by Mia Miles
She narrowed her eyes at me, as if to say she didn’t believe me, but we didn’t have time to go over everything in detail, either. She was forced to accept my answers and move on. I was thankful for that. I didn’t want to tell her about my time inside or about shanking someone while I was in. That was really how I got my name. Luckily, the guy I had shanked kept his mouth shut, allowing me to get out without any extra time tacked onto my sentence, but everyone already knew it was me.
My stories were stories for another time, and there were plenty of them. I had been a member of the MC for over a decade, and in that time, I had done everything I could to move up in rank. That meant taking a lot of risks and pulling a lot of shit that should have landed me behind bars for a long, long time.
I sighed. “You got it?” I asked her.
“So, you guys run your own businesses on the side?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’re a group of business owners, and we typically provide work for our younger members,” I said.
“But you don’t. You don’t employ anyone associated with the Lions, and I’m the only one working for Jay who’s part of it,” she said. “Jay told me Nails used to work for him, but that’s it. I haven’t heard of anyone else working for him. What do some of the other guys do?” she asked. I could hear the concern in her voice, and I knew how it looked.
It looked like what it was, and that was why we had so much trouble with the law. We were funneling money for the MC through our other companies, through our jobs. I didn’t have time to explain it to her.
“Just tell him that’s what we do,” I said. “I don’t have time to make it sound more legit than it does.”
She looked at me, shocked.
“Don’t act surprised. We work to fund the MC, and occasionally our companies employ some of our people to help them out. For the most part we try to keep the companies separate from the MC so that the cops don’t think it’s some sort of money laundering ring,” I explained, taking a shot at making it sound less suspicious.
“Okay, that’s what I’ll go with, but you and I are going to have to talk at some point. I want to understand what’s really going on with you,” she said.
“Okay, no problem. Good luck with your dad.” I looked away as she opened the door and climbed out of the car.
Sometimes it was hard to imagine that someone as colorful and independent as Missy came from such a sterile, lifeless part of town, but there were other times when she revealed just how sheltered she was. I had to remind myself that my world was still new to her. There were bound to be things she just didn’t understand. The way we did business was one of those things.
I looked out the passenger side window to watch her take the steps to the front door of the brick house where her parents lived. There were two white columns in front, at the top of the stairs. I watched until she disappeared between them. It looked like some kind of government building or part of a prep school. Everything was boxed in and symmetrical. If there was any life here, it was contained inside, like a prison.
She had asked some pretty serious questions before going inside, and I knew she wasn’t going to just drop it when she came back out. She was going to get her answers from me one way or another. I didn’t know how to tell her that we were involved in so many things.
We ran drugs and weapons. We smuggled things in for our members who were on the inside. There was an element of prostitution. I wasn’t too terribly proud of it, but it happened. We also provided security, intimidation, and muscle for private citizens and other local organizations. We had even been known to carry out hits for the right price. None of our muscles or hitmen had street names to indicate what they did for us. We felt it was safer that way.
There was so much she didn’t know, so much she didn’t need to know, but if we were going to be talking about making our relationship last for the long haul, I was eventually going to have to come clean about everything. I dreaded it. My only hope was that she would be able to keep her mind open to accept everything I had to tell her without judgment.
I was confident that things in her neck of the woods weren’t as perfect and clean as everyone probably preferred to pretend. I was sure that if anyone did any digging, they would have found plenty of dirt on people like her father. I didn’t know any successful businessmen who didn’t have some skeletons in the closet, just waiting to be found. I wondered what his looked like.
I cranked the car back up. The summer sun was starting to heat the day, and I didn’t know how much longer I was going to have to sit outside in the car without the air on. Plus, having it on meant I could get out of there if I needed to, with or without Missy. Just as she didn’t know what to expect when she started asking questions, I didn’t know what to expect sitting outside in their driveway.
The air came on, and I continued to wait. There was no way it was going well in there. If he’d kicked her out of the house for getting pregnant by a married man, he was going to flip his lid when she walked in there to tell him she was living with and fucking a biker who went by the name Cutter. My name was pretty obvious, I thought. I cut people, and I apparently did it enough to get a nickname based on slicing folks up with knives or shivs. Surely her father was experienced enough in the world to know exactly what was going on as soon as his daughter started explaining everything to him.
I hoped he didn’t try to blow my cover and expose my lies when he heard what she had to tell him about me or the MC.
Chapter Twenty
Missy
I knocked as I opened the front door. I didn’t want to draw attention to my presence at the door and have my parents – especially my father– look outside. They would have seen the Charger sitting in the driveway, and there would have been a confrontation. I needed to avoid that if at all possible.
