But the second her eyes connected with mine, it was as if we were the only two in the room.
That woman had been adventurous as hell. Willing to try anything once and always ready to brag to anyone who would listen. She was loud, crass, and proud of the woman she was. And it throbbed my cock day and night. But the woman she had grown into? The strong, confident, protective, career-driven woman she had become?
There was nothing holding me back from loving her again.
Nothing from stopping me for feeling what I felt that summer with her.
“I’m good,” Brewer said. “You good?”
“I’m always good,” I said with a grin. “Now let’s go trap this son of a bitch before Diesel starts blowing up my phone, too.”
Chapter 24
Piper
I stared at my phone in disbelief as Gavin splashed around in the tub. Was that fucker serious? Did he seriously just ignore my damn phone call? On the one hand, I knew that asshole was alive. But ignoring me!?
Oh, hell fucking no.
“Mom, watch this!”
I looked up just long enough to watch Gavin dunk his head under water and blow bubbles. He came up with the proudest smile on his face and I clapped my hands to cheer him on. He did it a few more times, exploring this newfound sense of freedom now that going under water wasn’t so scary for him.
But inside, I was seething.
Who the hell did he think he was, ignoring my phone call after standing me up for dinner? Did the man not know what a courtesy call fucking meant? It was that night all over again. That damn night where I sat in that fucking restaurant for over an hour waiting for his ass to show up. I knew damn good and well where he had gotten off to. Drinking beers with the buddies in that shoddy downtown bar where the Dead Souls could reach behind the damn thing and pull out their own fucking beers.
It felt so good cracking my fist against his jaw.
But it felt even better coming on his hand and gazing into his eyes.
I’d been a wild child. Hell, I had been the poster board definition of a wild child. Voyeurism. Sex on Rock’s bike. Pressed against the walls of alleyways and fucking in the shower. Oral sex on a damn park bench at three in the morning with homeless men sleeping on the playground and sweet, sweet love-making in the lodge in one of the beds while the guys were out there having a damn meeting. Whips and tie-downs and handcuffs and bite marks. Slaps and grunts and blindfolds and roleplaying and all sorts of kinky-ass shit went down between us that summer. He opened my eyes to a world of sex I’d never dreamt of and I opened his eyes to a caliber of woman that wouldn’t put up with his shit.
And if he thought I was going to put up with being ignored, he had another fucking thing coming.
“Mom, are you okay?” Gavin asked.
“Of course, I am,” I said breathlessly. “Just thinking again.”
“You look mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You really look mad.”
“I said I’m not mad.”
“But you sound mad,” he said.
I sighed and tossed my phone onto the bathroom counter before I put my head in my hands. This was pathetic. Ridiculous. He’d been in our lives one fucking week. There was no reason for me to be this worked up over one little issue. It was Rock. He was a shithead sometimes. Not father material. Not husband material. Not settling-down material. Not family material. And yet, I kept hoping I was wrong. I kept hoping that, at some point in time, I would become more important than his club. That I would become more important than whatever the hell it was he was doing tonight.
I figured having his damn son granted me a little bit of a step up in his world.
But apparently, not even that made me more important than them.
I felt tears of anger and hurt and betrayal crest my eyes, but I refused to shed them. I’d shed enough tears with that asshole, and I wasn’t going to allow any more of them to fall. If that was the decision Rock had made, then it was a decision he would stick with. Ignoring me to get his hands dirty with whatever ‘legitimate’ operations he’d lied to me about would cost him the only shred of family he’d ever created.
He ever would create.
I gazed over at Gavin and watched while he played with his boats. He made little noises as he floated them around in the water, piling little Lego men on top to make it look like a boat full of people. He had conversations going between them before tipping it over and capsizing everyone at once. He splashed around with a big smile on his face without a care in the world.
It was Rock’s loss. Not ours.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, sweet boy?”
“Can Rock come over and play tomorrow?”
I drew in a deep breath as I readied myself to have this conversation with him.
“Sweetie, I don’t know if Rock’s going to come back over.”
His eyes looked over at me and automatically welled with tears.
“Why not? I was a good boy.”
“You’re always a good boy,” I said. “But sometimes, people don’t always want to stay.”
“You always say that. Why do you always say that?”
“Because sometimes it’s true,” I said. “And it’s a part of life that hurts more than anything. But I want you to know that I will never leave you. I will never abandon you. I will never give you up.”
“Rock didn’t abandon us! You pushed him away! You always do that!”
“I didn’t push him away, sweet boy. There was nothing to push away. I helped him out when he hurt himself, and that was that. He was a patient, honey. Nothing more.”
“Maybe to you, but to me he’s a friend. Why won’t you let me have friends, Mom!?”
“You can have friends, honey. I never said you couldn’t.”
“Well, I want Rock as a friend.”
“You can’t have Rock as a friend if he’s not going to come back around and play. That isn’t how a friendship works,” I said.
“Well maybe he won’t come back around for you, but he will for me. He promised, and friends keep their promises!”
