by Vivian Ward
Turning the corner as I walked into the kitchen, I heard a wet, smacking sound and immediately knew what it was. It was the only thing that could have been worse was finding one of those terrorist fuckers with a knife sticking out of her belly.
It was Henry sucking face with Anita, his hands cupping her breasts as he pushed her up against the wall and a big, gloating grin plastered across her face as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
The second she saw me, her eyes turned into huge dollar pieces. Fury coursed through every drop of blood in my veins as she continued to lock lips with him and pulled his body into hers with her legs gripping him tight.
I couldn’t believe she’d tease me and think she could get away with it! Had she lost her damned mind?
“Get the fuck away from her,” I grabbed Henry’s shoulder, spinning him around.
I looked at Anita, seething with rage. “How the fuck could you?” I asked her.
“We’re over. We’ve been over, Gage. You can’t just waltz back into my life and think you’re going to start calling the shots again. That’s not how it works; that’s not how it’s going to work. I’m a grown woman, and I can do whatever the hell I please,” she hissed in my face.
What I wouldn’t give to put my mouth on top of her hot lips and shut her right the hell up.
“And you!” I started after Henry. “Who the fuck do you think you are? You knew we had history, and here I was, thinking you’d been coming here to keep our boss updated. You scrawny little shit!” I chased after him.
For him being a little guy, he was fucking fast; I didn’t think his legs would move that quick. He ducked under the table and came out on the other side before he took off again.
I’d deal with him later; I wasn’t chasing him all over the house. We’d have to meet up sooner or later, and when we did, we would be all alone in the woods.
“Do you even know what you just did?” I turned my attention to Anita. “He’s my fucking partner!”
“Fuck off, Gage. You’re not the boss of me, and I’m not dealing with your shit.”
This shit was tearing me up from the inside out.
“Anita, babe. What happened? Where did we go so wrong? I left Millington to better myself, become a better person and when I returned, I came back a better man—or so I thought.” I studied her big, beautiful eyes. “You should have never kissed him. We both know he has no intentions of sticking around, he’s just passing through.”
“Like you? Isn’t that what you’re doing? Just passing through?”
Shit. I had fucked a lot of things up, including us but I wasn’t taking all of the blame.
“That’s not fair, and you know it, Anita. You could have spoken up, said your peace about me leaving before I left but you didn’t. You clammed up, stormed off into the house and I never saw you again. ”
“What the hell was so important that you had to come barging in here for anyways?”
Her eyes watered up and for a minute, I hated myself; she looked so hurt and full of sadness.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” I grabbed her hand and started leading her toward the couch. “I want you to sit down for this.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she yanked her hand away from mine. “I’m not a child, and you’re not going to treat me like one either. Say what you’ve got to say and then get the hell out.”
The icy stare in her eyes cut straight through my heart. The sweet Anita that I once knew had been replaced with a menacing demon who could grind my heart into a bloody, beating pulp in a matter of seconds with nothing more than her voice and stare.
“I came to tell you that it’s not safe here. The shit that you and your dad found in the woods? That’s just the top of the iceberg, babe. You’re not playing cops and robbers with the local bad boys, and it sure as fuck ain’t military hiding that shit here.”
“What are you saying?”
The look on her face brightened, and her eyes registered. She knew exactly what I was saying.
“You’ve got to get the hell out of here—you and your parents both.”
“We can’t just up and leave, Gage. It’s not that simple,” she snorted, mocking me. “Memorial Day weekend is coming up and in case you haven’t turned on a TV since you’ve been back, we’re running an unbelievable sale. People from all over will be coming to buy up cars.”
“Fuck,” I threw my head back. I could already see where this was going. I started laying out all of the evidence on the table before her and spelled out my theory about the terrorists.
“Have you seen the shit these assholes do to people? It’s not real fucking pretty; they like to chop off people’s heads and mount them for fun—and that’s on a good day. It ain’t happening, not on my watch. Come on, let’s get you a bag and get the fuck out of here.”
She saw me reaching for her a mile away and tried to run. I grabbed her arm and tried pulling her in the opposite direction, but she was too resistant. She was a lot stronger than I had guessed.
“Get away from me and don’t ever put your hands on me,” she snarled.
“Anita, come on. You’re being ridiculous. You can’t stay here, and I’m not taking no for an answer,” I went for her again.
A decorative vase that her mom kept in the doorway between the living room and kitchen came hurling at me. I stepped to the side just in time, allowing it to nearly miss me before it shattered into a million pieces on the floor; but the sound was so heightened that I needed a minute to process what it was.
It wasn’t just broken glass exploding around me. There was a noise coming from upstairs.
Something shrieking. A baby. Crying.
“What the hell? Do you have a kid in here?”
Her narrowed, angry eyes had vanished in a single breath before they went huge, like giant saucers and she froze in place.
I started walking toward the staircase as she started stuttering and tripping over her words.
“Gage, no…wait, you can’t go up there.”
The baby’s crying was growing louder by the second.
Who the hell does she think she is? Telling me I can’t go up there.
