“What’s the point in it then?” She huffs.
“Will you just sit your goddamn ass down?” I lash out, losing patience with her constant refusal to sit and fix this. I close my eyes to calm myself a little. “Please?”
“Fine.” She sits on one of the chairs farthest away from me.
“You can sit closer. I don’t bite. Well, not unless you want me to.” I wink at her, trying to get a hint of a smile. But nothing, not even a tint of red hitting her cheeks like she used to when I made comments like that. “Wow, okay. This is going to be a long day. Might as well get comfortable.”
Thirty minutes go by, and neither of us has said anything. I can’t take it any longer. Time to bite the bullet and get everything out in the open. Including things I haven’t told her about my past. But first, this bullshit theory that I cheated.
“I didn’t cheat.” She snorts and shakes her head. “Daria, do you really think so little of me that you actually believe I would risk losing you and Emily? Just to get my dick wet?” She raises her eyebrow, telling me the answer. “Well, you clearly didn’t love me or know me at all.”
“I didn’t love you? Did you seriously just say that to me?” She slams her hand on the solid oak table, pushing herself up to stand and leer across the table at me. “After everything you put me through before we even got together. You tried to fucking kill me, Striker. Yet, I still gave you a chance to prove to everyone you can change, that you were this amazing, caring, although a little insane, loving man that I knew deep down you were. Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t love you.” She wipes her eyes roughly, like she’s mad that the tears are falling. “By the same token, you clearly didn’t love me as much as you portrayed. As soon as we have a fight, you jump at the chance to screw one of those girls out there.”
“What about you? You cheated on Brad with me, multiple times. So, you can’t really take the moral high ground with that. If anyone in this relationship has a right to not trust the other it’s me.” She blanches when I mention Brad’s name. “But I trust you, I trust you with my life, Daria. I gave you parts of me I never thought I would give anyone.”
“I saw the God damn photos, Striker.”
“They were-”
“Stop trying to deny it! I saw them, and I saw you both that night getting cozy.” The vein on her neck bulges the angrier she gets.
“They were of me, but from years before I even knew you existed.” I try to explain. “Did you not notice I have considerably less tattoos than I do now? And a hell of a lot slimmer? Someone altered the timestamps to make it look like I’ve been screwing around on you.” She blinks rapidly and falls to the chair behind her. Her face is void of emotion as she shakes her head slightly, avoiding my gaze. “Dee, I would never, ever cheat. I don’t have it in me. Why would I risk losing you? Risk getting killed by not only Jess, but Nico and my dad, and probably the whole damn club and old ladies?” Everyone has taken to Daria and Emily and have become really protective of them. I feel them all looking and judging me for all of this shit. “I would lay my life down for you, but risk it for doing dumb shit like sleeping with some whore and hurting you? I wouldn’t.” I reach over for her hand, and she lets me take it. Her skin feels so cold, and she’s become paler since I walked in. “Dee? Can I get you a drink of water?”
She gives me a small nod, staring ahead at nothing in particular. I walk over to the small fridge at the side of the room stocked with water, beer, and snacks for when we’re having a big church meeting that lasts hours. I hand her the water, which she takes with a small thanks.
“They looked so real.” She speaks after a beat of silence. “I saw you that night and it looked like you were about to kiss her. My heart was crushed, and I was angrier at myself than I was at you. Annoyed that I gave you a chance and you threw it back in my face by sleeping with one of them.” She licks her lips and swallows. “I’m sorry, Striker. I should have listened and heard you out.” Her voice shakes.
I move to sit in the chair closer to her, grabbing her hand again. “You have to stop running when things get difficult, baby. If we keep avoiding the issue, it’ll consume us and eventually drive us crazy.” She raises an eyebrow. “Okay, crazier than we already are.”
“I have severe trust issues, Striker. I feel like every time I’m beginning to be happy with life and something good happens, something comes along and snatches it away from me. Yeah, I guess sometimes it’s all my own doing with being stubborn, believing what the voices in my head tell me instead of trusting those around me. I’m trying. I’m seeing a therapist to work through my issues.”
