Page 8

Smoke

I slid my clean shirt on and slammed my truck door with a bit too much force.

“I know it’s hard to leave her the first time,” Bash said as we pulled out of my driveway.

“Just the first time?” I asked, knowing he was full of shit.

“Okay, it sucks every damn time,” he admitted.

I nodded; that sounded more like it.

“I fucking hate it. I love knowing we make the world safer for them, but damn, it’s hard,” Blade said from the backseat.

“Have you ever thought about not doing it anymore?” I asked.

“Every damn time the phone rings,” Bash admitted.

“Every time Eloise tells me she’s thankful we found each other,” Blade said, his voice thick with vulnerability.

I looked at him in the rearview mirror.

He shrugged. “She doesn’t have anyone else. After her parents died and she escaped her abusive ex and his cult, she was on her own for a long time. Knowing that I could die during these jobs, knowing I could potentially leave her alone again, that’s fucking hard.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat at the idea of Ashley being alone.

“I know that she wouldn’t be truly alone. I trust you all would look out for her, but the idea of putting myself into a position where I could be killed eats at me every time I walk out the damn door,” Blade explained.

“Allyson has asked me if I could be hurt or killed,” Bash admitted.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

He chuckled, but it didn’t sound real. “That hell didn’t want me back, so I wouldn’t die.”

Blade and I scoffed out a laugh, but the air in the truck had gotten heavy.

“You both are stronger than I am. I want to tell Jasper to go fuck himself and go back to my baby,” I said.

“I have that same battle every time I walk out the damn door,” Bash said.

“Me too,” Blade added.

I pulled the truck into the entrance of one of Jasper’s buildings and punched the code into the gate. The keypad flashed red. Frowning, I punched in the code again. I was met with more flashes of red.

“What’s wrong?” Blade asked.

“What code did Jasper text us?” I asked, annoyed that I must have jumbled it up. Jasper changed the codes often, but he never sent us the wrong one.

“1221,” Bash said.

“1224,” Blade answered just as quickly.

My annoyance quickly turned to horror. I’d been sent 1226.

Each code was different and in increments of two.

Nobody would know we’d been together and were riding into the factory together.

The few minutes it would take us to punch in the code a second time was enough time for each of us to be ambushed. It wasn’t a mistake, it was a setup.

“Fuck!” I yelled, slamming my truck into reverse and trying to back out of the long driveway.

“To the left!” Bash yelled, pulling his gun out.

“On the right too,” Blade yelled, moving frantically in the truck.

The night sky lit up as gunfire exploded around us.

“Get down!” I yelled, my heart pounding in my throat.

The windows blew out around us. “Stay down,” I commanded, trying to shield my face with my arm as I sped rapidly in reverse down the path.

White-hot searing pain tore through my shoulder and then my side.

Biting my cheek hard enough to draw blood, I tried not to cry out.

I still had friends in the truck and our safety was the only thing that mattered at the moment.

Bash crawled from the front to the back, and helped Blade kick out the remainder of the busted back window.

“Can you see?” Blade asked.

“Yes,” I snapped, spinning out onto the dirt road. They were so damn stubborn.

Throwing the truck in gear, I grabbed my phone and tossed it to Bash.

“Call Jasper and stay the fuck down.” Bash moved back to the front and used a flashlight to bust the glass back from the windshield.

Even though the last thing we needed was for it to blow back and cut us, I wanted him to get down and protect himself.

I reached rapid speeds trying to get as far away from the factory as I could.

“Smoke?” Bash asked, his voice heavy with worry. I knew without looking he could see my injuries.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Call Jasper,” I ordered again.

Jasper answered almost immediately. His voice sounded rough, like he’d been sleeping.

“Smoke? What’s wrong?”

“We were fucking ambushed tonight,” Bash filled in for me.

I was glad, fatigue was coming in hard, the edges of my vision blurred. Shaking my head, I tried to focus on the road ahead of me.

“What! Where?” he asked. Scrambling sounds filled the line before we heard his computer keys clicking.

“I can’t see your location! Did you turn your GPS off?”

Fuck! Someone had been able to shut off our locations?

“No. Did you send us on a job tonight?” Blade asked.

“No.”

“Fuck!” Blade exclaimed. He was suddenly fussing with my arm. The sound of fabric tearing vaguely registered over the sound of Jasper’s frantic questions.

“We all got texts telling us to meet at the south factory. We were together so we just took Smoke’s truck, but we didn’t realize we’d all been texted different codes.

Suddenly we were under fire. We got out of there as quickly as we could, but we didn’t get any information,” Bash said, trying to help Blade.

“If we’d split up and each gone in alone, we’d be dead.

The only reason we’re breathing now is because Smoke drove us out while Blade and I returned fire. ”

“The girls are at my house with Kay. Send some men to keep an eye on the house.” I said, struggling to talk.

“Smoke?” Jasper asked.

“Hey, man, pull over, okay? I’ll drive,” Bash said, already taking the wheel.

