“Wait.” The cousin-in-law spun back around from his car to the stranger as a thought came to his mind, “Are you Joe?” Leo looked at him blankly, unsure of what to make of the question, “I know we only met for a second at the wedding, but you look different from what I remember. My apologies.”
Leo watched as the man outstretched his arm to him in greeting. He shook his head wildly as he said, “I’m not Joe. I’m Leo, Leo Connelly. Bailey is my…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, “She works for me.”
“Wait! Leo Connelly? The Leo Connelly? The Lionheart? The heavyweight boxer?” The man dropped his briefcase on the garage’s cement floor as his face beamed in recognition. He again outreached his arm as Leo, annoyed as ever, took it. “Does Bailey live with you? If so, I’ve got some of her mail here. It keeps coming to the house even though Rebecca keeps signing up for mail forwarding on her behalf. Let me go run in and get it for you. Do you mind?”
Leo couldn’t say no. He was still pondering over the name the man had given him. Joe. Joe? It didn’t make sense. The name certainly had not come up before. And why had the man in the garage known him from the wedding. He had remembered Bailey mentioned she was married before, the name had to be of her ex. But she had sworn up and down it had ended years ago. Why would Joe still be looking for her or even in her life?
The man returned with a bundle of letters as a woman dressed in a terry cloth blue robe waved from the window. She shouted, “We’re big fans, Lionheart!”
Leo took the parcel of mail and headed back to his car. Once inside, he looked through the stack. Most of them were boring spam fliers. But in the middle of the stack was an official looking long white letter with a recent post date. He ripped it open, not caring if this was an invasion of privacy for her. He needed to know everything about her.
The Boys and Girls Halfway Home Center
343 Starting Road
Chicago, IL 60666
Dear Ms. Reed,
This is a reminder that you are required, per your foster agreement, to attend a meeting with you and your daughter’s personal caseworker on the fourth of June at the Boys and Girls Halfway Home Center.
If you plan to reclaim your child at this date, please have made arrangements in advance with your caseworker so that the proper paperwork can be prepared. If you plan to continue to house your daughter in the home, we require that you attend in order to receive an update on her care. The meeting should last approximately one hour and you will get to see your child on that day. To schedule your meeting time, please call Ellen Walker at 555-589-0011.
Thank you,
Janet Daly, Director and Founder
The Boys and Girls Halfway Home Center
Leo’s mind raced. Not only was there an ex-husband who still seemed to be a part of his girlfriend’s life, Bailey also had a child that she was concealing from him. He placed the rest of the stack on the passenger seat and started the car. What he had discovered about Bailey’s past was enough for one day.
As he walked through the door, he expected her to run up to him, to jump into his arms, to plant soft kisses on his neck and shoulders. But the home was still empty. She was still missing. Leo walked into his room and into his bedroom closet. On the top shelf was a box he had passed off as shoes. But inside was the last two bottles of alcohol he had kept in the home. He returned to the kitchen and fetched a crystal glass. His mouth watered as he watched the tan whiskey pour slowly into the glass.
Leo took a slow, lingering sip, one that made him release a sigh of relief. This was where he was supposed to be. This was the life he had chosen for himself. He took another sip and then another as he remembered how Bailey had convinced him that she was worth sobering up for. A fourth and fifth shot down his throat quickly as the burn disappeared and the anger returned. He had been stupid enough to trust her. She was just as good as the Layana and all the others.
For each issue, he drank. For each pain, he drank. For each memory, he drank. By the time Bailey had returned, he was too drunk to notice the tears in her eyes that discolored her makeup and caused black smears to run down her cheeks. He did not notice the crumbled letter in her hand. All he noticed was the liar slowly circling the bed where he laid, empty glass in one hand and a quarter full bottle in the other.
Bailey choked back her emotions as she tried to muster some strength. The day had been taxing. The home had not let her take Lily. She couldn’t until her meeting in one week. She had not even been able to see the girl, though she did spot her wavy hair and sparkling smile from the center’s playlot.
“Wh—what are you doing?” She stepped back from the bed, her hands raised in an automatic defense.
“What does it look like, Bailey?” Leo held the bottle for her to see. His unsteady grip caused the liquids to swish around and spill from the top. “I’m drinking myself into oblivion—and it’s your fault.”
“My fault?” She was taken aback as she struggled to figure out what had changed in the few hours she had been away. “How is you getting drunk my fault?”
“Since you walked in those doors, I’ve struggled to figure you out. I thought you were some savior, some person there to make me better. But now I know you. You’re just a cheap skank like the rest of them.” He struggled to sit up as he continued, “Did Jonathan put you up to this? Did he convince you to save me back at that hotel just so I would feel like I owed you?”
“What are you talking about?” Bailey was lost. The hurt hadn’t even registered over all the other noise and emotion.
“It’s a pretty good plan. Convince hot hotel maid to save drunk Leo, get her to work for him so he would see her every day, tell her to sober him up, make him chase after her to seal the deal—and then bring in the bank for you and hubby back home!”
