Right To My Wrong (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 8)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I think they’re in love with each other,” the cop continued.

  “How did you realize they were in love?” I asked.

  “They’re partners. She calls…texts…invites him out. He was sacrificing time with me on his days off to spend time with her…even though he’d just had a whole day with her and not with me,” she continued.

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  That did sound bad.

  “Looks like he still likes you,” I said finally, not sure what she was looking for here.

  “Nothing you can say. Thank you for listening to me,” she said.

  Her radio squawked, and she moved to the side to speak into it privately.

  “It’s trash like you who ruined this street,” a woman at my side sneered.

  I looked over at the woman who’d just spewed that venom, and couldn’t help the tear that slipped out of the corner of my eye.

  “What did I do to deserve your hostility?” I asked woodenly.

  She sneered, her son in her arms as he slept away, blissfully unaware.

  “You brought this trash to our neighborhood…you know it was because of you,” she pointed at me.

  The movement woke the child in her arms enough that he switched sides of his face of which he was laying on, and it was then I saw the mark on his neck.

  A perfect heart shaped birth mark that was plain as day, even under the harsh glow of emergency lights that lit up the night.

  I’d seen that birthmark on the news earlier.

  In fact, I remembered thinking to myself how good it was that he had such an identifying mark because if anyone did spot the child, he’d be recognized almost immediately.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  I vaguely remembered the news anchor saying that she was volatile, and might have weapons.

  Yet, I didn’t want to leave her here with the kid.

  What if she ran off?

  So what did I do?

  Did what I did best…piss off my neighbors.

  “Why do you care? Just go back inside your house and close the door. No harm no foul,” I sniped.

  “I can’t go back inside my house, the firefighters made us evacuate due to your piece of shit house being on fire,” she hissed.

  The child blinked sleepily at me, and it was then I saw that the child was exhausted.

  He had dark circles underneath his eyes, and they were red rimmed from what looked to be hours of crying.

  Everybody knew what that looked like…because most people did it at least once in their life.

  The kind of crying where you can’t stop, because you see no way out.

  “Are you the bitch who’s been calling the cops on me because of my car being in the road?” I asked her.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “No, but had I, you would’ve deserved it. We don’t need your kind of trash in this neighborhood. This is a family neighborhood, not a murdering one,” she snapped. “It’s probably a good thing that your house is gone. Saves me the trouble.”

  The last comment was said in such low tones, that I wasn’t sure it was meant to be heard.

  But I had.

  And so had Sterling who’d come up behind her.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and I shook my head at him.

  The woman kept her eyes averted from me, completely dismissing me, and I was never more thankful.

  Mostly because I started to do some weird sign language at Sterling, who had no freakin’ idea what I was talking about.

  His brow furrowed, and when I widened my eyes and flared them at the woman, he looked in the direction of her, then turned back to me with a ‘what the fuck?’ face.

  I sighed.

  Men were so freakin’ stupid!

  How hard was it to understand a cutting throat signal and a point at the woman?

  I mean, wouldn’t you at least assume she was some sort of killer…at the scene of a freakin’ fire?

  Sure, she may not be the actual one who set the house on fire, but in a pinch, I’d work with it.

  Because the execution of it all would still be the same.

  The woman would get taken into custody, and that child would be taken away from her.

  End goals, people! End goals!

  I finally resorted to walking over to him, getting up on tiptoes, and whispering in his ear.

  “Saw the news earlier. This woman kidnapped that child in her arms,” I said as softly as I could.

  He squeezed my ass to let me know he understood, and turned, catching the eye of Trance who was now standing in the circle he’d been in earlier.

  Then like freakin’ magic, he did a series of hand signals that looked nothing like mine, and Trance nodded in understanding, breaking off from the group with his K-9 unit, Kosher, and started our way.

  He caught two other officers on the way, again with the hand signals, and surrounded the woman before she could even protest.

  My mouth dropped open as they had the child out of her arms, and cuffs on her hands in less than thirty seconds.

  “Holy cow,” I whispered in awe. “You’re hand signals are way better.”

  “That’s because I was using hand signals and not made up shit that doesn’t do anyone any good,” Sterling muttered.

  Okay, he was still pissy.

  Duly noted.

  “I’m going to get the officer,” he gestured to the woman officer I’d been speaking with earlier. “To take you to a hotel. If I can find time, I’ll stop by…but this may take all night.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  What else was there to say?

  Nothing he needed to hear right then.

  I knew he was worried about me…about my situation.

  And I didn’t want to be that woman that threw a hissy fit because she wanted a freakin’ hug from her boyfriend. One that wasn’t out of anger because she’d gone into a burning building for something that didn’t matter more than her life.

  Something I’d done…and probably shouldn’t have.

  Would I do it again?

