by Ashley Lane
I throw my truck into park and sit for a minute, taking in the front yard. The grass is a couple inches past needing a cut and more than half of her bird feeders hanging from the branches of an old tree are empty.
Mama treats the birds like they’re her own pets, not that she’d admit it.
I glance at the clock. I should have plenty of time to fill the feeders before I leave.
“You gonna sit in the truck all night or are you going to come inside and see your mamá?” A wide grin stretches my face as my mom’s voice travels through my open window.
I hop out of my truck and follow the small pathway to the porch. “I was trying to decide if I could navigate through the jungle.” I pretend to get stuck in some overgrown weeds growing into her pathway.
Mama glares. “And whose fault is that, mi hijo? You would have your mamá on her old hands and knees to pick the weeds?”
“Ah, Mamá, you’re not that old.” I bend to kiss her cheek and she wraps her arms around my shoulders. Like always, I can’t help but sink into her familiar embrace and soak up the feeling of home her arms always provide.
“You feel thinner,” she mumbles into my chest as she pats my sides.
I shake my head and chuckle. “¿Qué? You can’t even wrap your arms all the way around me.”
I follow her inside, listening as she rambles in Spanish about mother’s intuition and needing to feed me more often. I grin. As if these weekly dinners aren’t enough. I’m a grown ass man and I still come home for dinner once a week. She can try all she wants, but if she pushes for two nights, I’ll have to put my foot down.
Mama goes into the kitchen to tend to what I’m sure is entirely too much food for just the two of us. My feet lead me to a stop in front of the mantle.
The whitewashed brick is the centerpiece of the living room. Hanging above the worn stone are various pictures of my mom and dad through the years.
Their smiling faces mock me from behind the glass. Lies frozen in time. Mementos of their life together are scattered among the length of the mantle. All of them centered around the nondescript urn in the center, a white candle burning beside it.
My parents immigrated here in search of a new life. Better opportunities for the children they’d yet to have. They had no idea the challenges that lay in wait for them. The racism and hate.
Years of being an expendable contract construction worker, working his ass off for hours on end, and getting paid pennies on the dollar took its toll on my dad.
My mom says the man me and my sisters got is not the one she fell in love with. Her stories of before he became jaded and filled with hate seem so surreal. I can’t imagine my dad as a man so in love with his life and family, and when I try to picture him that way there’s a lingering sense of loss. Grief for what could have been but never was.
A gentle hand curls around my bicep before my mom rests her head on my arm. “I miss him.”
“Lo siento, Mamá.” I’m sorry, Mamá
She pats my arm and looks up at me, the unshed tears of sorrow in her eyes forces me to close mine. I fucking hate that I put that look in her eyes. But I won't lie to her. There were too many nights where I woke to her screams as he used the arms she loved to beat her black and blue. As those nights became more frequent, my deep-seated hate for him grew. An infestation that burrowed beneath my skin and lives within me to this day.
“He was more than the man you knew.” She places her shaking hand on the urn.
I want to scream at her, to force her to see what he did to our family—what he did to her. Even after all these years, she’s loyal to him. I keep my voice soft so she can’t hear the anger that plagues me. “I’ll never understand how you can say that.”
Her thumb moves back and forth across the urn as though she’s comforting him, even in death. “I promised to love him, mi hijo. That love did not come with stipulations of happy or sad, of good or bad. It was as simple as that—I promised to love him. His light and his dark.”
“But he hurt you,” I raise my voice.
“He did,” she agrees, but doesn’t meet my gaze. Her eyes—all her attention—still focused on the ashes of a man who doesn’t deserve the love she gives, even in death. “But that is what love is, no?” she questions, and I gape at her.
I step back, clenching my fists. “To be abused?” I shoot out. “No, Mamá, that’s not love.”
She drops her hand and turns to me, both hands now cupping my cheeks. “No, my son.” I lean down and press my forehead to hers, something she used to do to me and my sisters before bedtime. “Love is seeing the person you love in pain and taking it as your own.”
Maybe. But you don’t take their abuse, Mamá. Words I want to say almost come out, but keep them locked inside.
***
During dinner, the conversation was lighter while I listened to Mom gossip about her neighbors and complain about the price of groceries. I told her about work, and she reminded me to eat more, and to make sure my doors and windows are locked at night. I managed to avoid the topic of Maddox completely, which surprised me, since he’s been a regular at Mom’s for dinner for a while now.
I spent a couple hours mowing the grass and helped Mom pull some weeds and fill the bird feeders. When she went inside to finish washing up, I stood beneath the tree watching the birds flit from branch to branch before they jumped down to the feeders to eat.
With my eyes closed, I place my hand on the trunk of the tree and trace my fingers over the letters that have been carved there. With a heavy sigh, I open my eyes and smile at the crooked letters. M + J. I shake my head remembering how fucking cheesy I felt when Madd etched them into the solid oak. Now the memories only serve as painful reminders of what we had, and what will never be.
Back in the kitchen, Mom’s filling a glass of water. She places it on the counter in front of me and I drink it down, aware of her watching me closely. “I was surprised to see you alone tonight. I’ve never known Maddox to turn down a meal.” Her questioning stare tells me she won’t let this go.
