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CHAPTER 13

Michele

“ O h Benincio, how nice of you to join us,” Diaz boasts as Benny walks in.

He doesn’t look at me but instead locks eyes to Diaz. “I’m here, bastard. You called, I came. Although, having this audience seems a bit much for what you intend to do.”

“And what do I intend to do?”

Benny looks me in the eyes and I feel the tears pooling. “You want me to watch as you end Leigh as punishment for my denial of your job. Then you’ll end me.”

“You got it wrong Benincio. You didn’t deny my job, you denied the Irishman. And you did it in a way that Bianchi saw her enemy coming. You gave her an advantage she shouldn’t have had. All for the love of this whore.”

“She’s a lot of things, Diaz. She’s not a whore,” Benny tells him calmly.

“Well, for loving this whore, you were dumb. You deserve to die now. But knowing what’s to come you are rather smart Benincio. I don’t think she’s worth your life. Alas, you came as if you could do something. Always trying to save her. When will you learn, Benny? A whore will get you killed.”

“Didn’t live before her, didn’t live without her. Only time in my life I can say I was breathing with the intention to keep doin’ it was when I had her. I don’t have that anymore, so you wanna end me. Do it. But don’t you think for one fuckin’ second I’m gonna let you hurt her.”

Diaz approaches me as Benny comes closer as if he can somehow step between us.

“Look at her,” Diaz states waving his hand like he’s showing a display on a tv show. “She’s wearing another man’s clothes. She doesn’t even have on panties or a bra. She’s in his clothes. She smells of him, Benny boy.”

I drop my head in shame.

“She needs to have another man. I’m not deserving of her. And you should know for all of this, I got a mark on your head Diaz. So kill me, you can live, kill her, and you will die before the sun rises tomorrow morning.”

Diaz laughs, “Still think you have some power here. That’s the problem Benincio, you have always thought you had some control and you don’t. You’re a hired gun. Nothing more, nothing less. Always dispensable.”

Benny shrugs his shoulders not denying the statements.

“Get closer,” Diaz says taking a gun from the man beside me and pointing it at Benny. “Move to your woman, smell her Benny. Inhale the stench of biker. She came down south and learned how to be trash.”

A noise outside makes me stop breathing. I have a trigger happy cartel boss who wants to make my ex watch me die alongside a dozen other men who will kill me before letting me be able to identify any of them. And now a damn bird wants to fly into the door.

Diaz orders two men to check it out. He moves back slightly and I use the space to my advantage to talk to Benny.

“I’m sorry, Benny,” I whisper. “I didn’t know he would use me to get to you. I thought you had found me.”

“Baby, in my life everyone close to me is leverage. I let you go to save you from this,” his words hit me hard. “I didn’t look for you because I knew Giulia would do everything to keep you out of this life.”

Benny didn’t follow me. He loved me so much he refused the job to kill me.

Time passes, but it’s hard to say how much. The men Diaz sent out haven’t returned. Another bang on the door, Diaz sends more men out as I look to Benny.

He shakes his head unsure of what is going on.

“Who did you bring with you, Benny?” Diaz asks.

“No one. I work alone.”

This is true. Benny didn’t have partners or even friends really. I only met Carlos Diaz and his wife Elena once at a charity event my cousin was hosting. Benny introduced me as his partner and not Giulia Bianchi’s cousin. Why didn’t make sense at the time. Now … now I wonder if even then he was protecting me. Benny knew Giulia would help me leave. She’s my best friend.

“It matters not. I set things up so the Legion’s Demons think you hired them to send a message to her and Giulia. They will be tied up in a war with the Kings of Carnage because bikers apparently go to war as much as the cartels do. Either way, when I finish today, none of this comes back on me.”

I want to scream and tell him, the Kings are smarter than he gives them credit. Rogue will come for him. This isn’t the end. He doesn’t get off free. I may not understand biker life yet, but I do see their loyalty.

And loyalty, I understand.

Diaz doesn’t. He thinks no one can be loyal or trusted. Not even a lover or a wife.

When did Diaz call for the hit on me? Was it after that party? For years, I loved Benny. For years, we had a very private relationship. It bothered me that he wouldn’t take me out. I didn’t understand even when Giulia told me not to pry or push.

I brought this on him and myself. I wanted to know why I couldn’t be seen. All because I made things about me. “ Oh Benny, you’re ashamed of me, that’s why you never take me out.” I would tell him this over and over.

In this moment, all the things in my mind that tore me apart about being with Benny suddenly didn’t come from him but from my own head. He never told me I was anything less than beautiful. A gift to him, one he didn’t deserve. Only I couldn’t understand if I was special, why couldn’t we have a real date? Why couldn’t we live together? Why couldn’t I see his house? If Giulia hadn’t sworn to me he wasn’t married, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Yes, I literally asked him once if I was his mistress because I believed he had a wife and kids at home.