“Hubby? Home?” Bailey tried to think back on if Leo had seen the letter from her ex-husband sitting on the table. Had he taken it the wrong way? She couldn’t see how he could think Joe’s threats were a sign that they still were together. “We’re divorced Leo. I divorced him ages ago! He’s gone. Long gone.”
“Then what about Lily?”
Bailey took another step back towards the door. She had concealed her daughter this entire time, unsure on how to break it to her new boyfriend that she was actually a mother—a mother with a daughter in a foster home. “How do you know about Lily?”
Leo handled her the crumpled letter from the shelter as he took another drink straight from the bottle.
Bailey glanced over the contents as Leo’s rantings began to make sense. “Leo…Lily is my daughter. I didn’t tell you about her because I didn’t think you would be okay with a kid. She’s Joe’s child. But we left him when he was a drunk.” She emphasized the word drunk so that it would sting him the hardest.
Leo looked down at the bottle and then back to her, “Why didn’t you think I would want to know that? You think I’m some monster to be kept from your kid!” He threw the glass hard so that it smashed into pieces up against the wall. Bailey shuttered as she remembered her first days in the manner in which she would spend hours cleaning up shards of his drunkenness.
“Well yeah! When you do this—this getting drunk. You know my story, Leo. You know what Joe did to me. And now…“ She broke down as she realized that she needed to tell him the truth, the whole truth. “And now he’s coming back for me. Here, read this.”
She reached over the bed and handed the letter with Joe’s threat. Leo read through it quickly, his eyes widening in horror and then narrowing as he finished. He put the letter down and then sprang from the bed, wobbling in the process as the alcohol caught up to him. He shouted, “Tell me where he is, Bailey!”
Bailey cried out, “I don’t know! I don’t know! He wasn’t supposed to be find me. He wasn’t supposed to find Lily. And when I went to the home today to try to get her, they wouldn’t let me see her or take her home. She has to stay until next week.” She covered her eyes with her hands, “I don’t know what I’m going to do,
Leo!”
Bailey’s tiny body sunk to the ground as her knees gave way and the weight of her problems sunk her. He ran to her side, pulling her close to his body. She could smell the booze ooze off of him, but still she did not flinch. Even with his mishap, she felt safer with him than she had ever with Joe.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to sit down and talk it through. We’re going to come up with a plan. Joe won't find her or take her if we figure it out before him. I promise you I'll keep both of you safe. I’m not going to let you or her get away from me again.” Despite the drink, he meant every word. He had never seen himself as a father figure, nor would he consider ever taking in a child before. But this girl was different. If she was Bailey’s child, if she was Bailey’s world, he wanted to be a part of her life no matter the cost.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Leo?” Bailey nudged at the man as he slept. The thoughts of her daughter and the trouble she may be in had kept her tossing and turning all night despite sleeping next to one of the most powerful and imposing men in the world. “Leo? Will you wake up? Talk to me, please? I can’t sleep.”
Leo rolled his large, tan body towards her, taking the sheets with him. The alcohol had slowly worn off as the night progressed and Bailey fed him meal after meal in an attempt to sober him up. Now he could see Bailey for who she truly was: the strongest, bravest person he had ever met. His eyes fluttered open as he groggily spoke. “What’s the matter?” he murmured.
He pulled her closer with the arm she laid upon. Her head rested upon his bare, hot chest as she traced the lines of his bulging muscles with the smooth pads of her fingers. “I just need a distraction. I—tell me something no one else knows.” Bailey loved the idea of being the keeper of a secret. It wasn’t often that she had someone to tell hers to, let alone someone to trust her with their own. And with her spilling her life out to him by sharing her daughter, she justified it as him owing her one back.
“A secret? Oh, um. Let me think…” Leo longed to shout at her about how he was being blackmailed, how he worried he’d be sent to jail for a long time, how he had made way too many mistakes for a lifetime and now they were catching up to him. But instead, he said the first thing that came to his mind, “My dad never loved me.” Leo had never said those words out loud. He had thought about it every day of his life, yet he wasn’t given the outlet or the courage to say it. Something about the way that Bailey looked at him made him believe she would understand.
He sucked in all the air he could as he let it out in a storm of words, “He was a hard man. He expected perfection at every turn. I had to be the best student, the best athlete, the best son. If I couldn’t live up to it, he would cut me out. He went a month without talking to me when I was in the first grade because I failed a spelling test. A spelling test.”
Bailey tried hard to imagine a studious Leo sitting pretty at a desk. It didn’t add up. “What did he think when you took on boxing? I mean, that’s not really the sport of scholars, is it?”
“He hated it. If it weren’t for my mom sneaking me into classes, I would have never gotten started. I would have never discovered that I loved to nearly kill people. She saw the bloodlust in me. And I think it was her mission to let me get it out in the ring.” Leo thought back fondly to the woman in the button down cardigans watching him from the bleachers. Even as a teen, he realized that if his father found out that she was supporting him in this, she would pay for it in one way or another.
