by Lake, Rae B.
"No!" She screams at me through the phone, "You didn't want to know. It was all right there for you to see. You didn't want to know Dillon." Her breath is coming fast, but I can tell by the slight hitches that she's more than upset. She's crying.
"I'm sorry I disappointed you." What the fuck am I doing? I still have nothing that I can offer her. She was right to leave me. How the hell can I be trusted to keep her safe when I can't even find my own way back to who I used to be? It's driving me crazy that I’d allowed us to get so far into the wrong that it caused us to lose life. I shouldn't ever be forgiven, and I shouldn't ever be trusted to watch over someone's life. My own family included. They are better off without me.
"Yeah, well." She lets her voice trail off not wanting to admit that I had truly disappointed her.
"Lily? Where's Lily?" I ask just as desperate to hear her voice as I was to hear Keeley's.
"She's sleeping Dillon. Besides she's very angry with you, she’s not going to want to talk to you."
"What? Why? Why is she angry?" I couldn't believe that my daughter understood everything that was going on at the clubhouse.
"You're not here. She cries for you, but you're not here. She says she never wants to see you again." Keeley sniffles and part of me wants to scream into the phone that she is doing this on purpose. If she would just come home, I would be there. Lily wouldn't have to cry, but I also know that I can't keep them safe. They don't need to be around me right now.
"Fuck, I ... I miss you both so much. I don't fucking know what to do." I admit and drop my head in my hands. It's only been since I've met Keeley that I've been able to be vulnerable about anything. She is the only one that has ever been able to get me to open up and now that I hear her voice, I just wish she were here to help me. I need her.
"You do know what to do."
"No, Key, I don't. I want my family, but I know that I don't deserve you guys. Not after all the shit that I let happen. I want to go home, but there is no way that I can lead a club right now … I mean I let the Wings be gutted from the inside out. If I knew what to do then I wouldn't have let any of that shit happen. I would have been able to protect you."
"Dillon, I know that if you could've, you would have protected all of us. You just need to figure out what changed. I'm sorry that I can't help you more than that." Her voice is much softer now.
"Will you come home?" I ask letting my wish tumble out of my mouth.
"No Dillon. I can't, not while you are still like this. I need to be able to depend on you and I can't right now."
I understood and accepted that. Lily deserved a father that was a better man than I am. I just didn't know how to get there, yet.
"Ok." I answer.
"I love you, Dillon." Her voice cracks and I have to pull the phone away from my ear to not hear her cry. I can't handle it right now. I press the phone back to my ear for only a second.
"Fuck, Princess I love you too. I'll call soon." I hang up before she can say anything else. I drop the phone on the side of the bed and lay back against the soft mattress. I haven't been able to get a good night sleep in quite some time and I doubt that would be changing any time soon.
* * *
After tossing and turning in the bed for a few hours I'm finally able to get some sleep. When I wake the next morning, I see that the guys either ordered in some food or there was a cook here, because the spread is unbelievable.
"Holy shit. Who the hell cooked all this?" I ask as I make my way into the kitchen and pull a plate from the rack.
"Oh, he rises! Winnie here is our club cook. He should have made that shit his career and not messed around with us degenerates." Spark says as he piles on some eggs and more sausage onto his plate.
I grab a fork and sample a bit of everything—eggs, pancakes, sausage, French toast, steak, some oatmeal looking stuff. I've been pretty much living off of whatever I could get on the road, so having a home cooked meal is a nice change.
"We would have waited for you to wake up, but we were hungry, and thought you would sleep in much longer." Cody shrugs and stuffs a small muffin into his mouth.
"Yeah, I had a long night." I did, all night long I could only think of the fact that Keeley didn't trust me or that Lily was mad enough to not want me in her life anymore. I knew I had to make this right, but I had no idea how I was going to do it or even if I deserved to do it.
"Did you tell him?"
I hear Devin whispering to Brendan and I know that they are talking about me. Otherwise, there is no reason for them to whisper. Did they tell me what?
"No, later."
"Later when?" Devin hisses at him. They lower their voices, and I no longer can hear what they are talking about. Despite that I know that one of them needs to tell me something. I enjoy my breakfast and talk with the rest of the guys to see how they have been doing.
I finish my plate, my belly full of good food for the first time in ages. Picking up my plate I walk towards the kitchen and call out. "Devin, Brendan, come talk to me for a second." I disappear into the kitchen and wait for them to come to me.
"Yeah, Wire? What's up?" Devin asks as he uses a napkin to wipe his face. Brendan walks in behind him not understanding what I need to speak with them for.
"You need us?" Brendan asks.
"Yeah, I need you to tell me whatever the fuck it is that you're waiting to tell me later." I cross my arms over my chest and glare at the both of them. I don't have time to beat around the bush. If something needs to be brought to my attention, then they need to tell me right the hell now and not when they get the balls to do it.
"Fuck," Devin elbows Brendan, "I fucking told you."
Brendan focuses his attention on me. "Look I didn't want to tell you anything until we got further information, there is no use in you going nuts when I don't have all the information."
