Page 84 of The Vows We Keep
“I’m good, thanks,” I say. I don’t drink when I’m working, and I consider looking after these women work that’s an honor. Senior members of this club have entrusted their old ladies’ safety to me. I’m not going to blow it.
“I’ll help you carry them,” Iris says.
Martin steps next to me. “Gonna go take a leak. Back in five.”
I wonder if Niro is a good dancer. I’m not talking waltzing or anything, although I wouldn’t have guessed the guy was a baker either.
Three men move in around Gwen and Iris. At first, Gwen smiles. Not the joyous one that lights up her face, but a tight one. It’s the polite smile all women have ... the one they use when a man approaches them and their first instinct is to be nice, to not piss him off, to humor him until they can extricate themselves.
Two things happen in parallel. Iris slips her fingers through the keychain on her bag, and I realize it’s a weapon in the shape of a cat. Her fingers slip through the eye holes so the sharp and pointy metal ears rise above her knuckles.
At the same time, one of the men pulls a small syringe from his pocket, and holding it close to his leg, flips the cap off with his thumb.
By the time I get to them, one man has his hands on Gwen. There’s shock on her face, but before she can respond, I grab the neck of his shirt and yank hard.
Iris juts out her foot and he trips backwards over it, his legs going over his head. The syringe skitters across the floor.
I hear the slur he calls me as he hits the ground. The boot I land between his legs causes him to shout out in pain.
One of his friends grabs me around the neck, and I clamp down on his elbows, lean forward fast, and flip him over my head. Gwen grabs a bottle from the bar and slams it hard against his skull.
Iris has already jabbed her keyring hard into the face of the third. Rae and Briar join us.
“He has a Brotherhood tattoo,” Iris shouts, and Rae grabs her phone. I know she’s calling King, but I want to take care of this myself.
Martin joins us, and two more men join the assailants. Club security arrives and it becomes a free-for-all. All I can do is get the women out of here.
“Door, now,” I encourage. There are bouncers there. We are five women. I can tell them what happened.
And without questioning my order, all the girls follow me to the well-lit street outside the club near the doormen.
Iris instructs one of them to get a cloth napkin stuffed with ice which he does. When he returns minutes later, she hands it to me. “For the side of your face.”
From my seat on the curb, I take it and gingerly place it on the side of my head and squint away from the flashing blue lights of the three police cars that arrive in minutes.
I’m actually more concerned about my nose. I don’t think it’s broken, but man ...
Rae cradles her wrist. “I wish the police had been slower. I wanted King to get here first.”
Briar, or Rose, as she is called at times, is lamenting how her heels hurt.
Martin is laid out on the pavement, holding his ribs and wincing. Howard and Clive, the two other prospects, have left. I’m guessing the club will never see them again. They ignored their charges and didn’t notice we were getting our asses kicked across the club until it was over.
“It was kinda funny the way that guy’s legs went over his head, no?” I say to break the tension.
Grins turn into tipsy giggles, turn into laughter. It’s that wild kind of laughter that happens when you just got through an adrenaline rush.
“Almost broke my ankle tripping him,” Iris says.
“I think we might be in trouble,” Gwen whispers conspiratorially as we hear the roar of motorbikes that seem to be coming from all directions thirteen minutes later.
The lights on the front of the bikes almost blind me as they pull up, and I squint. “What the fuck happened?” I hear King say.
Looking up, it’s almost comical. Grown-ass biker men, torn between picking their women up and squeezing them and glancing over to the police cars with faces that suggest vengeance against the men currently seated in the back.
Niro crouches in front of me, his face like thunder. “Who did this to you? Because I might have to kill the fucker.”
“He’s a man who might have severe difficulty impregnating anyone in the future,” I reply. “They had a Righteous Brotherhood tattoo and a syringe of something nasty. I think they were going to try and drug girls to snatch them. But I’d rather have you out here with me than inside, where I can’t touch you for the next lifetime, so don’t you go killing someone in front of a cop.”
