Sitting alone in the penthouse kitchen of the Safeword Club, the Boss of the Third Street Saints threw her empty beer bottle across the room and caused it to shatter, cracking open another as she stared at the picture of herself, Shaundi, and Johnny Gat just a few months before that hung on the fridge, all three laughing with drinks in hand. It had been a month since she'd declared Steelport foreign soil to Monica Hughes and the rest of the world on television after killing Cyrus Temple, and there were wounds she still couldn't get to heal.
"Fuck this," the Boss sighed, getting up and walking out of the kitchen before she sank onto the couch, growling as she felt something jabbing her in the back. She moved and reached into the couch, snickering to herself. "Kinzie, you left your dildo bat." SHe set it on the coffee table and shook her head, sending a text to Kinzie to come by and pick up her weapon-slash-sex toy before she got up and headed to the bedroom, throwing her phone on the bed before she stripped down and headed to the bathroom.
Inside the shower, she looked down at the star tattoo on her hand, having gotten in the day of Shaundi's funeral as they laid her, Viola, and Burt to rest. The hot water cascaded down her back, and instead of feeling better, the Boss just felt worse. SInking down to the floor, she pressed her back against the cold wall, drawing her knees up as she remembered the phone call from Pierce that damned day.
"Did you kill the son of a bitch?" Pierce asked, talking about Eddie "Killbane" Pryor who's plane she'd blown to hell before beating the Luchadore with her bare hands before she snapped his neck.
"Yeah..." she had said, looking around at the wreckage of the plane and several cars with charring corpses in them.
"Was it worth it?" Pierce's voice asked, his tone upset and hurting. He'd watched Magarac Island blow up, and he had known which path the Boss had taken.
She couldn't answer him. Her arm lowered, the phone just falling out of her hand. She picked it up before she took off walking away from the wreckage, heading to the one place she could think of, and that was Kinzie's warehouse, just a few miles away.
"No, Pierce, it wasn't worth it," the Boss whispered, the slew of emotions she'd held in since Johnny's death at Phillipe Loren's hand on that damned plane breaking free. "It wasn't worth it...I fucked up. I should have let Killbane go and gone after Shaundi..." She shut off the shower and wrapped the towel around herself, heading back into the bedroom as her phone rang. She answered it and set it on the nightstand. "Pierce?"
"What're you doin', Boss?" Pierce asked, his words slurred a bit. "We're missin' you down here at the Broken Shillelagh. Oleg, Birk, Kinzie, everyone's down here but you. Where you at?"
"I'm staying in tonight, Pierce. And it sounds like you've been drinking a while," the Boss said, cracking a small smile as she got dressed. "I don't much feel like being out in public tonight. I've just been thinking-"
"Yeah, that's dangerous as fuck for you to be doin'," Pierce said, and the Boss could swear he was rolling his eyes again.
"Fuck you, Pierce," she growled, shaking her head. "I've been thinking about Shaundi and everyone we've lost, that's all. I still...I still can't justify what I did by going after Killbane instead of Kia on Magarac Island. I know you're still pretty pissed off at me for that."
"You're damned right I am, Boss. Shaundi's been your best girl and your best friend since we left Stilwater. You fuckin' let her die and for what? Some washed out Luchadore you'd only known a few weeks? What the fuck were you thinking?" Pierce asked, setting his beer down. "You can't answer that, can you?"
"No, Pierce! I can't!" the Boss yelled, kicking the door and breaking it off of the hinges. "I can't fucking answer that! If I could, I wouldn't be thinking about eating my fucking gun so I could see her and Gat again! But no, all you see is your next fucking Saints Flow shoot and the next target and waiting for my next orders. I'm sitting in Safeword and thinking about putting my fucking gun in my mouth, Pierce! But you're too busy drinking your fucking problems away and probably getting sucked off under the table to really fucking care! Go to Hell, Pierce!" She hung up on him and threw the phone across the room, watching it sail through the air and shatter on the wall in the hallway.
_
Across town at the Broken Shillelagh, Pierce blinked as he heard the line go dead. In all of his years working with the Boss, he'd never heard her snap or lose her temper like that at any of them in the gang. He set his beer down and picked up his phone again, starting to dial the Boss once more before he saw Oleg and Kinzie grabbing their things.
"Where the hell ya'll goin'?" Pierce asked. "We're next on the kareoke machine! I already put our song in!"
"We need to be there for the Boss," Kinzie said as she turned around and glared at Pierce, her eyes hard. "After she killed Killbane that day, Pierce, do you know where she fucking went? She came to my warehouse. I've never see her like she was. She looked haunted, and I took her guns away from her because I was scared for her. YOu've never seen her vulnerable, have you? Heartbroken at the fact that someone else she loved, a new friend to the Gang, and a man she idolized had been killed because she helped Angel instead of saving Shaundi? She's been beating herself up for a month about this, Pierce! But you don't fucking care."
"Kinzie is right, my friend," Oleg said. "We have neglected the Boss on this as we have been rebuilding our own lives after our war with the Syndicate. We are going to do the right thing for once."
