by Max Henry
Mom’s truck kicks up dust behind me, delayed as she’s forced to get out and take down the barriers that I’m able to maneuver around. I twist the throttle and send blue smoke chugging out behind me as I take the bike to its limits on the back straight.
How could she fucking do this to me, after everything we went through, the risks we took, what I put on the line for her? She took your kid away from you. She ran, taking every dream I ever had of a family and a future with her. Fuck, Elena. Why? If only I could have explained it all to her she would have seen that I was doing my best to sort things out so we had a relatively safe future.
Every conversation we’ve had in the last day, week, and month run through my head as I tug the heavy gate open to the back paddock. There aren’t many to mull over. That realization alone threatens to drop me to my knees. But the culmination of my stupidity ahead of me brings the simmering anger boiling to the surface, my raw frustration overflowing as I heave each breath out my nostrils. How could I have been so fucking naïve? So full of fucking hope at something that would never be more than a pipedream?
Was I not good enough for her? Did I not offer Elena what she wanted?
Mom’s truck bears down on me as I rip through the gateway on the bike, kicking grass and mud up behind me. The suspension bottoms out as I hit the ruts in the ground. The sledgehammer balances on the handlebars under my grip so I can stand on the pegs and ride out the rough ground. The framework for my lost future comes into full view as I hit the last slope. My heartbeat pounds an angry rhythm against my ribcage, crying out for its turn to rip apart the reminder of how fucking optimistic I can be.
I ditch the bike, throwing it on its side without bothering with the stand. The engine chugs steadily behind me as I face the biggest waste of my time with the sledgehammer in my hands. The metal head hits the ground beside my foot, and I lean the handle against my leg as I rip my cut and T-shirt off, ready to throw down with my pathetic love-torn attempt at proving I was all Elena would ever need to make her happy.
What a fuckin’ joke that is.
The first bearer splits with a crash that doesn’t quite drown out the roar of anger tearing from my chest. How fucking dare she leave? I slam the tool into a stud, screaming at the wood when it refuses to break on the first strike. My throat aches, my voice hoarse as I slam the sledgehammer repeatedly into stud after stud, tearing the support from underneath the top plate. What could be better than what we had? I barely register the slam of Mom’s truck door as I take out the second to last stud on the first wall. The floor above creaks, the roof frame starting to sag without the support below.
“Lloyd! Stop.”
My angered roars become pained sobs, a mixture of grief and frustration as I tear the home I built for Elena down. I could never live here with anyone else. I’d never dream of walking the halls alone. This was for us. This was our house.
“Lloyd.” Mom hesitates outside the structure, her concerned gaze trained on the creaking and complaining framework. “Step out before you hurt yourself.”
“Not until it’s all down.” There’ll be a bonfire tonight—a fucking big one.
“You’re acting irrationally,” she cries desperately. “Stop before it collapses on top of you.” I’ve only heard her this desperate and unhinged once before—the day the prosecutor told my parents that there wasn’t enough evidence to take Garret’s killer to court. “You’re not thinking clearly,” she sobs.
I laugh bitterly, and then grunt as I swing the sledgehammer against another stud. The crack of splintering wood above my head doesn’t bother me in the slightest. “I think she’s made it crystal clear for me, Mom.” I hit out at the last stud, smashing it three more times before it breaks.
The roof groans and starts its descent as I look my mother dead in the eye and utter, “What’s life if she’s not in it?”
TWENTY-SIX
Elena
Seven months later
I ran. I followed King’s mom’s instructions and walked for what felt like forever that day until I reached the bus depot. And then I bought a ticket on the next bus, not caring where it went. I had to get distance between us; I had to escape the pull that always brought me back to him. There was no way I could have dedicated myself to this child whose eyes are as crisp and bright as his father’s if I had stayed anywhere near his club. The reminders of the man I’d lost would have been too many, too often, and I surely would have lost my mind with regret. This, refusing to acknowledge my past and denying the truth of what I’ve done . . . it’s the cowards way out, the equivalent of burying my head in the sand. Yet what more could I do with strength as tested and cracked as mine? My rope on sanity was tethered by a few frail strands; knowing that all I had to do was travel less than an hour to get to King would have broken me before our child was born. I would have run back and asked for forgiveness, and inevitably, I would have ended up in the same cycle, wondering why I’d thought I could handle the rejection of never being enough to make him stay. I’m not sure I could have endured childbirth while bearing that kind of weight on my soul.
And even if I had stayed and tried to make a real go if it, then what? Carlos would have eventually found me, and like a homing beacon, I would have led him straight to King’s family. If Carlos had hurt either Addie or her husband in his pursuit to get to me . . . I would have rather died than face the pain and betrayal my existence would have placed in the other spouse’s eyes. I’ve heard the news through the grapevine. I know Carlos is still alive.
