Chapter Sixteen: How Many are Coming to the Funeral Pyre?
Clay picked up the phone as Salazar slumped against the wall, feeling fresh blood flow from his shredded belly. Clay thumbed through just a few of the messages before smiling warmly at Salazar.
"Good job Hector," Clay said before nodding at Bobby who emptied his gun's magazine into Salazar.
Clay looked around the room as Hector's life drained away, assessing the damage and noise the firefight had generated. He knew even with blocking some of the outgoing calls that they'd never be able to clean up before law enforcement swept through.
Chibs affixed a modified tourniquet around Clay's thigh and helped him to his feet, stepping over Salazar's fallen pals as he half-carried him outside to one of the vans that Happy had pulled around.
Clay started dialing Juice as Happy went back to help the others.
Hours and hours north, Juice's phone rang, he picked it up before it could ring a second time when he saw Clay's name on the caller ID.
Juice put the call on speaker and a relieved gasp escaped from between Gemma's lips when she heard Clay's ragged, exhausted voice, crackly with the poor reception.
While Clay passed the phone to Bobby who continued summarizing the aftermath of Salazar's well-paid visit, upstairs in the second bedroom of the criminal safehouse, Tig kissed the ring on Rosamund's finger, as though receiving a blessing from the goddess. He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw popped as he thought of all Hale had taken from her, more than he could ever hope to replace.
He grunted in irritation as Juice and Gemma's raised voices from the kitchen began to distract him. Rosamund closed the small space between them and pressed her lips against his, surprising him. "Let's go check on them," she murmured and felt Tig fight against his desire to stay next to her, longing to be filling her, possessing her, tasting her.
"Fuck," Tig growled and let Rosamund slip from his embrace.
He moved fluidly from the bed despite his aching knee and reached for Rosamund's closest hand before she opened the thin door.
"Wait," he nearly stuttered, "I, uh, need, to say something," he finally managed.
"What is it?" Rosamund asked as Tig remained on one knee, wordlessly staring up at her.
"I was never going to hurt you," he stated.
Rosamund stared at him, wordless longer than he had.
"I know," she murmured before squeezing his hand, pulling open the door with the other.
Tig watched her leave, staring at the empty doorway for a few steady heart beats before following her down the stairs. He found her in the kitchen, pouring a tepid cup of coffee as Bobby's voice sounded from the phone.
Gemma and Juice looked over at Tig as Bobby continued rambling about all the injuries and stack of bodies.
"There's a lot of bodies Gem."
Rosamund cleared her throat as settled the cup in the microwave and tapped the quick heat setting button.
"I might know someone who can help," she started, all of them turning to look at her as she continued. "My uncle's friends with Leo DiAmmini."
"That sounds familiar," Juice interrupted.
"He owns a restaurant and mortuary just outside of Charming. He's always putting bodies through the 'expediated' cremation process for my uncle."
No one spoke again until the microwave chimed.
"I can call him now," Rosamund added as she sipped from the frightfully hot coffee.
"How do you have his number?" Tig heard himself ask.
Rosamund cleared her throat and pretended to not hear Tig. She held out her hand for the phone, "how many bodies do I need to ask Mr. DiAmmini to burn?"
Gemma shot daggers at Tig before he even thought of speaking. Bobby piped back up in the silence. "At least a dozen," he finally said.
"Thanks Bobby, load it all up and we'll get back to you," Gemma said before ending the call and holding out the phone towards Rosamund.
Rosamund felt all the eyes in the room on her and turned her back, giving herself the comfort of perceived privacy as she dialed the memorized number for Leo DiAmmini's personal phone. She blinked back involuntary tears as she thought of how she'd answer Tig's question if she was forced to tell the truth of Leo's memorized phone number.
"Come help me with something Juice," Gemma murmured and left Rosamund to continue tapping out the phone number with Tig remaining a quiet, hulking vulture, his eyes boring a hole between her shoulder blades.
