by Nikki Wild
And call me a fuddy-duddy, but we didn't exactly need five pounds of coke. We had enough of our own product to sell, did more than alright for ourselves as a club. Better to leave the Bratva be. But once he did it, he couldn't undo it. And we stood by him, his decision. Whatever it cost us, we weren't going to offer Army up as a sacrificial lamb to get those Russians off our back.
We already sold half their shit, anyway. And were happily spending the money on spreading our influence out of New England. Train had his designs on taking us from big to huge, and I could get behind that. All the better for me to provide for my daughter. Get enough people around to do our dirty work, get ourselves out of the line of fire, pad our pocketbooks...yeah, I liked all that.
I stopped for coffee about an hour before my patrol ended, and checked my phone. Well, damn. Seeing that she'd texted me gave me a reason to smile. Guess I wasn't the only one having trouble forgetting.
I really need to talk to you, the text read. Seriously. Important.
And she couldn't talk over the phone? Yeah, right. Lucy wanted to "talk", and she wanted to do it between the sheets. Alright, alright. Another thing I could get behind. Maybe we could make this work after all. No one ever had to know...
I’m free in an hour, I sent back. Same place?
Waiting for her to respond, I sipped my coffee and watched the street. Vernon was a big city, but it was a quiet one, too. It sprawled so much that the population was spread out and thinned. It was a good place to do business, close to Boston and NYC both, but hell of a lot quieter. My phone buzzed.
Okay, was all it said. No cute little winky face or anything. Not even a hint of what this "talk" was gonna be about. For a split second, I experienced the kind of panic I'd felt once before: I got another one pregnant!
But no. That didn't make any kind of sense. The timing was all fucked up. And frankly, if I'd gotten Lucy pregnant...well, I hadn't been happy to hear about Danielle. But once that immediate panic dissipated, before I realized I had it totally wrong, the idea of knocking Lucy up wasn't so bad. Give Amy a brother or sister to play with, a foolproof excuse to keep Lucy around, see her all swollen up with my kid...shit, that was hot.
Dammit, woman, I thought, pocketing my phone and tossing my empty coffee cup into the trash. She had me all twisted up. But it was alright. In an hour, I'd set us both straight. Straight, hard, and throbbing; we could talk as long as she wanted.
Chapter 14
Lucya
I did it all exactly the same as the last time. Same hotel, paid in cash. I texted him the room number and waited.
I was nervous.
Mostly, because I had no idea how he'd take what I had to say. Poorly, obviously, but how poorly? I knew Sinner well enough to know he wouldn't take kindly to anyone touching his daughter the wrong way, but would he immediately go to his ex's house and put a bullet in her head? Knowing what I knew about the Rogue Tide and their loose morals and hot tempers, I wouldn't put it past him.
That wouldn't be very good. It would solve the immediate problem of Amy living in a potentially abusive household, but what about after? If Sinner went to jail? And she was sent into the system? Or just the harrowing experience of losing her mother in the most violent and permanent of ways?
Plus, I wasn't even completely positive that what I thought was true!
But I was nervous about something else, too. And my nervousness about that added guilt to the pile of shitty emotions in my heart. Because what kind of person was I, even entertaining the idea of my non-relationship with Sinner, when his daughter was suffering? How could I waste any brain or heart power on my own suffering - which was far, far less innocent.
So what if just sitting in that hotel room, which looked just like the hotel room, made my breath shallow? All hotels room look the same. Bed, table, chairs. I was being stupid.
So what if my heart skipped a few hundred beats when I thought of seeing Sinner again? I was here for his daughter, dammit. That was all.
The doorknob turned, and I drew a quick breath, using it as a life preserver in case I wound up drowning in the sight of him.
"You know, I'd have something snarky to say about being unable to stay away," he was saying as he entered. "But I wanna be honest with you..."
He caught sight of my face, and the smirk he'd been wearing disappeared. Did he read me that easily? Impressive; I've been told I'm hard to read. It's the Dostoevsky in me. Passion hidden under cool currents.
