by Simone Elise
God, why was he looking at me like that? He had Miss Perfect behind him! He had a model girlfriend claiming him! What the hell was he thinking giving me a look like I had just insulted him, rejected him, broke his heart, and then lit a fire in his stomach?
Everyone—EVERYONE—was watching us. He needed to pull his shit together.
“Can everyone stop staring at me?!” I snapped, sick of feeling every pair of eyes on me like I was a science experiment! “I fucked up! I said it! God, is it so hard to believe that even I am capable of making a fucking mistake?!”
My voice went up with my anger, as Mum, Dad, Tyson, Eve and even fucking Andrea were looking at me like I had grown another head! Brad, on the other hand, was now glaring at me. Well, at least he wasn’t insulted or heartbroken anymore. He seemed to have gotten over that.
“Dad, I have studying to do. Can I go now?” I pleaded with him.
“Not till you eat.” Dad crossed his arms. He was triple my size and his large dominance was making me feel even smaller. “More than a salad, too, Hannah.”
“I’ll just spew it up!”
“In that case, we will be going to the doctors tomorrow, and I’ll get them to measure you, weigh you and if you even come close to having anorexia, I’ll be personally taking you to every doctor’s appointment and counseling session from there on till you are well again.” Dad’s eyes told me he meant every word. “And if you still won’t eat then, I’ll get you admitted to the best possible hospital that deals with eating disorders. And I’ll be there, day in day out, till you fucking eat.”
“What about the club?” I challenged him. “You really going to let the mother charter not have a President because your daughter just isn’t hungry?” He loved the club. He was responsible for thousands of men, at least a hundred clubs, and most importantly he was responsible for all of Satan’s Son’s criminal activity.
He trafficked all their drugs through the clubs. He had every President answering to him every month with the takings. He was in charge of all the money that ran through the clubs.
He wasn’t just the heart of Satan’s Son, he was also the fucking nervous system. Everyone knew that the Reaper didn’t just run Satan’s Sons, he was Satan’s Sons. He wasn’t just a mother charter President. Not like how Granddad was. The Reaper increased the empire of Satan’s Son. Within a few short years of him leading them, clubs were opened in towns that had never even had biker activity.
Dad spread Satan’s Sons around the country like it was virus. And just like the common cold, it spread and spread everywhere to tiny corners of the country. He had more men. More clubs. More money. And the thing he carried the most was power. He had the power to kill and destroy and also grow something if he wanted to.
Dad was, well…my eyes ran up him. How do you explain the Reaper? You can’t.
I saw Dad’s eyes harden. I watched his expression tighten and then I heard Mum standing up behind me. Dad was about to lose his temper.
“I’ll walk from the motherfucking club. I’ll wipe all my responsibilities. If it means I have to get every tattoo blacked out, I will. Fuck, they can burn them off if they want!”
I scoffed. “You can’t walk from the club. You ARE the club!” God, he couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t turn his back on something he lived and breathed and grew and fucking loved to death! He wouldn’t last one day not being a member.
“My family comes before the club.” He said that like it was true.
And yeah, I guess he had always put us first but if it came down to him leaving the club over one of us, well, that was like asking him to do something he physically couldn’t do.
“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered. I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted to get out of here.
I turned to leave but Dad wasn’t letting this argument end. He gripped my arm, pulling me back to face him.
“Just let me go!” I hissed. He didn’t get it! I didn’t have a fucking eating disorder. I had CANCER! CANCER! And he was standing here demanding that I eat something. I couldn’t give a darn about food. I was dying! Literally something inside me was eating me alive!
He shook his head with a look on his face that I’d never seen. What look was it? It was the Reaper look. The expression that scared every man away. I expected this was the look he gave his prey before he killed them. As Mum said, sometimes he’s more Reaper than Kade and right now he was a hundred percent Reaper and not even a glimpse of my dad was in sight.
“So, we are going to the doctors tomorrow?” His grip tightened. “I thought you were doing okay. I thought you were fine. I was fucking wrong. You should have come to me if you were sick.”