As Rosamund hovered the tip of her index finger over the round, green circle which would connect the call, questions continued to marinate in the front of Tig's brain. Hours away, the SAMCRO brothers and allied forces loaded up the dead in one van and drove the critically bleeding and injured towards medical care that took place in nondescript homes with weathered door mats and sagging, leaf-bloated, gutters, poorly maintained by surgeons and doctors that had lost their medical licenses to practice legally.
The safe house kitchen suddenly held the eerie, potent silence of a crypt, even the temperature dropped as Rosamund hesitated to tap the round button and connect the call to the real estate mogul and body collector.
"Rose?"
Tig watched her shoulders tense and heard Rosamund take a sharp inhale at the sound of her name on his lips.
In the silence that followed his single spoken word, Tig closed the distance between them until he was standing behind her, dropping a hand on the counter on either side of her hips. Rosamund let out the breath she was holding when Tig pressed his face to the warm curve of her neck and kissed the spot of skin where her neck and shoulder met.
"Ya can tell me anything baby," Tig hoarsely rasped as he let his hands come to rest on the curve of her hips and tugged her closer to the front of his body, leaving not enough room for a fruit fly to inhale and find a breath of life.
Rosamund shook her head, "it's not what you think," she murmured as she tried to squirm away, only succeeding in making him tighten his grip and wrap her up further in his arms.
"What am I thinking?" he asked on a low rasp as he rhythmically squeezed her.
"That it's some kind of escort …. thing," Rosamund bitterly scoffed as she pushed the phone aside, Leo's number still on the screen.
"Tell me who he is besides your uncle's cleaner."
"He was a contingency plan, a kind of get out of jail free card," Rosamund vaguely answered. "A last resort," she whispered.
"What does that mean?" Tig pressed, smoothing one large hand up the front of her shirt, teasing the edge of her bra.
"He 'bought' an evening of dinner and drinks on his private yacht," Rosamund began, pausing as Tig massaged her breast through the thin cotton cup of her bra, burying his face in the curve of her neck as she continued, stumbling over her words.
"It was before my uncle alighted on the idea of a fiancé and that he could keep my money tied up. Leo, Mr. DiAmmini had paid enough for no babysitter or curfew. Something changed his mind, he ended up crying, apologized to me, made all sorts of promises," she murmured as Tig tightened his grip on her breast until he made her gasp.
"How old were you?"
"We were in international waters," she quickly deflected.
"How old were you Rose?" Tig demanded as his dropped his hands to her hips and spun her around to face him.
"Fifteen," Rosamund thought but stayed mute as she shook her head. "He's not a good man but he's better than my uncle, it wouldn't be a life of suffering," she shamefully admitted.
"We'll come back to this," Tig stated firmly as he nodded towards the discarded phone with Leo's number typed out.
Rosamund shrugged noncommittally and reached for the phone. Tig made it clear he wasn't going to give her more than a breath of space as the call connected and began to ring.
"Can you give me a minute alone?" Rosamund asked as the phone continued to ring.
Tig wordlessly shook his head as he side-stepped to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of domestic beer. The call began its fourth ring as Tig popped off the metal cap and settled at one of the mismatched chairs around the dining room table.
She pressed her lips together when the phone was answered at the end of the crackly call.
"Hello?"
Rosamund's chest tightened when she heard Leo DiAmmini's voice, the questioning syllables at the phone number he didn't recognize on the caller ID.
"Hi, Mr. DiAmmini, it's, it's Rose," she murmured, unable to look away from Tig as he casually drank his beer, watching and listening.
"Rose, my Rose, are you okay?"
Tig clenched his teeth until his jaw popped as he listened to the mortician and realtor's voice come through the phone.
"I'm fine, I need to ask you a favor."
"Anything," Leo said quickly.
"My uncle can't know I called you though."
"What kind of trouble are you in Rose? Where are you?" Leo demanded.
"None of that matters right now, I need you to take care of a little mess."
