I hadn’t told him that my doctor was the only person in the sea of faces I’d known. I’d used her as a talisman as they’d stripped me down and got me ready for a C-section. I’d stared at her mouth as she spoke to me, but I hadn’t heard a word she’d said, and eventually, they put a mask over my face, and I didn’t see anything more.
I hadn’t told him how I’d begged and pleaded with the nurses to go see my children on a different floor of the hospital, how they’d told me I had to wait. I didn’t explain my escape from the labor and delivery floor to the upstairs nursery. The nurses had eventually given up on trying to keep me in bed, and after that first trip, I’d had a nice orderly who came to my room with a wheelchair whenever I’d asked, day or night.
I hadn’t had a chance to explain how alike our children were or how terrified I was for both of them. That when I’d looked at them I couldn’t see any difference in the frailty of their bodies even though I knew Trix was thriving and Draco was not. About how I’d only held him twice, and each time a nurse said he had to go back in his bed, I’d plotted murder. I didn’t have a chance to explain how thin their skin had been, how tiny their ears and fingernails. How Trix’s eyes had looked brown from the very beginning, but Draco’s were that slate blue color that eventually turned into something else.
I hadn’t had a chance to explain how badly I’d wanted my pop. How I’d never let myself cry until that final day because I knew once I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him that Tony visited me only once in the hospital. Me—not the kids. And
I’d never forgiven him.
I hadn’t told him how badly I’d needed him. How I’d wanted him to show up without me having to call him. How I’d waffled back and forth about calling him and eventually came to this conclusion: I’d never see him again. He would never know that he had any children. He would never know the absolute gut-wrenching, chest-hollowing, full-body grief that I would feel. He would never feel it. As much as I needed him, as much as I wanted him to come and save us, I had to give him the peace of never knowing. So, that was what I did.
When I heard someone come in the front door, I didn’t have it in me to get up off the floor. I hoped Vera wouldn’t just let Trix barge in here if they were back. Dragon must have called her earlier, or she would have been here hours ago.
I heard the thick stomp of motorcycle boots coming toward me, and I didn’t care. I was done. I had nothing left to give.
“Brenna, what the fuck happened?” Casper asked me as I looked up into his pretty blue eyes. He crouched down beside me and slid his arms under my body, lifting me gently. “Grease! Get in here,” he called toward the living room as he walked back that way.
I’d known Grease for a very long time. He was a partner in crime when I was a kid. Though, once he started being interested in girls, that all changed. But I knew him. To his bones, I knew him. Though I hadn’t seen him in five years, I knew the look on his face when he caught a glimpse of mine—fury.
“Give her to me, brother,” he rumbled as he took me away from poor Casper.
The kid was probably wondering what the hell was going on.
“Call Poet and Vera and get ’em over here.”
“I’m okay,” I whispered as he sat me at the kitchen table and tilted my chin up.
“Baby, you’re not okay. You got one hell of a shiner. I’ll get some ice for it,” he told me as he kissed the top of my head and headed to the fridge.
I was freezing. The comforter was still wrapped around me, but I couldn’t get warm even though I could feel the sweat sticking my hair to the back of my neck. I wasn’t looking forward to having the frozen peas he pulled out of the freezer anywhere near me.
“You gonna tell me what happened? Like to know why I’m killing a man,” he told me as he sat in a chair, facing me. His knees surrounded mine as he reached up and held the peas wrapped in a kitchen towel against my face.
“Don’t do anything. This is between him and me. It’s none of your business.”
“You think I’m gonna let this go? Fuck that. You got bruises anywhere else?” he asked me as he tried to unwrap the blanket.
“Quit it! No, I don’t have bruises anywhere else. For God’s sake, he smacked me once. That’s it! Then, he took off.” I pulled the comforter back around my shoulders.
“The fuck happened, Brenna? Dragon’s been walking on fuckin’ clouds the last couple of days even though he just got the shit kicked out of him less than a week ago. I was assuming that was your doin’. But now…” He shook his head.