I rolled my eyes. Shaking my head. “You don’t fucking get it! DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU DON’T GET IT!” I screamed at him, trying to pull my arm from his grip. I didn’t have an eating disorder! I had cancer, which made me stress, which resulted in me not being able to stomach food.
It was a vicious circle! One I was being forced to live every day. He didn’t understand the core problem, so how the hell could he help me? He actually expected me to come to him if I was sick? This was his reaction for me not eating a meal!
He gave me a look, telling me to calm down. Well, if he was going to force me to a doctor tomorrow I was going to make sure I went kicking and screaming. Because one look at my file would scream one thing: CANCER! And then he would know. And I didn’t want that happening.
So, I had two options. I either stormed out of there and went to Layla’s or I backed down and ate something…or…well, I wasn’t seeing another option. But I was too worked up to simply eat now just to shut him up. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I guessed I’d just continue the argument.
“The club comes first, Dad. Because when it comes down to it, you wouldn’t last one day away from it. But you would live if you didn’t have me,” I finally said and pulled on my arm but he wouldn’t let go. It was like he was holding me so tight because he thought he was losing me. I looked up at him. “You’ll be fine without me.” And that was the truth. He was going to have a day without me in the near future. They were all going to have to face it.
At least I wasn’t the center of anyone’s world. So it wasn’t like I was destroying someone’s life when I died.
Dad’s eyes said it all: disbelief. “Brad.” He turned. “I need to step down for a while. You’re in charge.”
He could not be serious! “Dad, are you fucking deaf?!” I roared up at him. “I’m fine!”
“Don’t yell at me! You aren't fine! There is nothing left of you and it took a fucking stranger to make me see it!” Dad let his temper go and I didn’t even flinch from his tone. He was yelling at me like I was a member that had disobeyed a direct order or something.
“Kade. Calm down.” Mum stepped to my side as Dad’s grip tightened to the point I didn’t think blood was passing through my veins in my arm. “Let go of her, Kade,” Mum said firmly and grabbed his hand, trying to pry his grip off me.
“You hear what she is saying, Abby?! She’s acting like I wouldn't care if she died!” Dad was not calming down.
God, all I’d said is he would survive without me. He wouldn’t survive without the club.
Dad looked at me with such rage. I had never seen it before and admittedly he was starting to scare me.
“YOU THINK I’D JUST LET YOU STARVE YOURSELF TO DEATH?!” he kept roared at me, and this time I did flinch from his tone. “YOU THINK I WOULD ALLOW YOU TO KILL YOURSELF?!”
God, he needed to stop. I didn’t eat a meal! That’s it. God, if I told him the truth right now, I think he would kill me FOR having cancer. Like I was doing it to hurt him!
“KADE! LET GO OF HER!” Mum yelled at him and both her hands went to his, trying to get him to let go. My arm was going numb.
“NO! SHE THINKS THAT I’M SO COLD THAT I WOULDN’T CARE IF SHE DIED! SHE IS STANDING HERE SAYING I WOULD SURVIVE WITHOUT HER!” Dad’s grip tightened. He took a step clo
ser to me, closing the gap between us. “I WON’T LET YOU KILL YOURSELF.”
That was it. I snapped. The calmer side of me, well, it disappeared and my anger that I’d never expressed exploded.
“YOU’LL FUCKING GET OVER IT. IT’S MY LIFE AND I CHOOSE HOW I SPEND IT AND IF THAT’S IN AN EARLY GRAVE THEN YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” It was only facts! Facts he would have to wake up to one day. It was my life—and I was trying to fight the cancer—but I wasn’t God. I didn’t decide who lived and died. And I knew the odds were against me.
So I wasn’t being mean, telling him that. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. Dad let go of my arm like I had just burned him and he turned his hand and I knew what was going to happen. He was about to violate my one and only rule.
But I didn’t flinch or deflect his hand as it was coming for me—someone else did.
Brad pushed Dad back firmly, and then basically Tyson and Brad had to hold Dad back as he tried his very best to get to me.
“Tatz, can you take Hannah to Layla’s,” Mum said, her eyes on Dad. “Now.”