I wanted to see what the hell she was hiding. Why would she be hiding a kid upstairs? I bound up the steps, taking them two at a time until I was at the top of them and headed toward the sound coming from the room on the left.
She tried to come after me to stop me, but she couldn’t catch up in time. She was screaming and yelling at me to stop, but I didn’t listen. I was trying to figure out what had her so upset, why she didn’t want me to come up the stairs, and nothing was going to stop me. I couldn’t imagine what her problem would be.
Actually, I did as soon as I laid eyes on him, but I had to be crazy, right? There was no fucking way. Life wouldn’t be so cruel to me that she would hide something like that from me…would it?
I ripped open the wood door and saw a crib in the center of the room with a blue baby blanket hanging over the edge of it. Stepping inside the room, the cry grew louder and then I saw the most familiar face I had ever seen.
Looking at him was like staring at one of the few baby photos that I had of myself. I was staring at myself more than two decades ago.
My heart stopped and left my body; it was on a completely different planet. I put my hand back on my chest to see if I was still alive as I walked up to my son to meet him up close.
Anita stood behind me, hyperventilating through her tears, scared shitless. And yeah, she should have been.
As soon as I laid eyes on my boy, my flesh and blood, I had already decided what to do with Anita’s ass, but first, I had to take care of something.
Chapter 7: Anita
I thought I was going to die after I forced myself up the stairs and saw Gage standing over Bentley’s crib. I didn’t know if the shock was going to kill me, or if Gage was, but I was standing on a different plane than I was a few minutes ago.
The thing was, I could handle runnin
g the car lot while tending to Bentley, I could handle the shit going on that was buried on the property, and I could handle being a single mom, but the thing I couldn’t handle?
His huge massive frame towering over his tiny son as they stared into mirror images of each other, trying to figure out who the other was.
My mind struggled to grasp the reality of everything that was going on, but how could I even start to understand it?
He knew.
Gage knew. He knew my best-kept secret, and it only took him seconds to destroy and uncover the truth that I had fought so hard to hide. All thanks to the shattering glass and my baby being startled awake from his peaceful nap.
How ironic that my secret was ruined by other secrets. The secret of the buried shit on the property, the secret of the son that we shared and the secret kiss that I stole with Henry, his partner. For the love of God, his partner. Who the hell was I? What was I becoming?
I knew from the get-go that it was all a mistake. I should never have gotten close to Henry like that; it was too risky. Not only could it fuck things up with Gage—for both Henry and me— it could, and did, uncover my biggest secret ever. All twenty-two pounds of it sat up in his crib and cried, waiting to be picked up.
“The fuck?” he ran his hand through his hair.
He didn’t sound pissed off…he sounded stunned. For a minute, he looked as though he had just won the lottery as he stood beside Bentley in his wooden crib. I felt numb—emotionally and physically—when he reached into his crib and swooped Bentley up into his arms. He was picking up my son; our son.
“I can’t fucking believe it. You’re my kid. My son,” he repeated with his back to me as he held Bentley close to his chest. “I’m your dad.”
If the knot in my throat got any bigger, I swore it was going to suffocate me. Hot tears welled up in my eyes as I watched the biggest badass in all of Millington break into pieces as he held his son.
It felt like a dull fishing knife gutting my insides as I realized I’d robbed him of the opportunity of being a father for more than a year.
Inching toward him, I tried to form words, but my mouth was as dry as the desert. I wanted to reach out and touch him; touch Bentley, but I couldn’t get over the awe of seeing the two of them together.
Normally, Bentley was cranky and crying when he woke up from his naps but not now. He was content being wrapped in his daddy’s arms. Mesmerized, I stared in disbelief as he cooed and rested his head on Gage’s solid, massive chest.
“Gage,” I said, breaking the silence in the room. “Put him down. We can go downstairs and talk about this. Please, and I can explain—”
“Explain what?” a throaty growl escaped his lips as his gunmetal blue eyes darted toward me.
Oh shit.
Not only could I hear the anger in his voice as it boomed at me, but the tightened expression on his face was more than I wanted to see. Slowly, he turned toward me, cradling Bentley tighter against his chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but he wouldn’t allow me to utter another word.
“I don’t want to hear any bullshit that you’re about to spew. You lost the right to tell me a damned thing when you decided to keep my son a secret from me.”
The look of disgust and hatred on his face left me speechless. The hot tears that had welled up in my eyes went spilling down my cheeks, but it didn’t help my cause because Gage had already made up his mind that he hated me.
I couldn’t even look him in the eye. Suddenly, I wondered where those terrorists were. Maybe they could carry me off and put my head on a stick so it’d save Gage the trouble of doing it himself.
“Please,” my voice cracked as I tried to keep my composure. “Whatever it is that you want to say to me, just put Bentley down. I don’t want to see him upset.”
He snorted at me. “Bentley?” He looked down at Bentley’s big button eyes. “So your name’s Bentley, huh?”
It was cute watching him say Bentley’s name to him and seeing him stare up at his dad—until he turned his attention back to me.