Her admitting this makes what Lauren said to me about being one-hundred percent with her even more important now.
“I need to tell you a few things. Things that are difficult for me to even think about, let alone speak out loud.” I close my eyes before I say the next words. “I understand if, when you walk out of here, you never want to see me ever again. But please, please don’t keep Emily away from me.” She looks unsure about how to respond, but nods anyway.
“You already know my mom died when I was twelve. I went off the rails a little. I had just lost the one woman I loved with all my heart. She was my mom. My world. Dad ignored me when I tried to talk to him about her and what had happened. He couldn’t handle losing the love of his life and my moods. He didn’t know how to handle me.” I let out a laugh. “He can handle twelve grown men arguing, but he couldn’t handle his twelve-year-old son, who had just lost his mother.” Shaking my head, I don’t look at her. “He asked Lauren to look after me for a while, so he could get to grips with losing his wife of twenty years. All I wanted was for Dad to take notice of me, to see how much I was hurting. I just wanted his love. I did everything in me to get his attention, but nothing worked.”
I look down, ashamed at what I’m about to say. “I killed Nico’s uncle. He was abusing his daughter, Nico’s cousin. We knew he was hurting her. It upset us and made us angry that a father could do that to his daughter. A father is supposed to protect his kids, not do things like that. We tried to tell Lauren and even suggested telling the police, but Lauren told us we couldn’t. She was petrified of the repercussions on us if they found out that we had ratted them out. They would have killed us; I knew that much. Lauren tried to bring it up to Nico’s dad, but he was furious at her for even suggesting that his brother was doing that to his own flesh and blood.” I shake my head with a humorless laugh. “One day, Nico asked me to meet him at his uncle’s house, so I did. I was early, so Nico’s uncle let me in to sit down to wait for Nico. He was being overly nice, getting me a drink, asking about school and shit. I noticed Sofia sitting in the corner of the sofa. I gave her a smile, being friendly. He noticed the look between us and his eyes changed into something I’ve only seen in horror movies. They darkened, and he snapped at Sofia to get up and come over to us. He demanded she kiss me. I was shocked. I refused to kiss her, because I only liked her as a friend. He started asking me if I liked her, and asked if I thought she was pretty. She was, but again, she was just a friend and Nico and I always said that family members were off limits. I answered him honestly, and he flew into a fit of rage and started yelling at Sofia, telling her to go to her room and wait on him. She ran up to her room. I knew what would happen if he went up there. Something just snapped inside me. I pulled at him to stop him going after her. He turned his rage onto me and started yelling at me in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying, but I knew it wasn’t anything good.” I glance at her to see if she’s still listening, then continue. “I tried to stop him again. I hit him, did everything I could to keep him from getting to Sofia. He put up a struggle. He hit me with the handle of his gun; that’s how I got this scar.” I point to the scar above my left eye. “He was on top of me, with his gun trained between my eyes. I think that was only the second time in my life I had been scared. I reached over and grabbed a statue from the display cabinet and smacked it across his head. He fell to the side and lay there groani
ng in pain. I mustered up the courage to stand over him and climbed on him before he could react. I grabbed his gun and shot him. I killed him, and I didn’t feel guilty or sad that I left a family without a dad, husband, brother, or uncle. I felt nothing.” I gulp past the lump in my throat. “Dad finally took notice after Lauren told him to sort his head out and be a father. He did, but it’s not like we were going on fishing trips and doing normal father-son things like we used to. But he was taking notice of me. No-one but Nico suspected me of killing his uncle. Everyone suspected it was a rival MC or drug boss. He knew how angry I was at his uncle for the way he was treating his cousin and I was dealing with my own issues of losing my mom. I was angry at the world.”
I risk looking at her; she doesn’t let her facial expression show what I know she must be feeling deep inside. Shock.
