Death of Cupids (The Blood of Cupids MC) (18 page)

Grace

“Grace, I have to take you to him now.”

I spun around, clutching my child to my chest.  Danny
sorrowfully shrugged, as if he was apologizing for the role he played in what
was about to happen.  I shook my head, begging for him to reconsider, but
I knew it wasn’t an option.  If he didn’t bring me in, Sean would see to it
that he was reprimanded.

“Danny, please; don’t do this.”

He held out his hand to me.  “Please, let’s just get
this over with the easy way.  You know I have a gun on me.  Don’t
make me pull it on you.  Not with the baby.”

He was pleading with me.  It was interesting, and
seemed oddly out of character.  There was a time when Ryan had really
cared for Danny, when he called him a true friend.  The only Danny I knew
was the one who threatened me in my doorway.  He claimed to be Ryan’s
friend, his confidante, and then degraded me to my face.

“I hope Sean lets me have a taste before he’s done with
you.”

But this Danny, the one who stood before me, he was
different.  He seemed tired, beaten, regretful.  He didn’t want to
hurt me.  He was simply carrying out a task assigned to him by a madman.

I reached my hand out to his, but when he wrapped his
fingers around mine, I pulled him my way.

“You have a choice here.  You don’t have to do this.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know he’s still human.  We can beat him.”

I could feel the fear and the frustration building up in my
throat.  I needed another option.  This couldn’t be it.

“It’s a nice thought, but Sean wins this round, Grace. 
There’s no stopping him.”

This Danny wasn’t just tired; this Danny was defeated. 
Sean had taken him for all he was worth and turned him into something that was
so obviously eating away at his core.  I knew I would have to go with
him.  I knew I’d be brought to Sean.  But I was hoping I could use
Danny’s weakness to my advantage.  I just needed to find a way for the
opportunity to present itself.

I pressed the call button on the side of my bed and waited
for the nurse to check in.

“She’s being fussy and I’m so tired.  I could really
use a nap.  Could you take her to the nursery?” I lied.

“Of course, dear.” The nurse smiled at me as I placed the
sleeping baby in her little wheeled hospital crib.

I lightly kissed her on the cheek before I whispered so only
we could hear,  “Goodbye baby girl.  Mommy loves you.”

When she was out of sight, I slowly pulled on my regular
clothes before I turned to Danny.  “I just need to make one more stop,
downstairs.  It will only take a second.”

“I’ll be right beside you.”

The elevator doors sprung open, and I curled my way down the
hallway toward the nurse’s station.  I took a quick glance around, but
Mark wasn’t there; he must had still been doing his rounds.  They paged
him over the loud speaker for me while I anxiously waited by the corner of the
receptionist’s desk.  Danny stared at me impatiently; he was ready to get
out of there, to deliver me to his boss.  But I needed to see Mark; I
needed to tie up a lose end.

“Grace, what are you doing out of bed?”

Mark walked up to me, the concern washing over his
face.  He put his hand on my shoulder, but quickly peeled it off when he
noticed Danny looming over me.

“You must be Ryan.”

“No, Mark, this is Danny.”  I said it slowly and
deliberately.  I tried to give him any hint that this was not a casual
friend just coming to say ‘hello’.

“Nice to meet you.”  He held out his hand, but I could
see the confusion in his eyes as he turned back to me.  “So, what’s going
on?”

I lowered both my eyes and my voice.  “I have to go,
but I’ll be back.  Could you just watch over the baby until I get
back?  Don’t… just make sure they take care of her.”

I choked back the tears.  I couldn’t allow myself to
break, not in front of Danny.  But Mark was not so easily fooled.

“Grace, you can’t leave until you’re discharged.”

“I have to, Mark.”

“This isn’t a day spa; it’s a hospital.”

He was becoming angry, annoyed at me, but as I had reminded
myself of just earlier that day, Mark would never understand my past.  He
wouldn’t understand why I had to leave, why I couldn’t just tell this man
standing behind me to go fuck himself.

I took one last look at Mark, the man who had been so kind
to me.  He had been the friend I needed, the one I always wanted.  I
would most likely never see him again.  If I lived through the day, I
would have to grab my baby and make a run for it, leaving Philadelphia
forever.  If I didn’t win… well… there was always the chance I wouldn’t
make it through this fight.  I had to accept that as the truth.  But
what would happen to my baby; my poor, helpless child?