“Is Casper calling my pop and Vera?” At his nod, I nodded back. “I think we better wait until they get here before I explain. I’m not doing it more than once.”
I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I was so exhausted that I didn’t know how much longer I could stay upright at the kitchen table. I made Grease follow me into the living room, but even though there was room on the couch for both of us, he dragged a kitchen chair with him and swung it around to straddle it backward.
I lay curled in the corner of the couch, my face resting on the bag of peas, until Vera and Pop showed up within minutes of each other. The expressions on the faces of Pop and Vera couldn’t have been more opposite. Vera looked at me with a sort of resigned pity. It was the look of a woman who had seen her fair share of swollen cheekbones and tear-drowned eyes. It was a look of commiseration.
My pop’s face looked like I imagined the wrath of God would. His eyes were narrowed, his lips were thin, and his hands were tapping against the sides of his legs as if playing an imaginary piano. I had only seen his hands look like that one time before—when I was eleven and a rival gang dared to breach the front gate and killed one of the recruits.
Grease spoke up, breaking the silence, as we all just looked at each other. “Still the fingers, Poet. Let’s hear her out before we kill him.”
“Son, you think I’m gonna let you do shit? You’re outta your mind,” he replied. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, he continued, “He’s mine.”
As they started talking, Vera broke away from Pop’s side and slid in next to me on the couch. She put one arm around my shoulders, and as she pulled me in close, she ran her fingers gently down the side of my bruised face. “I’m sorry this happened, baby girl.”
I shook my head at her. “Where’s Trix?”
“Tommy Gun’s old lady’s got her. She was at the club, so I had her come on over to the house. Trix is fine. She’s playin’ outside.”
I nodded and started to speak, but Pop cut me off as he pulled another chair out of the kitchen.
“What’s goin’ on, Brenna? Ain’t never seen that boy hit a woman in his life. Just don’t have it in him.”
I cleared my throat. “I know. I never thought he would either.” I glanced at Grease, who stared back with no expression on his face.
My head was on Vera’s shoulder with her cheek resting on part of my hair as she spoke from above me. “They all got it in ’em. Just takes more for some than others to make it come out.”
“Yeah, I’d say this was, um…more,” I told them, bracing myself for the fallout of what I was going to reveal.
As I told the story, I started at the beginning, and I didn’t leave anything out. I told them about the night we met, how I’d wanted to stay, but I didn’t. I told them about my decision to marry Tony and the repercussions of that. Some of the story Pop and Vera had already heard, but it was all new for Grease, who had started pacing restlessly. I told them all of the things that I wished I had told Dragon. About how much I missed my son. About how after we were home from the hospital, I’d wake up at night in a cold sweat because I’d thought I could feel him moving around in my belly.
When I started speaking of Draco, I heard Vera sob once above me, but when I tried to lift my head, she just held me closer. When I told Pop how much I missed him, he cleared his throat and walked out of the room and then all the way out of the house. Eventually, he r
eappeared, once again stoic.
I didn’t leave anything out, even the confrontation between Dragon and me that morning. I told them everything. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to do by being so transparent.
I was so mad at Dragon. I was in shock that he’d hit me and hurt that he’d left me lying on the floor. But overwhelming all of those feelings was a knot in my stomach that reminded me how badly he was hurting. I didn’t want them mad at him. I didn’t want them looking for retribution.
I wanted them to understand all of the things that led up to this overwhelming betrayal. This wasn’t a smack because I’d looked at another man or burned dinner. He hit me because right now he was out of control, completely lost and hurting, and I was the reason. He was lashing out because it was too much to deal with. I understood it as much as I hated it.
He was like a wounded animal, and I was the hunter who’d wounded him. I didn’t know if he would ever forgive me, and that hurt worse than the betrayal of my swollen face.
If he’d wanted to hurt me, really hurt me, he could’ve. I had no illusions that if Dragon decided to beat the hell out of me, there was nothing that could have stopped him. He didn’t. He hit me once, almost in reflex, and then pulled back as if he were surprised. I’d seen the look on his face.