“Anybody home?” I called into tomb-silent house. The air was crisp and cool, as always. It stayed about the same temperature all year, not quite cold, but never warm.
I closed the door and walked into the entry way.
“Mom? Dad?” I called.
Suddenly, out of the blue, my mother was in my face. “Oh my god, Missy, where have you been? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Have you been taking care of yourself?” Her hands were on my face, my shoulders, my arms, my hips. She spoke frantically, as if I were returning from having run away instead of making my first appearance after being kicked out.
“Mom, I’m okay,” I told her, taking her hands and putting them down. “I just came to talk to you and Dad about some things.”
All the color sank from her face. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“You and Dad kicked me out of the house. What do you think?” I snapped.
“That was all your dad, honey. I didn’t have anything to do with that,” she pleaded.
“You didn’t stop him,” I said with raised eyebrows.
I walked through the living room where the fight had occurred last time. I headed for the dining room. I wanted somewhere to sit, a room where we all had to at least pretend we were sensible people. I didn’t want to seem like I was afraid of my father’s wrath anymore. I wasn’t. I had plenty of people to back me up if things went wrong, and I was beginning to realize that they were very likely everything I had expected them to be when it came to protecting themselves and each other.
My mother followed behind me, and I heard my dad coming downstairs. His voice boomed.
“Did I hear Missy come in?”
“Yes, dear,” my mother called out to him.
I had only been gone a short time, but I felt I didn’t fit in anymore in this world. I was never a perfect fit to begin with. My colorful personality clashed with their plain, colorless world. Sometimes I wondered if I was adopted, but I looked just like my parents. I could have been my mother’s little sister. After seeing a world even richer in colorful people, my parents looked like aliens to me.
My father stepped into the room, and there was a mixture of
joy and anger in his face immediately. I could tell he was happy to see me, but he was also angry that I had taken him at his word. I had stayed gone when I left.
I stood up and let him hug me. His arms felt foreign to me, stiff, like he didn’t know how to be affectionate. I’d had better, more sincere hugs from complete strangers in the time I’d been gone.
“Are you back?” he asked.
“Why are you both treating me like I ran away?” I snapped at him.
He backed away and tried to say something. His mouth kept trying to form words, but nothing was coming out. He was just as shocked as my mother had been.
“Have a seat, Dad,” I told him dryly. “You, too, Mom. I need to talk to both of you.”
The time for being apologetic, if there had ever been such a time, was gone. I was not the same sad, ashamed girl I had been when I left their house. There was nothing I needed to be ashamed of. Any decisions I had made were my own, even the dumb ones, like sleeping with a married man. Any decisions that had been made for me, such as being kicked out of my parents’ house, were not mine to answer for.
“What is this about, Missy?” my father asked, the sternness in his voice returning. He didn’t like being put in his place, and he could probably tell that was exactly what was about to happen.
“After you kicked me out, some things in my life have changed. Before I go along with those changes, out of respect to you, my parents, I feel I need to let you know where I am and what I’m doing,” I started. It hadn’t sounded as formal in my head.
“What are you talking about?” my father asked, his voice a little more urgent. I could tell he was getting antsy, and he wanted me to get to the point.
“I’m seeing someone,” I announced.
“That’s great, honey,” my mother said immediately, obviously a knee-jerk reaction. “I’m sure he’s a great guy.”
“Flo,” my father said, shutting her up. He turned to face me. “So, you mean to tell me that I kicked you out on the street and you found a pimp to whore you out.”
“Alec!” my mother shouted.
“Flo, let me handle this,” he snapped at the woman sitting behind him. Always the controlling asshole.
“Mom, he is a great guy, and he’s not a pimp,” I said, leaning to the side to obviously look past my father. It was amazing to me that he’d never beaten us. All he had were his words, fortunately, but they still hurt when he wanted them to.
“Well, I’m sure he is,” my father snapped. “He’s obviously taking good care of his best girl, huh?”
“Dad, he’s not a pimp. He’s a biker,” I said.
“Oh, even better. You hear that, Flo? She’s dating a biker,” he roared.
“Better than a pimp,” my mother squeaked. She closed her eyes, regretting her remark as soon as she’d made it.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, laughing.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“You are,” I told my father. “Sitting in this sterile house, pretending you control something because you can shut your wife up and you ran off the daughter who refused to fit in with your colorless, soulless life.”
“How dare you come into my house and talk to me this way!” he shouted.