"Man, whatever. The Boss's been through worse then this. She'll get over it," Pierce said, turning back to the dartboard and picking up his darts again. That was the last thing he did before he felt Kinzie's fist in his face, knocking him to the floor. "The hell!?" He looked up and saw Kinzie in all of her five feet six inches of anger looming over him, and he tried to scramble away before he felt her drag him to his feet and slam him into the bar. "Oleg! Get this crazy redhead off of me!"
"You brought this upon yourself, my friend," Oleg said, barely hiding a smirk as he watched Kinzie manhandle Pierce. "Kinzie, do not kill him just yet."
"I don't plan on killing him right now," Kinzie growled, slugging Pierce again. "You selfish bastard! The Boss has always been there for you! Always done everything you've needed, gone along with all of your fucking crazy ass plans and schemes, and she's always been there when you needed a friend! And the one time she shows a goddamned weakness and you won't get your balls out of your hand and be there for her!? You're not any better then Killbane to me, Pierce. You aren't even worth the name Saint." She threw him back into the table he was at, knocking the beer bottles over and into the ground. "Go fuck yourself, Pierce." She turned and walked out, climbing into her car and clenching the steering wheel tightly.
Oleg walked out behind her, kneeling down so he could see Kinzie in the car. "Are you alright?"
"No," Kinzie sighed. "He's such a selfish bitch, Oleg. The Boss has always been there, but now Pierce is more willing to drink his problems away. Fuck him. Let's go." She watched Oleg get in the bed of her car, taking off for the other side of Steelport to Safeword.
Having picked up the peices of her broken phone, the Boss sank down onto the couch and drew her knees up again, her hands shaking as she felt tears falling down her cheeks. "I got Johnny killed, I let everyone down, I let Shaundi die...what kind of Boss am I?" she mumbled, looking at the tattoo on her hand. "SHaundi, I'm so sorry..."
Kinzie sighed as the elevator dinged, the doors opening to the penthouse of Safeword. "Boss?" she asked, looking around. She heard the sounds of sniffling, and she followed the sound. "Boss?"
Looking up, the Boss sighed. "Kinzie...you should have stayed at the bar with Pierce."
"Fuck him," Kinzie said, running over and sitting beside th Boss on the couch, Oleg standing behind them. "You've been there when he's needed you, and now he won't put his beer down long enough to help you. He's useless." She put her hand on the Boss's arm, looking at her. "Boss? Talk to me."
The Boss just sighed, wiping her eyes softly. "It's been a month since Shaundi and the others died because I went after Killbane. I go to that goddamn grave every two days, Kinzie, and I sit and talk to her, try and make an excuse for what I did and try and justify it but I fucking can't! I can't justify a damned thing and that pisses me off. I let my best friend die because I wanted Killbane's head. I watched from the airport as Magarac Island blew up, taking my best friend in the blast as that goddamned statue crashed down on top of her. How do you live with something like that? Johnny, Shaundi, Viola. How many more of my friends have to get killed before I figure out enough's enough?"
Kinzie put her hand on the Boss's cheek. "You told me that living after your friends died is by putting one foot in front of the other, and living like they'd want you to live, Boss. Shaundi may be dead, but she isn't gone," she said. "SHe's still right here." She pointed to the Boss's heart. "And here." She tapped the tattoo on her hand. "Shaundi's always with you, Boss. Even if you can't see her. Just like Johnny."
The Boss smiled a little, wiping her eyes. "When'd you get so smart?" she asked, making Kinzie laugh.
"I'm always going to be smart, Boss. I just know what it means to have your heart broken," Kinzie said, smiling.
"Laura," the Boss said.
"What?" Oleg and Kinzie asked.
"My name," the Boss said. "Laura. You can't call me Boss all the time. Either of you tell Pierce, I'll kill both of you in your sleep. Which won't be hard to do seeing as Oleg's been spending most of his nights at your warehouse."
Kinzie's face just got red, and she rolled her eyes. "YOu can't prove that."
"The night I stayed there after Shaundi died. Oleg was making you scream in four languages and you were limping the next morning when you made coffee," the Boss smirked. "Besides, when we saved him from Loren's building, all three of us saw what the big man's packing." She grinned as Kinzie's face got redder, and Oleg just started to laugh.
"You're not helping!" Kinzie said, turning and glaring at Oleg. "Why didn't you tell me!?"
"You never asked," Oleg said, putting his hand on Kinzie's shoulder. "Calm yourself, Kinzie."
Kinzie just fumed, folding her arms over her chest. "Jerks. Both of you."
"You love us and you know it," the Boss said with a smile, hugging Kinzie. "Tell you what. Let's order a pizza and watch something stupid on a sixty inch television."
"Sounds good to me," Kinzie said with a small smile, Oleg nodding in agreement.
The wounds from Shaundi's death would stay with the Boss for a long time, but she also knew that in that time, she'd heal as long as she kept her friends close and remembered Shaundi as she was.