Even though I knew all of these things, even though I knew that there was nothing left on earth that would make him swing his arm back and bring it across my face again, I didn’t know if I could ever forgive him. That hurt worse than the thought of him never forgiving me.
Chapter Twenty One
Dragon
I hit her. I fuckin’ hit her.
Fuck me.
When I left the house, I called Casper to come keep an eye on things. As furious as I was, I wasn’t about to leave Brenna unprotected. Unprotected—what a fucking joke. I wasn’t any better than her douche bag of an ex-husband. I’d seen the look on her face.
When I’d opened up Brenna’s box of important papers, I thought I’d just grab Trix’s birth certificate and head over to the club to meet with our lawyer. The suit we did business with was a good guy, but he didn’t usually handle custody shit. For what we were paying him though, he could hire outside help.
I was getting annoyed with the amount of shit Brenna had in the box when I finally found it, all by itself in a brown envelope. I stuffed everything back in the box and carried the certificate into the kitchen. I wanted some fucking coffee, but I couldn’t look away from Anthony fuckin’ Richards’s name on my child’s birth certificate. It burned in my gut that Brenna had allowed it.
Something caught my eye, and for a second, I hadn’t understood what I was seeing. When I realized what it meant, I thought my fuckin’ knees were going to give out.
By the time Brenna woke up, I’d been sitting at the kitchen table for hours, stewing. When she ran from me, I didn’t even hesitate before I followed her. I was beyond fuckin’ crazy at that point. It all went downhill from there.
I fuckin’ lost my shit.
So, when I left her, I just rode. I didn’t have any place to be. I wasn’t headed anywhere but away from the fuckin’ mess I’d left behind. It took me a few hours before I realized that Casper wouldn’t have gone in the house. He took his lookout post pretty damn seriously, so he would’ve just camped out on the porch. I didn’t want to deal with the questions, so I just texted Casper to check on Brenna. He’d take care of her or call someone to deal with it. I couldn’t deal with anymore shit.
My son. Fuck.
I turned my phone on silent and pulled back onto the highway.
Chapter Twenty Two
Brenna
Vera and I decided that Trix shouldn’t see me, so I called her and let her know that she got to have another sleepover that night. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, and I could tell by her voice that she wanted to come home, but she couldn’t see me this way. My face was bruised, and my eyes were so swollen from crying that it was a chore just to open them. I didn’t want her to see me like that. Not again.
Pop and Grease took off not long after I got done telling my story, and they must have gone to the clubhouse because shortly after, a guy in a button-down and slacks showed up at my front door. The lawyer. The reason Dragon had been in my papers.
He was really good-looking. If I were looking for another suit-wearing breadwinner, he would’ve been at the top of my list. His hair was a sandy brown, but it was cut short, almost shaved. He had light brown eyes and sharp cheekbones, and if the whole lawyer thing didn’t work out, I figured he could probably be a salesman…or even a model. He had that look. The minute he opened his mouth, the salesman idea went out the window though; the guy was a dick. He also wasn’t what he appeared to be because when he rolled up the sleeves on his dress shirt, he had tattoos covering his arms to the wrist.
We sat down with Vera, and I signed a bunch of papers for him, agreeing to the paternity test and handing over Trix’s birth certificate. When we were almost finished, another thought occurred to me, and I jumped up from the table so quickly that my head spun. I ran into my room. I knew the rest of the paperwork I needed was in there somewhere. When I finally found it, I raced back into the kitchen where Vera and the attorney were talking quietly.
“Here, can you get this one changed, too?” I asked him, handing over Draco’s birth certificate.
“Ah, I’m not sure. I’ll see what I can do.”
This guy seemed so far out of his element. It would have been funny if he weren’t holding my life in his hands.
“Well, they were twins. It seems like if you could get Trix’s changed, it shouldn’t be hard to change Draco’s, too.”
“That may be the case, but…well, does it really matter at this point?” he asked me callously.
“Yes, it fucking matters!” I tried to get my emotions under control, but this guy was just rubbing me the wrong way. “Please just try and get it changed.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he repeated as he gathered his papers and nodded to Vera before walking out of the house.
