Page 4 of Cocked Hammer

“How’s Ginger’s mom?”

"Still ain’t saying shit. The least the woman could do is open her damned mouth to give Ginger some peace. She’s not stupid, though. The way her eyes watch us, she knows what’s going on. Pretty sure she knows I would slit her from her mouth to her pussy with a machete if she hurt my ol’ lady, though. Probably the reason she seems to have forgotten she knows how to talk.”

“Fuck, man, I hate that shit.”

“Yeah. It is what it is. Ginger might be better off not knowing the truth, in my opinion. It’s going to drive her insane.”

My eyebrow arched, but I did not say what I was thinking.

“Something on your mind, Sledgehammer?”

“Nah, boss.” I was an asshole, but I was not a stupid asshole. There were very few topics if brought into conversation that Ghoul would get instantly pissed over. Talking negatively about Ginger in any manner was one of them. Ghoul’s ol’ lady was equally as crazy as he was, yet none of us talked about it. She rammed a screwdriver through a man’s ear. Of course, it could have been temporary insanity or self-defense, but the more time I had spent around her, the more I doubted either. The woman had a rage inside of her that I recognized all too well because it wasn’t only pulsating within her. It pounded throughout my body with every beat of my heart.

“Good.” He puffed the end of his cigar and stood, dropping his burner into the basket as he passed me.

Once Ghoul took his seat at the head of the table, church immediately started. “Kicker’s big ass, E, and Goob are coming from Ankeny to lend a hand to get Ginger and me moved into our house when the time comes.” It was small talk and his way of giving us all a heads up they would be in the area. I was more than happy to see any brother. The more of us here, the better. That was as long as Rowdy from our Pittsburgh charter stayed the fuck away from anything that belonged to me. The last time we were at their clubhouse, he covered my socks in “Steeler’s Rule” out of spite. I was a diehard Browns fan, and he knew it. He did the shit just to mess with me, and I planned to repay the favor the next time we were together. I was not a patient man when it came to revenge, but for Rowdy, I would be. I would wait until he thought I was over his prank and get him back tenfold.

“Good to know,” Wily noted, licking his finger and adding it to an imaginary tally board in the air. “Might not be bad to have the extra bodies in case our deal with the Russians goes south.”

Every set of eyes were on Wily now, but as his mouth opened, so did Tin Man’s.

“Mike’s cousins who took over his pet store might be a problem.” Tin Man shook his head and then loudly sighed. He was against the whole thing, said something didn’t add up when they’d agreed to our terms so quickly.

“What happened?” I asked my interest piqued since we all rode into town two months or so back to set up a deal with them. We’d allowed them to smuggle heroin into Cuyahoga County with their pet store shipments, and as long as we got our cut, and they weren’t dealing in Cleveland, we were good. I didn’t voice it at the time, but the more I thought about it, maybe Tin Man had a point. Usually, when we made an arrangement with someone, there was some back-and-forth haggling about who should get what percentage or goods. There wasn’t so much as a squint of an eye or hesitation before they had agreed to our terms. It was a “too good to be true” kind of thing, but it was not the first time it had happened, either. It was hard to gauge whether or not this was the case for us. Then again, normal laws didn’t apply to the kind of agreements we made with people, so normal rules did not pertain either.

“Hop said there’s been a lot of questionable traffic coming and going,” Sleeper reported with a huff. We all knew Hop’s information was questionable at best sometimes. He was a nosy old man in everyone’s business—every town had at least one. Every now and then, what he told us was credible, though.

“Surely they aren’t idiots. Fuck-sticks have to know we’d have eyes on them,” Wily retorted, sparking his joint and puffing on the end with a deep inhale. He took a hit and held the joint out for Ghoul to grab. Since the drama with his ol’ lady went down, he’d been more on edge. We all knew how our President had been recently when he didn’t have some type of drug or alcohol coursing through his veins; he was unbearable. It didn’t influence our club per se; it just meant if Ghoul was sober, we had to deal with his grumpy ass.

