“You!” I pointed at Cleo. “And you!” I pointed at Sean since he was closest. “Y’all come look at him and make sure he’s not about to die on me.”
Sebastian, who was standing in the hallway, but had his eyes pointed down the opposite direction of where we were standing, started to laugh.
“Sebastian, you need to come and look at Audrey.”
“What about you?”
That came from Torren.
“I’m okay,” I promised. “I was…”
“She’s pregnant and needs to be checked out,” Tunnel grunted. “Don’t accept arguments.”
Tunnel grinned at me.
“Good news,” he said, holding out his arm. “Your paramedic awaits.”
I rolled my eyes, but nonetheless followed him out the door.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “How did y’all get here so fast? And how did you know where we were?”
Torren looked down at me.
“You.”
“Me?” I asked, startled. “How did I help?”
“You had your cell phone,” he answered.
“But they took it away.”
“They finally made a mistake,” Silas answered.
Big Papa was standing next to him, discussing something that he’d paused in his conversation before answering me.
“How’d they do that?”
“Took your cell phone, but didn’t turn it off,” he answered. “Though, that was due to one of our undercover operatives taking the phone into custody. Either way, you would’ve been found.”
My mouth twitched.
“That is fucking awesome,” I looked away, studying the long white hallway. “Where are we?”
“The new ‘place’ that they purchased as a front,” Silas answered. “Would’ve been our next place to try if we didn’t find you at their old place. I’m not sure what the hell is going on with them, and why they made such simple mistakes, but I can’t complain about it if it got y’all back to us safe.”
I gasped when I saw Lynn limping toward us.
“Oh, my God!” I screeched. “Are you okay?”
Lynn caught my hand before I could touch him and placed a simple small kiss on my hand. “Been better, girl.”
“Piece of shit!” I heard hissed from behind me. “I gave up everything for you. Watched my husband dote on this little piece of shit kid that wasn’t even mine. You looked just like her. Then he had to go and do it again with that sister of yours! How is a woman supposed to deal with her husband’s infidelity when she does everything for him?”
I paused and turned, finding Candace Morrison standing behind us, spewing venom.
She’d sawed through her ropes, most likely by using the jagged piece of metal that was on the ground near her feet.
Lynn stiffened in anger at my side as he heard Candace’s words.
“I’m not your kid?” Tunnel asked sarcastically.
He’d known, of course.
I could tell that his body was strung tightly, though. I could see the anger pouring through him, holding him stiff as he regarded the woman in front of him.
“No,” she snarled. “But I treated you as mine.”
Tunnel started to laugh.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” he replied darkly. “I seem to remember a time in my life where you treated me like garbage. Refused to feed me. I had to go dumpster diving just to feed my sister and me.”
She sneered.
“You didn’t deserve better. You were trash, only seems fitting that you ate it, too,” she snarled. “Only became useful to me when you joined the police department. Tried to make it come across as you being all noble, but I knew why you were really there. You wanted to shut us down.”
“No,” he countered. “What I wanted to do was live my life with my wife and child. What I didn’t want to do was deal with you and Dad’s shit. I wanted the exact opposite of what you gave me. But you couldn’t stand that I didn’t take your offer.”
Offer? What offer?
She laughed bitterly. “Should’ve taken me up on it. Would’ve saved you a world of hurt.”
Tunnel started to chuckle, and it was so sinister, so freakin’ scary, that I shivered.
I’d never seen him be so cold, but this man standing in front of the woman he’d always thought was his mother…well, he wasn’t the man I knew.
This man was harder, more intimidating. This man was the man I’d known as Ghost before I’d known that Ghost was my Tunnel.
Tunnel was hiding behind a blank mask, one that was clearly in place for his protection—the one he always slipped behind when he was dealing with his parents.
“What kind of ‘mother’ asks her grown son to sell his child to her?” he snapped.
And that, my friends, is when mama bear came out to play.
Chapter 28
Beard the fuck up, then we’ll talk.
-Ghost to his father
Ghost
I looked at Lynn. And by look, I meant really looked.
I’d seen the resemblance, of course. At least in our eyes. But now that I studied him, knowing that he was my uncle, I noticed that we were a lot more alike than either one of us had realized.
I’d seen him once a month for going on six years now. I’d never once suspected that we were anything other than boss and subordinate.
Just five minutes ago, I’d asked Silas if he could help me find my real family. Sure, I’d had a lot of other things I’d needed to take care of, but since I was sitting in a hospital bed with nothing else to do but think, I’d asked.
And had been rewarded.
Though, not by the person that I’d expected it from.
Lynn sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I can’t help with Audrey’s family,” Lynn said carefully. “From what I remember, the woman was an addict. He used her, kept her clean while she was pregnant, and then took the child. From what I remember, her mother was back under the influence of drugs before her episiotomy even healed.”
