I pulled into the driveway, watching as Kate’s already pale face seemed to lose more color at the sight of Nate’s black BMW idling beside the house.
“Why won’t you tell me what really happened the night you left him?”
As if I needed proof that I was on the right track, her breathing became little more than shallow pants, a clear sign that she was spiraling. She rubbed her palms against her black slacks and lifted her eyes to meet mine. “Let it go. Please.”
I put the truck in park and touched her shoulder. “Kate—”
Her body immediately twisted away from mine. She backed toward the door, one hand already on the handle while the other came up in defense. “Don’t touch me!”
“No.” The word was an exhale, a plea. I saw Angel holding a washcloth to my battered face; I felt Jamie’s lips on mine, his arms caging me in, making it impossible to draw a breath.
Wetness hit my cheeks when I shook my head, the feel of the tears almost foreign.
I’d failed her.
“Mama, you’re crying,” she whispered as if she knew that until now, only her father had held the power to break through the veil of numbness that surrounded my heart.
As a mother, how was I supposed to tell my daughter that I knew the truth without her saying a word? Even with all that I’d done to keep them safe, someone had hurt my baby.
Nate rapped at the window, and Kate jumped in fright. When she saw who it was, her shoulders visibly relaxed, and relief flooded her face.
Someone had taken my little girl and left her a skittish, frightened mess. But, without a shadow of a doubt, I knew that someone wasn’t her husband.
Chapter Sixteen
Kate
Nate knocked on the window again, the smile on his face wavering slightly when I held up a finger. “Just give me a minute.”
I inhaled deeply, and the panic began to subside, taking with it the weight on my chest and the feeling that everything was lost.
He nodded and stepped back, tucking his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. The movement left my heart racing, and I realized that instead of spending the entire ride trying to work out what to say, I should’ve worked on curbing my body’s reaction to the sight of him.
When I shamelessly continued to stare, his dark eyebrows drew together, and he licked along his lower lip as if trying to figure me out.
My cheeks heated and his eyes, the same color as the tequila my mother and I had spent half the night drinking, suddenly widened with cautious hope.
My mother.
I reluctantly tore my gaze away from the man I loved and focused on the broken woman across from me. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her cry.
It had to have been after she helped me bail Dakota out of jail, or when she found out I got married in Vegas. Either way, it was a rare enough occurrence to have caught my attention.
Maybe she’d learned to keep a tight rein over her emotions after years of living with a biker.
Notoriously stoic even with the world burning around her.
She pasted a smile onto her face when I reached for her hand. “I’m f-f-fine.” With that, she hiccuped loudly and promptly dissolved into tears again.
“Mama, you’ve been so brave,” I said, adopting my counselor’s tone. “And today has been exceptionally heavy. You lost your father—”
My voice wavered when it dawned on me that I’d never hear Pops call me Katydid again, or watch as he made goofy faces from over the top of his newspaper when Nan’s back was turned because he thought she was being unreasonable.
My grief was overshadowed with knowing that he’d never have to answer for taking us away from our mother or the stolen money meant for mine and Dakota’s futures.
I cleared my throat. “You also confronted Bear—”
“Mary Katherine, I am well aware of what today has been,” she stated while dabbing at her eyes. “Now, if you’re finished with your counseling session, I’d like to give you some advice.”
I nodded and slumped back in my seat, waiting for the inevitable lecture. “If this is about Nate…” I turned to see if he was still watching, but he was deep in conversation with Zane. “I’m going to—”
“It is… and it isn’t.” She blew out a breath. “Do you remember last night when I told you that if I’d only told your father the truth how everything could’ve been so different?”
“Yeah… and I just said that I’m going—”
“You don’t want to talk about it with me, and I get that,” my mother interjected. “But please, for the love of all the saints, tell him what happened to you. Just… just don’t shut him out is all I’m trying to say.”
“What happened to me?” I parroted, even though I knew exactly what she was talking about. My face grew warm, and I reached for my seatbelt. “I just—excuse me.”
“Kate—”
I took a deep breath and opened the door, deciding how to best approach my husband. Despite my mother’s advice, there was no way I was ever talking about what happened that night. I was going to bury it and pretend like it never happened.
We had more important things to worry about.
“Hey.” I stroked Nate’s arm. “You’re really here.”
“Is it true?” He turned to face me. “You didn’t text me because you wanted to reconcile, you brought me out here for questioning?”
“I—” I swallowed. “Well, maybe partly—”
The hope I’d seen in his eyes extinguished, along with any chance of us working things out. “Just when I start to think that there’s nothing else left for you to do to rip my heart out, you go and surprise me.”
He turned and held his palms up to Mike, his jaw settling into a hard line as he asked, “Do you need to pat me down or am I okay to be interrogated like this?”
“I already told you this wasn’t anything official. We’re just trying to establish a timeline for the night Grey was shot.” Mike shot me a look of apology. “I thought you told him.”
Nate laughed bitterly. “That this was nothing more than a fucking ambush? No, she kept that to herself. Let’s get this over with. I have things to do.”