  Yes.

  But I hated that he was there to witness it.

  “Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t order room service, don’t call anyone on the phone. Wait for me to get there. Promise,” he said briskly.

  He didn’t deserve to have another worry added onto his plate.

  Something I knew for a fact that he did.

  Constantly.

  He was a worrywart.

  Which was also why I knew he’d overthink everything to death before he actually put any plans into action.

  “Okay, Sterling.”

  He nodded and turned on his heel, walking back to Sebastian and now that I looked closer, Silas.

  Once he arrived back at the huddle, and intense conversation ensued.

  And I was left chanting to myself.

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  I didn’t cry.

  At least not until I got to my hotel room, that was.

  There I broke down.

  There I cried for my lost things.

  My only possessions in life.

  The worry that I kept putting on Sterling and my friends.

  Maybe…maybe it was time for me to leave.

  Maybe that would be best for everyone.

  I couldn’t say that my mind was in the best place…but the next morning, I had my answer. It was time to go.

  Chapter 13

  I hate you more than I love chocolate.

  -Ruthie’s secret thoughts

  Ruthie

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Comalsky, but I can’t risk another one of my properties. You’ll have your deposit returned as of Monday morning, and I’ll be waiving your contract,” Carol, the woman I was renting the property from, said.

  Tears stung my eyes as what I’d feared would happen, happened.

  I opened my eyes as a sob tore out of my mou
th.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you for calling.”

  Without waiting for her to continue, I pressed the red ‘end call’ button.

  Then turned the whole thing off completely.

  The new phone that’d been delivered to me about twenty minutes before hadn’t stopped ringing since I’d gotten it.

  This one was much nicer than the one that burned up in the fire.

  And I knew that Sterling was responsible for getting it, as well as the ten bags of clothes.

  I just wished he’d been the one to deliver them instead of the biker prospect…something he’d called himself that I was extremely interested in understanding what it meant. But not in the right state of mind to handle a full-blown conversation about biker business and hierarchy.

  With single-minded determination, I walked out of the hotel room with only the phone and one set of clothes I’d gotten out of the bag.

  The cheapest thing in the entire bundle.

  Sterling hadn’t skimped.

  Or whoever had purchased the clothes on Sterling’s behalf hadn’t skimped.

  It was all very expensive…or much more expensive than my Wal-Mart tastes.

  With the door opened, I was unsurprised to find that there was a biker prospect sleeping against the outside wall.

  He’d get reamed later for sleeping and letting me out of my room, but that wasn’t my problem.

  Right now, what my problem was, was that nobody wanted me here, and my mind wasn’t in the right place to stay.

  So, closing the door to my hotel room quietly, I headed in the opposite direction of the elevator since I knew it was loud and would probably wake up Mr. Biker Prospect.

  Instead I took the stairs, and about had a freak out when I saw the wall of leather that was half way up the stairs I was about to go down.

  I didn’t know him, though, and I was glad.

  “Hi,” I said, passing him.

  “Hi,” he muttered.

  I didn’t wait to see what he did as I passed, only hurried down the three flights of stairs to the very bottom floor.

  After scanning the lobby behind the closed stairwell door, I hurried out and took the exit at the side that would spit me out by the pool.

  Something I’d noticed this morning…or last night.

  Hell, I didn’t even know what time it was.

  I skirted around twelve kids who were playing around the open area in front of the pool, threading in and out of the lounge chairs covered in colorful beach towels.

  “Hey,” one of the mother’s on the lounge chairs said. “Did you hear about that baby being found?”

  Another woman on the next lounge over made an affirmative noise. “Mmm-hmm,” she said, not opening her eyes. “Some lady found him at the scene of a fire. Wonder what happened.”

  You don’t want to know what happened, because my life is depressing and is bound to put anyone in a horrible mood.

  I kept walking, not making eye contact with any of them.

  I finally came to a stop at the side gate and lifted up the latch that would allow me to exit out into the parking lot.

  This was a really nice hotel, and yet another thing Sterling had to cover for me.

  I didn’t have any cash or credit cards…only managing to grab the one bag that had nothing in it but my most important documents.

  Although I was happy to have those, and would need them to access my driver’s license and bank accounts, it would’ve also been smart of me to grab my purse that was on the same damn hook.

  “Watch your step,” a man said in front of me.

  I looked up and smiled at the man.

  He was wearing a black polo and jeans, and on the black polo it denoted him as a member of KPD SWAT.

  “Thanks,” I said, stepping down off the curb.

  “No problem,” he muttered.

  I kept walking until I arrived at the bus stop that I’d spied last night, then took a seat.

  My car had been totaled right along with my house, and with only liability insurance on it, I wouldn’t be getting a new one anytime soon.

