His words meant the world to me.
To know that he thought I did good, that I was a person of worth, was everything.
And I didn’t want him to let me leave.
“I love you, Josiah,” I whispered fiercely. “Tomorrow. The day after. I’ll never stop.”
He cupped my face and pressed his forehead against mine. “I’m not saying the words back. Tomorrow, when you leave, I want to be able to let you go.”
I wasn’t sure when it happened.
An hour, maybe even less.
But when I woke, it was to find myself in my own room, Linnie’s face only inches from mine, and Liner nowhere in sight.
My heart cried out, and there wasn’t a single thing in the world that would make this ache in my heart go away.
Chapter 15
Nice cup of fuckoffee.
-Coffee Cup
Liner
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Sam said briskly. “Later this afternoon, we’ll come get you. Hoax and my niece, Janie, are going to take you to your new place. From there, you’ll be given birth certificates for you and your daughter. A new home, vehicle, and papers. Everything that you’ll need to be set up.”
I couldn’t tell if Sam was deliberately being an asshole, or if he was just this abrupt when he was working.
I wasn’t sure, but that was the vibe I was getting.
“Do you have any questions?” I asked Theo, bringing her attention to me instead of the false whatever the fuck Sam had pasted on his face.
Her eyes were troubled—haunted—as they came to me. “No. I don’t think so.”
I nodded once, knowing that she did, she just didn’t want to voice them in front of Sam and Hoax.
I’d be asking him myself after Theo was out of the room.
“Anything else she needs to know, Hoax?” I pushed, bringing his attention to me.
He ignored me.
His eyes went to the little girl that Theo was quietly talking to and narrowed.
I knew what he was thinking.
That little girl looked a whole lot like the little boy that had disappeared from our lives way too soon.
And when I say a lot, I meant nearly identical.
I also knew that Hoax wouldn’t be leaving it alone.
Which was why I said something to him as he was leaving fifteen minutes later.
“Don’t,” I said. “Whatever you’re considering doing, don’t.”
His jaw tightened. “That kid looks exactly like Matias. Rome’s gonna have to know. With her being Tara’s sister…it’s going to come up.”
I nodded. “But she’s not his. Don’t do this.”
“I’m…Liner. She looks just like him. There’s no mistaking that,” he whispered.
I knew that. And I’d thought that the first time I’d seen her.
Which was why I’d done a little digging and found a way for the DNA test to be done.
My private investigator had been the one to collect an empty chocolate milk carton from Linnie after she’d had it at the cupcake bakery that’d been next door to The Bridge.
Rome’s DNA had been easy. I’d collected a beer bottle from him the last time we’d gone out for drinks.
The information had come back quickly thanks to my incentive of an extra four grand if it could be done within the week.
“She’s not his,” I repeated firmly.
Hoax’s jaw clenched. “I’d want to know.”
With that, he left and didn’t look back, leaving me to wonder if I should be preparing for another one of the members of my MC to head my way.
***
I should’ve known that Hoax wouldn’t leave well enough alone.
Castiel stood back and watched, keeping his opinions to himself.
Hoax stood back and watched, too.
Rome? Well, let’s just say that he was pissed as hell when he arrived at my door later that evening.
After everything that had happened the day before, talking to Tyson and collecting Linnie? That was the last thing that I needed. That either of my two girls needed.
My two girls.
I froze at the thought, wondering how in the hell that had happened.
Then I thought about last night, of the hours that we’d shared, and I realized that she’d given herself freely to me. Given me something to remember them by when they left.
I squeezed my jaw tight, then stared at the angry eyes of the man that I’d counted as one of my best friends.
Only, he wasn’t looking very friendly.
In fact, he was looking downright hateful as I opened the door.
Sighing as I came face to face with his angry one, I realized I was grateful that I had some height on him. Even if it was only half an inch.
Rome’s massive bulk—something he’d maintained since he’d retired from professional football—looked downright imposing when he was pissed and trying to control himself.
“Where is she?” he asked.
His wife, Izzy, looked heartbroken and angry as well but seemed to be controlling her ire a little better than her husband.
“I’m assuming you’re talking about Theo,” I guessed.
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t care about that bitch. I care about a kid that I might have.”
My back stiffened as anger started to roll through me now, too.
Nobody called her a bitch.
Not even my friend.
***
Theo
The pounding on the door after Hoax had arrived surprised me, but not the others.
I felt my heart start to pound in my chest as Liner stood up and began walking toward the door with what amounted to dread in his every step.
When the door opened, Liner didn’t bother with pleasantries.
Mostly because the man at the door said, “Where is she?” within moments of Liner opening it.
Then the big man’s eyes narrowed into dangerous looking slits that had me standing up and tensing beside my now sleeping child.
I wouldn’t be able to protect her from that enraged man, but I would be able to stop him long enough for Liner to…
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t care about that bitch. I care about a kid that I might have.”
