by Lynn Burke
“Yep.” I sat back and turned my focus on the TV, losing myself to memories I’d buried long ago. Memories that didn’t burn nearly as bad as they used to, but still got to me if I thought on them for too long. “Me and my brother both.” My throat tightened, and I waited a few seconds to get my goddamn emotions under control. “We were small and weak. Couldn’t protect our mother from our bastard of a father.”
Dillon stilled in my periphery. “He beat her up?”
I nodded and crossed my arms to keep from cracking my sore knuckles. “It’s why I worked out like you do now. Needed to get bigger. Tougher. Needed to protect her. I eventually got my father to turn on me with his fists rather than her, but fighting back didn’t do jack shit but piss him off more.”
“Shit,” Dillon murmured.
“Ricky and I went to the police, but they didn’t give a shit since our father was one of their own.”
“He’s a cop?”
“Was.” I finally turned my focus on Dillon. “The law refused to protect my mom, and she ended up in a cold grave way too fucking early.” Goddamn, that ache...
Dillon didn’t speak a word, simply stared, so I pressed onward, needing him to know in the hopes I would earn his trust, chances with Michelle be damned.
“I decided to take the law into my own hands.”
His eyes widened slightly. “What’d you do?”
I held his gaze, steeling myself for the fall out, and let the unfiltered truth spew out even as it stirred the demons from my past—and the hurtful truth of how my brother hadn’t ever escaped them. “I made a plan and talked my little brother into helping me out. We got our father drunk off his ass then beat him to death.”
Dillon didn’t so much as blink, and I knew then that he’d seen his fair share of violence. Michelle hadn’t been able to shield him from it. “You got away with it,” he whispered without a trace of fear in his eyes.
“As far as anyone knows—his fucking buddies at work included—he took off one day and never returned, leaving me and Ricky wards of the state.”
“Holy fuck.” He blinked but made no move to get the hell out of a murderer’s basement.
“I got caught up with the Vipers in my early twenties and pulled Ricky in along with me when I found us a sponsor. They’re my family now. My tribe, and I protect what’s mine, Dill. You got me?” My voice broke a few times, but I didn’t give a shit the kid got to see me vulnerable. I wanted the same from him.
“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice quiet as he continued to hold my stare like a man.
I cleared my throat again. “So yeah, I’ve got it bad for your mom. Want to hold her tight and keep her from whatever shit is in your past. But this isn’t all about her. I met you first, Dill, and you’re like the son I never had—no fucking lie. I’ve got it bad for you, too—in a totally bro kinda way.” I managed a grin, and the kids eyes filled with fucking tears.
“Am I a pansy ass for wanting a bro hug?” he asked, his voice small like a little kid.
“I’d say you’re pretty fucking badass to not be running like a chicken shit after the secrets I just told you.”
“You don’t scare me, Vigil. I trust you.”
“Get over here.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him in, squeezing him tight with a side hug.
I missed my fucking brother.
Forcing myself to focus on the present and reminding myself I needed to let Ricky go, I ruffled Dillon’s hair. “I got your back. You know that, right?”
Dillon let out a heavy breath and scooted back to his seat, grabbing up the bowl of chips again. He turned his focus back on the TV, and I let him go. He kept his silence, though, over both his true past and whatever at school bugged him.
Respect for his obeying the Witness Protection marshals and annoyance over his not allowing me to protect him swirled in an ugly brew inside me, but I made myself appreciate the fact he hadn’t lit out. At least I had that. The future with his mom remained to be seen.
Chapter Sixteen
Mila
Vigil hadn’t been outside at night all week long. Lights shone in his windows as I sat on the stoop whenever the weather allowed, sipping my tea and lonely for company, but I didn’t reach out to him once. I must have reasoned wrong about him, and I told myself I was better off without a man who wasn’t interested in friendship if the woman wasn’t putting out.
I’d had a shit day straight from the pits of hell, though, and longing for his ear, the comfort of his arms tempted me past the point of caring he only wanted sex—even when he said he didn’t.
Grumbling, I closed my eyes and let out a heavy breath.
Devon had come home with a bruise on his cheek and waved it off with lies about falling. I pushed, and he shut down even more, slamming his bedroom door in my face. He stayed there, skipping dinner and telling me to leave him alone.
Worse and even more worrisome, I got a call from Marshal Pritt while washing up my dinner dishes. Two of my ex’s men on house arrest had disappeared. Taken out by their rivals for the deeds they’d done to land them in jail? Escaped and intent on hunting down the ones who’d helped put their brothers behind bars?
The latter chilled me clear through.