“Shit.”
That was from Audrey.
“I’d been harboring hope that I was some filthy-rich, multi-millionaire’s daughter who was stolen at birth, and now you tell me that I am some drug addict’s kid?” Audrey teased. “Well, that’s just rude…but a great deal better than having that woman as my mother. I suppose I can live with him as my father, but only if he stays in jail for the rest of his life.”
Lynn had, apparently, already taken care of that. Not only did my father get charged for kidnapping my sister, me and Mina, but he’d also been charged with attempted premeditated murder.
Holding us there was only to have been a temporary thing. They didn’t actually expect that we’d make it through the night, but my father had gotten overconfident thinking that his operation was more covert and clandestine than it actually was. He’d made a rookie mistake by not thoroughly searching Mina. He’d vastly underestimated her since he hadn’t expected her to be able to conceal a phone in her tight jeans and shirt, and in doing so, his cronies hadn’t realized she even had the phone on her until they’d already arrived at the house they were temporarily using as a base. When it was found, they’d made another mistake by leaving it on instead of turning it off, which enabled Lynn to tap into her cell and access the GPS to find her location within an hour of our abduction.
Lynn got to our location within hours of our arrival there, followed quickly by the Dixie Wardens.
While I’d been busy freeing myself, Lynn got my father talking and waited for him to admit to a few things.
My father, being the arrogant prick that he was, obviously thought Lynn was incompetent, because he’d talked and talked, and in doing so, he had shown his hand, giving Lynn all he needed to arrest and convict his stupid ass.
Once he had what he’d needed, he’d given a signal to the boys who were undercover in my father’s operation, and they’d helped arrest him.
Seems that my father was smart enough not to trust them completely because he had them doing other things that kept them busy on the other side of the compound.
Who knew he had it in him?
At this point, I couldn’t help but wonder why we hadn’t been able to nail him sooner, but I knew that it was mostly due to my pseudo-mother’s involvement.
It was obvious that she was the brains of the operation.
Speaking of my pseudo-mother, seeing Mina go off on her was enough to make me giddy. I’d held off on telling her about my mother’s offer because at the time, I hadn’t wanted to worry her. Sure, I could see the error of my ways now, but when Candace made that disgusting offer to me, I’d been a younger, more naïve man. I thought that simply being a police officer was enough protection for me and my family.
I was mistaken.
I now knew that nothing was sacred to these people. It didn’t matter if you were an officer of the law or not. If they wanted you dead, no one could stop it unless that individual knew how to protect themselves.
Something I hadn’t realized that I needed to do six years ago.
Now, though? Yeah, it would be hard to get the drop on me.
Today though, I hadn’t really showed that I had improved my ability to pay attention to my surroundings.
When I’d seen that gun in Mina’s mouth, my heart and my breathing had both stalled in my chest.
Then Mina had thrown up, and I’d taken advantage of the situation by tackling my mother to the ground.
I’d suffered even more broken ribs thanks to that move, but it gave Mina enough time to get herself together as well as giving me the chance to regain control of the situation.
“As for your mother…” Lynn hesitated, breaking into my thoughts. “She’s dead. I was there the day that she delivered you. I tried to gain custody of you, but your father was a prominent member of the community. I was only your uncle and a minor myself. There was nothing I could do but watch. I’d made a promise to my sister that you would be protected, but I completely botched that. It felt like I was always two steps behind when it came to your father.”
I smiled wryly at him, the first smile to land on my face since the whole thing had gone down this morning.
I looked down at my wife, who had Sienna in her arms where they were sitting in the seat next to my bedside, both asleep, and realized that I needed to make another promise.
“We finally got him.” I looked up at my uncle. “Now it’s time for you to have the family that you always deserved.”
Lynn laughed.
“I’m not a family man.”
Silas started to chuckle now, too.
“It looks like you are now, Joker.”
Audrey broke in then, her voice cold and unyielding.
“Yeah,” Audrey said. “You can be my uncle. And your first act as my official uncle will be you telling me what room my rapist is in so I can go shove my foot up his ass.”
Lynn coughed, looking at Sienna to make sure that she was still asleep.
“You don’t have to worry about him,” Lynn promised. “I’ve got a special place in Hell just for him.”
Audrey smiled. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
***
I was asleep hours later when the soft voice of my daughter woke me.
“You’re my daddy.”
My eyes opened, and I saw Sienna sitting at the foot of my bed, my phone in her hand.
Bleary-eyed and foggy-brained from the effects of the pain medication that they’d given to me before the room had emptied, I couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on.
“I thought it might be you when mommy kept calling you Tunnel,” she said softly. “Tunnel was my daddy’s name.”
I swallowed, then sat up.
Muscles screamed as I pushed up my bruised and broken body to a sitting position. My fingers spasmed with pain when I put even the slightest pressure on them, but I did my best to make sure that none of that showed on my face.