  I watched as car after car drove by, so lost in thought that I didn’t realize some man had stopped his car in front of me until he finally yelled.

  “You need a ride?” He asked.

  I blinked.

  The man looked familiar.

  Very familiar.

  “No thanks,” I said automatically.

  Then with a shake of his head, he left, and I was left to contemplate the cars once again.

  I wondered how long it would take the bus to get here.

  Couple of hours? Twenty minutes?

  I was in Shreveport; surely the bus ran constantly.

  Then the bench shifted as someone sat, and I looked over to see the man who’d stopped his car in front of me earlier.

  “I saw you at that club, Halligans and Handcuffs, the other night,” the man started.

  I nodded. “I saw you, too.”

  And I still thought about the man, even a week later.

  There was just something about him that had me curious.

  He reminded me of someone from my past, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  “So I did some research and found out you worked there,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Did work there. In the past tense.

  Not that he’d know that.

  I also couldn’t figure out why it didn’t freak me out that this man had stopped to talk to me, and had looked into me.

  I just knew that he was a good man.

  A nosy one…but a good one nonetheless.

  “Okay…” I said.

  My bus chose that minute to pull up, and I stood. “Well, I gotta go. It was nice talking to you.”

  However, I dropped right back down on my ass the moment the next words came out of his mouth.

  “And I realized that you were who I’d been looking for fifteen years,” he said. “My daughter.”

  ***

  My father looked down at the cell phone that hadn’t stopped ringing in over thirty minutes.

  “You gonna get that?” He finally asked.

  I shook my head.

  I’d turned it on to look the man, Able Spiers, up.

  He was an oil man who was worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.

  And I’d grown up dirt poor.

  I’d gone to college on student loans…and unsurprisingly still had them even though I’d been on the inside for years.

  I ignored Sterling’s phone calls.

  “Can you say that again?” I asked.

  I was sitting at a table in Cracker Barrel, stunned beyond belief.

  The man in front of me with his strawberry blonde hair, and gray eyes just like mine, was the man I’d been hoping for since I was a young kid.

  A man that never showed when I needed him.

  A man that I used to lay in bed at night and think about saving me from the monsters of my past and present.

  “I have a trust fund for you…it’s something I’ve been putting into an account for you since I knew you were mine,” the man said.

  I ignored the ‘trust fund’ part of his statement for the more important part.

  “You knew I was yours? How?” I asked sharply.

  And if he’d known…why didn’t he look for me? Why was I left to suffer in a foster home with parents that didn’t want me?

  “Your mother. She told me about you, and then gave me a sob story about how you were scared of your own shadow, and that I should get to know you first, let you trust me before we told you that you were mine,” he answered.

  “Listen, Able,” I said. “I don’t know what you think is happening here, but it doesn’t inspire hearts and flowers in my soul to know that you knew about me but didn’t try any harder to find me.”

  “I tried for the last fifteen years, darlin.’ I just couldn’t
find you. Your mother…whatever the fuck happened to her…was dead, and nobody knew where you were. All your mother’s neighbors never even knew she had a kid,” Able said.

  I rolled my eyes.

  My mom was a whore at the best of times. And having a kid cramped her style.

  She didn’t like people knowing she had a kid.

  ‘Kids ruin your pussy,’ she’d say. ‘Gotta make them think that you’re not here.’

  Which was also why I never got toys, and rarely ever went out during the light of day.

  Something I still remember vividly to this day.

  When I started school, once I was abandoned, I was very behind on my learning. So behind that I had to start school in the third grade instead of the fifth.

  But I worked my ass off to get back on track, something that I got complimented on quite a lot when I was trying to get back to my grade.

  I even managed to graduate six months early, which, for me, was quite impressive.

  Guess anyone could do wonders if they’re let out of their house.

  “That’s true,” I amended. “My mother didn’t like letting people know I was alive.”

  I didn’t want to ask why my father had known my mother in the first place.

  It was bad enough to know that someone like this man slept with someone like my mother.

  Had she trapped him? Forced him? Blackmailed him?

  The list of possibilities was endless, and I hated that my ‘father’ had fallen for my mother’s shit…just like man after man had fallen.

  My mother was what you’d call a ‘manipulative bitch.’

  She was good.

  So good.

  She knew how to act to get the maximum attention from any man.

  She could walk into a bar and instantly know which man was the richest in the room, and after studying him for only minutes, know exactly what to do to get him to latch onto her.

  Whether she needed to weave a sob story…or come on strong. Whether she needed to bitch about her abusive husband to get the man’s protective instincts turned on full force.

  You name it and she could accomplish that persona.

  And it was sickening.

  Something I could watch my mother accomplish even at the young age of ten years old.

  I wasn’t a stupid girl by any means, and I knew exactly what my mother was doing.