“Who’s raising his voice and shouting at everyone?” I asked him. “It’s not me, and it’s not my mother, your wife. And I don’t see anyone else in the room. You might want to sit down and shut up, and listen for a change.”
He did as I suggested, noticing I wasn’t backing down from him. I wasn’t cowering in my chair the way I had cowered from his voice on the couch. He had a habit of standing up as he raised his voice, as if it took his whole body to increase his volume.
“Now, it’s serious with this biker. His name is Cutter.”
My father groaned, but I shot him a look, and he raised his hands, as if to remind me he wasn’t saying anything.
“He took me in when someone froze my checking account, locked me out of my money, and kicked me onto the street. He got me a job with another member of his motorcycle club, a guy who runs his own construction company. He pays well, and I even have insurance to take care of the baby.”
My mother’s face beamed as I spoke. As ludicrous as my story was, she was loving it. My father just sat and watched with his arms crossed. He seemed to be pouting, like a small child! I knew he hated hearing about the baby.
“I’m living with him, and marriage has come up. He has offered to take care of my baby and even adopt it,” I told them.
“You can’t be serious,” my father snapped. He’d had all he could take, it seemed.
“Look, I need to come by at some point with some of the guys from the MC and pick up my things,” I told him, ignoring his outburst.
“You can’t be serious,” he repeated himself slowly, as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“What do you find so hard to believe? That I’ve fallen in love with someone, or that you kicked your own daughter out on street? Because, frankly, I find that last part pretty unbelievable,” I said.
“No, you’re not going to come in here and talk to us any way you want to,” my father snapped again. He stood up, even though he wasn’t raising his voice this time. “Your mother and I aren’t going to sit here and take this from you.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not asking you to take anything from me. I’m asking you to accept my life as it is now. I’m not asking to come back into this house. I’m asking you to allow me to get my things out of it. I’m asking you two to continue to be my parents even as I take a different path from what was originally planned for me.”
“No. Your life is an insult to everything I’ve done for this family. I refuse to accept that my daughter is living with a man who can’t even go by his real name. He’s probably a criminal. What’s the name of his gang?” he asked.
“His motorcycle club is The Renegade Lions,” I told him.
“The Renegade Lions! Sounds like something out of a movie. You have no right to come in here and ask us to accept this horrid abomination of a lifestyle. I want you out. Don’t come back again,” he said, pointing at the door.
“Alec,” my mother pleaded, crying again.
“Mom, I’m sorry,” I told her as I got up. I was apologizing for leaving her with that horrible man. My father really was despicable.
“Don’t speak to her,” he snapped.
“Fine, I’ll leave, but this time, don’t come looking for me,” I said in his face.
“What? What are you talking about?” His face turned red as he tried to deny that he’d been looking for me.
“Word gets around on the street, Dad. You start asking about someone involved with an organization like The Renegade Lions, everyone knows. Everyone sees that shit. Don’t do it.” I turned and started to walk away.
“Don’t come in here and threaten me. I’m your father,” he bellowed behind me. “I’m not done talking to you. Come back here. Don’t walk away while I’m talking to you.”
He continued shouting as I walked through the door. I wasn’t sad to be leaving my parents behind as much as I was sad that my dad was so angry. He was hurting himself with his anger more than he was ever going to hurt either one of us. He was shutting me out, and it probably wasn’t going to be long before my mother did something about it. She looked like she was at the end of her rope as well. I just hoped she found help.
The black Charger waited for me in the driveway, humming, with Cutter sitting in the driver seat, ready to take me away from everything and return me to my real family. The MC was much tighter than my family had ever been, I fought back tears as I got in. I knew that once the car was in gear, it was over.
“Everything okay?” Cutter asked.
I nodded. “We don’t have to worry about my folks or any of my things from the house. That part of my life is over.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He reached a hand over and rubbed my leg.
“It’s okay. I’m better off. I look forward
to raising our child as a Renegade Lion,” I told him.
I stared at the house as Cutter backed out of the driveway. Once we were on the street and starting to pull away from my old home, I let one tear fall down my cheek. I didn’t let him see it. I didn’t want to let anyone see me cry. I may have been leaving my dad behind with all his little rules, but I felt like that one still applied where I was going. I didn’t want anyone at the MC to see my weaknesses.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cutter
As we pulled away from her house, I took Missy’s hand in mine. I could see it was affecting her more than she wanted me to know, but I didn’t want to draw any attention to that fact. I wanted her to believe she was being strong, because she really was. It took a lot to go face her parents the way she did. I didn’t know what went on inside that house, but if she went at them the way she came at me sometimes, no matter what her father said this time, she had come out on top.