My sexuality has never been a secret. While my father was too preoccupied, drowning in his own failures and shortcomings to have an opinion, my mom embraced me with open arms.
To this day I don’t know if it’s because she truly loves me no matter what, or if it’s because she knew she couldn’t judge me on who I loved, when the man she chose repaid her love in blood and bruises. Either way, I was thankful for her quick acceptance and never took it for granted. Though I do think that Mama is under the impression that because I came out as bisexual, I’m somehow open to gossiping about my—non-existent—love life the way my sisters do.
Wrong.
“Guess he was busy tonight,” I mutter as I pick at an invisible piece of lint on my jeans.
She raises her brow, then smiles brightly.
“Next week then. I’ll make his favorite.”
Damn. It’s almost as though she loves him as much as me. “Mom,” I growl.
Hands raised in defense, she shrugs. “Well what do you expect me to do? You don’t mention him all night, and you didn’t rush to get home to him as soon as dinner was finished—”
Dropping my head back, I stare up at the very interesting ceiling trying to find the strength to continue the conversation and not run out the front door to avoid the inevitable.
“We don’t live together,” I grumble.
With an elbow resting on the counter, Mom continues. “And now when I ask about him you avoid my questions. I may be old but I’m not blind. I know a broken heart when I see one.”
Christ. Leave it to mama to always make me feel like a teenager again. I scrub my hands over my face and groan in frustration.
“What happened, my boy?” It’s the same gentle tone she would use when I was a child and I cried about my sisters getting more buñuelos than me. Yeah, I was a dramatic child.
I clamp my eyes shut. “I had to let him go, Mom. I couldn’t do it anymore.”
She nod
s, but she doesn’t know enough about Angel to understand.
“He wouldn't let me in. I tried, Mamá, I tried so fucking hard.” A single tear falls down my cheek and I swipe it away with the back of my hand. Mom comes closer and takes both my hands in hers. “I couldn’t fix him,” I choke on the words.
Mom tightens her grip on my hands. “My boy, your heart has always been too big for this world. You see a broken soul and your own soul cries out at you to fix them.” I laugh humorlessly. A lot of good that did. “Have you considered just maybe, that’s not what Maddox needs?”
Not what he needs? “What do you mean?”
She gives my cheek a gentle pat. Her expression is thoughtful. “Years of loving the darkness inside your father taught me to recognize it in others. That boy is suffocating, Jax. Choking from the dark inside him.”
“No.” I step back from her. “He’s nothing like Dad. Maddox would never hurt me that way.”
I study her face; the lines and wrinkles that mar her skin. The years of abuse have aged her significantly, yet she still believes in loyalty to the end. “You’re right. Your father gave life to the darkness inside of himself. It was a weapon he would wield against those he loved. But the darkness that lives in Maddox… It was planted there by someone else. It’s a different kind of dark, mi hijo. The monster inside your father was his own. No one else is to blame. Who is the monster inside of Maddox?”
I stumble from the impact of her words. What the hell? How can my Mom seem to know so much about him? Maddox has only shared small parts of his childhood with me, but even with my limited knowledge, I can tell he’s hiding painful secrets. Anytime I brought up his past he’d change the subject so quickly I almost got whiplash. My imagination used to—still does—go wild, playing over different scenarios. Some moderately tame, while others take a much darker turn and cause chills of terror to spread through my veins.
I fucked up.
I sink down to the cold kitchen floor and drop my head in my hands. I allow the tears to fall freely now. I’m not ashamed to cry, not in front of my mom. “What do I do, Mamá?”
She stands beside me and runs her fingers through my hair, soothing my tears with her gentle humming. “Stop trying to fix his broken pieces. Instead, make a home among them and love his darkness too.”
Her words from earlier pierce my heart and another sob breaks free. “I promised to love him. His light and his dark.” I should have made that promise to Maddox.
From the moment I saw him at Wicked Wrench I was drawn to him. There was something about him that called to me. On the outside he was this beautiful man who never stopped smiling or laughing. He was the first to put up his hand and help someone out.
It wasn’t until I really got to know him that I saw the man beneath that shining light. Maddox has depths even the oceans could never fathom. The smiles and laughs are nothing more than an attempt to hide the pain and sorrow hidden within. For all his beauty, Maddox wears a mask to give the world who they want to see, instead of who he truly is.
“Stop trying to fix his broken pieces. Instead, make a home among them and love his darkness too.”
It’s time for the mask to come off.
It’s time for me to show him I’ll love him no matter what he’s hiding beneath.
CHAPTER 7
ANGEL
Walking into Church used to feel like coming home. Inside these four walls I held onto the lie that I was always the truest version of myself. My brothers always accepted me, and I knew without a shred of doubt that I was safe here. That I belonged.
You’re a liar. The voice inside my head taunts each time I step over the threshold and take my seat at the mahogany table. Pain seizes my heart at the thought of shedding the mask I’ve worn for so long—even right here in front of my brothers.
I ignore the conversations around me and force my feet to lead me to my seat at the table in the center of the room. My eyes stare, following the natural waves and swirls of the wood grain, tracing the endless pattern as though it’s a maze I need to figure out so that I can move on.