I watched as my son fell out of the bathtub and scrambled to his feet. He ran into his room, soaking wet and coated in bubbles, before he slammed his door. I jumped at the sound and closed my eyes, listening as he stomped around his room. Pillows hit the wall toys got kicked around. Gavin talked to himself and beat on his mattress and did anything he could to get his anger out.
And I sat on the toilet, listening as my son turned a little more into his father with every passing second.
I looked over at my phone before I got up and unplugged the tub. If Rock ever came back around after this, I’d kill him. My son didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of it. Maybe I did. Fuck only knew I wasn’t the perfect woman. I’d done my fair share of cheating and fucking and stealing small little artifacts. Pieces of gum from a convenience store to make me feel like a badass. I walked around with a chip on my shoulder for years. I walked around with anger in my heart I thought I was warranted after losing my mother.
And that chip grew once I lost my father. Once I lost Rock.
It wasn’t until I made the decision to have Gavin that the chip on my shoulder slowly disintegrated.
I listened as my little boy fell into his bed and cried. And my heart broke. This was why I had sworn off men. This was why I never let them into my world. The two men that had come after Gavin had been born were accidents. One couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and one met him accidentally and felt the need to make a very lasting impression so I’d keep him around. And Gavin remembered them. He remembered getting a present from the first one and running around with the second. Both accidents waiting to happen from men who treated me with less respect than I deserved.
I’d done my son wrong in so many ways. Even when I had attempted to protect him from that world, I had found a way to screw him up. I’d never meant for him to meet either of them. But I was a woman with wants and needs r
unning an insane schedule at the residency with no way to dispel my stress. A nice dinner, a romp in the sack, and then those men would be on their way. Nothing long term. Nothing committal. Nothing to keep me tied down. Just a way to relieve some stress and connect with another human being that wasn’t bleeding from an artery or screaming at me because of a migraine.
And in the process, I’d scarred the one thing that mattered to me more than life itself.
I sat there and waited until the tub drained, then picked Gavin’s toys out of the tub. I heard his sobs die down to sniffles, then soon snores echoed off the corners of his room. I put his toys away and washed the soap suds out of the tub, then took a towel and cleaned up the water he’d left behind in his mad dash to his sanctuary.
Then, I pushed open his door and took a look at my son.
He laid there, butt naked with his limbs sprawled up while his hair dripped into puddles on his pillow. I walked over and squeezed the excess water out of his hair, then tucked him in with some extra blankets. I didn’t want him waking up with a cold. I didn’t want him to get sick. I reached down and brushed away a few tears that still stained his cheek as a couple of them fell onto mine.
Gavin craved that male figure in his life.
I had failed in my attempt to be everything he needed.
I knew the second I made the decision to have Gavin that it meant fulfilling two roles instead of one. Father and mother, day in and day out. And somehow, I had lost sight of that. I nurtured him, but I didn’t help him develop. I played with him, but I didn’t run until I broke a sweat. I couldn’t. I was exhausted. Twelve-hour shifts at the hospital only to come home to a son that wanted to run around in the backyard. The best I could do some days was sitting in a chair on the back patio with a cup of coffee in my hands and kicking a ball he could go after.
Fucking fetch with my son.
That was all I had.
I smoothed his hair out of his face as I settled onto the edge of his bed. And for the first time since he’d been born, I allowed the tears to fall. I allowed my heart to break. I allowed myself to see all of the mistakes I’d made along the way. The nights I could’ve spent reading to him until he fell asleep instead of curling up next to him and falling asleep before he did. The days I had to rely on a babysitter to watch him on the weekends because the hospital needed my services. The bath times I spent with my nose in my phone to try and scrounge a few minutes for myself instead of playing submarine with him.
Maybe it wasn’t a father he craved.
Maybe it was simply my attention he wanted.
My lip trembled and I crumbled next to him. I cloaked his body with mine and cried until his comforter was soaked underneath my chin. I’d failed my little boy. My sweet, beautiful, caring little boy had been failed by the only parent he’d ever known. I had become so busy with my schooling and my residency and my work that I didn’t have the energy to devote to playing with him. To running around with him. To doing anything more than sitting on a couch and watching movies or sitting on a toilet and watching him play or sitting on the edge of his bed and falling asleep with him.
Some fucking mother I’d turned out to be.
When my tears dried up and my nose was clogged with snot, I peeled myself from his bed and kissed his cheek. I had to do better. I had to be better. Even if it meant cutting back my hours at the hospital and finding a way to slash our expenses. My son could no longer pay for my inability to cope with my life circumstance. I had to be better for him, especially since I knew he would never have a father.
Not the kind he deserved.
“I love you so much, Gavin,” I whispered into his ear. “And I swear I’ll do better by you. Mommy promises, okay?”