Blade pulled out his gun and watched through the back window. “We’re not being followed.”

I couldn’t get my right arm to cooperate. It shook from the strain of trying to keep us on the road.

“I got it, man. You’re good,” Bash said.

“Bash?” Jasper asked.

“Smoke has been shot. We need help.”

His words echoed in my ears before the darkness finally dragged me under.

***

Ashley

“Can I sleep in Uncle Smoke’s bed?” I asked Kay.

The men had been gone for over eight hours and I could tell by the worried looks and heavy silence that it wasn’t normal for a job.

If it hadn’t been for the pain medicine Auntie Kay had given me, I probably would have been up all night tossing and turning.

“You can, sweet girl. Go brush your teeth and potty and I’ll be up to tuck you in, okay?” Auntie Kay answered.

I felt like she only sent me upstairs by myself so she could talk to Allyson and Eloise alone.

I headed in the direction of the stairs, but couldn’t make my legs lift to go up them.

It was like quicksand held me in place. My heart pounded and butterflies danced in my tummy.

Biting my lip, I shifted foot to foot. Eavesdropping was so naughty, but I wanted, no, needed to know what was going on.

I crept to hide behind the big armoire in the downstairs landing. Tilting my head and trying to quiet my breathing, I listened.

“Daddy’s never been gone this long before, Auntie Kay,” Eloise said. Her voice trembled and my own lip quivered.

“I know, Little one,” Kay said gently. “I know it must be so hard for you when they’re gone.”

“I hate it,” Allyson said. “And then I hate myself for being so selfish.”

I knew what she meant. Earlier, guilt had slammed into me with the force of a linebacker. What Dawson was doing was so noble, but so fucking scary too. He could be hurt or even killed. Then what would I do? I didn’t think I could ever live without him again.

“I feel guilty too. Billy would have killed me if Daddy hadn’t killed him first and I know Daddy is protecting other people like me, but I just wish he could stay home and stay safe,” Eloise said.

“It’s perfectly normal for you to feel that way, Little ones. I adore your big hearts and admire you for wanting to protect others, but if I was in your shoes, I’d want to know my Daddy was safe too,” Kay said.

Her words made me feel better. She wasn’t a Little, but I appreciated that she could sympathize with what we were feeling.

“You would, Auntie Kay?” Eloise asked.

She chuckled deep and warm. It was almost harmonic and it helped ease some of the tension out of my body. “Do you want to know a secret?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” they answered. I imagined their heads were bobbing up and down as they waited for her to share.

“I don’t like that your Daddies do this.

I think that it’s beautifully dark. I admire their loyalty.

I’m grateful for their bravery, and their willingness to step in when others have stepped out, especially the justice system, but I’m very angry with them for their choices to work in such dangerous situations. ”

“You are?” Allyson asked, her voice almost disbelieving.

“I think that for a long time your Daddies didn’t have anything to live for and doing these jobs made them feel something other than anger.

Maybe in some sort of way they felt like they were getting vengeance from those that hurt them in the past, but neither of those things are the truth.

Your Daddies need to live for the people that love them.

Me. Leland. Their clients and the community.

Deep down, I don’t think they fully realize how much they mean to the people around them.

And nothing is going to take away the hurt they feel about the past. Eloise, nothing your Daddy does will ever erase the mental scars his father left on him from all the years of abuse he endured at his hands.

Allyson, your Daddy will always carry some anger in his heart at the bastard who killed his mother.

But what they’re doing now isn’t going to heal those wounds for either of them. ”

The other two Littles were quiet, probably digesting all her words of wisdom.

“But my biggest fear is that they’re going to create their own trauma with you girls.

If they were killed during one of these jobs, they would leave you with the scars they’re currently living with.

Their anger would become yours, not in the same way, but it would still be very heavy for you to carry.

You’d grieve their deaths. You’d feel anger with the people that took them from you.

You’d have gaping holes in your stories that were only filled by them.

And as much as I love all three of them, I’m very close to throwing them over my knee and whipping all of their asses.

They’re so busy chasing the past, they’re missing their futures. ”

Wow, Auntie Kay was so wise.

“I fully plan to talk to them about this, but that’s going to be a grown-up talk away from Little ears.

What’s important tonight is that you know Aunie Kay is here and that she's very proud of you for how brave you were for Ashley. She’s very new to this world and you worked very hard to keep her from knowing it wasn’t normal for a job to run this long.

Normally, we wouldn’t keep things from friends, but she’s been through a lot in the past several hours and you were very wise in your choice to keep her from being stressed out. ”

I was touched at how thoughtful Eloise and Allyson were toward me. I knew they were scared, but it meant so much to me that they tried to keep me from being worried.

“I’m going to give Ashley some medicine and tuck her in and then I’ll come back and snuggle you two on the couch until your Daddies get back, okay?”

I scrambled up the steps before I heard their replies. I hoped our Daddies would be back safe and sound, and soon.