“Could throw a party and invite them,” Spider’s said with a yawn and held his hand up to pause any comments. “I know what you’re thinking: I’ve lost my shit. I haven’t. We invite the Russians tonight and invite some sweet asses. After one of the fuckers is wasted, one of their crew might slip up.”

He didn’t have a bad point.

The ayes were unanimous once we voted. This was our town and our money. We would investigate the situation further but not be completely obvious about it. We didn’t want to ruin something good on the hearsay of a self-proclaimed president from the neighborhood watch.

4

Lina

At the beginning of my life, I’d always considered myself the hunted, so to speak. For the longest time, I tried to keep my hands clean; I didn’t want to become the monster that I had. Some things weren’t preventable, though. Maybe, I was a victim of circumstance as I long believed, or maybe, just maybe, I let it all happen. It didn’t really change anything if I were to blame; what was done couldn’t be changed. Honestly, despite all of the bad memories and not-so-glamorous past, I wouldn’t change any of it. Each terrifying step I took, and every hurdle I conquered, led me to where I was.

I swirled around in my new sundress, smiling as the wind caught the skirt, and it puffed out a bit. This was the life. There was not a cloud in the sky today. All was right with the world in my mind. Which was exactly where I was, lost in thought. In reality, I sat at the table, watching it storm, a mug filled to the brim with black coffee nestled between my hands. I couldn’t move forward or backward without messing something up, so I sat still for as long as I could. If I didn’t make a big deal about anything, nothing would come as a big surprise, right?

I acted only mildly excited when Viktor had approached me with the idea of giving me my own pet shop. In reality, I was crazy happy, yet on the outside, I probably looked constipated. All things happened for a reason, and I wasn’t one to question favors, so what I was about to do was a gigantic step for me. I wasn’t sure how long running the pet shop would last, but I hoped to enjoy every minute possible.

Cleveland was our fresh start. Uncle Viktor promised me this store was mine to do with as I pleased. The only stipulation I wasn’t thrilled with was my brother would be working here as well. His employment was the one requirement my uncles, Viktor and Dimitri, wouldn’t budge on, even after I offered to work for next to nothing to prevent him from having a job in my pet shop. Viktor argued that if something legal did not keep Alek busy, he would be back in jail before I had a chance to pick out the new paint color for the walls and none of us needed the unwanted attention. Of course, unbeknownst to him, I had already planned out every detail in my head for this store. It was the closest thing to my dream job as I would ever get. I didn’t have the money to attend college to become a veterinarian and probably never would. Truthfully, had it not been for my uncles, this shop would not have been possible either. I would more than likely be forever indebted to them, and they didn’t let me forget that fact.

When I did not want to do something either of them wanted or behaved in a way they weren’t happy, it was one of the first things to be thrown in my face. It was a toss-up if it was that or another thing they didn’t approve of, but there was always some type of weapon of guilt that hung over my head.My life wasn’t a glamourous one, and on most days, I wondered if there was any point in continuing to live for myself. I was alive for someone else.

Today, however, was different. I had the situation under control, and it was going to be the first of endless good days. I had lost count of how many times I repeated that to myself to keep going and not give up. Truly, after reaching about the hundredth time—and that was before I came upstairs to tidy up the shop a little—I wouldn’t let myself continue. It was mind-numbing and pointless. Whatever was going to happen would happen.

“Alek, don’t,” I sternly scolded my not-so-little brother as he poked my leg with a dog bone after he picked it up off the floor. “Put it back. It’s for customers.”

He stuck out his tongue in response and shoved it a little harder against my shin. “Technically, it’s for the customers' pets.”

“You’re supposed to be working, not annoying the shit out of me,” I snapped. I’d agreed to allow him to work here; I did not say I would enjoy it.

We would be opening the store for the first time soon, and I didn’t want to think about everything that needed to be done. There wasn’t any reason to pretend; Alek would see straight through my lies. He always had. On the very first days when our uncles “rescued” and introduced us to our new home, Alek knew I wasn’t telling the truth about getting lost on the way home from school. Thankfully for me, he was the only one with the ability to see through my deception. I had ran away, but Dimitri found me before I was able to make it very far from the house.

---