I scream out, pushing hard, not wanting this. I don’t want my father to die because of me. I wrap my arms around him, trying to move his body. My fingers instantly hit hot liquid and when I draw them back to look at them my hands are covered in blood.
“Daddy! No!” I scream and now I can see his face. His eyes are filled with pain. He looks at me, his face white.
“Love you, Torrent. You’ve always been my angel...”
His voice is broken and a trickle of blood drops from the corner of his mouth and lands on me.
“Daddy,” I cry.
I know he’s slipping away and the misery that’s clawing inside of me makes it hard to breathe. All at once his body is lifted from me, an arm going around his neck. The man who had been holding me—Jin—has my father and he takes a knife to his throat. It happens quickly, but as I watch it feels like slow motion. The knife slices into my father’s neck, and I watch every horrific second with a sense of disbelief…
This can’t be happening.
All at once another gunshot rings out. The man who cut my father’s throat lurches forward. He falls down, but I lose sight of him because my father falls down on me, his blood pouring over me.
“Why did you—” I hear a voice, but I lose track of it when my father is lifted off me. I look up to see one of my dad’s men—Red. He lays my father gently on the floor. I scramble up, crawling to get to him. My dad’s men have arrived, but in my heart I know it’s too late. Another gunshot goes off and I look up to see Wolf standing and he’s shooting the man who used his knife on my father. I clap my hands against my father’s throat, but the blood keeps oozing against my hands, between my fingers and down Dad’s body. There’s so much blood there’s no way he can survive. I have to stop it.
“Give me your shirt!” I scream to Red, to Wolf, to anyone who might listen.
“Torrent, baby—” I look over to see Wolf kneeling down beside me and Dad now and the pity on his face destroys me.
“Give me your shirt!” I scream again and he shakes his head.
“He’s gone, Tor. He’s gone, baby,” he says and I know he’s right, but I don’t want to hear it. Instead I claw at my own shirt, tearing it from my body and taking the shredded pieces and pressing them against my father’s throat.
I look at my father’s eyes and they’re wide open… open and lifeless…
“It’s too late, Tor,” Wolf says again and he pulls my body back into him. When I try to pull away, he wraps his arms tight around me, refusing to let me go. “It’s too late, baby,” he repeats. I try to resist him; I need to get to my dad. “For God’s sake! Someone cover Dodger the fuck up!” he growls and I watch as they get some kind of coat or jacket and cover my dad’s face.
“No!” I cry out, so much pain inside of me, I feel like I will never be able to survive.
“He’s gone baby, he’s gone,” Wolf says in my ear.
“Nooo…” I whimper, the word torn from my very soul. I gasp, trying to catch my breath, but it feels like my chest is raw. I look down at my hands… hands covered in my father’s blood…
And then the world goes black.Devil“Hey, Devil, you got a minute?” Diesel asks as I walk through the doors of the garage. I’ve been back home now for well over a month and I’m slowly starting to feel like my old self again. Whatever spell Torrent had on me during our brief time together is finally lifting.
“What’s up, man?” I ask, walking over to him.
“It’s about the shootout at the old marina around three weeks ago. You remember it?”
“Fury updated me on it. We going to deliver a message to the club that was in our territory?” I ask.
When news first filtered in through our contacts in the local police department about what happened, I know Diesel had Crusher checking it out. Nothing more had really been said about it, so I figured he’d decided to let it go. It’s not like him, but his head has been elsewhere lately.
“I met with the leader last week while you and Crusher were in Kentucky at Dragon’s. The way I figure it, they’ve lost enough and they’re already back in Nashville. Wolf seems like a good enough guy. Can’t hurt to keep friendly with them for now.”
“Then what’s up?”
“As a show of good faith, I’m going to go down for the ceremony of the man they lost.”
“It was one of their men that died? Our contact said four died,” I remind him.