The words coming out of that man’s mouth were downright scary.
“You need to get yourself under fucking control,” Liner demanded harshly, causing me to glance down at Linnie to make sure the loud command hadn’t woken her.
It hadn’t.
She’d gotten up very early this morning. Yesterday, she had spent half her morning at school, and there was no telling what time Tyson had woken her up in the first place. But then she’d come over here and played with Liner and Monster for who knows how long. And had gone to bed late last evening.
Needless to say, today, she was very tired.
Then, Rome seemed to wilt before our eyes. “Liner, you of all people know how hard this is for me.”
Liner nodded his head and stepped aside, but before he could say a word, Rome’s eyes caught on mine and stiffened.
“Is she…is she mine?” Rome asked, looking broken and beaten.
I smiled sadly as I ran my hand down the length of Linnie’s cheek, causing her eyes to blink open momentarily, but just as suddenly they closed, and she turned. “No. No, she’s not yours. But I’m willing to do a DNA test for you if you don’t believe me.”
He looked at the color of my baby’s skin, at her hair, and then at her face, obviously looking incredulous.
“Tara found a man that resembled you. I’m not sure who, I’m not sure where, but one day I woke up and…nothing. I couldn’t remember the last thirty-six hours. It was only after begging her to tell me what happened for days that she told me that she artificially inseminated me—and that was over eight weeks later,” I whispered. “She asked me to sleep with you, but I refused. She knew I wouldn’t do that, so she had a
backup plan. God, she’d even given me medication to help me ovulate! I didn’t even know!” I shook my head sadly. “But…I made sure. I…at the funeral. I was able to take a piece of Matias’ hair. I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t know what else to do. I had to know,” I whispered brokenly.
“You were at the funeral?” he asked in surprise.
I nodded once, feeling my throat thicken. “I got a pass for the day and went. I couldn’t miss that.”
Rome looked down at his feet as Liner finished closing the door and turned to lean his back against the cool wood. His arms went across his chest, and he was tense as if waiting to intervene if he was needed.
One glance at me and he knew that I wanted to handle it. The situation. Rome.
It was the least I could do.
“What did you find?” he asked, sounding sick to his stomach.
“It took me a while. I had to find time. I was watched day and night, and the only person that truly believed that I wasn’t crazy was a woman that was only there once every two weeks. I gave her the hair, paired with mine and Linnie’s. The DNA wasn’t a match on Linnie’s to your son’s. There was no match at all,” I explained.
He blew out a breath.
Walking over to a sleeping Linnie, I pulled her hair back into my hands and ran my hands through it. A few strands of hair came out as I did, and I walked over to not Rome, but Rome’s wife, Izzy. I circled Linnie’s hair into my hand and then handed it to her.
“I’m not Tara,” I said softly. “I may look like her…but I don’t act like her. I don’t think like her. I don’t even breathe like her.”
Izzy, who hadn’t looked at me but with anything but disdain since she’d walked in the door, looked startled when I handed the hair to her instead of her husband.
“I…”
“Don’t,” I said softly, walking over to Linnie and picking her up in my arms. She was too small. So freakin’ small. “You don’t have to say anything. I know what Tara did. I know what Tara made me do. I don’t begrudge you your anger. But, saying that, don’t ever take it out on my little girl. She’s just as innocent as your baby boy was in all of this.”
With that, I walked out of the room and didn’t look back.
***
Liner
I looked over at my good friend and let all the displeasure I felt show on my face.
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever wanted to beat the shit out of you,” I admitted. “I thought you were better than this, Rome.”
Rome looked up at me and glared.
“What exactly did you want me to say?” he challenged. “I found out that I could possibly have a kid. One I had absolutely no clue about. From that woman’s bitch sister.” He punched his finger in the direction of where Theo had just disappeared. “That after all this time…”
“Do you know the meaning of a sociopath?” I asked. “Let me enlighten you. It’s a noun. A person with a personality disorder with extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior. A lack of goddamn conscience.”
Rome looked down at his hands.
“She gets a high out of seeing other people fuckin’ pissed. Scared. Hell, even happy—in Theo’s case. You want to know what happened every time Theo was happy?”
Rome stiffened.
Izzy looked sick to her stomach as if she could guess what was coming.
“Tara relished in taking that happy away,” I said. “Do you want to know something else?”
Rome shook his head.
“Well, I’m telling you anyway.” I took a seat on the arm of the couch. “The first time that Theo had sex, it was with me. Five years after her baby was born.”
Rome’s head jerked up.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” I asked. “That she was artificially inseminated. She wasn’t lying about that part.”
Izzy drew in a breath, thinking that what she was about to hear wasn’t good.
She was right.
It wasn’t good.
Not at all.
But I was telling it to them anyway because apparently, they needed to know what was done to Theo. Then, maybe they would see that they weren’t the only victims in this tragic story.
