I barely notice my gun being removed from the back of my waistband. It’s Cub. I can tell from her small hands and delicate touch. Even if I didn’t have her standing behind me, I’d know it was her. I wait for her to slyly hand the gun to me, but she doesn’t. Instead, I hear the cocking of my own fucking gun as she steps around to my side. She wastes no time in firing off two shots hitting Jerry in the arm that’s holding the gun. He drops it immediately and stumbles backward, shaking his hand, his face red from the surprise and pain of the bullets slicing his forearm. The blood drips onto the hay below. Despite the amount of blood, it doesn’t look too bad. I’ve seen gaping wounds enough times to be able to determine the difference between a flesh wound and something fatal.
With Jerry disarmed, I reach around Cub and grab my gun back from her. I’m half-horrified that she pulled that shit, but mostly proud. She’s never been able to hit a target in all the months we’ve been working with her.
“I shot him,” she says quietly. Her face is a mixture of confusion and excitement. Again with the fucking excitement. Will she ever learn that this isn’t a game?
“Very humane,” Duke says to her as he passes. He grabs Jerry by the collar of his shirt and takes Jerry’s boss with him into the office.
“Could have killed him,” Ian says. She flinches at his words but stands her ground.
“I was aiming for his torso,” she admits. She didn’t hit her target, but that doesn’t seem to encroach upon the thrill of finally fucking hitting something.
“Baby, I shot him,” she whispers and finally takes her eyes off the spot Jerry stood in just a minute earlier. Pride swells in my heart, though I don’t let her know it. I can’t encourage this kind of reckless behavior. I need her to be safe. She carries everything that matters to me in her small frame, and one fucking day, she’s going to take my name, too.
“I was upset. I didn’t want him to hurt you. So I shot him.”
I give her a few minutes to process what she’s done, but once the van is loaded, we have to go. I slowly coax her out of the barn, surrounded by my brothers, and get her into the back of the van. It doesn’t smell like anything, but now there’s crates packed into the back with packages of beef inside. Only the people here at the ranch and the club know that inside the packages of beef, sealed and wrapped, is our real product.
Jeremy takes the driver’s seat once again, with Duke in the passenger seat and Ian near the back door. Cub and I also take our previous seats, though this time closer to the back. The crates take up a lot of space but not so much that we can’t move around well enough. We have four crates in here, each with two pounds of high-grade product, roughly valuing twenty-four grand or so on the street. We don’t grow shit, and we don’t sell shit. Unlike some bitch-ass clubs, we damn well stand by our product.
Cub sits next to me in silence as we start down the dirt road on our way up to Redding for our delivery. Her hands rest on top of her knees, and she’s eerily calm for having shot someone. She’s such a pacifist that I can’t believe this won’t affect her at all. Leaning in close, I hook my pinky around hers and pull her up beside me. I don’t give a fuck if the guys here see us. Pop’s never hidden his affection for Ma, and his men don’t seem to respect him any less than they did before he made her his woman and took the gavel.
She squeezes my pinky with hers and just continues to sit there. I place a soft kiss to her temple and force myself to say what I’m thinking. I need to verbalize it before I lose the nerve. She deserves to hear it, and I need to get it off my chest. I’ve been fucking this up between us, and my selfish bullshit is going to push her away. I can’t let her go, but I won’t force her to stay either. So my only choice is to make her want to stay.
“You shot Jerry,” I whisper.
“He was high. He could have hurt you.”
“But you shot him. My pacifist mafia princess shot some motherfucker she doesn’t know.”
She turns to look at me. Dark brown eyes bore into mine, and she says louder than I expect and full of so much fucking passion and honesty that I try to record it to memory for the next time I’m dealing with shit that makes everything feel too fucked-up for any kind of peacefulness.
“Nobody hurts what’s mine.”
Chills slide down my spine. She’s so much stronger than I give her credit for. I don’t think about this side of her. The woman who defied her father to save her brother. The woman who accepted my family and club as her own without any judgment. The woman who accepts me no matter how fucked in the head I get. She loves me.