I saw the face again in my head, grinning down at me from above, felt his hot breath against my neck. The shakiness returned, and I tugged the afghan up around my shoulders again as if doing so would ward off the image.
“Your father…” She bit her lip. “He was my talisman. I could reach over and just lay my hand on his arm, and the world righted itself.”
I pushed past the weight that had settled over my body, and reached for her hand, doing my best to communicate that I was with her as she recounted the night she lived through hell.
With each revelation, the walls I’d built to keep her out came tumbling down. Another long-held belief proved to be false.
My mother hadn’t gambled out of compulsion, but because someone had been stealing from us.
Her nostrils flared out with a forced exhale. “Hawk was the one taking the money, Kate. He knew I was desperate to keep it from your father, and got me into some underground blackjack games. I was too naïve to see that I was rubbing elbows with every one of your father’s enemies. When they figured out that he wasn’t dead, but in hiding—”
“They came after you,” I said
She gave me a shaky nod. “Hawk… he helped them break in one night. They demanded to know where your father was, but that was the thing; I never knew where he was going next. When they realized they wouldn’t get any information out of me, they decided to send a message. All I could think about was the fact that you and Dakota were less than twenty feet away. My only thought was to keep you both safe.”
The biker hadn’t merely disappeared because he went to watch over another family…
Her mouth continued moving, but all I heard was a high-pitched ringing in my ears as she confessed what she’d lost at the hands of my father’s enemies. Men who hadn’t used words to send messages but their bodies.
“Weak men hurt women like that, Kate,” she said softly, turning the jelly jar until it caught the light from overhead. “It’s a hard truth that I desperately wanted to shield you girls from.”
My vision blurred as a fresh round of tears fell from my eyes, and I chastised myself for being so weak.
When I was seven, two police officers showed up to tell us that my father had been killed. I remembered feeling as if nothing would ever be right again.
Hearing the truth of my childhood and knowing what we were up against now, it appeared as though that feeling had been correct.
Good existed only in fairy tales.
* * *
“Morning, Counselor.”
I jerked my head up from the file folder in front of me, wincing at the volume of his voice. “What are you doing here?” I said, fighting through another wave of nausea.
I was never drinking tequila again.
Mike grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with coffee, giving me a relaxed smile. “Celia invited me to go to war. My schedule’s pretty empty these days, so I thought, why the hell not? You feeling okay? Because I gotta be honest with you, you look like hell.”
I self-consciously covered my face before asking, “Does Lauren know you’re going to be here?” I kept my voice low, not out of fear of someone overhearing, but because it felt like my brain was being stabbed with an ice pick. “I’m just not sure that springing something like this on her is the—” My words tapered off as the woman in question entered the kitchen.
I held my breath, wishing that I was anywhere but ground zero. The hangover wasn’t helping things, either. My mother had been insistent that we needed Mike, but given what I’d seen of him the last time, I hadn’t expected him to show.
The man now standing in front of me looked nothing like the man I’d seen wrapped up in a quilt. The scraggly beard was gone, leaving his jawline with the slightest hint of a five o’clock shadow. It was clear he’d also had a haircut recently.
Those weren’t what struck me the most, though. It was the brightness in his eyes again. Mike was sober.
That made one of us.
Even if he gave us a fighting chance against the Sons, it didn’t mean that he was off the hook with Lauren for the things he’d done while using.
“Good morning, Lauren,” I whispered, trying to infuse as much cheerfulness in my voice as I could muster in an attempt to defuse the situation.
“Morning, Kate,” she answered distractedly, making her way around the island toward her husband.
“Um, did you…” I struggled to think of something, anything to prevent bloodshed before I’d finished my coffee and sobered up. “Did you get a new shirt? It, um, it really brings out the color of your eyes.”
Her mouth lifted in a grin as she glanced down at the purple maternity top. “Thank you. I got this last week… it’s like nothing fits anymore.”
Mike handed the full mug to her and waited until she lifted it to her lips before saying, “I seem to recall at least one thing still fitting.”
A spray of coffee went flying from her mouth, onto the island and the papers I had spread before me. I dabbed at them with my napkin while she coughed and spluttered before cocking my head to the side, observing the two.
She moved as if to brush past him, letting her hand linger against his backside. He smirked and poured himself a cup of coffee while whistling a tune.
“You two aren’t killing each other,” I noted.
“I knew I was forgetting something,” Lauren said with another strange grin.
He wagged a finger at her. “That’s right. It was on the agenda after morning coffee, I believe. Drink up, Red. I wouldn’t want you to be late for my untimely demise.”
With another grin, he set a bottle of aspirin in front of me. “A couple of these… maybe a little hair of the dog, and you’ll be right as rain.”
I winced. “How’d you know?”
“You reek of booze and bad decisions, Counselor.”
The screen door slammed shut with a bang before Zane and Dakota entered the kitchen. I climbed down off my stool, feeling as if I’d entered a different dimension. “Do you see this?” I pointed to Mike. “Am I the only one confused by what’s happening here?”