"This isn't a booty call kind of 'talk', is it?" he said.
"No, Sinner," I murmured. "It's not."
Dammit. Just as I'd feared, seeing him had set off this time bomb in my chest. I felt like I was on a Gravitron; pulled by invisible forces towards him.
"Shit," he said, dropping his key to the table with a hollow clink. He didn't join me on the bed, but slammed himself down into a chair that was just slightly too small for him. "Who do I have to go after?"
"What?" I asked, taken aback.
"Someone hurt you? For being with me? That uncle of yours? Who's getting a one-way ticket to the hospital?"
I could almost have laughed. He thought I was in danger. That he needed to protect me, or avenge me. It was cute. And kind of reassuring; if I had gotten into trouble, he wasn't just going to play the penetrate-and-evacuate game. Acting like any consequences of our tryst were mine alone. But I just shook my head. This wasn't a laughing matter.
"Not me," I said, and my voice halted. This was it. If I said anything now, there was no turning back. "Sinner, will you make me a promise?"
"No," he said. "Not before you tell me what it is you want me to promise."
Touche.
"I just need you to not go crazy when I say this," I said slowly. "I need you to stay in this room with me, at least for a while. I need you to not do anything rash and...stupid."
His eyes flashed.
"Is this about the club? Are you telling me your family's coming after us?"
"No," I shook my head, exasperated. "Well, I mean, yeah, they are, but I don't know anything about it. But please just stop guessing and promise me?"
"Babe," he shook his head, leaning back. "I can't do that. You know me. I'm not making any promises I'm not certain I'll be able to keep. Won't have that kind of weight on my conscience."
Woah. Did I know him? He thought I did. And I guess I thought I did, too. Well enough to understand this twisted moral compass of his. Steal, sell drugs, shoot at will - okay. Make a promise you can't keep - not okay.
I sighed.
"Well, you can promise to try," I said. He studied me, increasing agitation showing in his body language. In the span of thirty seconds, he crossed and re-crossed his legs five times, scratched his beard then his neck then his beard then his neck. Tapped his finger against the lacquered table, long enough for me to catch the beat.
"Fine," he said. "I promise to try. Your turn."
"It's not about me or the club," I said. "It's about Amy."
Now, all that tapping and itching and leg-crossing stopped. He froze. Went full-on statue. I hesitated, which was the wrong move.
"Tell me," he growled. "Right fucking now, Lucy."
Woah. I definitely feared for Danielle's life. He looked ready to kill me. I realized that trying to contain himself was a promise he was already breaking. But there was no going back now. There was never any going back, really. So I told him. As directly and emotionlessly as I could. Laying the facts out like a map of a battlefield. Each fact was a troop, and they were closing in on the center, ready to start firing.
And Danielle was the only soldier on the enemy line.
Sinner's fingernails dug into the wooden arms of the chair. I shit you not, when he finally pulled his hands away, there were deep scars in the wood. His fingernails must have been a mess. I focused on that detail because every other detail was too disturbing. The stillness of him, in contrast to the fiery, hellish activity in his eyes. His face didn't move, but his eyes - burnished, melting silver. The
y were all heat.
"How. Sure. Are. You."
He asked the question with the kind of restraint usually reserved for talking to a child who'd done something very, very bad. All the rage in the world simmering right under the words.
"Not entirely," I said quickly. "It's just...I thought if you already had your suspicions, this might..."
I shrugged, knowing he got the picture. He wasn't stupid, he was just enraged. Slowly, his face came back to life. First, his jaw, which clenched and unclenched in a painful rhythm. Then his nostrils started flaring.
"I didn't. Suspect. Anything."
"Well," I said quietly. "Did you know about all the...incidents? About her trips to the hospital?"
"Only the broken bones," he said. "Normal. Normal kid shit. That's what she said."
"Well, it is," I said quickly. "Normal, I mean. But not..."
