by Ivy Black
I could ignore the call, but Ryan will keep calling back and firing off text messages. He’ll continue pestering me until I answer him, so I figure it’s best to just bite the bullet and get it over with. As much as I’m tempted to cancel my phone and get a new one, cutting him out of my life entirely, the fact of the matter is that Cole is his son, and I don’t want to be that cruel. Even though I think I have every right to be, given the hell he put me through. But despite it all, I want to give Ryan every opportunity to become a better man.
Setting the toothbrush down, I walk into the bedroom and answer the call. “It’s late, Ryan. You need to start calling at a decent hour.”
It’s after ten here, which puts it after one there, but I’m deliberately vague about what time it is, just because I don’t even want him knowing what time zone I’m in. It’s a long shot since I don’t think he knows Missy lives in California, but I’m not going to take any chances. I don’t want him figuring out where I am.
On the other end of the line, he sniffs loudly as if he’s been crying again. I harden my heart, not wanting to waver again like I did the other night. It’s not too hard to do, as I recall how quickly he turned on me. How quickly he went from being sorry to threatening to kill me. I remind myself again that being out here and away from him is what’s best for my son. And for me.
“I miss you, babe,” he says, sniffing again. “I miss you and I miss Cole. I’m nothing without you guys.”
His voice is thick and he’s slightly slurring his words. He’s drunk. Not that it’s surprising, but you think he’d be able to hold it together if he’s going to be calling me and offering up an apology. But he didn’t, proving that this is all just pointless.
“Maybe you should have realized that sooner, Ryan.”
“I don’t know how many times I can tell you that I fucked up and that I’m sorry before you believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s too late for any of that now. It’s time for you to accept that this is over. That I don’t want to be with you anymore, and I will not let my son be raised with somebody like you. I won’t have him learning that hitting a woman is ever okay.”
“I promise I won’t do it again, Ash. I just… it’s the pills. And it’s the pain I’m constantly in. It just hurts so much, and I know I shouldn’t take it out on you, but I just get so mad. I shouldn’t be in this shitty little town, working my shitty little job. I should be a star. I should be playing in the NFL. I should be giving you and Cole a good life—”
“I didn’t care about any of that. I never needed money, or cars, or anything. I never cared what we had or didn’t have. All I cared about was you and Cole, and the life we were going to build together. I didn’t need you to be a star. I only needed you to be a good man and a good dad. That was all that mattered to me.”
“I can still be that.”
“No. You can’t. Not with me. Maybe you can use the lessons you learn from this in your next relationship. Maybe you can be a better man for somebody else.”
“That’s not fair. None of this is fair. I got screwed over by life, Ash. I had some bad breaks—”
“Life hands all of us shitty cards now and then, Ryan. It’s what we do with them that reveals who we truly are. And now that my eyes are open and I see who you are, I want nothing to do with you. Nor will I let my son be anywhere near you.”
“He’s my son, too. I have a right to see him. You can’t keep him from me.”
I draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It’s time to offer up the secret I’ve been keeping from him all these years. He’s going to hit the roof, but maybe this will stop him from calling me.
“You have no rights, Ryan. You were gone when Cole was born. I was at the hospital alone. Do you remember that?” I ask.
“I was on a hunting trip. It’s not my fault I wasn’t there.”
“You chose to go hunting with your buddies knowing I was on the verge of giving birth, but that’s not your fault? Oh, okay.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Whatever. Anyway, since I was there alone, when they asked me the name of the father to put on Cole’s birth certificate, I left it blank. I said I didn’t know. You are not legally his father; therefore, you have no rights to him.”
There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone, and I bite my bottom lip as I hold my breath. The story is true, though. I remember that night all too well. I remember the way the nurses looked at me when I told them I didn’t know who the father was. They looked at me like I was the lowest piece of filth on the planet. Like I was just some slut running around spreading my legs for everybody, and like I was some whore who lacked any sense of basic morality.
I bore the weight of their judgment, though, because somewhere deep down, I knew this day would come. I didn’t list him as the father knowing it might come to this. Knowing I might want to get away from him someday and not wanting all of the legal entanglements of a custody arrangement. It would only get ugly.
The problem is, I don’t know the ins and outs of paternity law. I don’t actually know what his rights are, since I didn’t list him as Cole’s father. And I’m banking on the fact that he doesn’t know either. He was never very interested in things like reading or learning. He’d put all of his eggs in his football basket. More than that, I’m hoping it’s so complicated, he loses interest in going through all of the legal wrangling and maneuvering it would take to find out.
I think he could, of course, sue for paternity and demand a DNA test, but I looked it up and know how expensive those are. I doubt he’ll have the money to make that happen. This whole gambit is a risk. But it’s one I have to take if Cole and I are ever going to be completely free of him.
“You had no right to do that,” he hisses.
“I had every right. You weren’t around.”
“So, you cut me out of his life because you were pissed off that I went hunting? How in the fuck is that fair or right, Ash?”
“Maybe you should have thought about all of that before we got to that point. Maybe you should have learned to be a better man earlier.”