Benny didn’t, though.

Benny had Benny and that was it.

No parents, no siblings, no cousins, no one close to him. No friends. He had business associates and that was it.

Other than me.

I was Benincio Cartagena’s weakness, then and now.

He didn’t have to come here today. He knows Diaz sees me as a threat. He knows Diaz wants me dead. Hell, he knew it before I knew it. He knew coming here, he wouldn’t leave alive. He’s here to help me.

All this time I thought it was Benny I should fear, when he only wants to protect me.

He let me go.

Shots ring out from just outside the building. Everything happens in a flash.

Benny grabs me, putting his body between mine and Diaz. There is a distinct pop. I feel Benny jerk over me and warm liquid seeps onto my shirt as his weight takes me down. He reaches out trying to brace us both for the fall as my hands are bound.

“Loved you then, love you now, Leigh,” he whispers.

As I glance up, Diaz is smirking over us with his gun aimed.

“Benny,” I whisper his name, as another shot rings out. I wait for Benny to cry out or shift or show something. I wait to feel pain, but there is none.

Instead, Diaz goes down with splatter covering Benny and a little on my face.

Only then does Benny tell me, “Be free, Leigh. Leave it all behind. Find happiness. You are too good for my world.”

“Benny, don’t you give up,” I tell him shifting from underneath him. “Dammit, Benny you can be happy in your world, but don’t you give up.”

In seconds though, I have a chiseled face in front of me, one full of concern. “Michele, are you hit?” Rogue asks, instantly something inside me soothes like never before.

I shake my head and whisper, “Benny took the bullet meant for me. I’m gonna be fine.”

Rogue’s lips crash to mine and before I can think about anything I give in him kissing him back.

Feeling this close to death, knowing one man lost his life to save mine, I want to embrace everything left in front of me.

Scooping me up, I drop my head against Rogue not wanting to see the collateral damage around me. He takes me to another building where I see some of the other Kings. Gently, he puts me on my feet, not releasing his hold until I’m steady. He takes a knife from his side and removes the bindings on my wrists. Moving to his saddlebag, he retrieves a sweatshirt and puts it over my head as I guide my arms in it. The shirt swallows me and covers the bottom of his shorts I still have on.

I look like a wreck, but I don’t care what any of these people think of me. As Rogue wraps his arms around me pulling me to him, I do the same wrapping him in my embrace before I roll up on my bare feet to press my lips to his.

“Thank you, Jennings, for saving me.” I whisper which gets me a smile.

“Worth it.”

I don’t know what exactly he means by saying that, but I’m exhausted and in shock so I don’t ask.

Another man enters the room beside us, he was there when Rogue carried me out. “Benny?” I ask him.

“Not sure yet, babe. Got him in a van to take him to our doc. He’s alive for now.”

I nod and bury myself against Rogue. “Jennings,” I begin.

“Buttercup,” he replies softly.

“I’m scared to ask, but I need to know. She was nice to me, so kind. She tried to tell me to stay in the closet. I didn’t listen. Is Kitty okay? I told her to run, they shot her though. In your beautiful house.”

Jennings holds me tighter, “she’s stable, but she took a bullet to the back. Gotta see how the damage plays out long term.”

Tears fall down my face.

“I’ve made a mess of so many lives.”

Jennings pulls back and I think for a moment, he must agree. Instead, he cups my chin to make me look at him. “Buttercup, we all make decisions. Some good, some bad. They change the course of our lives and those around us. Kitty knows what it means to be tied to the Kings. What happened isn’t on you, she knows what she’s part of. Benny, he knew his life, he brought you in it regardless. And don’t think for one second you made a mess of mine. Before you, I stopped living a long damn time ago. In these few days, you have given me a reason to inhale and exhale with meaning and not just existing.”

“I’m not worth the trouble, Jennings. Everything I touch goes up in ashes.”

He drops his head to mine. “I’ve been burned by life in the cruelest of ways. You, Michele Leigh Cramer or Leigh Michele Range whichever you choose to go by for the future are worth every risk for even a taste of your goodness.”

I can’t speak as the lump of emotions gets stuck in my throat.

“I’ve never felt more seen in my life than you have given me in two days, Jennings.”

He smiles, “wait until you see what I can give you in a month, then a year. Wait until you see what life is like on the calm side of things. I’m gonna give you that and so much more. You gonna give me that shot, buttercup?”

Am I?

I feel overwhelmed. I don’t answer him, and thankfully he doesn’t push. There is a flurry of things around us as other Kings are stepping up to clean up, others are getting Benny checked out, and well, Rogue has been told to take me home.

What is home?

What is it going to be like to not look over my shoulder anymore?

Right now, I don’t have any answers.

All I have is a headache and a heartache.