"I didn't get it," he interrupted me. "But what do I know? I see her four days a month. Four fucking days a month. Do you think I'm happy about that? I'm not. I've never been. But I thought she was safer. Safer with Danielle! I thought she was..."
He stood up. I watched him lean over, grab the other chair, pick it up, and fling it against the far wall - all of that, without straining a single muscle. I was too shocked to be scared. It was kind of beautiful, actually. Like watching a rage ballet.
"Safe," he said, not panting or even raising his voice. Crash went the ashtray. "I didn't understand how my little girl could break her fucking arm. She doesn't play sports. She doesn't even climb trees."
"Sinner," I said softly, worried that I might be the next focus of his anger. But my voice called his eyes down to mine, and I saw something happen in him. He sat down. Leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He gave one huge, awful shudder.
"I'm going to kill her," he said into his palms. "I'm going to wring her neck."
"Please don't," I said, braving the expanse between us. I knew it could break me, that he could break me, but I bent to my knees before him, grabbing his hands away. The touch of those hands in mine, so big and rough and battle-scarred, was like coming home. I shook, despite myself. "You know you can't do that, right? You know you can't just go and..."
"I can't? I can't protect my daughter?" His eyes flashed at me, but I stared him down. I wasn't afraid of him. I should have been, but I wasn't.
"You can protect her," I said. "But not like that. What are you going to do, baby? You're going to kill Danielle and go to prison, and leave Amy on her own? You're going to pull her mother out of the house, screaming bloody murder, and scar her for life?"
He didn't want to listen, I could tell, but he did.
"Then what. Do. I. Do."
"I don't know," I said, telling him the absolute truth. There was no answer I could give him. All I did was bring the problem; the solution would be a far more elusive truth.
Chapter 15
Sinner
I let her kneel in front of me, holding my hands in hers, for a few minutes. I was looking into her eyes, but I have to admit, I wasn't really looking at her at all. In my mind, all I saw was Amy. My daughter. All I saw was my own blindness. My own stupidity.
Fell out of a tree, my ass.
I thought it was weird when Danielle told me. And I thought it was weird how Amy didn't want to tell me. The way her little lips pouted and her eyes focused on something just over my shoulder. But what the hell, I wasn't always there, who was I to...
Her father, the beast in me answer. You're her fucking father. You're supposed to protect her. No matter what.
Well, I'd fucked it up. So far, I'd ignored all those signs, and failed so miserably that the explosion of realization would cinder and smolder for years.
But now I knew. Now I knew.
"I'm going there," I said. Grunted, really. Lucy drew in a breath and released my hands, sitting back.
"What are you going to do?" She was afraid for me. And she had every right to be. Because sitting in that hotel room with her, I thought I could control myself. I could control myself. Because she was there, looking at me with those blue eyes, trusting me not to hurt her, not to hurt anyone.
But when it was just me, on my bike, in the darkness, outside Danielle's house? When I was walking up to the front door, alone? When I was looking at her - that lying, drunk-ass, worthless piece of shit my daughter called Mommy?
I wouldn't bet money on myself to keep my cool.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Lucy asked, as though reading my mind. Like she knew exactly what she was doing for me, in that hotel room, holding me together with just her eyes.
"No," I grit out. "Too dangerous. I've only got my bike, if she saw you...bitch is crazy."
"Right now, so are you," she said softly. The kind of truth that would get any other woman kicked out on her ass.
"I'm going alone," I said, and stood up. Grabbed the key I'd dropped on the table. "But I'm coming back. With my daughter, if I..."
If what? What could possibly keep me from coming back with Amy's little arms wrapped around my neck?
"With my daughter," I said flatly. Lucy stood up, too, though she still had to crane her neck to look up at me. She couldn't stop me, and she knew it, so she didn't try.
"Please don't hurt her," she said. Did she mean Danielle, or Amy? Could I hurt Danielle without hurting Amy? Probably not. "Do it right, Sinner."
Dammit, I'd try, but I wasn't promising a goddamn thing.