“This ain’t right, and you know it. I’m goin’ to get my son back, Ashley. And I’m goin’ to make you pay for what you’ve done. Just know that. You’re gonna pay a heavy fuckin’ price.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
I disconnect the call and drop the phone onto the nightstand. It rings again, but I silence it. I’ve given him every opportunity to change. To be a better man for me, and for his son. Well, he’s out of chances now. It’s more than clear that he’s not going to change. Not for me and not for Cole. He’s just used up his last opportunity to convince me he deserves to be a part of my son’s life.
This is done, and this is over. Tomorrow, I go and get a new phone, officially turn the page on my past, and start a fresh, new chapter. And this one, I’m going to write for myself, by myself.
Chapter Sixteen
Domino
“So, why haven’t you called her yet, then, Romeo?”
“Gotta let some anticipation build,” I reply.
Derek shakes his head. “Never figured you for a pussy, man.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
But I snicker, although it’s without much humor behind it, then take a long swallow of my beer, pondering Derek’s question. There’s no real good reason I didn’t call her last night. Other than the fact that I spent a good portion of the day trying to get a bead on the guys in the black SUV. After I saw them rolling slow down Harrison, I followed them, doing my best to be discreet about it. But there’s nothing really subtle about my bike, so I had to hang back farther than I would have liked.
I look at the closed doors to the Leadership room, wondering what’s going on in there. Derek doesn’t know much, and the bits of information he does have, are scattered and not overly informative, anyway. All he could say for sure was the tension in the air is high.
Which brings me back t
o the guys in the SUV. I made them for cartel guys. I know I can’t be absolutely certain, but I got that twitchy vibe I always got when something was about to go down over in the shit. Being in Afghanistan taught me how to be observant. When we were in areas choked with people, be it a marketplace or a village, I always assessed the area and the people around us quickly. Failure to do so meant you could end up getting your ass blown up, so I learned to be fast and accurate thoroughly.
Several times over there, I picked out the threat—usually some dude strapped with a suicide vest—and kept my unit from getting blown to shit. Several times, we weren’t so lucky and somebody got by one of our guys, and our unit took a hit. But the point is, when I was assessing a scene, I always got a particular vibe. It’s like a sixth sense or something that helped me pick out the bad guy with bad intentions from the crowed.
And when I saw those guys in the SUV yesterday, I got that feeling all over again. Something wasn’t right about them and that they were there with bad intentions. It was just a feeling, and with everything that had happened with the cartel, I wondered if I was just being paranoid. I puzzled over it all night, wondering if I should bring it up to Leadership, or just let it go. I mean, it’s not like anything happened. They didn’t do anything, and no shit went down anywhere. So, I decided to sleep on it.
I woke up this morning, though, and it was still bothering me, so I figured I’d talk to Cosmo. Tell him what happened, what I saw, and let him make a call about whether to bring it up to Prophet or not. No sense in getting everybody worked up about it, if somebody as even keeled as Cosmo said there was nothing there and it was probably just my imagination working overtime.
But when I got here, the atmosphere in the clubhouse was heavy, and the closed-door meeting that was becoming a regular thing here persisted. It got me thinking that maybe the two things are connected. That maybe there’s some behind-the-scenes shit going on with the cartel I’m not aware of. Something that drew them to Blue Rock. I know Prophet’s got a special kind of hard-on for those guys, but would he go rogue and do something to pull us into a war with them?
“So, what’s she like?” Derek asks.
I shrug. “She’s a knockout. Got a tight little body with curves in all the right places,” I tell him. “She’s smart as hell, too. Witty. She can definitely hold her own when it comes to giving somebody shit.”
“Sounds like she’s already got you wrapped around her finger. And here I thought you were just lookin’ to get laid.”
“I don’t know what I’m lookin’ for. Could be I just want to get laid. And trust me, I wouldn’t mind bangin’ her in the least.”
Derek takes a drink of his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah, I ain’t buyin’ that. You’re already talkin’ like a man who’s seeing minivans, white picket fences, and two-point-five children.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I laugh. “I’m definitely not the nuclear family kind of guy. Never have been. I don’t do kids.”
“Never say never, man.”
My heart suddenly spasms with pain as I stare at the bottle in front of me. I’ve never been much for kids to begin with. But as the thoughts scroll through my mind, the faces of an Afghani boy and a girl, neither of them more than ten years old float through. I’ll never be able to forget them. They were seared into my brain where they’ll always remain. And rightly so. What I did is something I’ll never be able to forget, nor should I be able to. It’s a memory that will haunt me to the end of my days. It’s something I’ll never be able to forgive myself for. Nor should I be forgiven.
Clearing my throat, I drain the last of my bottle and try to shake it off, trying to shove the memory back into the little box inside of me where I store all of the remembrances of the terrible shit I’ve seen and done in my life. Trying to keep it all locked up is the only way I manage to stay sane. Extreme compartmentalization. It’s another handy trick I learned in the Corps and one that serves me every bit as well as threat assessment.
“So, when are you going to call her?” Derek presses.
“What the fuck are you, my life coach?”
“Sounds like you need one, man.”
“You can eat shit,” I say and laugh.