“You think I’d upset him? I’d never do anything to upset my son. In fact, I’d say we’re going to set things straight right now.” His lips curled up into a knowing smile, “I’d say it calls for a celebration of sorts.”
Shit.
With the way his eyes were fixated on me, I’d be lucky to hope that the terrorists would carry me off and behead me because the way he was looking at me, there was no telling what he’d do to me.
My heart had skipped two or three hundred beats before I gasped for air. Yeah, I was so scared that I had forgotten to breathe.
“I’m so sorry,” I pleaded with him. “So fucking sorry. Please, you’ve got to believe me. It’s not like I had any of this planned out. I didn’t know if or when you would ever come back.”
“Shut up!”
I swallowed. Hard. He stepped forward, stroking Bentley’s hair. His soft, fatherly touch contrasted wickedly against his death stare, the one that said he was ready to kill me.
I didn’t make another attempt to speak; I knew better. Then he headed out of the bedroom, but I was too scared to move and follow him.
Oh my God. Bentley! What is he doing with Bentley?
I never thought in a million years that he’d hurt the baby, especially after he had just adored him the way he did but crashing sounds started coming from my bedroom and scared the shit out of me. Suddenly, I went running from Bentley’s room and followed the booming noises.
“Gage! What the hell are you doing in here?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes as he ripped open my closet like it was a bag of chips and tore my clothes off the hangers, throwing everything into a pile. All I could do was imagine him having a big bonfire out of my clothes. After all, hiding his kid from him for more than a year might just flip his crazy switch.
“Stop!” I yelled at him, getting into his face. He pushed me out of his way as if I were weightless, completely ignoring me. “You can’t do this, Gage! Just give me the baby back and we can talk!” He continued to act like I didn’t exist and the cold stare in his piercing blue eyes scared the hell out of me. “What are you going to do with us?”
“He’s coming with me, and so are you,” he pushed Bentley back into my arms as he continued ransacking my room.
Holding Bentley in my arms was such a relief. As angry as Gage was, I was terrified that he was going to take my son away from me and never let me see him again. Feeling like it might be the very last time I’d ever get to hold him and feel his soft skin against mine, I knew I had to leave. I had to try to get out while I still could.
As I eyed the door, Gage must have known exactly what was going through my mind. His big boot kicked the door shut, and he stood in front of it, dominating the doorway. He was waiting for me to fuck up, to do something that would give him another chance to take Bentley away from me.
“Don’t try any dumb shit and I’ll let you keep holding him.” His eyes were fixated on Bentley. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to pack all that shit into a bag, and I don’t care if you have to stuff it into suitcases, duffel bags or trash bags. Get your shit together as fast as you can. Now.”
I swallowed, weighing my options as I projected every ounce of rage that I had onto him. He didn’t care. His eyes shifted toward the pile of clothes he’d thrown out of my closet, nodding for me to get moving.
Fuck him, fuck me, and fuck everything. I hated the universe at that second. Why did it have to bring him back here? Why did everything have to happen the way it did?
I sighed as I laid Bentley on the bed next to the clothes and wiped my wet, swollen eyes as I pushed the clothes inside of an oversized duffel bag that I had. A tear rolled off my cheek and onto the floral bedspread, the one my mom bought me not long after I had Bentley, and it reminded me of everything I was leaving behind. I was leaving our home, our things, everything my entire family had ever worked for.
But I knew if I resisted—even just a
little bit—he would take Bentley away from me and never let me see him again. And I also knew by the look in his eyes that he had zero tolerance for me to test him. He’d already had his mind made up before he found Bentley that my family and I couldn’t stay here, but now that he knew about Bentley?
Packing in silence, I tried not to look at Bentley, the bedspread my mom bought me or anything else that would bring me to tears. An hour ago my life was so different, so simple. Now? It was hell on wheels, and I had no idea where we were headed.
“Hurry the hell up! I want to be out of here by dark in case they come back.”
Why? So you can shoot me execution style instead of the bastards lurking around on our property?
I honestly wouldn’t put anything past him at this point. He’d already taken off for almost two years at the drop of a dime, came back and had taken over our land, the house, our lives and my family.
And when he found out that I’d kept his son from him, I saw that wounded look in his eyes. The same wounded look a wolf gets when it loses an important member of the pack.
But on the other hand, dead women didn’t need clothes, and since I was packing the ones he’d thrown out of my closet, I still had a shred of hope. By the time I had shoved the last of my clothes in the bag and looked up at him, he still had the same hateful stare on his face. The one that said he hated me and I’d fucked up bad.
“What are you waiting for?” he roared. “I said let’s go. Grab the kid and come on.”
He pushed the door open, holding it with one arm, allowing Bentley and me to pass through the doorway.
“Before we go, promise me one thing,” I gulped. “Promise me that you won’t take away my baby, and that you won’t kill me; that you won’t put my body out in the woods over one of those bombs and make it look like an ‘accident.'”
His face had twisted before he bellowed out a low, throaty laughter.