Page 110 of The Fates We Tame

“I’ll take the sofa,” Catalina says.

Slowly but surely, everyone pairs up and disappears to the bedrooms, and Catalina helps me with the last of the cleanup.

“I can’t believe how much I drank tonight. It’s a wonder I’m still walking…well, any more than I usually walk.”

Catalina tuts. “Don’t put yourself down like that. I got hurt and Niro came off his bike earlier this year. And you’ve met my husband. You’ve seen his face. The two of us, perhaps more than anyone else, have a…what’s the word…fraction of what it’s taken you to be here.”

I set the dishwasher to run and close the door. “Thank you. But at some point, it’s the past, right? I was thinking, I used to run the company’s real estate portfolio. I’d need refreshers. But I find that things I’ve forgotten, I’m quick to pick up. Do you know who manages the Outlaws’ portfolio?”

Catalina grins. “I’ll ask Niro. He used to be the club secretary/treasurer. But I like the idea there might be another woman in the club who is more than just an old lady.”

“You don’t like being an old lady?”

“I love being Niro’s wife and old lady. I love being the first female Outlaw crew member. But I want so much more. I’ll be a brother one day. But what if there were a financial officer for the club who wasn’t a man? Or if there were a female Vex?”

I shake my head. “I’m a Sicilian daughter. From a Cosa Nostra family. I was headed for an arranged marriage for power. In our worlds, women don’t have the right to vote.”

“Fair. But look at you and me. We’re changing it, no?” She gestures up and down my body. “You’re in this situation because you are valuable. I’ve settled for crew because it’s an official stake in the ground. I can’t go backward to being nobody. But I can claw my way up to being a brother. By showing them I can do everything they can. I think you should do the same. We could do it together.”

A ripple of excitement trickles through me. “We could?”

Catalina places her arms on my shoulders. “We could.”

She glances past me, out the window over the sink to the back garden, then hurries to the light switch and flicks it off. “Call Theo. Tell him there’s someone outside. I’ll let the prospects on guard know.”

“Don’t go outside, Cat,” I say, but it’s too late.

Just as the door closes, the kitchen window shatters.

I drop to the ground as I hear more gunshots. My phone is on the kitchen island, and I reach up, staying low, and pat my hand over the surface. When I find it, I grab it, then crawl towards the stairs.

Theo has weapons in the closet near the bed, but stairs are my nemesis. I can’t climb them quickly, but if I’m going to help Cat, I have to.

Gwen runs to the top of the stairs, a gun in hand. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, but Cat went outside.” I begin my ascent. It’s messy. My foot drags.

I pause to dial Theo. He doesn’t answer on the first ring, so I call him again. This time, he answers.

“Sparrow, I can’t talk right now. Just got back to the clubhouse with shit to clean up.”

“We’re under fire.”

“Fuck. How bad?”

“I don’t know. Bullet through the kitchen window. Cat ran outside to help the prospects; I’m headed to get weapons from the bedroom.”

“We gotta go,” I hear Theo shout. “Be there in ten. Fuck, Sparrow. Be careful.”

I climb the rest of the stairs and see Rae pushing Vi into the hallway. “You and Iris need to stay away from windows,” Rae says firmly. “Stay in the hallway unless someone breaches the house.”

“It’s too dark outside,” Gwen shouts from the bedroom. “I can’t see who to shoot at.”

“Catalina is out there,” I say. “She went to alert the prospects. We need to cover her. There are weapons in our bedroom if you don’t have your own.”

Pain is a funny thing. It can creep up on you. Overwhelm you. Then dissipate and make you wonder if you imagined how truly horrible the whole thing was. You think you have no control over it, that it controls you.

And yet, the pain, like a hot poker through the fleshy part of my hips, reminds me that survival is a state of mind.