“She woke up one day groggy and confused. Six weeks later, she realized that something wasn’t right with her body. She suffered through severe vomiting. Hyperemesis Gravidarum. I had to look it up. That lasted for six months of her pregnancy. She was really sick. The only thing she could manage to do in all of that time was eat small amounts of crackers and go to the bathroom. She lost forty-eight pounds.”
Rome made a sound in his throat. “She’s already tiny.” He shook his head. “I was with that woman for fucking years. How did I not know she had a twin? What the hell is wrong with me?”
“No, I agree. She didn’t really have it to lose. She didn’t even get to hold her baby before she was taken away from her.” I paused. “Hell, even during all the commotion of Tara switching the blame to her sister for hurting her own baby, she managed to switch hospital bracelets. Who the hell thinks of that when there’s so much chaos going around you? Tara is a master manipulator. She was always ten steps ahead of you. She’s been ten steps ahead of us all. Even Theo, who knew her better than anyone.”
Rome’s shoulders rounded even more, and he buried his face into his hands.
“Tara, her father Thurgood, and Andy Threadgill used Linnie as a pawn to get Theo to do what they wanted.” I paused. “But honestly, they had no reason for the most part. Tyson raised Linnie. He tried to disappear with her, but eventually he was found. That was when he started bringing Linnie to see Theo. The rest of the family thought it was funny, so they allowed it. Thirty minutes of visitation, three times a week? Seems like the best kind of torture, doesn’t it?”
Rome looked kind of green.
“She was…she…”
“Yeah,” I said. “She was forced to live in that hell hole, to allow them to think that she was the one who tried to smother her baby, after they knocked her out and then knocked her up. Oh, but that was only after receiving years and years of abuse from the rest of her family. Not allowed to complete her education because it wouldn’t do to have her at school where she could tell others that she was being abused. Apparently, they let her go for awhile until the bruising and scars became too hard to hide.” I paused. “Do you know her first memory is of Tara torturing her? You had to deal with Tara for four years…and you seemed to have gotten the tame side. Theo’s been dealing with her for twenty-eight…and she’s had not just Tara, but Andy and her father as well.”
Rome’s head dropped to his hands and he shifted it back and forth, looking like he was regretting coming over here.
“She looks just like me,” he whispered. “Hoax showed me a picture and I just…snapped. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry’s no good to me,” I admitted. “But…luckily it doesn’t really matter to Theo either since the timetable’s been moved up and she’s leaving tonight and never coming back.”
Rome’s head dropped to his chest, and he looked ready to throw up.
“Hoax said that she looked like me,” Rome said. “I don’t know man. I just…I just broke. Can you imagine losing one kid only to find out that you have another one that’s the same age? I felt like I was betraying Matias when I felt that spark of hope return to my chest. It doesn’t feel good at all to feel that, even for half a second.”
I didn’t know what to say to him.
But I did know that I wanted him to leave.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” I stated. Between having him and Izzy there, as well as Castiel and Turner—who, thank God, had left to give us some privacy for a couple of hours—I was ready to have my house back to myself. I just wanted to spend it with Theo before she had to go. “But I’ll talk this out with you anytime…after.”
“After she leaves?” he asked, looking like he wanted to say something more.
I nod
ded once.
“She leaves tonight,” I reiterated.
He nodded once. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t sure that sorry would count very well for me when it came to Theo.
A lot of things were different now.
Had this happened before Theo, before she’d become all that she now meant to me, I might’ve been able to forgive and forget easily. However, I was beyond that point now.
“See you later, Rome,” I murmured, coming out of my lean against the door and opening it for him.
He and Izzy got the silent message and headed for the door.
I was set to close it directly behind him, but a voice halted me in my tracks.
“Oh, look,” I heard called out. “It’s like a reunion.”
My hands fisted at the voice that I heard across the lawn, and it took everything I had not to turn around, run inside, and lock the goddamn door.
That wouldn’t be suspicious at all.
“What are you doing here?” Rome barked, uncaring that he hadn’t seen the woman in well over a year.
Quietly, I closed the door directly behind me, then placed myself in front of it while I studied the woman.
Now that I was staring at her, and had Theo to closely compare her to, I realized that there was quite a difference between the two women.
Granted, I did see the similarities, but without more than a glance, I could tell very easily that this wasn’t my Theo.
This was Tara.
Huge, gaping differences.
“Cat got your tongue?” Tara asked, grinning wider.
It was then I could see that the smile was forced. That wasn’t a genuine smile. It was just a couple of seconds too late, and I—though I wasn’t sure about Rome—could tell that she’d had to tell herself to put that smile there. It was as if I could see her brain moving at warp speed that said, ‘insert emotion on your face here.’
I studied the woman without saying a word, allowing Rome to field the majority of the questions that were lobbed our way.
Snitches Get Stitches (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 8) Page 13
