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“We’ll find her,” I agreed, swearin’ it to myself and to Mei, where ever she was. This was not how our love story was endin’.
“Sorry, man,” he whispered brokenly. “They must’ve stripped her or done a pass with a wand. We lost the signal.”
The phone rang six times before the motherfucker picked up. “How did you get this number?” Jiang demanded. “Your brother’s got Mei,” I said and felt the frisson of shock over the phone line. “Where would he take her?” Jiang swore vividly in Cantonese. “How long has he had her?”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Jiang, this is Mei Zhen. The girl who kept you safe by pretendin’ to be your girlfriend for half a decade. You fuckin’ know she’d throw herself in front of a bullet for you, so don’t you fuckin’ hesitate to tell me where the fuck she could be!”
“Like she’s throwing herself in front of his bullet for you?” he countered furiously. “You think she was taken because of me? It’s you who raided and destroyed Golden Door Bank. It’s you who married Kate Kay. This is because of you, Henning Axelsen.”
“The rains gonna turn everythin’ to slop, but look for any fresh graves,” I told my brothers. “He might’ve buried her alive.”
My phone vibrated once before it was at my ear. “Talk to me, Jiang.” “He buried her alive.” My heart topped dead in my chest.
“Yeah. I don’t know where, Henning, I swear to you. Kasper handed her over to a crew waiting there and took off. He’s on the way to a private air strip to fly to Hong Kong.” He paused, breath loud and rattling. “You can get to him. I have the address and flight number. Or you can try to find Mei.”
Pain split my body in two. The part of me desperate to murder the man who’d killed Kate, who’d buried Mei alive, with the part that simply could not fuckin’ live without Mei.
“I’ll find her,” I swore. “Don’t think Kasper’s off the fuckin’ hook. He’s a dead man. I don’t care how long it fuckin’ takes me to end him.”
“Right,” Jiang whispered. “I’m on my way. I’ll help you dig.”
“Rocky, Rocky.” I wasn’t even aware I was yellin’ as Wrath and Dane dropped to their knees beside me and dug too. “Rocky, come on, love, please be here for me.”
She was sobbin’, great heavin’ sobs that wracked her whole body into convulsions. I held her too tight and peppered her wet face in kisses, whisperin’ how much I loved her, how fuckin’ necessary she was to me, how grateful I was that she was alive, alive, alive. “Are Boner aa-and Ransom okay?” she almost yelled in her haste to ask. It made my heart, already threatenin’ to break outta my chest, swell larger with love. “Are the girls okay?”
“I knew you’d find me,” she cried, clutchin’ me hard, nails diggin’ into my wet, ruined shirt. “I knew it!”
You’re mine if you’ll say I’m yours, and I’m keepin’ you forever.”
This secret wasn’t one I could keep indefinitely and even though I’d wanted to tell Axe-Man first, there was something to be said for checking in with Cleo. She’d lost so much to The Prophet, including her womb. From the earliest years of our friendship, I could remember Cleo playing house with her dolls, dreaming of her future family. It seemed somewhat cruel now, to be pregnant when we hadn’t even been trying, when I was actually on birth control.
“Because I’m pregnant and it might be old-fashioned, but I’d like to marry Henning before we have our baby.”
“Oh, Rocky,” she exclaimed softly, like she was in some kind of awe. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life.” “Seriously?” I asked, the word punched out of me as I gripped her hands again, a little too tight. “Seriously,” she said with a firm nod and that gorgeous, wide smile. “I thought the wedding was exciting, but that’s only like a day. This is a gift that will last forever!”
She pressed into me, breath warm on my ear as she whispered, “Happy birthday, Daddy.” A little chuckle emerged from my belly at her teasin’ before I got a look at the cake she’d made me. Shaped like a heart, frosted in white icin’, punctuated with black straws, it had my birthday present written in black on the top. DILF (again) est. 2023.
When we pulled apart, I saw Mei receivin’ hugs from Lila and Cressida, before Boner pushed through and lifted her into the air to spin her around. “I’ll be Uncle Boner, right?” he asked her. Mei laughed, shovin’ him in the shoulder as he dropped her to the ground lightly. “Uncle Bones, maybe, but I think they might have to call you Aaron or it’ll be a little creepy.”
Even Jiang was there, sittin’ in the back row a little stiffly ’cause he was surrounded by bikers who were not his brethren. But we were on good terms with the new Dragon Head of the Seven Song even though we’d run his brother outta the country and disassembled their criminal bankin’ enterprise.
He was here for Mei just as he’d proved always would be after helpin’ dig her outta the earth that day in the graveyard.
Old Dragon stopped his scooter at the end of the aisle and lifted his tremblin’ hand to Mei’s in order to offer it to me. Even though his body and mind were frail most days, his dark eyes were keen and bright on mine as he whispered in Cantonese, “No one is more deserving of my precious gift than you. Take care of each other well.” I thanked him with a small bow over his hand and then pulled Mei’s warm fingers into my own to lead her the last few steps to the weddin’ altar.
“I’m sayin’ my soul recognized yours a long fuckin’ time ago, and no matter the time between us and the mistakes we’ve made, I wouldn’t change a fuckin’ thing ’cause it meant we could be here today about to be husband and wife.”
Then my daughter pronounced us legally bound and I kissed Mei Zhen Axelsen for the millionth time, but for the first time as my wife, and all I knew was peace.
“No,” the girl leaned across the table and planted a red-lipsticked kiss on the woman’s papery cheek. “I came to tell you it took years, but I figured out who spoke outside your tent that day, and I came here to kill him.” The woman froze, and when she recovered enough to press, the girl was gone, the red flap of her tent waving as if in goodbye.
They might have been living their happily ever after, but they were still Rocky and the Off-White Knight, Mei Zhen and Henning “Axe-Man” Axelsen, and necessary deaths would always be a part of their lives. Mei would say later on the plane, holding her husband’s four-fingered hand, that it was all about balance.