I hear some bikes rumble into the yard outside, and a couple of minutes later, Cosmo walks through the front door with Bala trailing behind him, but I barely recognize him. He’s in blue jeans, but a flannel shirt with long sleeves, obscuring the tats on his arms, and a black t-shirt underneath that. He’s not wearing his kutte, and he’s got a ball cap on, covering up the tattoos on his head. To me, he looks like he’s intentionally trying to disguise himself.
Bala gives me a nod as I look between the two of them. His face is pinched, tension written all over it, and I find myself wondering why Tarantula’s second is in our clubhouse and why both he and Cosmo look ready to shit a brick. I nod back to him, my mind spinning with curiosity at this development.
Cosmo walks Bala over to the Leadership room and lets him in, sliding the door closed behind him. Then, he turns to me and walks over. Perhaps sensing the thickening tension in the air as if by some silent understanding, Derek gets up and walks away as Cosmo sits down across from me.
“Prospect, beer me,” Cosmo says.
Derek is there in a flash with an open beer for him and I watch as Cosmo down half of it in one go. He’s tight. I can see it in his face and the set of his body. He sets the bottle down and looks at me.
“What’s Bala doing here?” I ask.
Cosmo fixes me with a firm stare. “He’s not. And if you’re ever asked, you never saw him here. You got me?”
I drain the last of my beer and set the bottle back down as I nod. “Yeah, I got you,” I tell him. “But what in the hell’s going on?”
Cosmo frowns. “I can’t read you into this yet, kid. Just know there are some pieces being moved around the board and shit might get hairy for a bit.”
“Does this have anything to do Zavala and the cartel?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
I blow out a long breath. and then fill him in on what I saw and did yesterday. He listens to me and, I watch as his face turns red and his jaw clenches tight. I can tell he’s irritated.
“And why didn’t you tell any of us this yesterday?” he asks when I finish.
“Because I can’t say for sure they were Zavala’s guys. I thought it was possible I was just being paranoid,” I say, then add pointedly, “It’s not like I’m being read in on the shit going down, so I can’t know what I’m looking for or not looking for.”
He grimaces. “Touché,” he says, then adds with a grin, “Asshole.”
He sits back in his seat, his face clouding over as he takes a drink of his beer. I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that something bad is coming. Cosmo is processing what I told him, and I can tell he doesn’t like it. He swallows down the last of his beer and sets the bottle down on the table, then gets to his feet.
“This changes things,” he mutters.
“How so?”
The frown on his face deepens, and it seems like he wants to tell me what’s going on, but I know that he can’t. Not until Prophet gives the okay. And if there’s one word to describe Cosmo, it’s loyal. He’s not going to break his oath to Prophet. It’s frustrating as shit, but I can’t fault him for it. He’s a good soldier and a good man like that. Cosmo leans across the table and claps me on the shoulder, staring into my eyes with an expression of earnestness on his face.
“I’ll tell you everything as soon as I’m able to. Until then, just keep your shit tight and your mouth shut. Especially about Bala. He’s risking his own balls to be here right now,” he says.
“You know you can trust me.”
He stands up. “I do. And I appreciate it.”
Cosmo disappears into the Leadership room, sliding the door closed behind him. I grab his bottle and take it behind the bar, dropping it into the recycle bin, then grab a fresh one ou
t of the refrigerator. I pop the top on it and take a swallow, my mind racing as I try to figure out what in the hell is going on.
It’s obviously got something to do with the cartel, but Bala being here adds a wrinkle to this whole thing, and I can’t figure out what that is. The fight with Zavala is ours. What would the Warriors have to gain by throwing in with us? Last I heard, their prez was on good terms with Zavala and they did business together now and then. Neither Bala nor Tarantula seemed especially thrilled with it, but it’s their prez’s call, not theirs. So, why is he here?
“So, are you gonna call her or what?” Derek asks.
“Shit. Are we back on that again?”
“We never off it. We were just interrupted.”
“Why are you so interested in whether or not I call Ashley?”
He shrugs. “Probably because it irritates you so much. Besides, if you’re not going to, I’m gonna take a run at her.”
He draws a laugh out of me. “You do that, and I will cut your nuts off.”
Derek opens his mouth to reply when the chatter of automatic gunfire rings out. Guys out in the yard are yelling and I hear the pop-pop-pop of them returning fire.
“What the fuck?” Derek asks.
Snatching the .44 Desert Eagle that’s stored beneath the bar, I’m dashing across the clubhouse when the door to the Leadership room flies open. The guys are boiling out of it like a colony of pissed-off ants as I throw the door open. Beyond the front gates, I see a black SUV with a guy in a black shirt and dark shades hanging out the back window. A split second later, the chatter of gunfire starts again, and I can hear the hard thump and pinging whines as he sprays the front gate.
Puffs of dirt kick up in the yard where some of the bullets are tearing into it. The weapon held out in front of me, I run down the stairs squeezing off shots. The window behind at the back end of the SUV, behind the shooter, explodes as one of my bullets punches through it and the guy swings around toward me. Just as I see the muzzle flash, I’m lifted off my feet and slammed into the hard-packed dirt of the yard.