Then I placed one last kiss on the side of his head before leaving his room. I didn’t bother to get my phone from the bathroom. I didn’t bother to call Rock back. He’d made his choice, just like he had that summer. He made his choice to stay with the guys instead of keeping his promise to me, and that showed me the kind of man he had turned into. No different than the guy with the big dick I pursued as a twenty-year old.
Only this time, I didn’t have the energy to pursue him. I didn’t have the tolerance for bullshit. I didn’t have the stomach to try and turn him into the man I needed or the man his son needed.
If he wanted to break his promises to us, then I would break his ties to us without a second thought.
So, I made my way to the fridge, pulled out another beer, then walked over and collapsed onto the couch.
Time to get used to being alone again.
Chapter 25
Rock
“Stop,” I said with a whisper.
“Finally,” Brewer said. “Now get that fucking thing going.”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
I closed out the tracker and pulled up the application I had built into my phone. I toggled a few settings and turned up the volume a bit, then motioned for Brewer to pull out his phone. I wanted to record all of this shit. I wanted us to have identifiable proof as to what was going on. Brewer pulled out his phone and I reached for it, navigating to his voice record before turning it on.
Then, I pressed the button on my end that turned Mick’s phone into a microphone.
“Brewer’s fine, unfortunately,” Mick said. “But I got the house cleaned up. No traces of any of us in there.”
“Good,” a Black Saddle said. “That’s good. What’s their next move.”
“Not sure, but I know something’s up. Rock asked me to lunch today, and that fucker never does shit like that. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with the club, but something’s not right. You guys hear from Rex at all?” Mick asked.
“We went to talk to him a few days ago in jail. The lawyer for the RICO case came by to see him but wasn’t happy he didn’t have any information. You gotta give us something, Mick. Your worth is only as good as your information,” a Black Saddle said.
“What the fuck?” Brewer asked.
“Shut up,” I said with a whisper.
“I got that, man. Damn,” Mick said. “No need to get gun happy right now. All I’ve got is what I told Axe in the shop today. Brewer’s recuperated and off his pain meds, and he’s staying with that woman and that little girl. Other than that, the club’s laying low. What the hell did you think they would do after we almost killed one of their men?”
“He’s fucking ratting on our women!?” Brewer exclaimed.
I looked up and saw Brewer heading straight for the compound. I set the phones down and reached out for him, dragging his ass back into the shadows. I wrapped my arm around his neck while he fought, threatening to choke off his air supply.
“I’m going to kill him,” Brewer choked out.
“You can’t,” I said. “We gotta trap him. We’ve got him in a good spot. Keep a level fucking head.”
“He just ratted on--!”
I put my hand over his damn mouth to keep him from blowing our damn cover.
“I know that,” I said. “I know. And trust me, I’m ready to put a bullet in his dick. But we have to get more than this. Because by the sounds of it, Rex is our other informant for the RICO case.”
I turned Brewer around and watched his eyes bulge as I brought my finger to my lips.
“What’s the status on the RICO case?” Mick asked.
“According to Rex, they’re still a little shy on evidence to descend on the Dead Souls,” a Black Saddle said. “We need proof of what they’re doing. Proof of their money laundering and criminal activity. Something other than fucking hearsay. Which is why we’re paying you all the money we are.”
“And I told you, they’ve shut down those operations when you tried to pin Blaze’s death on Knox,” Mick said. “That’s The Dead Souls first fucking rule, Fang. Shut down the operations the second authorities even come close. It’s how they cover their asses in this town.”
“We hired you for fifty thousand dollars for every sliver of decent infor
mation you came with,” Fang said. “You really expect us to pay you tonight?”
“I do, once I tell you what else I’ve got,” Mick said.
I was hanging onto every fucking word with my hands clenched at my sides.
“Look, you want to push the Dead Souls out of Redding, right?” Mick asked.
“They’re a bunch of goody-two-shoe assholes,” Fang said. “Of course, we do. This is our town. Our turf.”
“The only upper-hand they have with you is being here longer. That’s it,” Mick said. “But, our little family is growing.”
“He is not,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Rod asked.
“Seems the guys in the club can’t keep it wrapped up long enough to pull themselves out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. So, they’re stepping with lighter feet. Let Rex know that Grave knocked up his damn sister,” Mick said.
“I’m going to slaughter him,” Brewer said.
“And Knox? Expecting a kid with our damn lawyer,” Mick said.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” I asked.
“Wait, can you get us proof he’s fucking the lawyer? Like, a fucking DNA test or something?” Fang asked. “They could use that for the RICO case. Get her and the whole damn firm thrown off the case for--”
“Conflict of interest,” Mick said.
“Holy shit. He’s ratting on our fucking women, Rock. He’s ratting on our fucking--!”
“Shut. The hell. Up,” I said.
My heart slammed against my chest. I waited. Listened. Because if Piper’s name fell off that fucker’s lips, they were all dying tonight. Every last one of them. I held my breath as all the guys on the other end laughed, Mick fucking included.
Diesel was going to rip this asshole limb from limb.
Rock (Dead Souls MC Book 4) Page 14