“He had to have found out, though, right? I mean, when you got discovered by Jonathan and then started professionally fighting, he knew.” Bailey asked the questions to his chest, afraid that looking at him would break his spell of openness and honesty.
“He did. One day we were out to eat at this fancy French restaurant. I think we were celebrating one of his international deals. A busboy that sparred with me when I was younger came up to us at our table and congratulated me on my win.” Leo laughed as he added, “Not only did my dad have a heart attack as the words ‘boxing’ and ‘fight’ were used, he also couldn’t believe a busboy would break protocol like that. We never did go back there again…”
“Was he ever proud of you? I mean, you won a title. Even if you were a boxer and it wasn’t a sport he thought was good enough for you, you at least were the best at it.” Bailey wanted to justify Leo’s father’s actions for him. She wanted to give him the hope that he could be loved, especially by family.
“No. The day I won the title was the day he never spoke to me again. He died about five months later from the accident in Monaco. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. I wasn’t able to fly out of the country.” Leo’s voice softened at the thought. He did not regret what had transpired between him and his dad. But not being able to be there for his mother had been one of the biggest crosses he had to bear.
“Why not? Why couldn’t you fly?”
He sighed. She was going to learn someday. It might as well be from his own mouth as he was in her confessional. “I’m not a good man, Bailey. I’ve done some horrible things to some good people. After that title match in Vegas, I got hopped up on drugs and some pills this girl had given me. We went to this bar—the, uh, The Snapper. It’s where all the greats went to celebrate a win. There was this guy there and he was with the other fighter’s crew. He was talking trash. I don’t know what it is about me, but I couldn’t let him do that to me. I couldn’t let him call me a spoiled asshole after I just beat his guy fair and square. So when he followed me outside, I got him.”
Bailey lurched in horror. She knew what was coming next, yet she had to hear it. This was his story, the unedited version.
“I knocked him out with one punch. I didn’t even hit him that hard. I just saw red when he poked me in the shoulder so I swung, got in contact with him, and he went down. The ambulances came when he didn’t get up. He didn’t get up for a long time…The cops didn’t take me away so I followed the ambulance to the hospital. He had a brain hemorrhage and had to be put in a coma. The next day they arrested me. I sat in jail for two days before the judge decided on my bond of ten million. I can’t leave the country until my trial is over. It’s in three weeks, and I’m scared to death of what’s going to happen to me.”
She could feel him tremble in her arms as the thought of life behind bars rocked him. She asked timidly, “What happened to the other guy, the one in the coma?”
“After that night, his sister Alecia kept in contact with me and gave me updates behind the lawyers’ backs. The last I heard, he was out of the hospital and in rehab. She still emails me every now and then with updates. I think she could see that I wanted to know what happened to him. I genuinely didn’t want to hurt him, you know.” Leo wanted to run. What he had done in the name of alcohol deserved nothing but the dishonor his father showed him. “I didn’t deserve to be at that funeral. My parents, my mom, she’s better off that I wasn’t there.”
Bailey sat up on her arms and looked him into his eyes. They brown pools with its gold, fiery flecks danced in the moonlight from the open bay windows. “There’s always time to say goodbye.”
“I know that. I—I know…” He struggled to think of more to say, so instead he asked her, “Listen, I need a few character witnesses for this trial. I know it’s a lot to ask, especially since you’ve seen so much. I mean, hell, even tonight I screwed up. But I want to make a change, and I need someone to vouch for me. No one knows me like you do.”
“I don’t know, Leo. I can’t lie under oath.” She thought back to her own courtroom drama with her ex-husband screaming at her in front of a judge, accusing her of lying about the abuse.
“I’m not asking you to lie about what I have or haven’t done. I’m asking you to believe in me. I’m going to get better. Every day, I’m going to fight this. Can you see that?” He wanted nothing more than for her to understand how much he wanted to be a better person.
“I will, Leo. I will.” She wasn’t sure what he expected of her, but she would do it. Bailey
could feel the earnest effort he was putting forth was genuine. He wanted to be and do more. And for some reason, he wanted to do it for her.
Leo’s face lit up. She had given him hope. A thought crossed his mind as he tried to repay her gesture, “You want to go box with me?”
Bailey smiled as Leo jumped from the bed and began tossing workout clothes in her direction as he quickly slipped on a pair of his trousers. This had become his new favorite hobby: to teach Bailey new boxing moves. He loved seeing her transform with a pair of gloves and him as the punching bag.
The two walked down the steps to the massive training gym in Leo’s garage’s basement. The underground arena was cool and quiet, but it was full to the brim with the latest in workout equipment. Since Bailey had him reopen it, Leo had gone nuts upgrading the facilities. He had even order painters to come and slap a new coat of blue and white along the walls to spruce up what was once an abandoned dungeon.
Possessive_Sons of Chaos MC Page 34