I quickly took a step forward, threw my arms around him, and
pulled his lips to mine.  I knew it would be surprising to him, but it
would also be surprising to Danny who would then take a second to settle before
taking action.  I closed my mouth around his and then angled my lips to
his ear.  “If I don’t make it back, please, just… protect her.”

“What? Grace?  What are you talking about?”  He
quickly whispered back.  Between the kiss and the plea, he was grasping at
reality.

“You wonder why I don’t let people in… this is why.”  I
pulled away from him so he could see the fear in my eyes.  Danny wrapped
his fingers around my arm as he dragged me in the opposite direction.

“Bye, Mark.”  I mouthed as we disappeared around the
corner.

Ryan

“Get in there.”

Rocky and I were shoved into the large meeting room off the
common area of the clubhouse.  I looked up to see every member of the
Cupids
bound to a chair with a gun to his head.  The room was windowless for
privacy purposes, but the explosion had managed to rip a hole in the wall where
it met the baseboards.  It was weird, and oddly symbolic, to see the room
filled with natural sunlight.  The
Cupids
had been taken; their
secrets were no longer in the dark. 

“Fuck, no.” Rocky whispered.  He went to move forward,
but I threw my arm out, stopping him.  There were too many guns in the
room; any sudden movement from Rocky might give cause for one of them to fire.

Sean stepped into the room behind us, admiring the work his
men had accomplished.  “So, Ryan, do you care to give them their options?”

“Excuse me?”  I turned to him, confused.  I had
assumed I gave up any right to make demands when I chose Grace over him. 
Why was he still offering for me to call the shots?

He came in closer to me.  “I’m giving you a chance,
Son.”

“I don’t want a chance.  I want Grace.”  I spat at
him.

His face instantly reddened with anger and
frustration.  “Don’t test me, Ryan.  Talk these guys into joining me,
or you’ll be joining them.”

With that, he turned around, walked out, and slammed the
door behind him.  I inhaled sharply as I contemplated my next move. 
There was no way I could even plan a deception; Sean’s followers had stayed in
the room, their guns still plastered to the
Cupids’
heads.

“What the fuck did you do, Ryan?”  Rocky just stared at
me.

“I screwed up, Rock.  I screwed up bad.  But I was
protecting Grace.”

“By putting us all in danger?”

“It wasn’t like that.  You weren’t supposed to be
involved.”

“You had to have known he’d go that route eventually.”

“It might have crossed my mind, but Grace was…” She was
dying right before my eyes.  I had no other choice.  “You wouldn’t
have done the same for Becca?  For your kids?”

Upon hearing his wife’s name, he shook his head, knowing I
had won the argument.  He couldn’t fight me; family always came first.

“So now what?”

I looked around the disheveled room at the bound men I once
called family being held captive by the men I had found, the men I had trained,
and the men I had turned into monsters.

“Listen,” I spoke up over the murmurs, “you have a simple
choice here.  You can either decide to surrender the club and all its
assets over to Sean, or you can die.”  I hated being that frank with them,
but the
Cupids
were tied up.  They weren’t in any position to
fight, and certainly in no position to win.  “Trapped as you are, you’ve
already lost the battle.  If you give up now, you can be part of something
new.  Sean wants you guys.”  I continued on, as none of them had yet
to speak up.  They were all just staring at me.  I hated speeches.

“We were all once a family, and now we can be something even
greater.  Most of you were hand picked by either my Pops or me.  That
means you all have something, a trait, that we admire, that we found
inspiring.  I can’t even fathom what we could all do together, as one
body, as one heart.  We could finally outrank the
Shadows
as the
leading club in Pennsylvania.  Think of it.  Think of the legacy
we’ll leave behind.”

I felt as though I was the president of the country,
delivering a speech in order to rally the troops into battle.  I deserved
thunderous applause and a standing ovation.  I deserved to be poised at a
podium with our colors flying high behind me.  Instead, I got silence.

Then, from the back of the crowd, I heard a
Cupid
speak
up
. 
“Sean murdered James Cassidy.  I’ll never follow him.”

It was
that
line that was given the thunderous
applause, and, had they not been tied to chairs, I’m sure would’ve also gotten
a standing ovation.  The
Cupids
were loyal.  There was no way
they would surrender to a traitor, even if it meant their deaths.

