Hawk_Devil's Fury Book 3

by Torrie Robles

  “You’re still a part of a life that took so much from her. You can’t expect anything from her.”

  “The MC will always be a part of me, and me of it. There’s no way I’m walking away from the only family I’ve ever really known.”

  “And you expect her to walk away from her friends, the only people who’ve stood by her over the past seven years? What makes your life so much more important than hers?”

  “It’s not about that. I have commitments back home. I have loyalties and responsibilities.”

  She purses her lips. “All of which she has here. You need to watch how you approach this, Hawk. It may not play out how you have planned. And if that does happen, then you need to respect her decisions.”

  She grabs a chart from the counter and heads in the opposite direction of my mother’s room.

  As soon as I open the door, my mother gives me a smile, and my worries about the future with Tessa seem to lessen a bit. There are too many things up in the air, too many decisions that need to be made, and one of them is what my future with my mother looks like. But her smile, and seeing the recognition in her eyes, makes me think that everything will turn out the way it should.

  “Hawking.” She stands from the chair where she’s reading a book. “You’re here.” She pads over and wraps her arms around me. This is the first time she’s greeted me like this. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”

  I wrap my arms around her tiny body and place a kiss on the top of her head. Her hair smells just like I remember. It’s crazy that I remember things like that. “I’ve missed you too, Mom.”

  She pulls her body from mine and places her hand on the side of my face. Her eyes are full of unshed tears. When she blinks, they fall, rolling down her face. “I never thought I’d be able to spend this time with you. I’m so grateful for Tessa.”

  I take her hand off my face. “Tessa?”

  “Yes. I know she’s the one who called Bianca. I know she’s the reason why I have my son back in my life. She was always such a sweet little girl, and now she’s a beautiful and kind-hearted woman. So understanding.”

  “Understanding?”

  “Oh, my boy.” She pats my stomach. “There was no reason for her to call Bianca, not when I’ve done nothing to deserve it. I abandoned you, and yet she felt that it would be better for you and me to reconnect rather than for you to go on thinking I left you because I didn’t want you.”

  I squeeze her hand. “You didn’t abandon me.”

  The light in her eyes dims slightly as her smile falls. “Yes, well, I didn’t quite put up a fight either. I ran because I was scared.” She lets go of my hand. “And look where that got me.” She walks back towards her chair and sits down.

  I take a step towards her. “Mom–”

  “Mother?”

  I turn my head at the voice. I’m expecting to see Rhea, but it’s not her. This girl resembles nothing of Rhea. She has a light complexion, and her strawberry blonde hair is straight and smooth held back by a headband. She’s wearing a skirt that hits right above her knees and a shirtsleeve collared button-up shirt. She’s the exact opposite of Rhea which means this must be Loa.

  “Loa, dear.” Rose raises her hand towards her daughter but doesn’t get out of the chair. “It’s good that you’ve finally come by for a visit.”

  She takes a few strides over to Rose and bends down to give her a one-armed hug. I can feel the indifference she has for our mother. She’s here out of obligation, not because she wants to be. Rhea may have issues of her own, but when she’s here visiting, even when Rose is asleep I can tell it’s because she wants to be. She wants to be there for her mother.

  “Yeah, well, I have a lot on my plate with school and all.”

  “Always an overachiever.”

  “Someone has to be,” she says as her eyes flick to me.

  I rub the back of my neck, unsure of how to approach this. “I’m Hawk.” I stick out my hand, hoping that she takes it, but the gasp that comes from her mouth, and the look of uncertainty on her face, tells me that she’s not happy I’m here.

  Loa’s gaze bounces between Rose and me. I know that I look like my mother, more so now that I’m an adult than when I was a child. “How did you find her?” she asks me. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

  “I take it you don’t talk to our sister?”

  “My sister? No. Rhea and I aren’t close.”

  “Loa—”

  “Well, I’ve been here for months,” I interrupt my mother. “If you would visit our mother more often, you would’ve known that.” I’m not going to take anyone’s crap, especially not from an entitled little brat.

  “Listen here you–”

  “I see you’ve met our brother?”

  Rhea’s voice has both Loa and I turning our heads towards the door. She’s leaning up against the doorframe with a smirk on her face. She’s freshly showered with her hair still wet, and her typical club-looking clothes are replaced with a simple pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that he was here?” Loa barks.

  “And miss this treat?”

  “You knew he would be here this morning when I texted you that I was coming to see her. You could have told me.”

  “No way. When he told me that he was coming this morning right before you did, I thought it was perfect timing.” She pushes off the frame. “You deserved to find out the same way I did.”

  “Why are you always such a bitch?” Loa snaps.

  “Girls.” Rose stands from her chair. “Stop arguing. That’s not the best first impression to give your brother.”

  “He’s not our brother,” Loa argues.

  “He may not be yours, but he’s mine,” Rhea defends, but I see it more as trying to get under Loa’s skin than her finally being open to the fact that she has an older brother.

  “Daddy isn’t going to like this,” Loa hisses. “He’s not going to like your past stirring up trouble between us, not at all.” She shakes her head as she pulls out her cell phone.

