before Boon, and
then drew a gun from his belt. He aimed the gun at Boon.

“Kill the mother,” he said, his voice no longer
sarcastic or sardonically playful.

“Dad, fuck, no,” Boon said, rising to his feet and
looking first at the gun, then at the knife on the bed, then at his father.

“You’re gonna have to start learning this shit
sometime, son. You can’t stand on the sidelines anymore. And this is how you’re
gonna earn your way back into my heart and into my club.”

“We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do any of
this. We can…”

“We can’t, and even if we could, we wouldn’t. We’re
the
bad guys,
Boon. The sooner you
get that through your stupid, thick skull, the better. Now pick up that fucking
knife and slit that whore’s throat.”

“Why, Dad? Why?” Boon seemed to be at a loss for words
as he stared at his father, hands rising in supplication.

“Because this fucking town, this police force, killed
your
fucking mother. So why not give a
little back? Or did you forget about that?”

There was silence in the room.

“Of course I couldn’t forget that,” Boon said, his
eyes slowly narrowing as he stared at his father. His face was growing cold,
angry, hateful, an expression I’d never seen on him before. A scary expression.
My heart slowed, my mind slowed, everything slowed, as I saw a look come over
him that could only be described with one word: murderous.

He’s actually
going to do it. He’s going to kill my mother. Because that cop killed HIS
mother. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,
I thought, barely able to believe it. He couldn’t. He
wouldn’t. He’d told me he
loved
me.
But that look on his face…it told a totally different story. A story of a boy
who was going to avenge his mother.

“I didn’t think you could,” Tank said. Boon leaned
over, grabbing the knife from the bed without breaking eye contact with his
father.

“No, I remember, Dad. I remember perfectly. I remember
everything,” he said, taking a few steps forward, towards my mother. My heart
kicked back up into high gear; this was happening. I was going to watch Boon
kill my mother. This was happening, and it was happening to me, not to someone
in a movie. Tears ran down my eyes in a constant stream. I made a strangled
sound against the gag, my body coming alive, my legs kicking wildly as I
struggled against the binds holding my arms together. Across from me, my mother
just looked at me, her eyes wide.

“I remember the cop shooting her. I remember why he
shot her. I remember lots of things. Like, maybe you’ve forgotten, but I
remember her eyes. I remember how there was nothing left in them at the end.
Because you took away everything that was good in her.
You
did that, Dad,” Boon said, his voice raising as he took another
step towards my mother, his head turned so that he didn’t break eye contact.
Tank followed Boon, his arm outstretched, gun shaking slightly.

“You shut your fucking mouth,” he growled. Beads of
sweat began to stand out on his wide neck.

“You want me to avenge my mother’s death? You want me
to kill someone else’s mom so I feel better?” Boon was only a few steps from
Mom at that point, the knife stretched out in her direction. “Well, fuck you.”

“You better think real clear about what you’re doing
right now, you little fuck,” Tank said through gritted teeth. He cocked the
gun, the sound seeming to fill the room. Boon dropped his eyes, lowering the
hand that held the knife. He held it in two hands, then, staring down at it. He
didn’t seem to care at all that, for the second time in a week, he was on the
wrong end of a gun. His eyes darted back up to his father’s. What I saw in them
then…well, it was clarity. Or something like clarity.

“You’re right, Dad. I
should
avenge my mother’s death,” Boon said slowly.

“Damn right you should,” Tank said, his voice starting
to sound strained.

All I saw of what happened, then, was a blur of pink
flesh and the glint of the knife. All I heard was a screech of pain and a
gunshot. And then another. My ears rang with the sound, so loud it hurt. I was
vaguely aware of screaming against the gag, my eyes shut tight. There was a
thud, then another, then a gigantic crash and the sound of many footsteps and
garbled shouting.

I opened my eyes slowly; the room was coated in police
officers, all with guns drawn. Boon was standing, arms up, knife laying on the
ground next to him. Someone was struggling with the binds holding my arms back;
another cop was untying my mother. Two cops had their guns drawn at a figure on
the floor that I recognized, after a moment, as Tank. He was hunched over on
his knees, holding his wrist in one hand. Blood was dripping from his arm.

The gun was laying on the ground. I blinked.
Everything changed. My arms were suddenly free, and I scratched at the gag,
taking a deep, gasping breath as I freed myself. My mother was in front of me,
racing across the room, arms out. I met her with my own embrace and we sobbed
together in the middle of the room as chaos continued. I breathed in deeply, never
wanting to forget the way she smelled. Everyone was shouting and stomping
around but I was in a globe of perfect serenity. My mother was okay. She was
alive and okay and in my arms.

And that was the only thing I needed or cared about, in that moment.
The last thing I concretely remember from that night was stepping outside and
watching as Boon was thrown into the back of a squad car. His face turned to
the window and our eyes met. He grinned at me. That fucking grin.

“Wait, wait, not him! He didn’t do anything! It wasn’t
him!” I remember crying out, detaching myself from my mother to rush towards
the car. It wasn’t fair. He’d
saved
us,
and now he was in handcuffs in the back of a car. A cop intercepted me,
blocking me from getting all the way to the car as it began to pull away. I
struggled against the cop, swatting at his chest.

“Get out of the way! Move! Stop! Don’t take him!”
Hands pulled at me from behind; turning, swatting blindly, I saw Kevin’s face
in front of mine. “You have to make them stop! He saved us!”

“Samantha, stop. Stop. They’re taking him down for
processing, but the deal stands. He’ll be okay. It’s just procedure until we
get all the details ironed out. Trust me, he’s going to be okay,” Kevin said,
holding my arms in his hands as fresh tears streamed down my face.

“You don’t know that! He could be there for years!” I
cried, wanting to collapse. Hadn’t I been through enough that day? Couldn’t I
get a single fucking break?

“Samantha, stop, you need to stop. You need to calm
down. You’ve had a tough day…”

“A tough day? A tough fucking day? I want to see him!
Take me to see Boon right now!”

“I can’t do that, Samantha, you need to trust me, it’s
going to be okay. Your father is the sheriff, you know he’ll take care of
everything,” Kevin said, making total sense but infuriating the shit out of me
nonetheless. Regardless, I was growing tired. I mean, I’d already
been
tired. Now I was…empty. I stopped
struggling, letting my body grow limp as exhaustion washed over me. I let
myself be led, docile, into the back of another squad car. My mother was
already there and I leaned in close to her, lying my head on her shoulder.