I wanted to whine like a child.  I wanted to beg for
their lives.  I wanted to tell them that they were wrong, that Sean was
different, but I knew it wouldn’t help.  And I didn’t actually believe
anymore that he
was
different.  After all we had been through,
after all I helped him to obtain, he was still threatening Grace’s life. 
I don’t know why I had chosen to convince myself that he had been redeemed from
his faults in the first place.

Sean was a monster, and the
Cupids
refused to follow
a monster.  We would all be punished.  And me worst of all, because
while everyone died around me, I would be forced to live.  That’s what
Sean meant when he said:
“Don’t test me, Ryan.  Talk these guys into
joining me, or you’ll be joining them.”

I turned to Rocky, praying for him to take the lead and
force them to surrender, but he simply smiled and shook his head.  “We
can’t, Ryan.  It’s not in our nature to follow someone who is willing to
kill his own.  There are rules that can’t be broken.  That’s the
first.”

My shred of hope was gone.  The last thing I could do
was to try and unsuccessfully barter for their lives.  They had proven
their loyalty to my Pops; it was the least I could do in his honor.

I nodded at each man and circled around Rocky as I made my
way to the door.  My hand wrapped around the brass knob just as I heard a
woman’s muffled scream followed by the shot of a gun.

“Grace!”

Grace

“It was you.  It was you the whole time.”

I don’t know what spawned it exactly, but the moment I saw
her face, I began to see flashes of that night, six months ago.  Nothing
was clear, no pictures were certain, but nevertheless, I began to remember what
they had done to me.  I remembered how I was taken.

“The tea.  It was drugged.  You did that.” 
My shaky voice accused her.

“Grace, just put down the gun.  Don’t do anything
stupid.”  Anne Marie had her hands up in the air as she inched her way
closer to me.

“Stay there.  Don’t take one more step or I’ll
shoot.”  I screamed at her.  It was fear, it was exhaustion, but
mostly it was that feeling of utter betrayal.

It was in that instance when I realized Ryan and I were
stolen from our perfect life under false pretenses.  Anne Marie Carter,
Ryan’s mother, was in on it from the very beginning.  She tricked us, and
we so easily fell for her deceit.  She was the reason I wasn’t sunning on
the beach in California, she was the reason my husband had disappeared for six
months, and she was the reason I was handcuffed to a chair in an office that
belonged to a club of outlaw motorcyclists that I had been bred to despise.

When Danny had caringly helped me into the car at the
hospital, I noticed his gun hanging from a holster under his jacket.  I
sneakily slipped my hand in and removed the gun from his possession without him
becoming any more the wiser.  It wasn’t for Danny; it had become apparent
to me during our brief trip from the hospital to the club that he was willing
to bend his allegiance to Ryan’s uncle just enough that he might be able to
protect me from the madman who barked orders at him.  So the gun wasn’t
for Danny; it was for Sean.  The gun was just in case I found the nerve to
end it all, to take my life back.

But when Danny handcuffed me to that chair, begging me to
quietly wait, I had no idea that just seconds later, Anne Marie Carter would
step into the room. 

“Bitch, stay back from me.”

“Now, is that any way to treat your mother-in-law? 
Grace, hand me the gun before you hurt yourself.”

“You are not my mother-in-law.  You are not Ryan’s
mother.  You don’t deserve that title.  Does he know what you did to
me?  Huh?  Does he?”

She lowered her hands, as she looked me directly in the
eye.  “He does.  He knows what part I played.”

It was not the answer I was expecting, nor was it the one I
could handle hearing.  Ryan couldn’t know that information.  Ryan
couldn’t have kept that from me.  Ryan couldn’t have…

It was all making sense to me finally.  Ryan had given
up on me because his mother had come back into the picture.  He forgave
her because she was his mother.  Sure, he was protecting me, sure his
intentions were pure, but somewhere hidden in a pile of his emotional baggage
was his desire to have a mother who wanted him to be her son. 

“And, Grace, he also knows the regret I feel.”  Anne
Marie chimed in, but by that point, I had stopped listening.

It was all too much to process in my emotional and
physically exhausted state.  I had just had a baby that morning.  Why
was I handcuffed to a chair, threatening people’s lives, just for the hope that
I might make it back to raise my child?  I screamed at the top of my
lungs, I closed my eyes, and I lifted the gun in the air.