You just told her your first kill was at twelve. What did you expect her to say? Congratulations?
“I carried on killing. Knives were my favorite thing to kill with. Nothing compared to slowly slicing that blade into flesh, watching the crimson blood trickle down, the metallic scent, and seeing the life drain from someone’s eyes.” I close my eyes, remembering the moments I used to love. “The bodies mounted up. I was beyond saving. That is until I was twenty, almost twenty-one, when a young blonde steamrolled into my life.” A pink tint hits her cheeks. I know she’s jealous. “You. I’m talking about you, baby.” I chuckle at the fact that that’s one emotion she can’t hide. “The moment you came into my life, it changed. I knew I had to have you, but I also knew it was wrong. You were so young. So innocent.” My fingers itch to touch her face. “I didn’t care that I could go to jail. I just needed a taste of you. I needed to have you as much as I needed my next breath. I wanted to keep you locked in my room for my eyes only. But you had vanished by the time I came out of the bathroom. I needed you again. I ran out to try to catch you, but Chucky told me he let you out of the gate and someone had picked you up. I almost killed him for that. I needed to feel that feeling when I was inside you again. I felt calm, like nothing could touch me. It felt more to me than watching someone dying at my hand. I hated you for it, hated that you gave me all these weird feelings. I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t get you out of my head.” Glancing up, she says nothing, just listens.
“I wanted to go hunt you down, demand you come with me and stay with me forever. A small piece of me said to leave you alone. The bigger asshole side won. I found you. I saw you with Jake in town, laughing and smiling with him. I wanted you to look at me like that. The feeling of you seeing no-one but me, loving only me. When he pulled you to him and kissed you, I wanted to walk over and snap him in half. I saw the ring on your finger, and it made me even more pissed than I already was.” I know how I sound. I sound like a lovesick fool, but the feelings she made me feel that one night in my room was the same feeling I got from my mom when she was alive. Love. “It may have only been one night. Not even a full night. Not even an hour. But you made me feel more than I did in the six years since my mom died. Like the man I should have become, not the cold-hearted asshole I became. A man my parents could be proud of. Anyway, Nico was with me that day. He followed my eye line and saw you. Obviously, he knew you better than me, with him being with Jess. He begged me to leave you alone to live your life. He didn’t know I had such strong feeling for you until later when we reconnected.”
A tear slips from her eye. I take a shuddering breath to continue. “While you were away, living a happy life with Jake, I was here, letting rage consume me with thoughts of you and another guy. I took it out on others. I killed every chance I got. Some of the people I butchered didn’t deserve it, and some did. Blaze…” My lip curls, thinking about that prick. “He came in the clubhouse with a girl who looked like you and introduced us. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was you, but this girl didn’t have the same kind eyes as you did. She tried to get me to sleep with her, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I demanded Blaze get her the hell out of the clubhouse. He did and called me a pussy, telling me I needed to forget the teenage cunt and you slept with him first. He called you a whore. I flew at him and started fighting. Chucky and Nico managed to pull us apart. I think it was then Nico got a small inkling of what was going on in my head. The only person who truly knew what was really going on was Lauren. She was the closest thing I had to a mom and saw I was slowly losing it again. She sat me down and wouldn’t let me leave until I told her what was going on. So, I told her about you. I left out your name, and how much you had gotten under my skin. She told me because you were married that I should leave you be, and if we were meant to be, we would cross paths again. So that’s what I did. I tried to forget you. But the more I tried to get on with my life, the more bodies piled up.”
I glance up to see if she’s still listening to me. She’s staring at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. All the color drains from her face, making her look green. Greener than I have ever seen anyone look before. Her eyes are wide. Standing up, she dashes for the trash can and pukes. I walk over beside her, holding her hair and rubbing her back until she finishes.
“You hated me that much that you killed all those people because of me?” She sniffs, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand then jumping back and pushing my hand away when she realizes I’m touching her. “Because I was a stupid little girl who couldn’t hold her liquor.”