Zane’s eyebrows moved up, and he immediately backed out of the room, leaving Dakota on her own.
“What’s wrong?”
“This.” I gestured with my hand. “They’re acting… I don’t know… weird.”
It shouldn’t have upset me. After all, it wasn’t my marriage. Lauren wasn’t the first person to go running back to an addict, but she was the first I’d seen to be so blasé about it.
Dakota looked between the two of them before moving toward the pantry with a shrug. “What’s the big deal, Kate? Ooh, did Mama get more blueberry bagels? Baby Thor is craving one.”
“Baby… Thor?” I asked slowly. Please tell me that’s not the name you’ve picked out.”
She disappeared into the pantry before reappearing with the bag of bagels held over her head in victory. “Score! And, I’m trying out several names just to see what feels right.”
“What are some of the others?” Lauren jumped in to ask.
Dakota dropped the bagel into the toaster before leaning against the counter. “Well, there’s Tyr, Heimdall, Loki—only if we’re talking like Marvel movie universe, though. Obviously not comic book universe Loki. Um, what was the other one? Oh! Jake.”
“Jake,” Mike said. “I don’t know… sounds pretty common.”
“Well, Jake Olson was a paramedic that was bonded to Thor for a little while. Let’s see…” She paused, no doubt rifling through the Rolodex of comic books in her head. “He got killed in a battle between the Avengers and Destroyer but was brought back to life. I actually can’t remember how he and Thor bonded together, but I know they stayed that way until Odin was able to separate them.”
She retrieved the bagels as they popped up, utterly oblivious to the blank stares the three of us shared. “Hey, what do y’all think about Odin? Odin Masterson. Sounds kinda important, right?”
“Um,” Lauren began. “It’s unique
.”
“I think I’ll add it to the list, but if I don’t decide to use it, you definitely should, Lauren. Odin Quinn—oh, that sounds really powerful.”
“Well, it could work… if we were having a boy, but—”
“You’re having two girls?” Dakota screeched, sending a dagger of pain through my skull. “Oh my god of thunder, I have so many girl names. Sif and Frigga. Brunnhilde and Freya. If you went with Brunnhilde, you could call her Valkryie for short.”
“You know, that’s not bad,” Mike chimed in, somehow keeping a straight face. “We’ll take all of those into consideration.”
“Good,” she said through a mouthful of toasted bread. “Now, I was thinking—”
“Caparina,” Little Ricky called out as he came down the hall. “You got two seconds to tell me what the fuck you did!”
Why was everyone yelling?
She stiffened, and whispered, “Family meeting,” before disappearing through the back door.
Mike cocked an eyebrow. “You see that, Counselor? Now that was weird.”
“Cap—”
“She’s not in here, LR,” Lauren replied as he rounded the corner. “Maybe check out at the barn?” She kept the smile on her face until he left before turning to face me. “Has she told you anything?”
I shrugged. “Nothing that in any way explains what just happened.”
“Something went down between the two of them after they went to see Molly.” At my frown, she elaborated. “She wanted information on your mother… some event that happened a long time ago? I’m not exactly sure.”
Mike’s gaze darkened, and we shared a look, making it evident that I wasn’t the only one who knew what that something was.
After opening up about her miscarriage, my mother had clambered off her barstool and over to the sink before vomiting up the hard liquor.
As if on autopilot, I’d walked over and held her hair back, murmuring words of encouragement. I did it all while knowing that I would never be half the woman that she was. I never would’ve survived what she’d lived through.
“Okay,” Lauren said with a slow nod, looking between the two of us. “It’s obvious I’ve missed something so let’s round up the family for a meeting.”
There was no sign of Little Ricky or my mother as we entered the backyard, only Dakota and Zane, sitting side by side on a little bench near a tree covered in pale pink blooms.
She looked up with a tear-streaked face when we approached. “I have to tell you something. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure, but I think it’s important.”
My cell phone vibrated against my hip, earning me a glare, and I quickly silenced it before placing it back in my pocket.
It was Nate.
Again.
“I found Dad’s vest at Bear and Molly’s house,” Dakota said solemnly. “It was on their bed—”
“Wait,” Mike interjected. “You found Grey’s kutte and didn’t know if that was important or not? How long ago was this?”
She swiped under her eyes. “A week ago. Look, I know I should’ve said something, but that’s a huge accusation to make against someone. I started second-guessing myself—maybe my dad had left it somewhere, and Bear found it. I don’t know. Then I thought of something Nate had said to me.”
“Nate?” I choked. “Y-you talked to Nate?”
“He called when he was trying to find you. Said that someone confronted him in the hospital after the doctors told us Dad didn’t make it. They warned him to keep his mouth shut and stay out of it. He thought it was someone from Silent Phoenix.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, before sinking down onto the grass. There had never been an elaborate plot to alienate me from my family. Nate had been trying to keep me safe. “But why go after him?”
Lauren gasped. “Because he did the surgery! He would’ve known that Grey was alive. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Dakota grimaced. “Yeah, but I wasn’t supposed to tell that part until he talked to Kate.”
