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“Elijah,” Colt almost whispered, like he had discovered a hidden chamber in a tomb that had been sealed for centuries. His voice was full of wonder. Sophie saw how much of a father figure he was, to Phantom, to the whole MC. He really cared. He did all of this because he cared. It looked like he was just a swaggering MC prez, all about the wild lifestyle and the high stakes rewards. But no, Sophie saw a man who cared deeply for the people around him, under his protection.
She leaned forward and pressed play again.
The voice continued, “Now, we’re not blind, Elias is a good looking guy, blossoms early, by all accounts, catches the eyes of some of the mafia wives… a good looking teenage boy he was, obedient, eager to please, athletic, young-”
“We get it,” Carmelo’s voice cuts in.
“Catches the eye of Horatio’s wife herself. Geneva. She was locked into marrying Horatio, a fat, old ruthless bastard, by the way, when she was eighteen. Put up with him, loveless marriage, apparently. Anyway, Elias and Geneva fucked, for years. Since he was fourteen. She was forty-four when she persuaded him into her bed. Groomed him to be her personal fuck toy. Got him pierced in all the right places, taught him how to make use of it all… I mean, he didn’t complain. Who would? He was a horny teenager having great sex. So Elias leads a happy life killing anyone he is told to kill and fucking Geneva and the other languishing wives of the mafia’s upper echelons.”
Sophie pressed pause again and whimpered, looking up at Colt for answers. Knowing he wouldn’t have any. Knowing she had tears forming in her eyes. Colt bit his lip and looked back at her with the same pained expression.
“Yeah,” Colt said.
“I… see,” Sophie stammered shakily.
Colt pinched the bridge of his nose. “So his past… hit man and fuck toy… I mean, I can see why he wants to kill them all, honestly,” Colt said wryly. “Which he didn’t,” Colt added hastily. “He didn’t kill them all, in the tunnel…”
“Yes...” Sophie nodded slowly, wide eyed. She felt it, too. If someone had done that to her, she would want revenge. Cold and sweet. Maybe that should be a new ice cream flavor she could make up. Revenge. She would want to see them suffer, as she had been made to suffer. She would feel no remorse and no regret. She would kill, too.
Colt carried on. “There’s more to it, like who the fuck is Ortiz? Not his father, we’ve already run him through the databases…”
Sophie tuned Colt out. She wanted Phantom to have his way for once. She wanted him to feel like he could let go, he didn’t have to please her, she wanted to please him. She wanted to let him do whatever he wanted to do to her. She wanted him to do it his way. After having to do it someone else’s way for so long. She’d be happy to be his personal fuck toy, she’d lay herself out at the hands of a killer and tell him to do what he wanted with her. She wanted to trust him, to understand him, to let him run free and exercise the demons that haunted him. Her heart wept for the fourteen year old boy, coaxed into the darkness and told to perform. She dreaded to think of the soft words that were whispered to him, the warped reality he’d been living in. Killing by day, fucking by night. That was not the kind of teenage life she would wish anyone to have. She thought of Max, getting into scrapes, not doing his homework. That was normal teenage life. She felt that creeping dread up her spine remembering what he was saying about this gang business…that sounded like trouble. That was the kind of trouble that invited more spiraling trouble and ended in terrible situations like the one Phantom found himself in.
She couldn’t imagine Max having to live that way. It was unfair. It was exploitative. It was sick. She agreed with Colt, she would have killed to get Max out of that situation. If she had been in it herself, she might have killed to get out of it, too. She felt pride shoot through her. Pride for the man he was, for the strength he had shown, and the resilience to have made it this far. For the man who had seen something he wanted, and despite fear, and a deeply conditioned self loathing, had bravely overcome it to push himself inside her. Her body, yes, but her heart, too. For the man who had been mistreated but had been so desperate for that connection that he was willing to ignore past associations and turn over a new leaf in his life. Could she judge Phantom for the hate he felt, for the blood he had shed, for the words he could not speak? No she could not.
But, if this was just the tip of the iceberg, as Colt said, what other horrors awaited them on this journey of discovery into his past?
Shadow, the cat, snuggled contentedly into Jared’s big hands as everyone settled for another committee meeting around a table in the clubhouse bar. Lyle wasn’t there, again. Except this time Colt didn’t say anything. Colt was on edge, his phone out on the table in front of him. He was waiting for a call. They all were. It would determine their next gun run, a high risk, high reward assignment where they’d had to drive with a truckload of illegal guns from northern California up to Washington state, for the guns to make their way further east into Pennsylvania and Canada for the Armenian family known as the Zakarian Syndicate. Ruthless fuckers. Phantom had just returned from dropping off the captured Demonios who had tried to kill Sophie. Colt had told him to drop him out of the car and leave him to find his own way home. Phantom had dropped him out of the car, but he doubted he’d be making his way home anytime soon. It was hard to make your way anywhere when your throat was cut. He wasn’t going to tell Colt that, though.
“Okay, so, we need to vote to change the charter on the women thing.”
“As in, letting women be a proper patched in member-”
“Yeah.”
And then Lyle balled in. He had a bottle of half drunk beer in his hand. Fairly innocuous, except that Lyle was a former alcoholic who had been sober for almost a year. Until now.
“What the fuck is that?” Colt said quietly, almost whispered it, seethed it. Phantom looked down. Everyone hushed. Looking between Colt, Lyle and the floor. The atmosphere was as thick as a Bayou swamp.
“It’s one beer. It’s one fucking beer. Relax, man,” Lyle slurred slightly.
Colt simply pursed his lips.
“It’s not my first one, I’m just seeing if I can control it, and I can, I can have one if I want to, man, I promise, it doesn’t mean I’m spiraling right back to where I was before-”
“Said every addict ever, before they spiraled right back to where they were before,” Ash interjected sarcastically, the disappointment clear even on his face.
“Pfft.” Lyle looked away and waved his hand dismissively in Ash’s direction.
Colt simmered. Lyle brought the bottle up to his lips and took a swig, daring Colt to say something. Lyle’s eyes glazed over a little. He was enjoying it. Phantom watched. Closely. He didn’t look drunk yet, but it was clear he had been drinking.
“It’s ‘cause I was out getting beer that I noticed something. Just down the road,” Lyle said. Then stopped to swig the beer again.
Colt and everyone else looked on. A second went by. Then another. Lyle kept drinking.
“Well?” Colt spat impatiently.
Lyle surfaced from downing the beer. “Black sedan. One block away. Two fuckers in suits inside.”