“No, baby. This is all on me. I killed them. I was an idiot.” I try to reach for her, but she pulls farther back.
“They were someone’s family members.” Tears fall and drip off her chin. “You killed all those people because of me.” Her chest moves up and down rapidly. “What would you have done if I had come face to face with you to tell you I was pregnant?”
That was the one question I don’t want to answer. I know the answer, I just don’t want to tell her. The realization hits her like a wrecking ball, and she stumbles back. Her hand covers her mouth and the other goes to her stomach.
“As soon as you saw me, would you have killed me?” I don’t say anything, but I look down at my feet like a scolded child because in all honesty, I don’t know what I would have done. “Striker, answer the question; would you have killed me?” I look at her, weighing up how to answer her. Her beautiful eyes look at me expectantly, waiting for my answer. My heart flutters within my chest the longer I look at her. I loved her back then, but at the same time, I hated that she was with someone else. I was jealous. I felt like she should have been with me and only me. I was confused with how I was feeling back then. There’s no telling how I would have reacted had I seen her again back then.
“I honestly don’t know what I would have done.” It’s the truth. My feelings were mixed, and I thought I hated her, but it was just covering my real feelings. I loved her then. I love her even more now. She starts walking to the door after a beat of just staring at me. “Daria, please. It would have been a mistake if I had killed you. I would have killed Emily too in the process.” Saying that out loud causes a crack in my heart. I could have killed her, Emily, and my best friend's little sister. It’s something that would have been irreversible. “In hindsight, that’s the only time I’ve been thankful to Blaze. For sending you away.” She stops short of the large solid oak doors but doesn’t do anything other than stare ahead at them.
“Baby, please. Can you sit down so I can tell you the rest? You know I’m not the same person I was back then.” I pull the chair out, and eventually, she turns and walks back toward me. She sits down, avoiding my touch. I remain standing. “After I was arrested for a run gone wrong, I remember you coming in with Jake. You looked so fuckable in that skirt. I often dreamt of what you had on underneath.” I shake my head clear of the images racing into my mind. “Then I saw you in Three Scoops when I was released. Emily’s big blue excited eyes looking up at me when she realized we had the same ice creams. She was the cutest little girl I had ever seen.” A smile graces my lips, thinking about the nine
-year-old girl who pulled on my pants leg.
“You walked away, and I realized Emily looked exactly like me, down to the dimple on the left side of her mouth.” A twitch of a smile pulls at Daria’s lips. It was quick, but I noticed it. “No-one could look as much like someone as she looked like me and not be related. Unless she was my dad’s kid.” I try to make another joke, but again, it falls flat. “I was livid at the fact I had a secret daughter, and that you kept her from me. I felt myself about to fall into old habits, but Dad had taken all my knives and guns from me. I was beyond pissed when he told me I was forbidden to do any club business until I sorted my head out. When you called and needed your car fixed, I was the only one there who could come and deal with it. Seeing you standing there… when you moved your hair to the side, showing me your long neck…” I take in a long breath, not wanting to go there right now. “Hearing Emily called Jake Dad when you picked up your car was the final straw. Blaze snuck me one of my knives when I had you in my room. I thank God now that Dad and Nico came in when they did, or we wouldn’t be here right now. You would be dead. Emily would be without a mother, and Nico would never have known you were his sister.” A tear slips from my eye just thinking about her not being here anymore. Her hand lifts to the scar on her neck, courtesy of me. I glance down, unwilling to witness the disgusted expression on her face.
Tears fall down her beautiful face. I reach over and wipe them away, and she doesn’t flinch.
“I’m sorry about all the shit I’ve put you through. I know words are just that, words. I can’t change the past. But I sure as hell can change what happens in our future. The words I said about your stepmom were uncalled for, and you didn’t deserve them. I was angry. I just snapped.”
She’s still silent, and it scares the living hell out of me. A silent woman is a deadly woman.
Nothing Else Matters (Demons Disciples MC Book 2) Page 8