Sitting out on my porch all alone probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but it wasn’t like they’d get to New England within three hours. Pritt assured me we were safe, but I felt far from it.
Anger and fear held my stomach hostage, creating a panicked thickness in my throat no amount of tea soothed. Someone had hurt my son, and no amount of self-preservation instinct would stop me from protecting him from the one threat closer to home.
I pulled my cell from my pocket and texted Vigil.
Dillon came home with a bruise on his face.
I expected to see him storm across the yards separating us, but my phone rang instead.
“The fuck?” he growled, his voice sounding exhausted.
“I don’t know.” I swallowed. “He won’t tell me anything.”
“Fuck.”
I chewed on the inside of my lip, waiting.
“Sorry.” Vigil grunted after a few seconds of silence over the line. “I’ve had one hell of a fucking day … is Dillon okay?”
“He shut himself in his room and won’t come out.”
Vigil let out a string of curses. “Did he say who did it?”
“He said he tripped and fell.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yep,” I didn’t hesitate to agree.
“Want me to come over and make him talk?”
I considered the idea, but pushed it aside while staring into my tea. “That might only piss him off more. I want him to open up in his own time. It’s just hard, you know?”
“What else is bothering you?”
My shoulders slumped beneath the light sweater I’d thrown on. “How can you tell, Vigil?”
“Your voice is as easy to read as your face, wildcat. Need a hug?”
More than anything.
I swallowed back the need to tell him the truth, to open up to him like Dillon refused to do with me. “Why’d you have a bad day?” I asked, diverting so damn obviously my face grew hot.
Vigil let out a heavy sigh, and I imagined him tugging on his beard as I’d seen him do a time or two. “My brother is an alcoholic, and I gave him the ultimatum of rehab or handing in his colors.”
Unsure what to say at his surprising candidness, I kept quiet.
“He left his cut on my desk. Fucking took off for who the fuck knows where.”
Vigil’s voice broke, and an ache swept through my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I offered the only thing I could, floored that he’d told me such personal information. Harlon, my ex, hadn’t ever shared jack shit—club-wise or not.
“Yeah. Fucking sucks balls.”
“Sometimes, you have to draw the line, Vigil. You’re
doing the right thing for him.”
He let out another heavy sigh in my ear. “Yeah, but it hurts. We’ve had each other’s backs since we were little, and I feel like I’m turning mine on him now.”
My eyes stung. “You’re not. He’ll see that someday.”
“So what should we do about Dillon?” Vigil’s turn to divert, and I let it slide, honing in on what he’d said and how it warmed me through.
“We?”
“If you want my help, yeah.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Vigil’s silence roused my nosiness.
“Because I think you’re a lawless biker who might be a bad influence on my son?” I suggested what I’d all but outright declared the first time I spoke to him.
“Something like that,” he replied, his tone guarded.
I thought again of Marshal Pritt and how he couldn’t hold a candle to Vigil. “You’re the only friend Devon has right now—the only friend I have.”
“Then let me in, Michelle. Tell me everything. Tell me what I can do to help protect you both.”
I opened my mouth and snapped it shut as I realized my slip over my son’s name—and Vigil’s not pointing it out. “I-I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Promise?”
I swallowed a rush of nausea. “Yeah.”
My hands shook, sloshing tea over the rim as I hung up. The Vipers hated the Demented Demons MC with a violence I’d witnessed first-hand years earlier not long after meeting my ex-husband.
Had Vigil known who we were all along? Had he tried to get in my and Dillon’s heads to exact revenge for his Vegas brothers the Demons had taken out? Eight years wasn’t a long enough time for memories to get buried.
I slipped inside and locked the door behind me, moving from window to window to double check our safety. My heart warred with my mind as I considered the man who’d burrowed into both without my realizing it.
Sleep eluded me, but I finally came to a conclusion long into the night. I didn’t doubt Vigil’s caring for Devon. I didn’t doubt his desire for me. The only thing I could doubt, what my jaded heart demanded was his motives for wanting to spend time with us. His true intentions. Cold hearted bastards would use anything and anyone to get their end result—including those who trusted them the most.
Memories of what he’d told me concerning his brother, though, refuted that last thought. My gut told me Vigil was a good man, and nothing in his actions or words in the previous weeks since we’d met had raised a single red flag.
With nothing left but the need to trust something, I went with my gut.
Devon made an appearance the next morning for breakfast, exactly as I’d expected since he’d missed dinner. I’d decided to keep the truth about the Demons who’d escaped house arrest to myself, trusting Witness Protection to keep us safe from harm as they’d done with all those in their charge since the program began.