No, all my daughter could tell was that I was sitting up and giving her the attention she and this conversation deserved.
“Yeah, baby,” I rasped, then cleared my voice. “I’m your daddy.”
She stared at me intently, eyes so much like my own, and smiled.
It was like the fucking sun was rising right there in my goddamn heart.
“I’ve missed you.”
So simple. So understanding. So fucking awesome.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“Are you still a police officer?” she questioned. “I want to be a police officer when I grow up.”
I smiled. “No,” I answered honestly. “But I still put bad guys in jail. I just work privately now.”
Her grin was infectious.
But that grin quickly fell off her face just as quickly as it’d arrived.
“You won’t go away again, will you?”
The sheer panic in her voice was enough to have me reaching for her, despite the pain that was echoing off every broken bone in my body.
“I wouldn’t leave if I had a choice,” I answered, pulling her gently into my lap. “But no, I don’t ever plan on leaving again. Not if I can help it.”
“Was it your choice last time?” she demanded, suddenly angry that her father was forced to do something he didn’t want to do.
I shook my head.
“No,” I admitted. “I would have never left you and Mommy if I’d had a choice. You two were my whole entire world.”
Her grin was small, but it was there.
“I have your old badge under my pillow.”
My throat tightened.
“Yeah?” my voice cracked.
She nodded. “I sleep with it every night.”
I carefully twisted my torso and placed a kiss on the top of her head.
“I used to sleep with it every night, too,” I murmured into her hair.
“Why do you think she does it?”
That was Mina.
I turned.
“What?”
She smiled.
“She saw that you slept with it underneath your pillow when you were still alive,” she said. “She may have been really young, but she remembered. The night that you died, she stole that and slept with it. And has been ever since.”
Overwhelmed with emotion by my daughter’s simple act, I felt tears starting to burn my eyes.
“Fuck.”
“That’s a bad word. Mommy says I’m not allowed to say that.”
I started to huff out a laugh. “Mommy is right. You shouldn’t repeat any words that come out of my mouth.”
Mina snorted.
Sienna wiggled off my lap, curling up on the other side of me, pressed between my big body and the hospital bed railing.
The minute she was comfortable, she closed her eyes and fell right to sleep, like the past twelve hours had been nothing more than a scary story.
I looked over at my wife the moment that our daughter’s eyes closed.
She just shook her head.
“Let’s hope our next one sleeps like she does.”
I started to laugh.
“The next one is going to be hell on wheels, just like her aunt.”
She had no clue how right she was.
“Speaking of her aunt, where is Audrey?” I asked.
She yawned and settled back into her chair.
“Last I checked, she was in the room with Fender.”
I found a smile as my eyelids started getting heavy.
“And Fender is fine, the last I heard. He is being released tomorrow. What is she doing in there?”
Mina’s eyes blinked open slightly.
“When I went to check, she was telling him every single thing she did wrong.”
I just
shook my head.
“God help him.”
Epilogue
A beard is the difference between ‘Mr.’ and ‘Sir.’
-Fact of life
Ghost
Eight months later
“How’s your wife, man?” Sebastian asked me.
I offered him my only open hand, which was my left, and said, “She’s fine.”
Sebastian grinned and clasped my hand without shaking so as not to wake the sleeping child cradled in my arm.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
I looked to his side where his daughter, Blaise, stood. “And how are you?”
I’d gotten to know my old club members’ kids quite a bit over the last eight months, and I was fairly sure all of them liked me. All of them, that is, but Blaise.
She was too much like her father. All quiet and watchful. I never knew where I stood with her.
“I’m fine,” Blaise replied. “You look different from Pop’s pictures.”
I blinked.
“Blaise…” Sebastian warned in a low tone.
I waved his concern away.
“I was burned pretty badly,” I said, holding out my arm. “See that uneven skin?” She nodded. “That’s from a burn. The ones on my face were fixed, but in doing so, the shape of my face changed enough that I no longer look the same as I once did.”
She nodded solemnly.
“Blaise!”
I turned to find Sienna barreling down on us. “Do you want to play outside with the water guns?”
Blaise looked up at her father. Sebastian nodded, and Blaise ran off with my girl.
“So polite,” I muttered. “Can you teach my girl that?”
He laughed. “It might be too late for that one. She looks like she’s already set in her ways. This one?” Sebastian ran his hands down Gianna’s thick mop of curls. “Maybe not too late.”
I chuckled.
“Here,” I offered my newborn baby girl to him, and he gladly accepted.
He cradled her expertly to his chest, and looked down at her with such loving adoration that I felt the love that was wafting off of him.
But, that was the way with these big, life-hardened men. They loved their kids, and they loved their club members’ kids.
Beard Up Page 20