Then I pulled the trigger.  The sound was deafening, and
the small kickback was enough to push me back into the chair to which my one
wrist was strapped.  Anne Marie stood there, her hands covering her face.

“Relax, I didn’t aim it at you.”

I almost laughed.  She looked so pathetic in her utter
worry.

But my silly gunshot alerted the cavalry.  First Danny,
then Sean, and then Ryan.  They all started speaking at once.

“Anne Marie, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Grace.  You’re okay.  Thank God.”

“You took my gun.”

“I told you to stay at home.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Did he hurt you?  Where’s the baby?”

There were too many questions and I was beginning to feel as
though I had been hit by a bus.  I rocked my head back, letting it rest of
the head of the chair, and closed my eyes.

“Grace?”  Ryan was at my side, cradling my face in his
hands.

I rolled to face him.  “You knew?”

“I knew what, Grace?”

“You knew… about her… that she… that she was part of it?”

He pulled back from me, allowing it to sink in.  I knew
what he had been hiding from me.  He wouldn’t be able to bandaid this
lie. 

“Okay, first thing’s first.”  Sean stepped into the
center of the room, breaking our stare.  “Where did you get the gun,
Gracie?

“It’s mine.”  I called out, pursing my lips together in
defiance.

“So what you’re saying is either the hospital allows you to
deliver babies with a gun under your gown, or Danny drove you somewhere so you
could grab a gun.  See, I’m not buying either of those scenarios, Gracie.”

He moved in closer to me, trying to read my lies, but Danny
stepped in front of him.

“It was me, Sean.  She must have pulled my gun from
under my jacket without me noticing.”

He grabbed the back of Danny’s head, bringing their
foreheads together.  “That’s a crying fucking shame.”

“I know, boss, and it’ll never happen again.”

Sean smiled, offering a small laugh.  “You’re
right.  It won’t.”

With his free hand, he reached behind his back and pulled a
gun from his belt.  It was against Danny’s chest and the trigger was
pulled before I even realized what was happening.

“No!”  I screamed as I rushed forward, pulling the
chair with me.  I managed to find myself above him, trying to apply
pressure to his wounds, but it was too late.  He was already dead. 
Ryan was quickly at my side, his strong arms wrapping around my fragile
body.  I didn’t care if I was angry with him; I wanted to be held, and I
wanted to be held by him.  Before today, I hadn’t known Danny aside from
the crude threat he had attacked me with months earlier.  Normally, his
death would’ve meant nothing to me.  But today… today, Danny helped
me.  Danny might very well have saved my life, and he was lying there dead
because of me.  I had made a decision that had ultimately cost him his
life.  I would forever have to live with that.

“Now I’m going to ask you again, Anne Marie, what are you
doing here?”  He had her by the arm as he pushed her up against the wall.

“I came to stop you!”  She quickly protested his abuse.

“And what do you think you can stop me from, my love?”

She looked at me.  “Killing Grace.”  Then she
closed her eyes.  She was trying to protect me, but she was ashamed of her
actions in the presence of Sean.  Then her words became soft, almost
songlike.  “He loves her.  Who am I to take that away from him? 
Grace,” she looked up, “it was a selfish act I did, pushing you away so that I
could reclaim my first born son.  I hope that you can forgive him, because
he would forgive you of anything.  And I don’t care if you forgive me, but
please forgive Ryan.  I had no idea that one person could love another so
strongly.  Know that I had no idea what I was ruining… again.”

Again.  I knew what she was talking about: my
mother.  She was apologizing for both of her crimes against me.  At
least now, she was trying to stop one before it went too far.

I could at least respect that, and of course I could soon
find a way to forgive her son, my husband, my Ryan.  It was a vow I had
made, and I intended to keep it.

I squeezed his arm, letting him know that I would eventually
find a way to understand what he had done in the name of protecting me.

“I love you, Grace.”  He softly whispered in my ear.

“I love---“

But I was cut off.  I heard Sean yell some sort of profanity
into the air, but it was more the feeling that consumed me.  I fell to the
ground on the first hit.  Then there was a second, and then a third. 
I had been shot in the chest three times.  I looked around, trying to find
Ryan, but the view around me began to blur.

I heard yelling in the distance, maybe a riot of sorts,
among the two clubs trapped in the meeting room.

Then… blackness.