"Will you stay?" I blurted out, not even thinking about the question. And she answered it so fast, she couldn't have thought too much about it either. She nodded her head, hard. I couldn't help myself. Everything in me was all tied up and tangled. I grabbed Lucy's face and pulled it up to meet mine. Kissed her hard, fast, just a second of peace in my heart. I'd carry that peace with me as long as I could. She gasped when I let her go, like I'd sucked all the air from her lungs. Maybe I had.
"I'll be here," she said, touching the center of my chest with one hand. "Don't get arrested. Don't do something you'll regret."
I grabbed her hand away, kissed the palm and turned around. I couldn't wait another fucking second. As soon as that door slammed shut behind me, I felt the cold wind, an empty pain on my skin. It felt like nothing.
Chapter 16
Sinner
I managed to knock on the door without busting it down. Alright, bang on the door. But I thought, at least, it was a good show of sanity.
Until the silence on the other side got longer, that is.
"Danielle, you motherfucking pig, get your..."
My voice cracked the silent night open, and the door swung wide in front of me. Soft light flooded the stoop. A face I didn't recognize stared back at me. A thin guy, glasses, beard.
"Hey, dude, you can't come here and..."
I grabbed his shirt and pulled. Let him freeze to death out here. See if I gave a shit. Whoever he was, he didn't belong anywhere within a mile of my daughter. He screamed as he stumbled down the stoop and I walked steadily through the door, slamming it shut behind me and locking it. His screams continued, his open palms slapping the door and the handle jiggling.
"What in the living hell do you think you're doing?"
There she was. My girl. My lady. My baby mama. My fists clenched, my heart going black and hollow. Looking all thin, her eyes little pools of disease, her mouth slowly gaining wrinkles. She sucked down a cigarette, standing in the kitchen doorway. She was smoking in the same house my daughter slept every night.
I was going to kill her. I was going to bash her little head against the wall until there was a red Rorschach test left behind.
"Where is she?" I grunted. "Where's Amy?"
"Get out, Sinner," Danielle sighed, pointing to the door. "I don't know if you're drunk or what, but that was my boyf..."
I rushed her, and she had the good sense to at least stumble backwards. The only thing that stopped me from grabbing her shirt and throwing her outside was what I saw over her shoulder.
"Daddy?"
>
Amy had grape jelly on her lip and a half-eaten sandwich in her hand. Her other hand wasn't holding anything, because that arm was in a sling. She looked up at me through those impossibly big eyes, her curly hair frizzed like a halo around her head. I pushed Danielle to the side and knelt in front of my daughter, holding her gently by the waist, taking care not to touch her injured arm.
"Daddy?" She said again, lip quivering now, her eyes darting from me to Danielle and back. She was fucking terrified, it was my fault, and I was in hell.
"Don't be scared, baby," I said. "Everything is okay."
"Sinner, if you don't get out of here, I'm calling the cops," Danielle spat. I ignored her, and touched Amy's cheek, turning her head so that her eyes met mine. She held the sandwich in front of her stomach like a shield. Instinctively, I wiped the smudge of jelly from her lip.
"Baby, I need you to tell me something," I said. "And it's really important that you tell the truth. You know what the truth means, right?"
Amy nodded. My smart little girl.
"Don't look at your mother," I instructed. "Just look at me. What happened to your shoulder?"
Instantly, tears began to well in her eyes. All I saw was red. But I needed to hear it. Not just see her tears - I needed to hear her say it.
"I..I..."
She looked at Danielle again, over my shoulder.
"Sinner, I swear to Christ, if you don't..."
"Amy," I said, ignoring Danielle again, nudging Amy's chin again so she met my eyes once more. "Please. Tell Daddy what happened."
"I...I...I didn't mean to!" Amy burst out into sobs. The sandwich fell in a messy pile at her feet. She launched herself forward, into my arms. Her speech, usually eloquent, descended into childish lisping "I just wan'ed to be pwetty! Pwetty like Mommy!"
"What happened, baby?" I murmured into her hair.
"Amy, don't you dare..."