A wave of exhaustion hits me with the force of a battering ram and I sag into my seat. Around me, my brothers have grown silent. When I raise my head, I’m surprised to see their focus on me.
Priest straightens in his high back chair. “I told them you were the one that called for the meeting,” he says, “we’re just waiting for you to tell us what’s going on.”
As I nod to each of my brothers, I realize Demon is missing.
“Where’s Demon? Shouldn’t we wait on him?”
An uncomfortable silence settles between us. Do they realize what’s happening? Do they even care? Confused and annoyed, I question Priest.
“How long are we going to let this go on?” I demand. “He’s our fuckin’ brother and he’s dyin’ right before our eyes.”
The pain that lances through my chest is reflected on their faces and I feel like a dick for bringing it up, but Demon’s been a loose cannon for years. A ticking bomb that’s finally reached its final countdown. And God help anyone who stands in his way when it explodes.
Bullet grimaces and tosses his cell onto the table. “I called him a few days ago. He didn’t answer. He also turned the tracking off on his phone. His last location was about four hundred miles south of here.” He crosses his arms over his chest.
My eyes fly to meet Priest’s. Fuck. Four hundred miles south would put him well into New Mexico and reaching into US border territory. I don’t know what business he has there, but it can’t be good. “I know,” Patch starts. “We’re all worried.” Fuck his attempt to placate us.
I slam a fist on the table, furious. “You’re goddamn right we’re worried, Patch. Do you realize what’s four hundred miles south?” I don’t give him a chance to answer. “The fucking border. Now I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing down there, but it does not bode well for him, or for us.”
“Angel’s right,” Priest interrupts. “We’ve been failing him for a while now. We’ve all seen him drifting. There’s no denying that. When he comes back… we’ll step in.”
I love Priest to death, but can he fucking hear himself right now? “If he comes back,” I mumble. I receive three hard glares, but I ignore them and throw my arms up. “What? We’re all thinking it!”
Bullet slaps me on the back of the head. “Yeah, but you don’t have to say it out loud, dipshit.”
Well, fuck. Maybe I didn’t, but I once heard that a sin whispered is a sin committed, so you may as well say that shit out loud. Whispering is for pussies.
Priest scrubs his hands down his face before he cuts in. “Can we get back on topic now?” He clamps his eyes shut for a short second. “Teagan has a back tooth coming in and she’s been sleeping like shit.”
Bullet grins. “You always say things that make me so thankful I got the boys after they’d gone through those stages.” He looks so damn proud of himself, like he orchestrated it to be that way, and I can’t help but knock him down a few pegs. “Until you knock Holly up. Then you get to experience every shitty moment firsthand.”
Bullet turns a lovely shade of baby vomit green, and Priest has his own laugh followed by Patch mumbling something about being thankful for small mercies. Their voices grow louder as the three of them discuss the pros and cons of babies and toddlers, and which of them has it easier. After much debate, it’s decided Patch is the winner of the ‘I got this kid at the perfect age’ award.
Conversation dies down, and again the focus is on me and my stomach knots.
“Rhys, one of my bartenders, came to my office today. He had some concerns about Malcolm.”
The flash of distaste on my brothers’ faces only stands as affirmation that Malcolm has been walking a thin line with each of us for some time.
“Are they concerns that need to be addressed immediately?” Priest asks with an air of authority.
I nod. “The first matter is that Malcolm has been short-changing customers. Rhys said i
t depends on the degree of the customer’s drunkenness as to how much he shorts, but he did tell me it was a daily occurrence.”
“The fuck?” Patch rumbles.
“Honestly, it wasn’t that much of a surprise to me, which is just another sign that it’s time to let him go. That’s what I was prepared to do.”
“But?” Priest asks.
“But… Rhys told me the real reason he’d come to me.” I rub my hand over my face. Fuck. I fucking hate what I’m about to tell him. What makes the situation worse is that I was the one that hired Malcolm.
“Malcolm has been giving out freebies for the back room.”
The tension in the room becomes so palpable, so thick I worry we might choke.
“What did you just say?” Bullet whispers.
Patch remains silent, his steely gaze fixed on me.
“Explain,” Priest demands.
I push my chair back and stand to pace the room. How the hell did it get this far?
With a hand tightly gripping the back of the chair I was sitting on, I explain. “There’s a lot I don’t know right now. But from what I’ve been told, Malcolm has been booking girls in the back rooms and the gentlemen have not been required to pay. To cover his ass and avoid any questioning from the girls, he takes the money from the till to pay them the room fee.”
“So not only has he been stealing from customers, but now he’s stealing from us,” Patch surmises and I nod.
“Did Rhys say if it was every man that came forward, or is it a certain group?” Priest questions.
I shrug and let out a heavy sigh. “He didn’t say. But I plan on pulling feed from the cameras Bullet installed. I’m going to comb through it and see what I can find. Make notes of faces and see if we can match them to names.”
Priest nods in agreement. “They’ll need to be questioned.”
“Agreed,” Bullet and Patch say as I nod.