  “He’s not my past, Loa. He’s my son.”

  “Since when?” She lowers the phone.

  “Since always,” Rose responds.

  “Ah, yeah, since always. Then why have we never met him? Why did Daddy forbid us to mention him?”

  “It has nothing to do with you, Loa. Let it stay in the past. The reason why doesn’t matter anymore. The important thing is that he’s here now, and he’s not going anywhere.”

  That’s not true–I’m not going to always be here. Loa stands at her full height, one that’s close to mine. She’s taller than Rhea, which means that she must take after her father. “Is that true?” She lifts her chin and places her hands on her hips. She has a strong backbone, and she’s independent, another thing that differs so blatantly between the two girls. Rhea is defiant, but she’s lost. Loa knows who she is.

  “If you’re asking if I’m going to disappear and pretend as though I was never here, no.”

  “You’re sticking around?” Loa crosses her arms over her chest. She has a smug look on her face like she knows what I’m going to say, and that truth is going to hurt Rose. She enjoys causing our mother pain.

  “Hawk,” Rhea, interrupts, “why don’t we let Loa and mom spend some time together. I’m sure there’s plenty of time for the three of us to get to know each other. We wouldn’t want to overwhelm Mom, not when she’s doing so well.”

  I turn my head and look at my mother. She’s standing, but her shoulders are slumped slightly. She looks as though she’s been beaten down. The woman who was glowing when I arrived is gone. The creases of worry are etched on her face, and when she places her hands on her throat, I see a slight tremor. I almost want to ban Loa from her room, from our mother’s life because I’m sure it’s her that’s causing Rose distress. It’s the way Loa speaks to her, and I’m sure she’s learned that behavior from her father. I know because there are so many things that I’ve learned from
mine.

  I’ve never had the urge to protect someone so fiercely as I do right now. She’s my mother, the woman who gave me life and suffered all these years because she lived in fear of my father. She’s had no one in her corner, and I’ll be damned if I let her think that for another day.

  I tip my head in agreement with Rhea. I’m not going to cause Rose any anguish, not when Loa is causing enough for the both of us. I’m going to bow out this time, but Loa better be ready to go head to head with me the next time, and I hope she likes defeat because there’s no way in hell I’m going to allow that brat to walk all over our mother another second.

  Hawk

  As soon as the crisp autumn air hits me, I feel the muscles in my neck relax. Lifting my head to the sky, I take a deep breath, calming the fury that’s simmering beneath my skin.

  “She’s something else, huh?” Rhea says as she stands next to me. She shoves her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

  “She’s something,” I say before I run my hand over my face.

  “You should try living with her.”

  She looks down at the grass of the small yard they have next to the entrance. She kicks her toe into the sod, like a child, leaving an indention. She should be out with her friends, in college, living her life like other kids her age, but I don’t think that’s ever been an option for Rhea. Not when she’s lived in the shadow of her older sister all of her life. From what I can gather, she’s always been an after-thought. Loa has taken up all of her father’s time, leaving nothing for Rhea. And Rose, I’m not sure if having that close relationship was ever an option for her, something she and I have in common. I wonder if she would be different today if I were there for her when she was younger.

  “I feel for you.”

  She snaps her head towards me, and I can see it in her eyes, the need to argue, but that’s not what this is about.

  “I’m not pitying you, Rhea, so calm down. I would never do that, but I can see how miserable she can make life and I was only in her presence for minutes. I could never imagine years dealing with that.” I throw my hand back towards the building.

  “Well, when that’s the only thing you know, you tend to deal with it any way you know how.”

  I turn my head slightly to the side so I can gauge her reaction. “The drinking?” I ask.

  I know I’m treading on territory that can cause a huge rift between us. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this, and she accused me of trying to play the ‘big brother’ role a little too late. Well, fuck it, if I had known about her, about either of them, I would have made sure I was a prominent fixture in their lives, with or without having any relationship with Rose or her husband. I’ve spent my life thinking that the only family I had was my piece of shit manipulative father and a woman who didn’t love me.

  For years I witnessed the love Devin and Bianca showed their kids. Don’t get me wrong, they always showed love toward me. Bianca filled the role Rose walked away from. I’ve always believed that blood doesn’t make a family. I don’t see Sam any less because he doesn’t have my blood running through his veins. But, needless to say, there will always be that bond with those people who share your DNA.

  She lifts her shoulders. “Among other things,” she says just above a whisper, and the insinuation brings back the simmer of fury

  “Damn kid.” I let out an awkward laugh “I don’t wanna know…”

  “Well, then don’t ask” she smarts back.

  “Just because I don’t wanna know doesn’t mean that I don’t need to know. I think it’s the right of passage as your big brother.”

  “Since when?” she mimics Loa’s response, but I know she’s doing it for a different reason.

  “I’m not shitting you, Rhea. I didn’t know that either of you existed. I should have looked into finding Rose when I was younger, but there was so much resentment toward her for leaving me that I didn’t want to face it.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  It’s not my story to tell. “That’s something that Mom is going to have to tell you.”

  “Is it weird for you to call her that?”