“He’s not real friendly, but he’s kept the boys out of a hell of a lot of prisons the last five years,” Vera told me as she got up from the table. “He’s good. If he can’t figure it out, he’ll find someone who can. Don’t you worry, baby. This’ll be over soon.”
“Wait, only five years? I thought I recognized his name! He’s new?” I asked in alarm.
New lawyers were always on a sort of probation for as long as the club felt they needed to be. There was too much at stake to trust anyone right away, even lawyers could be bought off.
“Yeah, but his pop was the old lawyer. Wanted to retire, so Slider brought his boy in. Worked out well for everyone. You ain’t got nothin’ to worry about,” she told me as she stepped around me, looking for her purse.
I didn’t believe her, but I nodded as she got ready to leave. It was getting dark outside, and all I wanted to do was climb into my bed and pretend that the house wasn’t quiet and lonely anymore.
“Casper’s outside. Never left, poor kid. He’s probably starvin’. I’ll call ya in the mornin’, and we’ll figure out what to do with the baby. Okay?”
“Okay, thanks for coming. Give Trix a kiss for me,” I told her as I hugged her good-bye.
It had been hard to let Trix sleep somewhere else for one night, so two days was torture. I just wanted her home.
After Vera left, I quickly made Casper a sandwich and brought it out to him.
“Hey, Brenna! You didn’t have to do that. I’m fine,” he told me as I set his sandwich and potato chips in front of him.
“You’ve been here all day. You must be hungry by now,” I teased him.
It was nice that he wasn’t looking at me like I belonged in a sideshow. He took the swollen face and ratty hair in stride.
“Eh, it’s no big deal. I don’t mind.” He took a few bites of his sandwich, and we sat there in silence as the night turned darker.
“I’m sorr
y I didn’t come in the house earlier. I figured you would want privacy. Didn’t need me up in your face all day, so I just sat on the porch and waited for you to come out. I didn’t even think to go in the house—”
I sat there in surprise for a minute before I cut him off. “Don’t be sorry!” I blurted out. “You had no idea what I was doing in there. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I would have gotten up eventually. I was fine,” I told him, but we both knew I hadn’t been.
“Didn’t think Dragon was one of those. I’ve seen quite a lot of them, in and out of the club. Didn’t think Dragon was like that,” he told me as he finished off his food.
“He’s not. He’s…well, you heard the story earlier, right? I mean…I’m pissed as hell, but God!” I ran my hands through my messy hair. “I was going to tell him. I was. I just hadn’t figured out how to do it yet, you know? And then, the way he found out was just…it was so fucked-up. It was out of control. I should have told him before.”
“When should you have told him exactly? When your ex was showing up at the club with his fucking henchmen? Maybe when Trix was sitting with you two, eating her dinner? How about during sex—that sound like a good time to tell him? Seems to me you hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet,” he told me, sounding far more practical and clearheaded than anyone I’d talked to that day.
I stood up to go inside. “How’d you get so smart?” I asked him with a crooked smile on my face.
“Probably Yale,” he answered completely serious.
“No shit?” I asked incredulously.
He didn’t answer me, so I headed toward the front door. Right before I walked inside, I heard him say, “No shit,” under his breath.
What the hell was some kid who’d gone to Yale doing becoming a recruit for a motorcycle club in Eugene, Oregon? I asked myself this over and over again as I got into bed. It gave me something else to focus on besides my life that was currently swirling down the drain. Casper was interesting. I noticed that he was well-spoken from the first time we’d met. He also didn’t seem to have the same chip on his shoulder as the other recruits I’d seen over the years. I couldn’t figure out why he’d chosen this life when he was obviously really fucking smart. Yale. Holy hell, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Sure, I’d gotten into the University of Oregon with pretty good grades and average test scores, but Yale was a horse of a different color. I thought about Casper and all the different reasons he could have dropped out of school until I drifted off into a restless sleep.
A Ride or Die Kind of Love Page 53