“Lea babe…” Shep started again, brow raised. “The fuck is this?”
Deciding that maybe the truth was the best bet, I started to open my mouth to give it. Only to find myself interrupted by Shane.
“This is me putting an end to her fuckwad of an ex threatening her.”
I heard a gun cock and turned fully, looking for the carrier, finding the road captain and cocking my own gun and raising it. “Try it, Micky. Not only did Rick teach me to ride, he taught me to shoot too. And if you guys remember, he was a damn good shot.”
“Lea,” Shep tried again, his voice patient as I usually found it. I guess it had to be if he was constantly dealing with hot-headed Ross. “Explain.” He paused, letting me. When Shane opened his mouth to speak for me, his eyes cut to him. “She can speak for herself,” he told Shane who went a little rigid beside me.
I swallowed hard, biting into my cheeks for a second, then met his eyes and refused to break contact as I went on. “I got a little sick of being raped every single night of my life, Shep,” I said, noting a slight tensing around his eyes at that, finding that show of humanness comforting. They weren’t all complete monsters. “So I left.”
“I get that. Who the fuck you think talked Ross out of tearing this country apart looking for you?” he asked, shrugging. “Explain why you’re back with these fucks and why that one looks like he slaughtered every pig in the state.”
“I moved on. And I got involved with him,” I said, jerking my head toward Shane. “And he wasn’t too happy to find out Ross was threatening me still.”
“So he came here to send a message,” he guessed, eyes going to Shane, looking him over. “That message,” he started, addressing him instead of me then, “I am assuming it was of the first and final variety.”
“Yep,” Shane answered.
First and final?
Final?
I turned suddenly to Shane, mouth open, as I looked him over again. Shep was right. There was no way all that blood came from a body that lived through the beating. “You killed Ross?” I asked, my voice an airy, disbelieving sound.
“He had it coming,” Shane said, his tone a bit defensive. “You didn’t hear the shit…” he started, then shook his head.
“Yo,” Micky called, ever the shit-starter. “We just gonna stand here like a bunch of pussies? He killed the fucking pres!”
There were curses and agreement and the air, I swear, filled with testosterone.
“Shut the fuck up,” Shep growled. Growled. All the years I had known him, I had never heard him speak above a normal register.
I wondered then, watching him, seeing the way his eyes were active, his mind was working, if maybe he had just been patiently waiting for this day. He had been made road captain under Ross’ father, Rick’s, reign. He was more qualified than Ross in every way for the role of power. Honestly, I think the old man would have preferred Shep too. But, dying as suddenly as he had, he never got a chance to make that clear.
“This isn’t some turf war shit,” Shep went on, half turning to the men, tone reasonable. “The fuck we gonna do? Kill some family without having…”
“We have good reason,” Micky insisted, waving a hand toward Shane, moving a threatening couple feet forward as he did so. “That fuck is covered in the president’s fucking blood!”
I felt my lip curling, remember the way that meaty hand of his once slid under my skirt to squeeze my ass. I was all but sixteen at the time; he had been old enough to be my father.
“Keep coming, Micky,” I said, aiming the gun toward his heart. “I only have so many bullets in this gun, but so help me God, I will use every last one of them to take out as many of you as possible if you don’t back the fuck down.”
There was a tremble of worry in his jaw for a second before he turned to Shep. “You can’t fucking let that cunt talk to me like that! Fucking bitches overstepping…”
“That’s my daughter you’re talking about,” my father broke in suddenly, moving out from the middle of the crowd to confront Micky.
“Little late to be the big man now, don’t you think?” Shane asked, drawing my father’s attention. “Now that I took care of the real threat, I mean. It’s cool for her to be raped and dragged around by her hair for years, just can’t call her a bitch? That’s how you’re playing this?”
“You’re not helping,” I snapped at Shane, whose eyes cut to me for a short second.
“I don’t care,” he said back. “He needs to hear it.”
“You don’t know what you’re,” my brother started to break in, moving in beside my father.