Word of Honor, Book 2 (14 page)

“It’s enough to last her a good, long while if she’s conservative with it. The rest, what’s in the bank and hidden away, I want you to have it. After you and I get married, all of that will be yours but I’ll be tellin’ my lawyer as soon as I get back to Holman that I need to speak to one of his estate lawyer buddies, get this in writing. Only you and Laura mean anything to me at this point, my woman and my little girl, so … the two houses, my motorcycle, my boat, guns, business, cars, everything…it’s yours.”

“Aaron, stop it!” She beat the damn table with her fist. “You’ll be okay; we will work through this together. You don’t have to do everything alone!”

“Mia, not everyone in the world is good! And you know what? Deep down you know it! Something terrible could happen and you need to be ready for it. We reap what we sow…” His eyes grew dark. “I’m a Nazi, Mia. I wipe my hands of those beliefs, but to many,
once
a Nazi,
always
a Nazi… I’m gettin’ ready to go back to a prison cell, back to Holman where all my so called brethren are, the ones that showed me how quick they can turn on me! I’m going back in there, in that place of bullshit after spendin’ this unbelievable weekend in bed with you! Laughing’, cryin’, making love, falling apart and fallin’ together. We been datin’, fallin’ in love for months, and ain’t no way I’m gonna be able to hide what has happened since I’m not givin’ you up. Instead, we did just the goddamn opposite. I’m in some
serious
shit now! I don’t want to be a part of this mess anymore. I’ll have to say somethin’, because that’s what a real man does and I got honor!” He pounded his chest. “Can’t nobody tell me otherwise. If a motherfucker is gonna kill me, he’ll have to do it by lookin’ me in my face and knowin’ for a fact I ain’t scared to die for what I believe in!”

“Aaron, you don’t have anything prove to anybody. You just told me that with me, you could be yourself, be human. I am so tired of you thinking you have to be someone you’re not! That’s partially why you’re in this mess in the first place. It’s going to ruin the both of us before we’ve even had a chance to get off the ground.”

“This IS a part of me, Mia!” He pointed to himself. “I told Dr. Owens and now I’m tellin’ you: I ain’t no punk, and I ain’t scared of a goddamn thing that comes my way but I tell you one thing, I ain’t runnin’ away with my tail ’tween my legs. I
know
what’s comin’ and only a fool doesn’t prepare himself for many different outcomes.”

She hung her head and shook it in exasperation. Aaron wouldn’t budge. She could see in his eyes he had things in his mind worked out just so. He knew the way in which he wanted to work it all out, the way he wanted it all to go, and anything she said wouldn’t steer him in another direction.

“I gotta be a man and admit it, you hear? I can’t hide this change in my beliefs, my perceptions; that would make it worse, Mia.” He spoke a bit softer now. “I can’t afford for someone to find out about us. I gotta
own
it and be the first to make a move. Now, I have ideas on how I’ll do it. I’m certain you know that I do. I didn’t just wake up and get a wild hair up my ass. I’ve been thinking this through for a while but however I do it, there will be serious consequences either way you slice it… and they are goin’ to try to make me pay, baby. These fuckers only take travelers’ checks to the grave, and they want ’em dipped in blood.”

She trembled, falling apart in her damn seat. That was it! How was it even worth it? How was the love of her life being murdered due to their forbidden love a fair exchange?!

“NOOOO! This is all wrong! I won’t have it!”

He jumped up, pulled her in his arms in a skintight embrace, and kissed the top of her head. His body felt so hard against her soft one. They were opposites … drawn together in love.

“Stop all this cryin’, you hear me?” he said tenderly as he cocked her chin up to make her face him. “You stop all of that, ’cause you’re acting like my memorial service is goin’ on right this minute, like I’m already in the ground and growing cold. I need you to have some faith in me again, alright?”

She nodded, though the tears kept streaming.

“Alright, now.” He retook his seat and she took hers. “We’ve got all day today to spend together, and half of tomorrow. I go back to Holman Sunday at five.”