Information, shit it's about Keeley. Is she with someone else? Maybe she was in trouble? I didn't know what the hell information he had, but since he's trying to hide it from me just lets me know that it's bad.
"Fuck that. Tell me now." I growl and step closer in his direction.
"Maybe-" Brendan starts again still trying to push off the inevitable.
"Brendan, just show the shit to him. Let him decide if he is going to believe it or not." Devin says. Devin has been around me long enough to know that all this back and forth was not going to do anything but piss me off more.
I'm a grown ass man whatever they thought I was going to have a hard time dealing with I'm sure I wouldn't.
"Fine come on, let me show you something." Brendan walks out of the kitchen and Devin follows. As I follow behind them both into Brendan’s room, I steel myself for whatever they have to tell me. He pulls out the same file that he had yesterday with Keeley's phone number, but this time he pulls out a few more sheets of paper.
"You remember when you told me to do whatever I had to do to find anything that I could about Keeley and where she could be?"
"Yeah, of course." I reply leaning against the door of his room.
"Well one of the first things that I did of course was a visual scan among the databases thinking maybe she got picked up by the cops or something like that."
I had to chuckle at that, Keeley may have been raised by the fucking mob, but she's a good girl. There is no reason for her to have been picked up by the police. "Yeah, I could have told you that it wouldn't bring up anything. Keeley is a law-abiding citizen."
"You're right, it didn't. But the next step is to run the DNA. You told me I could." Whatever Brendan was about to say it must be making him nervous.
"Yeah. What? I got warrants. I'm sure I do."
"No, there are no warrants for your arrest. There was a hit for someone with your DNA though. A familial match."
"Lily? How did she get into the system already?"
"No, it's not Lily." He sighs and moves closer to me before he continues. "Lissette Ryans. Do you know that name?'
"Sure, that was my drug
gie mother. Is that the link you found?" Now I was getting more and more intrigued. What has he found out and what does it have to do with my mother? She's been dead for over a decade. Is that not in the system?
"That was one of them, but there were three others."
"Three other links, like what my father?" There's no fucking way. None. He can’t be fucking saying what I think he is saying.
"Well one of them is your father, but it's not the father that you think. Glenn McMahon isn't your father; he was in the system as well. I looked it up with your birth certificate. Apparently, your biological father is still alive, and you have at least two other siblings."
If my mouth could fucking detach and fall to the ground it would have just then. What the fuck was he talking about, I had siblings, like fucking brothers and sisters? What the fuck?
"Bullshit! I think I would have fucking known if I had any brothers and sisters."
Devin is the one to speak up now. "Would you? You said it yourself your mother was a druggie. Was she always around when you were a kid?"
I think back on that horrible time of my life. Sure enough I can't count how many times she would just vanish for weeks at a time. How many times I would have to climb into my neighbor’s window to steal some food. No, she wasn't always around and when she was, my stepfather was beating her to a pulp, something I usually stayed out of.
"There were no other babies around. It was just me."
"They were given up for adoption as far as I could tell or sold. I'm not sure." Brendan says.
"What the fuck do you mean you're not sure? How can you have this kind of information and not be fucking sure!" I yell at him my frustration peaking.
Brendan puts his hands up and steps back, "Look man I get it, this shit is a lot to handle right now. But I fucking told you that we should wait until I had all the damn information. I'm doing this shit via the dark web. I can get into a lot of fucking trouble by tampering with these files, but I know it would mean something to you. I'm moving as fast as I fucking can."
I bite the inside of my cheek and do my best to get my temper under control. He was right. He didn't even have to do this for me, but he’d done it anyway. This was a favor. "You're right, my bad. I just don't know what to think. I never saw anyone else. And to think I have an actual father walking around out there is fucking mind boggling. What information do you have?"
"Just what I told you and this." Brendan puts a sheet of paper in front of me. It only shows me a bunch of numbers and graphs that say the three of us have the same genetic markers, and all three of us have a blood disorder called Thalassemia. That I already knew about, it didn't really do much to me besides make me tired, but I have a really mild case of it, not even worth mentioning most times.
It must be why these two people were put into the system.
"Well fuck me, this shit is crazy." I shake my head and hand the paper back to him. It doesn't mean anything to me. I don't know what half this shit means. "Will you be able to figure out who the people are?"
"Yeah, it should be a few days more at the max. Then I should have their names and possibly the addresses of the rest of your family.
"Are you going to find them?" Devin asks.
"My pops, probably not. But if I have younger siblings that I don't know about then I think I should. At least to just make sure that they're ok. You know, find out if they are living a good life and not in a gutter somewhere." I shrug.
"I figured."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Wire, you always have everyone's best interests at heart whether you mean to or not. You're a good dude." Brendan claps me on the shoulder before he walks by and out of the room. Not even waiting for me to go against what he said. They all seem to believe I'm this great man, but I don't see it. I don't see anything when I look in the mirror, but a fucking failure.