Leo DiAmmini was quiet a long time, knowing that the word 'mess' meant bodies.
"How big of a 'mess'?
"At least a dozen."
Leo fell quiet again as Tig drained the beer and went for another, his desire to know exactly how Rosamund knew the undertaker only grew in unanswered strength. He set the beer aside and looked for something stronger, never taking his eyes off her.
Rosamund exhaled in ragged relief as Leo eventually told her an address to drop off her 'mess'.
"Thank you Mr. DiAmmini."
"Rose?" Leo nearly shouted before she could end the call and continued when he heard her increased breathing rate. "Will you be hand-delivering the 'mess'?"
Rosamund stood up straighter as Tig froze at Leo's question, knowing how much more of the tangible that Leo could provide for her, money, practically anything she'd request.
"No, I'm not coming back to Charming or anywhere even close," she murmured as she held Tig's unblinking gaze.
Rosamund ended the call and set the phone aside as Tig began to close the short distance between them. "Where would ya like to go doll?"
Tig closed his arms around her. "Anywhere you want," he whispered as he crushed her against the front of his body and pressed his lips to the crown of her head.
"I don't know, it's too much to even think about right now," Rosamund admitted on a murmur, her voice distorted with her face pressed against Tig's chest.
Rosamund froze as Tig's question was delivered on a hot exhale against her scalp. "How do ya know that guy?"
"It's a long, boring story, I'm tired," she deflected.
"We have plenty of time baby."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"That's not gonna work for this," Tig growled as he kept his embrace unbreakable.
"Why does it matter?"
Tig smoothed his hands urgently up and down Rosamund's back, dropping to one knee which protested with an arthritic twinge as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed the side of his face against her lower belly, momentarily comforted by her thudding abdominal aortic pulse against his unshaven cheek.
"Tell me," he rasp. "Please," Tig added in a vulnerable plea.
Rosamund dropped her hands to the caps of his shoulders and smoothed her palms in slow circles as she heavily exhaled and recalled being introduced to Leo DiAmmini when she turned fifteen. Her uncle hadn't considered her ever not being under his thumb and possibly losing access to her money at that point. Hale had gotten an obscene stack of cash and his hand indelibly stamped for cremating bodies for loaning out Rosamund for a long weekend away in Leo's private yacht, no one else aboard and no rules except she needed to be brought back alive and not irreparably harmed.
Leo DiAmmini was going to the first of many lucrative payouts and favors for Hale as he planned on renting out Rosamund to his circle of rich, deviant, bipedal reptiles that masqueraded as professional, family men with unblemished white collars by day.
Tig remained quiet as Rosamund painfully described the yacht, amenities, and the dinner on the way to international waters. How she had drank enough vodka to accept being fucked by Leo, a fish or even deep throating an octopus tentacle.
Tig looked up the line of Rosamund's body when she fell into silence.
"Hey, ya don't have to say anything else," he hoarsely rasped as he smoothed his hands up and down the outside of her thighs, pausing to squeeze her hips. "It's okay baby."
Rosamund blinked rapidly, trying to keep her stinging eyes from pushing out unshed tears as she lifted her left hand to trace along the strong line of his jaw before drawing around his lips.
"Thank you," she murmured, forever thankful for the fright from the shrill doorbell that rang in rapid succession.
Rosamund covered an embarrassed smile as Tig closed his large hand around her slim wrist and kept her fingertips pressed against his lips as he rose to his feet. He dropped his eyes from hers just long enough to turn the ring around her finger until the diamonds were visible.
"Tell me you want this," Tig whispered raggedly as he pressed his lips against the cool, bejeweled band.
"I do, I want this," Rosamund heard herself saying before truly realizing she was getting to make a decision on her own.
A grumble of deep satisfaction moved through Tig's chest as he picked her up and arranged her in his arms as though she was already his bride and ready to cross the threshold. "Let's go get married," he growled and forced an involuntary, girlish squeal from Rosamund as he carried her to the front room of the criminal safe house.