  “Honestly, when I first showed up, yeah. I always told myself that if I never got the chance to see her again, I would never give her the pleasure of hearing me call her that. Being a mother is a privilege, and for my entire life, I thought she lost that when she left me, but I was wrong. She left because she was trying to be the best mother she could be.”

  “She was never a bad mother. I don’t care what Loa or my father says. She was always there for us. We never went without, and it wasn’t because of my father’s money. It was because my mother made certain we didn’t. But she was never whole, she was always just going through the motions. She was there because she had to be. I never felt that she was there because she wanted to be.”

  “I’m not sure what’s worse: her not being there physically, or her not being there emotionally.”

  “There were many nights when I thought the same thing,” she confesses.

  We stand in silence for a while, both playing through the memories we have of a mother we share, but who is entirely different in our eyes. When I hear the clicking of heels, I look up and see Loa making her way out of the building. I nudge Rhea, so she’ll notice her sister leaving. When Loa see us off to the side, she glares at us as she makes her way to a shiny red two-door coupe. She has a car, yet Rhea doesn’t even really have a steady roof over her head.

  “You know she’s going to cause problems for you,” she says with her eyes trained on her sister.

  “I’m not sure what problems there could be.”

  “My father. She’ll get him to do her dirty work, and her favorite past time is making sure our mother suffers.”

  “I’m not sure what he has that will stop me from being in contact with her.”

  “He’s her husband, even though he doesn’t act like it. He still has the title to back anything up.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, little sister.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I believe she was still married to my father when she took those vows with yours, so his ‘title’ doesn’t mean shit.”

  She throws her head back and laughs. “Oh man, that would be awesome.”

  Yes, it would.

  Tessa

  “But why do you have to leave?” Sam asks Hawk as he’s spooning his soup into his mouth.

  “Because, buddy, I have a business I need to take care of back home. I have a job. You know how I help build motorcycles? Well, we’re working on this bike, and they need me there to do my part, but I’ll be back. I promise.” Hawk rips a piece of tortilla and dunks it into the bowl.

  The bond between the two of them is unmistakable. It’s been building over the past two months since he came back from New Mexico. Other than a couple overnight trips, he’s been with us, and I have to admit, it’s been sweet. Hawk’s focus has been on my son and me, and Sam has been soaking up all the attention. Like a switch has been flipped, they interact like they’ve been in each other’s lives from day one. It makes me regret that I left the way that I did before I even knew I was pregnant with Sam. I didn’t have to run when my family washed their hands of me. I could have stayed with the Sinclairs. I know they would have opened their home to me, even after Sienna’s murder. Sam would have had the love of so many people if I had stayed in New Mexico. And maybe, if I had stayed, Sam would have had Hawk in his life this entire time.

  “Tessa?” Hawk’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Everything all right?”

  I drop my spoon into the bowl and lean back into my chair. My appetite is gone. “Yeah, just thinking.” My anxiety kicks up every time he tells me he needs to go back to New Mexico. I start to wonder if this is the time that he’s going to say to me that he’s not coming back.

  Hawk’s gaze falls to Sam’s and then back to mine. I don’t want to answer Hawk’s questions, because if I do, I know he’ll have a strong
foundation to stand on for his argument about Sam and I moving back to New Mexico.

  “I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t want you to go,” Sam says. “Look how sad my mom is.”

  “I won’t be gone for long, but this is something that I need to do. You guys could always come with me.”

  I glare at Hawk because I know what he’s doing. “Can we, Mom?”

  “Sorry, baby, but you have school, and I have work. Maybe another time.”

  “I need to get going. It’s a long drive, and I want to get there by morning.” Hawk scoots his chair back and heads towards my bedroom.

  I pat Sam on the head and follow him. Once I get into my room, Hawk closes the door. The click of the lock sends chills down my back.

  “Sam’s going to hear us.”

  He takes a step towards me as he slowly shakes his head.

  “He’s going to come in here any minute.” I take a tentative step back. My pulse picks up, but it’s not out of fear. It’s desire. The knowledge of how he makes me feel. The way his fingers dance along my skin and how he commands my body.

  “Do you know how fucking sexy you are?” He grips my waist and pulls me towards him. His nose trails up the column of my neck as he inhales. “How good you smell? How perfect your body feels against mine?”

  I moan at his words. The desire pulls in my belly, the need to feel him inside me is overpowering. He’s like a drug, and I’m desperate, ready for my next fix.

  He tugs my leggings from my hips before I feel the roughness of his fingers slide into my panties. My legs bow at the knees, giving him access.

  “Wrap your arms around my neck, baby. I’m going to make this quick.”

  As soon as my hands lock around his neck his fingers push into me. “Hawk,” I moan as my head rolls back.

  “Fuck, Tessa, I love the way your pussy feels around my fingers. So fucking tight, so warm.” He pumps his fingers as I climb through the ecstasy. “You get off so easily for me, baby. Only me. Only mine.”

  There’s no denying him. He’s right. I know deep down in my heart that I can only be this way with him. There isn’t another man for me, and the reality that I may not be able to keep him is like a crushing blow to my heart. But I’m strong, and I will power through the heartache.