“Wife.” He nodded, moving the gun in a come-here motion like he saw me every day, and he didn’t just break into my house.

“What are you doing here, Tony?” I asked him, sliding forward slowly, trying not to antagonize him.

I knew I didn’t have a chance. He was here, pointing a gun at me, and my guard was on the front porch with a bullet somewhere in his body. As I got closer, I prayed that I was giving Trix the chance she needed to get away. I prayed feverishly that she wouldn’t stop, and that Tony wouldn’t look out the window and see her running to the clubhouse, her hot pink shirt like a beacon in the tall grass. I couldn’t even think of Casper.

“It’s time to go, Brenna. You’ve had your fun. Get Trix. We’re leaving.” He spoke to me like a parent to a child, both frustrated and amused.

“Trix isn’t here, Tony. She stayed the night at a friend’s house,” I told him calmly, hoping he couldn’t see the artery fluttering quickly in my neck.

He didn’t notice my panic, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t say a word. He just calmly punched me in the face hard enough to shatter my jaw. I saw stars, but I didn’t fall down. The pain was excruciating, and I could no longer move my mouth. I grabbed the back of the couch for support as the agony in my face threatened to drop me to the floor. It couldn’t end this quickly. Trix couldn’t be to the clubhouse yet. I needed to keep him inside until I knew she’d made it. Then, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

“Don’t lie to me! She told me you and Trix were home with the spic last night!” he yelled at me, spit flying from his mouth and landing in my hair.

“Who told you?” I mumbled, trying to keep my eyes on him as my vision clouded. It was a mistake.

Tony always had a pet peeve when we were together. He didn’t like to be questioned. About anything. He expected his word to be law. This meant that I was expected to keep my questions to myself; he wouldn’t clarify things for me. If I had the audacity to question him, I was always sorry for it. I’d learned to nod politely while my mind raced with questions.

My confusion over his informant must have triggered his ire because the next thing I knew, I was cowering against the couch as he punched me repeatedly in the chest, stomach, and back, asking over and over again where Trix was.

I was beyond any sort of control of my body and curled into a ball as he hit me. I whimpered repeatedly that Trix wasn’t home, begging him to stop until I lost consciousness.

I was sitting at the bar inside the clubhouse when I heard one of the boys yell my name from the forecourt. Normally, it wouldn’t have made me leave the conversation I was having, but the tone of his voice was off, so I immediately stood up.

“Kendra, I’ve told you. You can stay there a couple months, but you need to be lookin’ for some place to move.”

I was so fuckin’ annoyed at the bitch. If Brenna saw her hanging around here, she’d flip her lid. We hadn’t heard anything from my ex until last week when she was supposed to move out of my fuckin’ apartment, and instead, she’d started showing up at the club with a couple of the other women that came for a good time. I had no interest, but that didn’t seem to stop her from eyeballing me whenever she was anywhere in looking distance. She was being passed around like a pool stick, and every time she headed toward someone’s room, she turned to look at me like I was going to stop her.

“Stop fuckin’ comin’ around. No need for you to be whoring yourself out in some twisted way to get at me. I. Do. Not. Care. Fuck anyone you want. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me,” I told her as I walked toward the open door.

Before I stepped into the sunshine, I heard her call out behind me, “It will!”

But I kept walking.

When I got outside, the first thing I saw was two of the boys looking toward my house, so I automatically looked in that direction. When I did, I noticed what they were staring at. Trix was limping toward me about fifty yards away. Her face was covered in snot and tears, but she was completely silent. As soon as I registered what I was seeing, I ran to her, the chain on my wallet slapping against my leg and jingling against the keys sticking out of my pocket. I reached her in seconds.

“Papa!” she gasped, not able to catch her breath. The strength of her sobs had her body trembling against me as she tried to speak.

I jerked my head to one of the boys. “Go get Poet. Now!”

“What happened, little warrior? Are you okay?” I asked her, searching for a wound or injury of any kind.

She seemed to be whole, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying, and I was wondering where the hell Brenna was. Something was going on. The feeling that had been bothering me all morning got stronger.

“Loud noise…Mama was scared…she dropped me out the window!”

Poet, Slider, and Vera came jogging out of the club as Trix tried to explain, but I was no closer to a straight answer.

“She says there was a loud noise, and then Brenna dropped her out the window? I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I need to get over there,” I told them as I kissed Trix and handed her to Vera.

I was about to climb on my bike when I glanced one more time at Trix and really recognized the look on her face. She was terrified.

As I held her eyes, she whispered one word that made my blood run cold, “Daddy.”

Slider, Poet, Grease, Tommy Gun, and Butcher followed me to the house. They’d all been in the forecourt and decided to follow me as I roared out of the yard. I saw Kendra’s convertible driving where the club’s driveway and ours met, but I didn’t think about it as I drove up to the house. My gut clenched as I saw Casper on the porch. There was a huge smear of blood in an arc across the floorboards, like he had dragged himself after he was shot. One of his arms was hidden behind the doorframe inside the house, and his head rested about six inches inside. The screen pressed into his side, and it looked like that was what had stopped him from making it any farther.