No one had been hurt, and running off on my own wouldn’t be any safer.
“You okay?” I asked as Devon fished the last bits of cereal from the milk in his bowl.
“Fine.”
I eyed his scowl and the bruise beneath his eye that appeared more purple than red. “Why don’t you head over to Vigil’s this morning? Work off some of your pissiness on the weights and bags?”
He eyed me while lifting the bowl to slurp down the milk.
“What? You think I want to put up with your moody ass all day today? I didn’t sleep worth a shit because you’re lying to me, and my head is throbbing like hell.”
His smirk didn’t quite pop his dimple, but my heart melted all the same. “Language, Mom.”
I scowled at him although I knew it didn’t show in my eyes. “Get your ass out of this house and don’t come back until you’ve gotten this shit out of your system.”
Chuckling, he got up, tossed his empty bowl in the sink, and sauntered back down the hallway.
I didn’t bother hollering after him to shower first. Hopefully, he’d be sweating his ass off and spilling his guts to Vigil.
Chapter Seventeen
Vigil
No call came through from Michelle like she’d promised, and I wondered if she knew she’d slipped on the phone the night before. I hadn’t corrected the name she’d called her son, but I also hadn’t acted as though I’d noticed. Had she realized and figured that I knew the truth? Did she fear me?
The Demons and Vipers had battled for a couple of decades, so I couldn’t see how she would think me or my brothers would ever harm her. She had been the key witness in the trial that ended our rivalry once and for all.
The Demented Demons MC had been dismantled from the inside out—all because of their Sergeant at Arm’s old lady—Mila Zeigler, Devil had gotten the scoop for me—and her agreeing to gather inside evidence for leniency. Guess she wasn’t as law-abiding as I’d thought, the little wildcat. Not outright breaking the law in my eyes, but aiding and abetting was the same to the fucking FBI.
Dillon showed up at my back slider at the same time I’d reached my patience limit, ready to storm their house and find out what the fuck was up once and for all.
“How are you, Dill?”
He shrugged but made no move to step in when I moved back and motioned him inside. “Mind if I hit the weights this morning?”
“Help yourself. Was just going to head out there myself,” I lied, eyeing the bruise under his eye.
“Cool.” He nodded and hopped off my stoop, obviously intending to walk around the house than through. “See you in there.”
He held his silence for a good ten minutes while I spotted him bench pressing. “What’s Vigil short for?” he asked out of the blue.
“Vigilante.”
“As in justice?”
I nodded, and he laid back down for another set.
“I introduced myself to a few of the guys on the football team hoping to make some friends, you know?” He sat up without finishing his reps, his shoulders hunched. “Find my way into their group for next year.”
I rounded the bench to stand beside him, needing to see his face.
The muscle in his jaw ticked as he clamped his mouth shut, but I wasn’t having that shit. I’d promised to help him and I wanted to. Fucking needed it.
“They give you trouble?” I asked even though he sported the answer in a purple bruise beneath his left eye.
A tiny nod was all the answer I got out of him, though.
“That Walsh prick leading them?”
Dillon glanced down at his hands and inspected the palms, eventually creating fists. “He’s the biggest fucking bully I’ve ever met. Thinks he owns the goddamn school because he’s the star quarterback. He’s big as fuck—twice my size.”
“And ugly as shit,” I tossed out, the desire to burn something to the ground creating a fire inside me as he lifted his focus to me, a smirk on his lips.
“Got that right.”
“He the one who did that?” I asked, motioning toward his face with my chin.
Dillon let out a heavy exhale, his shoulders finally slumping beneath the weight of his teenage world. “Yeah, and he also let me know, in no uncertain terms, I wouldn’t make the team next year. He called me a pansy-assed little bitch, a pretty boy twig who would be better off dressing up like a drag queen and making a name for myself on social media instead.”
Fuck, that fire burned bright, and I wanted to ask a million questions, get to the bottom of who all was involved in fucking with his emotions. I knew what I needed to take care of business, though. No sense in dragging Dillon—Devon—through the shit he’d experienced at the hands of a bully.
Fuck knew once was enough.
That punk Walsh’s father had been on the receiving end of my fists years earlier, and bad blood still lingered between us, all because he’d run a stop sign and almost took out two of my brothers on their bikes.
&nbs
p; “Just stay the fuck away from him, Dill,” I said, my tone hinting at violence even though I tried to hide the ugliness rolling around in my gut. “Ignore his ass. Keep lifting and eating healthy shit. You’ve got a year to get where you want, and I’m going to help get you there. Understand?”
A small smile lifted a corner of his lips as he nodded. “Yeah.”
“You got this, brother.”