Watching the road for a solid fifteen minutes before I leave the house has become second nature. I never found out what happened after I left—if Carlos lived, if King survived whatever final fight he walked into. I’ve erred on the side of caution ever since, just in case the worst did come to pass, and a day when Carlos walks back into my life isn’t as impossible as I’d hope. If something had happened to King, I think I’m in a better state of mind to deal with it now rather than I would have been as a new mother trying to deal with the overwhelming emotions that come in the first few weeks after childbirth. And that justification right there of my choice to leave tells it how it is. I ran because I’m a coward. I ran because I couldn’t face the truth: that King would always choose the club over me, and that the man I married for money would most likely take it all away from me anyway.
I ran to avoid facing the consequences of my choices, and in doing so, hurt everyone I love: King and our son.
After a month, the burning need to know eased, and like with any drug weaned off, time was the greatest healer of love lost. Seeing my belly grow in the mirror and having nobody to share the joy of each tiny milestone with was the hardest part. My walls didn’t dance with me when I felt the first undeniable kick. My door couldn’t care less when I saw a tiny foot press up against my taut stomach. And the drapes certainly didn’t pay any mind when my waters broke at two o’clock on a Thursday morning.
Dante Lloyd Burgadas was born weighing a healthy eight pound, two ounces . . . and was equally as quiet and laidback as his father. I cried for the entire first night, alone and faced with the very real, very tangible evidence that I couldn’t change what I’d done. King’s father was right—I’d denied his son a milestone in his life by taking the experience of his firstborn away from him.
But my heart told me King wouldn’t have been around to have witnessed it anyway. There would always be issues at the club, and I would have been left to deliver alone. And even if he had made time to be there, I could have guaranteed he wouldn’t have lasted more than a day before he left us yet again to go back to the people who are his true family. Here I am, left with both the greatest gift and the worst reminder of what could have been, all wrapped into one tiny, chubby package.
Seven months I’ve had to convince myself wholly and unwaveringly that I made the right decision. And for seven months I’ve failed to do so. Standing here now, outside the gates of the last place I thought I’d ever return to, I’m not sure I’ll ever ha
ve the words to convince King that what I believed was right for me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get him to see it from my point of view.
But a woman has to try.
“Lady, can I help you?” A young guy bearing the badge of a prospect questions me from the far side of the gate.
Winter is fading into spring, and the last of the heavy snow lies across the ground. The ice crunches beneath my feet as I pace from one foot to the other, steeling my nerves.
Two months before Dante was born, I was approached while shopping for rompers by a man dressed unassumingly in a Daytona T-shirt and light denim jeans. After he managed to convince me that there was no threat of harm, he told me a story that brought me to my knees in the middle of the department store.
King had been searching for me. King was okay.
The investigator wouldn’t elaborate on what had happened after I’d left—I’m pretty sure he didn’t know—but he did ask if he could pass on my contact details. I rose to my feet and looked at the tiny garment still in my hands while I made a decision that would haunt me every day afterward. I said no. Time had passed; I had started a life where nobody knew who I really was or what I’d come from. Aside from being lonely, my days were normal. Why would I have wanted to change that?
The answer was abundantly clear when I took the time to think about it.
King was still my waking thought in the morning and my finishing hope at night. Yes, life was simple. Yes, I had gotten away. But if an investigator whom King had hired could find me, then how long before Carlos caught up as well? If and when I faced my ex-husband, what would I want to be reflecting on in my final moments?
Sure as hell not a life lived in solitude for fear of feeling. No. If the day ever came when I realized the day’s dawn had been my last, I’d want to be able to think back on a life lived happy and to the fullest. Maybe it would be shorter, but it would be worth it.
Quality, not quantity.
I’d want to know that I’d had my time with the man that I still love, and a son who appreciated knowing his father.
If King’s willing to try and make it work, then why can’t I? All I have to do is ask him to compromise, to promise he can spend more time with us as a family and less so concerned about this bunch of men. It’s selfish, and wrong of me to do so, but maybe if and when he sees Dante something might switch inside of him. Perhaps the physical proof of what’s more important than a bunch of outlaws will kick start a change in him I never could?
“Lady. If you can’t tell me who you’re here for, then you need to go.” The kid eyes what I hold in my arms and frowns.
I let my gaze drift over the cold steel and concrete façade of the building again. My heart thrums in an almost indecipherable buzz. Despite the cool air, my skin flushes with heat. Just because he searched me out doesn’t mean he wants to see me. What if he only wanted to find Dante? I glance at the young guy, opening my mouth to speak before I shut it again and drop my head in defeat.
You can do this. His club may be the most important thing in his life, but I can try to make our little family the constant, like he said we would be. Isn’t it better to have shared that than never had it at all?
“Can you tell King he has a visitor, please?” I rush the words out so quietly that I’m stunned when the guy acknowledges what I’ve said.
“Who should I say is here?” He fidgets, immediately on edge after I utter the name of the man who still holds my heart in his possession.
“His son.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
King
“How much cash you gonna throw at this before you admit it, man?”
“Admit what?” I lean both elbows on the desk and clasp my hands together as I glare at Hooch.
“She doesn’t wanna be found.” He shakes out a cigarette and throws his boots up on the edge of my desk.