I’d all but begged for details from that night only to be pushed away, yet he’d given up all his secrets to my sister.
At my crestfallen expression, she quickly added, “All he knew was that Dad was stable, Kate. He was in another surgery when they told him that he’d passed away.”
“We need to pull those tapes,” Lauren commanded. “See if we recognize the person that confronted him—”
“We already did,” Zane said, scratching at his eyebrow. “The only person seen on tape interacting with Nate is Bear.”
I thought of the footage I’d been sent, the man in the hoodie. “Wait, I was sent something—footage from the hospital, I mean. There was another man he talked with; at first, I was convinced that it was our dad—”
“Why are you just now telling us this?” Dakota shouted, and I squeezed my eyes shut, longing for a dark room and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
“You just admitted that Bear has Dad’s vest,” I said calmly. “When I showed Mama the video, she said it wasn’t Dad, so I didn’t see the point of bringing it up again. We do need to tell her about this, though. Maybe the guy in my video is the one who threatened Nate.”
Dakota’s face paled. “Well, that’s part of the problem…”
“Where’s Celia?” Mike asked, looking around the empty yard.
Her lip trembled, and another stream of tears fell from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have all the facts when I showed her the footage and told her about the vest. I didn’t know she’d react—”
“Dakota,” Lauren said firmly. “Where is she?”
“She went to the clubhouse,” she admitted through a sob. “She said she’s going to kill him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Celia
Angel frowned at me. “You wanna explain why you wanted me to meet you here of all places?”
Wolverine exhaled a stream of smoke from his mouth with a raspy laugh. “We’re gonna torture the shit out of ya, Angel.”
Muscles and veins strained against the skin of my forearms as I looked up at the storage facility with clenched fists. “Because there’s a chance they brought Jamie here—”
“Celia,” Wolverine began. “You and I both know that the Sons wouldn’t get within ten feet of this place before the club knew about it.”
I checked the magazine on my gun and forced a smile onto my face as I said, “Oh, I think they knew more than they’re telling you. Now, are we staying out here all day or can we get on with it?”
They pulled their weapons with simultaneous sighs of frustration before following me up to the door.
“Thought I told you on the phone that just because you had a video of Bear chattin’ with the doctor, it don’t mean he’s behind it all,” Angel grumbled.
“Dakota found Jamie’s vest on Bear and Molly’s bed,” I hissed back, wishing that she hadn’t chosen today to give up the traitor. I would have liked to have spent my first hangover lying in bed.
“You’re sure it was Jamie’s?” Angel asked, keeping an eye on Wolverine. What he was really asking was whether I was ready to start a war over it. Angel might’ve lived like a mercenary, but Wolverine would bleed Phoenix red until the day he died.
The former Pres had made it explicitly clear that he’d only shown up to prove me wrong. If he got wind of the intel I had on the club, I’d lose my ally from the inside.
I nodded discreetly as Wolverine unlocked the heavy door and shoved it open. “See? Not a goddamn thing in here—”
“This place gets raided by the cops, do you think they want my husband strung up like a goddamn Christmas tree where anybody could see him when they walk in?”
Wolverine’s silver eyebrows shot up, but instead of getting in my face, the old man just crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head to the side. “Alright, good point. So, where the hell is he?”
I strode past him toward the back office, suddenly jittery. “Basement. It’s soundproof and has hidden doors. You need
to think like a criminal, didn’t Jamie teach you that?”
“Where the fuck do you think Jamie learned it from, kid?” Wolverine growled from behind me. “You think he just came into this world knowin’ how to run a club? That ain’t the way this shit works!”
I turned around to him as I reached the door, teasing, “See, now I’m confused. He said he taught you everything you know.”
Angel let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Fuck, you got some balls on ya, Celia.”
“Did he now?” Wolverine asked, fighting a grin. “Well, hell, I almost hope he is down here now. I got a little somethin’ to remind him where he came from.”
In actuality, my mouthiness had nothing to do with the size of my lady balls and everything to do with the nervous anticipation coursing through my veins.
I was going to find Jamie, and then I was going to go after every single person that had a hand in hurting him. There was a strong chance that this would go down as more than just the day I survived my first hangover.
The three of us made no attempt to hide our arrival as we reached the base of the stairs. At the strong stench of death, our guns moved just a little higher and my hopes of finding Jamie alive dwindled.
I went straight to the last door on the left, half-expecting to see Hawk or Manny strung up from the ceiling. Instead, the room was empty, the chains dangling over patches of dried blood on the concrete.
The blood could’ve come from anyone at any time, but the cigar butts littering the floor were a different story. I lowered my gun to grab one, confident that Angel and Wolverine would have my back if something happened.
“Cobra.” I rolled it between my fingers, letting the stale scent fill my nostrils. “He was here.”
Wolverine’s eyes moved over the pulley system along the ceiling all the way down to the stains on the concrete floor. “These look fresh to me, but I know for a fact that the club ain’t had anyone here in months.”
Savior: Silent Phoenix MC Series: Book Five Page 18