I stood rooted to a patch of yellowed grass as he stormed up the steps and into the house. Where I expected tears, there was nothing but numbness.
My mother and Dakota approached me cautiously, but I waved them off. “I’m fine.”
Dakota reached over to squeeze my arm. “This is all a disaster. I’m sorry, Kate. If I would’ve just told you—”
“Don’t do that,” I said with a shake of my head. “Seriously, it’s fine. We’ll see what he knows, and then he can go back to his regular life.”
“Tell him, Kate,” my mother demanded, her eyes filling with tears again. “Mikey can wait. If he knows—”
“If he knows… what, Mama?” I snapped. “What will that change? Absolutely nothing.”
Mike watched the entire exchange from the porch with a pinched expression and crossed arms. “If we could just—Kate, I’m really sorry, but we need to save this shit for later—”
“Don’t worry, Detective,” I bit out. “I won’t hold up your investigation. Just one thing, though.” I stopped in the doorway and looked up at him with a smirk. “You’re going to be dealing with so much more of ‘this shit’ with two girls on the way. Good luck.”
Dakota immediately began asking my mother for answers from the porch, but I continued on into the house, moving toward the sound of voices coming from the kitchen.
Nate had his back to the doorway but turned when he heard me come in. His jaw tightened, and he shook his head before looking away again.
I reached out a shaking hand to steady myself against the cabinets when I realized the real reason I was afraid to tell him about what happened. Deep down, I knew that when the truth came out, Nate wouldn’t hesitate to leave me.
Just like my father had.
“Hey,” Dakota tried to capture everyone’s at
tention when she entered the kitchen. When no one acknowledged her, she let out an unholy screech that made my skin crawl. “I said hey!”
Mike dug a finger into his ear from behind her. “Jesus Christ, Dakota! What the fuck was that?”
She shrugged. “A whistle. Well, I can’t actually whistle, so I just make the sound.”
Zane shook his head and gestured for her to get to the point. “But, that’s not important right now. Today has been a little hard for our team.”
Today had proven that none of us knew what the hell we were doing. We weren’t a team. We were nothing more than a group of people, all convinced that our way was better than the next guy’s.
“I’ll take it from here.” Mike patted her awkwardly on the back before moving into the center of the kitchen. “Everyone in this room is family, but we’re not acting like a family. Why have the Sons been successful?”
“Because they have better weapons?” Dakota guessed.
I felt Nate’s eyes on me and slightly tilted my head to look up at him. The expression on his face was hard to read as he lowered his head to mine. My heart beat wildly, sending the blood from my extremities down to the more lucrative organs between my thighs.
“Is this why you wanted me to come out here?”
I exhaled shakily as his warm breath hit my ear, fighting the urge to throw myself into his arms and admit to everything.
“To witness your kumbaya shit?”
The breath left my lungs in a heavy sigh, and I took a step back.
“Nate,” Mike called out. “If you could pay a little bit of attention, this does concern you. Okay, sweetie?”
“How does any of this concern me? I told you that I’d give you the details of the night I was on call, but I don’t need to be involved in whatever team-building—”
“The Sons are successful because they work as a unit!” I snapped over him. “No one goes off on their own. It’s why it never seemed to matter how many you arrested, there were plenty more to take their place. They are completely committed to the cause.”
“Like Hydra,” Dakota whispered to no one.
I took a deep breath for courage and turned back to Nate. “As much as you don’t want to believe it, this does concern you. They’re going after the people I love. First, it was my father and then my grandparents. Tomorrow, it might be you.”
“Katy—”
My eyes burned with the need to cry. “Mike, you were right. We either work as a team or not at all. So, tell us what we need to do.”
He picked up a pen from the island and clicked it several times with a slow nod. “Bear—he mentioned something about the guy in the video maybe being a cop. Do you still have it?”
“Right here.” I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, carefully avoiding looking at Nate. I kept my eyes down, knowing that if I looked up, the tears clogging my throat would spill over onto my cheeks. “It was sent to me that... um, night. They wanted me to believe that you helped my father get out of the hospital without being seen.”
Nate nodded. “So, you left.”
Mike plucked it from my fingers before snorting. “Fucking hell! Masterson, this prick look familiar to you?”
“Son of a bitch,” Zane cursed. “Well, now we know how they were able to take your fucking job from you. Corruption goes all the way to the top. “
“Let me see,” Nate said before walking over to Mike. “That’s the guy who warned me to stay out of it. I thought he was with the club—”
“Nope,” Mike said, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “That’d be Sergeant Rogers, the bastard who cost me my job. Change of plans, kids. I think it might be time for a little surveillance work.”
Hadn’t we had enough excitement for one day?
Was I the only one who wanted to sleep off the remnants of last night?
“Lauren, you’re with me. We’ll stake out Sergeant Rogers’ house tonight, see if he leads us anywhere. We know the department had multiple moles, so maybe he’ll give up a few or at least get us on the right track.”
Zane pushed off the counter with a nod. “Dakota and I can take Bear. He says his hands are clean, but there’s only one way to know for sure if he’s talking to anyone outside the club.”