Dad was getting free of Brad and Tyson and I was really interested in what he would do. Did he think hitting me would make me back down? Did he really think that a firm hand from him would suddenly—magically—stop me from thinking I was dying?
My breast started to burn more and my hand went to it. I knew it made sense to go to Layla’s. I knew Dad needed time to calm down before he acted on his rage.
I looked up when I saw Dad had broken free of Brad and Tyson’s grip. I didn’t even have a second to turn, a second to run; one minute I was standing and the next his hand whipped across my cheek and my body fell to the ground, blood filling my mouth. The power of his hand took me to the ground, literally.
I could blearily hear the screaming from Mum and Tyson as they roared at Dad. I couldn’t focus on one word that was being said. Dad had just broken our relationship. And most of all, it was my fault. I pushed him to do it. I think I was stunned that Dad had hit me. He actually lost control and hit me.
I wiped the blood from my mouth and went to get up, and then I was lifted up from the ground by someone else. I didn’t need to even guess who was helping me to my feet—I knew the safety I always felt in his arms. But as soon as my feet were back on the ground, I made sure to push Brad’s hands off me.
I didn’t need to be comforted by Brad right now. I didn’t need pity. I looked Dad in the eye, seeing his rage slowly fade and the realization of what he had just done creep across his face.
Everyone was deathly silent as they looked between Dad and me.
Mum and Tyson had stopped roaring at Dad. Or maybe I had just tuned out all noise. I felt the blood dripping off my lip. I touched it and I didn’t flinch from the pain.
I saw Dad’s mouth open and I didn’t need to hear a word he was going to say because he knew and I knew he wasn’t coming back from this.
Even though it was my fault. I think I was doing the right thing anyway—he needed to be pushed away.
I couldn’t have him seriously dropping the club to make sure I ate. I couldn’t have him taking an interest in my health. It was best that the relationship we did have died and I distanced myself from him.
I saw panic cross his face just as Mum stepped in my view of him.
“Please, Hannah, don’t run.” Mum was basically begging me. I thought Dad was panicking but his panic was nothing compared to Mum’s. “He didn’t mean it. Please, don’t cut us off.” The fear and panic in Mum’s voice was clear. She was basically having a panic attack. “I know you want to run, but please handle this better than what I did when my dad hit me.”
Granddad may have hit Mum, but I was positive that her relationship with her dad was different to the one I had with mine. Our relationship was based on trust and respect, and him hitting me ruled both of those out.
It hurt, and I wasn’t talking about the blood that kept filling my mouth, I was talking about ending the relationship that Dad and I had. I knew this was just one of the stages that had to happen if I was going to keep me having cancer to myself.
Dad knew. I knew. Mum knew. The damage was done.
I opened my mouth, but Mum’s panic overcame her.
“Please, Hannah, you know your Dad didn’t mean it. Don’t move out. Don’t leave. Please.” Mum nervously took my hands. “Don’t run.”
“I’m not running.” I took my hands from her, and Dad pushed her out of the way. But I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I turned, seeing Tatz standing there, shocked—like he didn’t know what to say or what to do or who to look at. “Thanks for the textbook.” I scooped down, picking it up. “I’ll, um, walk you out.”
Tatz was staring at me, like he hadn’t heard me correctly. His eyes bounced off Dad who was standing behind me. Then his eyes hardened on him before slowly coming back to me.
“You made a decision on the Jeep yet?” Tatz reached out, his fingers brushing across my lip. I saw the blood which he wiped on his jeans. “You haven’t eaten, right?” He was trying to be casual but I could hear the anger in his voice.
Tatz and I were acting like no one else was around us. Like my family wasn’t waiting to see whether I was running or moving out or both.
“Still thinking,” I smiled at him and it hurt. “I’m still not hungry.” I wasn’t even going to eat now just to please my family. I couldn’t stomach food. So I wasn’t going to eat, not even to ease the worries of everyone around me.
