Page 33 of Seven Sons (Gypsy Brothers)

“Where to?” Jase asks, lowering his sunglasses to look at me.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m kind of starving. Are you hungry?”

Jase smiles. “Yeah. I called the clubhouse, Pop’s still sleeping it off.”

He must notice my face fall as he says it, and back-pedals furiously. “I’m sorry,” he stutters, “I didn’t mean–”

“Beer,” I say to him in response. “I could really use a beer.”

He frowns and points to my midsection. “Are you sure you’re supposed to drink after getting a tattoo done? Doesn’t it bleed a lot or something?”

I shrug. “Let’s find out.”

He laughs, and the sound is sweet in a world full of hurt and lies. “Come on, then,” he says. “I know a place on the beach that you’ll probably like. You

eat Mexican food?”

I think of how, as teenagers, we would visit Venice Beach to get away from our parents, where we would drink cheap beer and order nachos after swimming in the sea for hours upon hours. I swallow a lump in my throat and smile. “Sounds great,” I say.

As we make our way towards the beach, only a couple hundred meters away, I can’t get the past three hours out of my head. The conversation with Elliot was a roller coaster, to say the least.

“What’s your game plan, anyway?” Elliot spoke carefully as he pressed sharp needles into my flesh.

I was already bathed in sweat, my fingers curled around the sides of the bed. “I’m going to take them out, one by one. Dornan last.” I breathed heavily to the hum of the gun.

“Take them out?” Elliot had muttered. “What do you mean, exactly?”

I locked eyes with him and he stepped away from me, his gun poised in his hand, silenced for the moment.

“You mean to tell me you’re going to kill all of them?”

I smiled darkly, and I could tell he was grasping for a way to talk me out of it.

“You should have stayed in Nebraska,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is insane.”

“Why?” I challenged him. “Because they don’t deserve to die?”

The tattoo gun dropped to his side and he looked frustrated. “Because it shouldn’t have to be you who does it,” he said with an air of finality.

“Elliot?” I asked. “Hey.” I sat up and reached across the void that separated us, touching the intricate ink sleeve that adorned his muscled arm.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it for you,” he said, looking completely defeated. “I wanted to. I didn’t think about anything else. And then …”

“I understand,” I said, feeling robbed that I couldn’t pull him to my chest and give him the biggest, tightest hug. Instead, I focused on his arm, and the tattoos that adorned it. There were stars and skulls, a pretty pin-up girl with blonde hair, a babushka doll, a sickle, and a gun. Birds were scattered in the spaces not taken by other symbols, and I swallowed thickly as I realized I was staring at the story of his life without me. I brushed my fingertip lightly against the babushka doll, certain it was for his daughter.

“You have something to live for, El. Something far more important than revenge. You have a family.”

He smiled sadly and looked down at where my fingers lay on his skin.

“Kayla was an accident,” he said, rubbing his finger across the babushka doll. He raised his t-shirt sleeve and I saw the word Kayla captured in a swirling red ribbon across his shoulder. “Mandy wanted to have a termination, but–”

My breathing stilled for a moment at that word.

“I wouldn’t let her,” he murmured. “I told her what it was really like to watch that happen. God, I’m sorry, Julz,” he finished, and I didn’t bother correcting him. “I didn’t mean to mention that shit.”

I smiled through my sadness. “Don’t be sorry,” I replied, my heart swelling and twisting for Elliot with an emotion I hadn’t felt in years. “I’m happy something so nice came out of something so horrible.”

He relaxed and held up his tattoo gun again. “We should finish this.”

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