She nodded, crossed her legs, and rubbed a slight crick in her neck.

“I want to make the best of this time, enjoy each other, and that’s what I plan to do. Are you with me on that?”

“Yes.” She smiled and wiped the tears off. “That’s what I want to do, too.”

“Alright, so we’ll hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Right now, this is some of the best.” He stood and dropped his towel to the floor. Her smile widened. “Now come on.” He took her hand and helped her from her seat. “Join me in the shower. I’m plannin’ to get clean and I’m plannin’ to get dirty…”

“
I
DON’T AGREE
with this,” Dr. Owens stated sternly. “It goes against better judgment. I’d prefer you allow me to contact the authorities.”

Aaron rolled his eyes dramatically as he sat in the man’s office, his leg kicked out far in front of him, a grimace on his face and his arms crossed.

“You sound like Mia now… y’all
really
are in cahoots!” He huffed. “Look, you need to stay in your lane,” he said. “Dr. Owens, with all due respect, you don’t know the world I come from. You’ve read about it, met some of us, watched a few movies, but you know little about the
real
world of a Nazi, a National Socialist, any of that. I wasn’t raised with it, but I was raised around it. There were two confederate flags in my house and they weren’t wavin’ around for Southern pride, okay? The words nigger, spic, and kike were thrown around like a damn softball, you understand?

“This was a way of life for us! My uncle, the one that tried to adopt me, was in the KKK. I was born and bred for this shit. Patti’s boyfriend, as you know, was involved in the Socialist movement and she never told me it was wrong, though to this day I ain’t convinced she necessarily agreed with it. She just didn’t do anything to correct it. Nevertheless, I was never told anything was wrong with any of it, and in fact, it was encouraged. So don’t sit there and try to give me some advice on how to conduct my goddamn business! I know what the fuck I’m doin’! I got this!”

“Aaron, you are—”

“No! Now look, I appreciate you for helpin’ to bring Mia into my life. Without you, none of that would have happened. I love her and she loves me, so I gotta do what I gotta do. I also appreciate you for helping me see that I was wrong about almost everything I believed. It’s been a big ass blow to me, but it needed to happen. Nobody else was able to cause me even a tiny shred of doubt in my beliefs, except
you
. Because you opened that door in my mind, made me question things in a new way, I could understand what she was tryna tell me in her letters when this first started. If it hadn’t been for you, Dr. Owens, as soon as she started that shit up about we’re all God’s children and all of that, I would’ve ceased communications with her, ruled her out as wife material for me; but because you’d already primed me, basically cracked me open, I was finally
ready
for her… and that’s just the God’s honest truth.”

The man nodded in understanding but his facial expression still showed deep concern and worry.

“You don’t know the men I’m dealin’ with. You don’t know our laws, how things work, and what we expect from one another. I’m poisoned, my mind is diseased… ’cause racism is a disease. I get that now. I don’t want to spread this to my child. I’ve already started by encouraging her to stay away from people that ain’t like her, and she’s seen my tattoos and has a general idea of what I think. That wasn’t right, and I can only hope I can reverse this. Her mother is an Aryan national socialist, her father and stepfather the same; she almost didn’t have a damn chance. She is still young though, still impressionable. I don’t know, but the change starts with
me
.”

“Aaron, I respect that, I do. However, you can make a difference without resorting to violence. You still behave as if you are in a war! You’re not!” He clapped his hands together. “You behave now as if you have PTSD, and in some ways, you do. You said it yourself, you’re diseased, but the war is over, and you still think you’re on the battle field.”

Aaron grinned, looked at the painting of the little boy hunting, then back at the doctor. “I will always be at war, Dr. Owens.”

The man’s brows bunched in apparent confusion.

“You think I’m difficult? Hard to read and break through to?” His brow rose as he smirked and pointed to himself. “I can be reasoned with, Dr. Owens. I can understand things if I’m in the mood to listen. My brethren are just as cold and heartless as myself, nine times out of ten. We wake up, not giving a fuck about anyone but the white race, and even some of our own we’ll throw under the damn bus if need be. We plot, scheme, takeover, and torture to ensure that we stay on top. Nothing is more of a threat to us than being told our numbers are falling… that worldwide, those of European ancestry are disappearing due to race mixing and abortion of white babies. We know that the family is the root to growth.