“Well, are you going to be at Layla’s this week?” Tatz still wasn’t leaving me. His eyes ran around the people watching me. “I could give you a ride there now. Or you can come back to my place and we can pick up where we left off?”
That may have sounded dirty to everyone else, but he was referring to our television marathon.
Suddenly I was pushed to the side and Dad was in Tatz’s face. “You think I’m going to let Hannah go back to your place? You think I’m going to let you take my daughter?” Rage was back in Dad’s voice. He was all Reaper again and not Kade.
“Kade, leave him alone!” Mum snapped at Dad, and went to push him away from Tatz. “You will just drive Hannah more into his arms.”
I frowned. They didn’t understand mine and Tatz’s relationship.
Dad was yelling at Tatz like Tatz was going to take me away from him. I wasn’t running away with Tatz.
“You know, you live up to your reputation, Reaper. Right down to hitting women. Fuck, she’s your daughter!” Tatz’s voice had a lot of venom and disbelief. “Who the fuck hits their own daughter!?”
Dad stopped in his tracks before Tatz carried on.
“You worried about me taking her? Fuck man, you are driving her to me!” Tatz was never one to back down. He was cocky. He had an attitude to match his cockiness. He lived to piss people off.
I knew no angel was found in a motorcycle club, especially a one percent club. So I didn’t expect Tatz to behave like someone different than what he was. But right now he wanted a fight with Dad, who had already lost control with me and was still raging underneath, and I didn’t want Tatz coping that.
I gently pulled on Tatz’s arm and hoped he would take a step away from Dad before Dad’s fists got involved.
“Come on, Tatz, just leave it. It isn’t a big deal.” I kept pulling on his arm. “I’ll see you out.”
Tatz’s eyes snapped to me. “You aren’t seriously thinking of staying here, are you?” The disapproval was clear in his voice. “You are leaving.”
I guessed any sane person would leave. Maybe just out of pain, they’d leave. Just to make a point. Well, I was going to make a point. It just didn’t involve me leaving to make it.
“I’ll be fine. Come on, I’ll show you the way out before you get blood on your good clothes.” I linked my hand with his. “Come on, seriously. Oh, and talking about clothes, are you on your bike or did you bring the car?”
Tatz’s eyes snapped back off Dad, who he had been busy gla
ring at. He frowned at me. “Car, why?”
“I left my good hoodie in it from the other night.” I kept pulling on his hand and he slowly followed me.
“The one you sleep in?” Tatz’s attention was slowly going off Dad and onto me.
I smiled, “Yeah, the black one.” My smile dropped because it hurt. I didn’t intend to bring attention to my cheek but my hand automatically went to it when I felt the pain.
I turned, putting my hand down, but my small reaction was noticed by everyone. I kept my eyes on Tatz who was shaking his head slightly. I knew what sort of man Tatz was. I knew the things he stood for. So I knew any second he was going to turn around and start the fight he had baited Dad with.
So I was relieved when Tyson pushed Tatz on the back toward me and away from Dad. Like Tyson knew that Tatz was about to react.
“You still driving that fucking expensive Jeep, Tatz?” Tyson started a conversation with Tatz while giving him another firm push in the back.
Tatz sighed but started to walk toward me and away from Dad with Tyson still following us.
“Yeah but I’ve upgraded,” Tatz actually answered Tyson. I was somewhat surprised Tyson knew anything about Tatz. “I’m trying to give the Jeep to your sister.”
Tyson’s head snapped back, and we hadn’t walked inside yet, so everyone was still listening. The situation wouldn’t have diffused until Tatz was completely away from Dad.
“You’re trying to give her a hundred grand car?” Tyson’s eyes were on Tatz and then slowly went to me. I saw something in his eyes, something he never showed: fear. “You don’t give anything without expecting something in return.” Tyson’s eyes were back on Tatz. “My sister is off limits.”
Tyson had gone from somewhat friendly to a poisonous snake.
Tatz smirked, giving Tyson a wink. I wanted to whack Tatz for doing it. He already had baited my dad into a fight, and now he was trying to get into a fight with my brother!
I gripped on Tatz’s hand tighter and pulled him into the house.