Mike nodded. “Good. We know that there are weak links within both of those. Who else do we have? Wait, where the fuck is Goblin?”
I moved until my back was against the wall, praying that I somehow blended in enough to not be called on. It was the same thing I’d done to get out of most team sports in high school.
“Um,” Dakota began, gnawing at the corner of her lip. “Okay, so no more secrets, right? You said that. Okay, I guess now is a good time to mention that I may have done something to upset Little Ricky, but I was only doing it in the interest of information. Information is the key to a long—”
“Dakota ran a paternity test on Little Ricky and Bear,” Zane interrupted with a shake of his head. “Then, she delivered the results to Molly like she was Maury fucking Povitch.”
“You what?” Mama exclaimed. “Why would you do that? Little Ricky’s father—”
“Is Bear,” Dakota finished for her. “The test proved it. In my defense, I thought that Bear was the traitor and I wanted to ensure that my best friend didn’t share the same blood, but I messed up, and now Little Ricky won’t talk to me.”
Mike massaged his temple with a heavy sigh. “Okay, that is more than I needed to know. Celia, we’re going to need to pair you with someone else—”
“Jimmy,” Lauren offered. “We don’t have a buddy for him.”
“That was intentional,” Mike said through his teeth. When Lauren continued staring him down, he growled, “Fine. Jimmy and Celia can work together.”
“Doing what exactly?” My mother asked, her hand already moving up onto her hip.
“Celia, pumpkin, you went to the storage facility on your own. Did you ever stop to think what would’ve happened if the Sons were there?”
“I had Wolverine and Angel!”
“Oh, good,” Mike roared. “The Decrepit Duo totally could’ve handled it. Jesus, it’s obvious you’ve had quite enough adventure for one day, so you and Jimmy will be doing research. Deep web searches… anything and everything that might relate back to the Sons. I want to know where they are, and I want to know what they’re planning next. We’ll do a sweep of the storage facility tomorrow and search for anything that might’ve been left behind.”
It was clear that my mother didn’t respond well to being told what to do, but instead of arguing, she let the slamming screen door answer for her as she stormed outside.
“Who am I forgetting?” Mike scanned the room. “Nate!”
“Oh, no,” my husband held up a hand. “I’m not getting roped into this—”
Mike nodded. “I get it. You’re off the hook. Kate, looks like you’ll be reviewing hospital surveillance tapes with Jeremy. He’s got everything from the night Grey was shot.”
Jeremy.
At the mention of his name, stillness filled the kitchen. The blood roared in my ears and pulsed in my neck. Last night’s tequila reared its head within my abdomen, and the bile rose in my throat.
The airways in my lungs narrowed, forcing short agonized wheezes from my chest and I risked a glance toward the screen door, wondering if I’d be able to make it to my car without being caught.
“Jeremy?” Nate growled, the muscles rippling along his jaw. “I don’t want him anywhere near Kate.”
I felt myself falling and stumbled into his side without a second thought, clinging to him like a small child would a parent on the first day of school. His body stiffened in response before he allowed one of his arms to rest around my shoulders.
“Then, I guess you’ll be going after all,” Mike said with a grin.
Nate’s arm tightened around my body before he ominously stated, “Alright. Let’s get to work… buddy.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dakota
�
��I think I might need to pee.” I bounced my knees up and down with a slight wince.
Zane handed me an empty soda bottle, keeping his eyes on the dark building in front of us. “Just climb in the backseat if you need to.”
“Um, Big Guy? I can’t pee in this. It’s barbaric. Listen, I saw a 7-Eleven a few blocks back. You stay here, and I’ll just go take care of business.”
“You don’t really have to pee, do you? You just want snacks.”
I pushed my lips out into a pout and nodded. “I’m hungry.”
“Babe,” he stated calmly. “Told you to pack a cooler before we left. Surveillance takes time.”
We’d been tasked with tracking Bear. Initially, it seemed more exciting than reviewing hospital security cameras or trying to identify the man seen on the video sent to Kate, but now I wasn’t so sure.
We’d been sitting in here for an hour, and not one single thing had happened. The only thing that had left the body shop was a bat, and as he wasn’t a criminal, Zane didn’t care to hear about it.
I bet the others were having more fun.
They probably had snacks too.
I traced my finger around the window control button on the armrest. “What if he’s not even here? What if we’re just sitting here for no reason and he’s at home watching sports and laughing at how stupid we are?”
“He’s here. My source saw him arrive about a half-hour before we got here. We’ll wait him out and see where he leads.” Zane drummed his fingers lightly against the thigh of his jeans, perfectly content doing nothing.
I pulled my phone out to text Little Ricky again, only for Zane to pry it from my fingers with his giant bear paw of a hand. “No phones. The light could draw unwanted attention. We want this to look like any other vehicle parked along the street.”
With a grumble, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. I wondered what Little Ricky was doing right now. I’d thought that he would’ve been happy to know that Bear was his real dad, but both he and Molly had seemed upset by the news.
Savior: Silent Phoenix MC Series: Book Five Page 20