“Having control over the womb, the sperm, the education, and the money makes you the most powerful, the biggest, baddest motherfucker out here. Why do you think slavery worked so well, Dr. Owens, hmmm? Once a man controls your ability to reproduce and dilutes your bloodline with his own DNA, he has gotten a hold of not only you, but your entire goddamn nation… Additionally, you have to educate the youth, make them see your way of life, and you have to control the flow of money, who gets paid what, if ever, and when. Slavery was an
economic
system more than a racial system.”

“I completely agree with you there.”

“Racism was a byproduct of the structure and anyone who thinks otherwise has been tricked and fallen prey to emotionalism. The main concern was the color green, not the color black. Our dislike for Jews stemmed from jealousy, I know that now. They control the money and the media. That’s power. Do you understand me, Dr. Owens?” The man smiled and nodded.

“…Of course I do.”

“Good, because nobody educates me unless I want the lesson. Nobody tells me to do anything unless I want to be told. Nobody tricks me unless I’m open to being tricked…”

He looked at the doctor sternly, wanted the man to
completely
get and understand where the hell he was coming from.

“Hmmm, I see…” The good doctor crossed his legs and leaned back in his seat.

“I’m not really sure that you do, Dr. Owens, but after I walk outta here, and you have a moment or two, it’ll sink in.”

“No, Aaron, I believe I get where you’re coming from.”

“No you don’t.”

“Well then, instead of leaving me in a state of ignorance, as you apparently believe me to be, please enlighten me.”

“Fine. It wasn’t her first time messin’ up, it was her
second…
I’d already seen her. Her perfume wafted over to me ’cause it was windy that day. I
knew
that goddamn perfume… it was in her damn letters. She wore a deep red shade of lipstick that day when I saw her by the basketball court, lips full and glossy… I saw them and memorized them in my mind. Those same lips kissed my letters each and every time. One tiny piece of her fucking hair was in one of the care packages she sent me… lying there below the cookies and above the packs of gum. It was thick, black, long and had a slight kink to it, a bit wiry… like a black person’s… I already wanted her by that point, Dr. Owens. It was too…fucking… late. I could have backed away then, stopped talking to her, but I purposefully went into denial. Deep down, I knew the truth. I
always
know the truth. I just have a nasty habit of trying to wish that shit away. I was in love with a black woman, and realized that before this shit hit the goddamn fan. Nobody fuckin’ tricks me—
nobody
.”

“Aaron,” the man said, swallowing. “This is a rather interesting turn of events.”

“No it’s not really, Dr. Owens. It’s in my blood to be this way, just like I’ve been tellin’ you. It was my forefathers’ job to be one step ahead of their own selves for the sake of self-preservation and ten steps ahead of everyone else. Once you have that sort of control, that sort of power, you
never
want to lose it and you won’t give it up without a fight. I sleep with one eye open. I have to, because of my affiliations and the shit I say and do on a daily basis. I can feel the wind change, and smell gun smoke in the air long after it’s cleared. I can hear a shoe crunching on broken light bulb fragments and the soft steps of a man of about your weight and stature as he leans in close to a door and listens to me fuck the hell out of my future wife…” Aaron got to his black, combat-boot-covered feet.

“I know you were there at the apartment because you were concerned, but don’t
ever
believe that I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on around me!” He pointed in the man’s face. “It’s my job, as I said, like that of my forefathers, right or wrong, to continue to be one step ahead of my own damn self, and ten steps ahead of you and everybody else. At the end of the day, Dr. Owens, you saw me as a racist hick in need of prayer and strong intervention, and I’m okay with that, ’cause it’s true. But here is what you need to understand. I didn’t know who the hell I was the first time I stepped into your office, but as I walk out this time, I know
exactly
who the fuck I am, what I need to do, and how I need to do it.”