Dillon
The ride down the coast to the Wings of Diablo clubhouse is quicker than usual. It could be that I’m so distracted by the fucking news that Brendan and Devin gave me. How many people that I call family have been lying to me? I mean shit my own junkie ass mother couldn't tell me that I had a father and some siblings running around out there. The more I thought about it the more it made a bit more sense. My mother was a heavy drinker, but there was one time when I was about ten years old that I remember her giving it up. She was always sick still, probably morning sickness. After a few months of not drinking, she went on a binge or at least at that point, it’s what I’d thought. When she came back her drinking and drugging was full force. Could that be the time she gave birth? How could I not have fucking noticed that she was pregnant? I mean at ten would I have really fucking known? My mind races with questions so much that I no longer even pay attention to the area around me. I could have crashed headfirst into a fucking wall with how little I was focusing on driving.
It's amazing how the sight of home can calm my mind. When I see that big compound with my insignia on the door, everything seems to fall away. I listen for a few seconds at the door just to make sure that nothing is going on. There have a been a few times that I've come down for my check in and shit was going down. Lucky for me today it looked as if there were no bullets flying. The music was bumping and a few bikes are parked out in the front along with those of the club members.
I step up to the door, but before I could knock it swings open and Red is standing there with a bright ass smile on his face.
The tall bastard towers over me, but that and his fire red hair are the only things that make him intimidating. For a while he was trying to play hard, but in actuality the kid was a fucking fluff ball. I don't know how he was going to survive in this life.
"Wire! What's up? Good to see you." He puts his hand out and I give him a pound as I make my way inside.
"Yeah, good to see you too. Everything good here?" I ask.
"For sure, it’s the first time in a while everything seems to be calming down."
I nod and make my way further inside. The party is much smaller than what it used to be, only three entertainers all of whom were long time employees of ours—Lemon, Rainy and Sicily.
"Wire?" A female voice says from the side of me.
When I turn and see Vexx I can't help but smile. The badass that she is, standing there clad in leather pants and a wife beater walks over to where I am. My smile drops slightly when I see Roth moving behind her.
Alarms blare in my head. He looks awful fucking comfortable for someone who had tried to kill my brother. I don't know what the fuck he is doing here, but everything in me wants to throw him the fuck out.
"Vexx, how you been?" I lean down and kiss her cheek slightly. "Roth."
"Wire."
"I'm good. Clean decided to throw a party and invited us. We didn't know that you were coming as well."
"Am I not invited?" I cock my head to the side and wait for her to say something off kilter before I have to rein my aggression back. I'm no longer the president of this MC. What I think is the right thing to do isn't necessarily what will be done. My word holds no weight here anymore.
"Of course, you are. At least I know if it were my party, you would be." She kicks my foot. When I didn't know that I was getting played and it came out that I was part of a sex and drug trafficking ring Vexx and her girls came up on some information with Roth. They had acted on that information, torturing me to find out what I knew. I was proud that they took the right path, but at the same time things have been more than tense between me and them. How can you be friendly to someone who tied you up and beat the shit out of you? It's not the easiest thing in the world to do. I can't imagine how Ink must be handling Roth being in the clubhouse.
"Would you look at what the fucking cat dragged in." This time when I turn a mop of fire red hair is in my line of sight.
"What the fuck Maven!" I pull her into a hug, and she squeezes me back. Her eyes are bright, and her face is slightly flush. She looks good, like she's healing. When I look around the
room that is exactly what everyone looks like. So why the fuck couldn't I? I push her back to get a better look at her, "How you doing? Clean dead yet?"
"Ugh, nope. Not that he’s not asking for it. If he wasn't so fucking big, I would have a better fucking chance." She jokes and points in the direction of the bar. A large portion of the crew along with someone I'm not really familiar with are sitting tossing back drinks.
"Let me go check in with them. I'll find you later." I look over my shoulder to Roth and Vexx to give them a nod as I leave them. Maven links an arm with mine and we walk through the small crowd towards the group at the bar.
"Oh ship!" Mack says loudly when he catches my eye.
They all turn and the excitement on all of their faces is almost fucking comical. What the fuck am I the goddamn Easter Bunny?
"Wire, Brother I didn't expect you for another week or so." Clean comes up to me and embraces me.
"Yeah, had some issues up north, shortened that leg of my journey."
"We need to look into it?" Clean stares me right in the eye. He would do it too. If I told him that I wanted those four fucks dead, he would find a way to do it. That's just how fucking loyal he was.
"Nah, it wasn't anything big, but I did get a visit from Genie."
"No shit? How is he?"
"The same, worried about his club, worried about us." Genie may no longer be on his bike, but I'm sure if he could give it all up, he would come right back to us. "Looks like everyone is finally coming back to life here. It's good to see."
Ink and Jazmine are in the corner kissing on each other while Siren is behind the bar with a few other girls from Eve's Fury.
"Yeah, I think we’re going to be ok. But we're not complete and you know it."
I put my head down, of course they aren't complete. Prez isn’t here and that's on me. "Prez would have been proud of everything that you're doing."
Clean scoffs and shoves his hands into his pockets. "I know it Wire, but that's not what I'm talking about. When are you coming back?"
