by J. C. Allen
“Hm, well that’s true sometimes.”
I glanced at him watching me as I worked, with that itch even grown people get. If he did something that was as safe as possible, it might get him to stop bugging me. It wasn’t that he was bugging me right now, but it was becoming apparent that if he kept this up, I was going to hit my breaking point.
For a little bit, at least, I didn’t see the harm in him giving me a lending hand. Fuck it. He won’t get hurt. And if he did get hurt, if he did injure himself, well, that was a conversation I was going to have with Ella. But it was a bridge I wasn’t going to cross until I had to.
“Come here, why don’t you try?”
He grinned and hopped down, running over to me. I had never seen a little kid so excited in my life—it was contagious, really. I almost began to feel a little excited for my own work—although that may have been a bit of a stretch.
“Alright, be careful, I don’t need your Mom hitting me over the head with this cause you got hurt.”
“She would do that!”
I grinned, thinking of how much I agreed with him. Ella was a sweet girl, but she could kick some serious ass when the situation called for it. And I don’t think I had ever seen her quite so fired up as when Michael was facing potential injury.
“Okay, like this—”
I still held the handle over his hand and steadied the nail. He pulled the trigger…
And nothing bad happened. Never had I been so concerned about one nail in my life. I had thought that I would’ve been OK with it, but when that gun fired and the wood splintered up, I had visions of blood, broken skin, and all sorts of other horrible things for an eight year old to experience running through my mind.
Crisis averted.
“Good job, kid. Nice.”
I clapped his back and he grinned happily up at me, his eyes twinkling.
That’s when I saw it and I felt it. That love—the real love a child has for someone.
He hugged me too. I hugged him back, but there was unease that spilled in my gut, rose up through my body and turned into surprise and… sadness. He was eight, and I had missed all of it. Try as I might to say he probably wasn’t mine…
I had to keep a level head. I couldn’t jump to conclusions and ruin this. But I needed the truth, sooner rather than later.
And honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t see how he couldn’t possibly be my own. But still, just because I could rationally understand he was my son…
Well, let’s just say that when feelings got involved on the matter of family and friends, it became a very different game than normal.
“Thanks for showing me,” he said excitedly.
“Anytime.”
But the question kept nagging at me. If Ella wasn’t going to answer it, well…
“Michael, did your Mom ever mention anyone to you when you were growing up?”
“Like what?” he said, scrunching up his face.
I sat on the ground and got to eye level with him. If I was his father, I’d of course discipline him as needed, but right now, I needed to know the truth. I needed him to tell me everything he knew—and thankfully, eight year olds weren’t the best at keeping secrets.
“Like your dad?”
I knew he was a kid, but he was smart. He thought about it, as deep as a kid his age could go, before he answered. I wish I had like a tenth as much critical thinking as this kid seems to have.
“Not really. She never said anything. My uncle didn’t either. Or my grandpa.”
“Your grandpa?”
Ella told me her parents were both dead.
“Yeah, I only have one grandma and grandpa. From my Mom. But they didn’t say anything either. Why?”
I stumbled over his words as I thought them over. I was… I was lied to…
What the hell? Why? Why did she do that?
“No reason. Forget about it,” I said, trying to maintain my composure before Michael.
I was close to finishing up, so I did that while he still asked me question after question about my work. I managed to take it in stride, but my mind was racing a hundred miles a minute, trying to figure out what else Ella could be hiding from me.
If her parents weren’t dead… then what else? Did she have more children? Did Michael have a twin? Was she also seeing other men? What? Who? Where?
The questions rushed faster than the answers could possibly come, but I’m not even sure I wanted answers. I just knew I was in a bit of a mood, and I had thought the games were doing being played.
I guessed not.
“Mom!” Michael suddenly shouts.
I turned to see him barrel into her, and she stared down at me with the same look from before, only weighted. It’s about to become a lot heavier, Ella. She looked so dejected I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and make her feel better, any way I could.
And then I remembered that I had something to ask her.
“It’s time for Simon to go.”
Not this quickly, Ella.
“But he showed me how to lay the wood down, see? I did that one.”
She nodded slowly, but she looked like she wasn’t all there. She was pale as could be, her eyes sunken in, even more than before. I was pretty sure given that she walked in that way it had nothing to do with me or the work I had helped Michael with.
“I see. Say goodbye and go inside.”
Michael shrugged and came over to me. He held out his hand for a fist bump.
“See ya later, kid.”
As soon as he went back inside, I stepped closer to Ella. She crossed her arms and stared me down. What the hell now.
“Look, I need to ask you—”
“You have to go.”
I’m sorry?
“What?”
“You have to go. And don’t come back.”
“What the fuck, Ella? Seriously?”
Now I was getting pissed. Just when I had uncovered something, she was stonewalling me to the highest degree possible. If I was going to get turned away, fine, but I was going to know why.