I swat them off with a manila folder. “She thinks she doesn’t want me to find her.”
“That so?” He leans forward in his seat instead, resting an elbow on one knee. “She tell you that?”
“Fuck off.” My chair scrapes as I push back and stand. “I know that woman better than she thinks. She’s scared of facing the truth is all.”
“Which is?” He eyes me carefully. The end of his smoke burns bright.
My fingers run idly over the top of my desk, moving random sheets of paper and my pen so the whole lot is perfectly lined up. “She loves me, still.”
“I think she made it perfectly clear that she feels the opposite when she left your parents’ place.”
“Nope.” I shake my head vehemently. “Don’t believe it.”
Hooch sighs and runs both hands over his thighs before pinning me under a pitiful stare. “Dude . . . let it go. It fuckin’ broke you once. Don’t do this to yourself again.”
“I can’t.” I might have lost my head for a few months after she went—okay, I completely lost touch with the world and went recluse—but I didn’t quit. I simply learnt how to get through the day without feeling, without thinking of her. I learnt how to get through the day by confining the time I spent praying to a God I’m pretty sure by now doesn’t exist for an hour after I went to bed each night.
“You have to move on,” Hooch urges.
“Why?” I march around the desk and lean back on its front corner, my arms crossed high on my chest. “Tell me why I should let her go without a fight. Tell me why she should be able to disappear into the great fuckin’ beyond while she’s got my child.”
“Because if she really loved you still, don’t you think she would’ve stayed? I mean, taking your kid away . . .” He sucks in a sharp breath. “That’s pretty fuckin’ cold, man.”
It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times. How could she do that to me? But then I did just as bad, if not worse, to her when I placed the club as a priority over her desperate pleas. I said it was for her own good, and I actually believed my lies when I said I couldn’t have helped her without the backing of these men, but let’s call a spade a spade, I could have done it alone. I fucking did in the end.
She needed me to step up and prove myself way before she finally got away. She begged me to put my money where my mouth was and prove I loved her, and I did what? Walked away . . .
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” Hooch continues, “but I have to put it out there.”
“I know, and I appreciate it, man, but I’m okay,” I lie. “I’ve got all this crap keeping me busy while Apex is in and out of hospital with his health.”
Hooch snickers as he looks around the room. It’s a darn sight tidier and less biohazard-like than when I’d walked in after Apex’s first heart attack. “You’re not doin’ this shit because you love it.” He narrows his gaze on me knowingly. “You’re doin’ it to keep distracted.”
“Maybe, but fuck, it’s working, ain’t it?”
After the standoff with Carlos, I was voted into VP the following week. Turns out Beefy had sweet fuck all to do to convince the remaining voters that I would be a good choice—I proved that myself.
Apex retained his position on a final warning. One fuck up and he was out the door and on the national blacklist. He took the news well . . . and then had a heart attack on his way across the room to the bar.
Blocked valve, it turned out. Doctor told him to reduce his stress while he waited for surgery, and ergo my role gained its first important task: run the club in his absence.
“When is the old fucker due to get out?” Hooch still doesn’t hold much love for the guy. I’ve heard his old man say he’d have handled things differently too, but hey, that’s their chapter. My concern is here, with Lincoln, and with the people I think of as family.
“Couple of days, I think. You should be back home by then anyway, so no need to get all dark on me,” I say.
He opens his mouth to retort, but the resounding crash of my office door as it rebounds off the wall beside it has us both on our feet. I take a moment to catch my breath as my
heart goes haywire. Jumpy much?
“Joker. What the fuck, man?” Hooch drops his hand from where it was rested on his gun.
“King. You gotta come out the front.”
My heart hasn’t slowed. The clear worry on his face keeps my panic cemented in place. What the hell is going on? “What is it?”
“You have a visitor.” He swallows loudly, trying to catch his breath still. “Two, actually.”
Fuck. “Who is it?”
“You better come see.”
The prospect darts off across the common room toward the entrance. I jog to catch up, Hooch close behind me, and catch him by the cut before he makes the door to slow him down. “Kid, you gotta tell me who’s here. Information, Joker, it’s the . . .” My words drift off as we pass through the front door and out into the cold.
No way.
“I thought you’d want to see him,” she murmurs, fidgeting with a blanket in her arms.
My gut nosedives as my heart soars. Emotions are torn in every direction while I try to work out if this is for real. She’s here.
“Say hi to Daddy, Dante.” Elena eases the blanket shielding the cold wind aside to reveal the chubby, pink cheeks of my boy. My son.
“Where did you take him?” I ask, my eyes darting between her face and his. “Why did you leave?”
“Can we come inside?” She gestures to the wind that whips through the trees, stirring up what’s left of the snowdrifts. “He needs to warm up. The heater in the car’s broken, and I haven’t fed him for over an hour so he’s probably hungry.”
Dante. She named him without me. Of course, you idiot. His blue eyes blink against the bright light, and a fat little hand emerges from under the blanket to wrap tiny fingers over the edge.