“Simon—” her voice cracked.
“No! Stop running me around, stop making this about you. I know—”
“It’s not safe!”
What?
“What’s not safe?”
Her bottom lip trembled even more, as if she wanted to fight what she is saying.
“For you to be here.”
Jesus Christ. At least tell me why.
“Okay, you’re gonna have to explain that because I’m not seeing it. What the hell is going on? Just, just talk to me, Ella. Please.”
I thought of how she left me, out of the blue. How she came back and had nothing to say about it. How I now knew that she had my son and never told me. How she told me her parents were dead, and they weren’t.
She’s a liar. Nothing more than a liar.
“If it was safe for me to tell you, I would. But it’s not. Not for you, for your club, for your family—”
She paused awkwardly. Why would it not be safe for my club or my family? The fuck do they have to do with this?
“Please go. And forget me.”
She gripped my arms for one short moment before she pulled away. A thousand thoughts ran though my mind, including objections and ideas of my own. But all I had to do was look in her eyes and watch the utter fear and terror in them. She may have lied to me several times, she may have been keeping secrets from me, she may have been full of shit—but no one could fake a look like that and not be deadly serious.
I left without a word.
I let a week go by, brewing and stewing in my own head. But the silence was only driving me mad, and I knew I had to speak to someone about everything that had gone down.
I called Mom to tell her that she was right about Michael. It only made her sad for me; she wanted to talk to Ella at work, but I told her she shouldn’t. I didn’t want to stir up any drama that I couldn’t handle on my own.
Mostl
y, though, I had to find out what, exactly, Ella was hiding from me and why.
The search for that secret took me to the club in the middle of the day. All of my brothers were here, but there was only one I really wanted to see.
Unfortunately, I really didn’t want to see Jaxson with his wife topless, straddling him in his office.
“Jesus—Jaxson, sorry, but I really need your help.”
Isabelle was the only one acting like they got caught, as she rushed to put on her shirt and jeans.
“Sorry,” she said as she hurried out.
Jaxson wiped at his mouth and beard as he grinned up at me.
“What’s up?” he said, putting his t-shirt back on and fastening his jeans. “You’re lucky you got here when you did. One more minute and I would’ve been balls deep in her.”
“Right,” I said, ignoring his comments. I needed to get to the point. “You still have an in with the Sheriff?”
“A little,” he said, surprised at my request. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
In all honesty, I hadn’t slept or eaten properly in days. All I did was think about Ella. I even drove by her house to make sure she hadn’t left.
“Okay, I’ll pretend to agree with you,” Jaxson said with a groan. “Why am I calling in a favor with the Sheriff that I’ll have to pay back?”
I no longer saw a reason to lie and front. Jaxson would hear it from the sheriff if I didn’t tell him right now. I mustered some courage and spoke.
“It’s about Ella. I need to know something about her.”
“Ella? From high school?”
“Yep. Here’s why.”
In so many words, I laid it all out to Jaxson—about how she left suddenly, came back with a kid, and said it was dangerous for me to even around her.
“And, also,” I said with a long sigh. “For the club and our family, she said.”
“What?”
I shrugged despite Jaxson’s glare, as if I was somehow involved with this.
“I don’t know. That’s why I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
He nodded, seemingly grateful at the confusion and fear I had as well.
“Yeah. Yeah I’ll give him a call.”
“Thanks,”
I wanted him to call now, but I knew it wouldn’t do much good. The sheriff would need time to figure things out, anyways, and—
“So you have a kid? A real one?”
Jaxson was laughing, and while our brothers always gave us shit for things most people would find offensive, well…
“Yeah. He’s eight.”
“Are you mad at her?”
The million dollar question, ain’t it.
“I don’t know. I know there is something missing from the story, and until I get it, I don’t know how to feel. If anything, I’m just upset that she had to do it all alone. Obviously we were young, but I would have been there for her.”
“I know,” Jaxson said with a surprising amount of sympathy. “What does mom say?”
I sighed.
“You know how that goes. She knew even before I did.”
“Course she did.”
“But they work at the hospital together. I’m worried Mom will say something.”
He laughed. Jaxson knew full well for as much good as our mom did, she could have a bit of a loud mouth.
“Yeah, I remember what she did after Zeke’s ex was running around on him last year.”
“She’s insane, but in a good way.”
I knew she did what she did because of love. But sometimes…
“I hope the sheriff has something. Ella sounded so… so scared.”
I shuddered just thinking about it.
“Fuck. Sorry, man.”
At least Jaxson was showing something resembling sympathy to me today.
The summer holidays were big in the town. A fair goes on and everyone comes out. The club would ride through on our bikes, and no one would shout at us.
When I rode this time, though, it’s different. I rode with the weight of the world on my shoulders, or so it felt like, because I have the truth now. Everything.
When Drago Cavaro came into town, Sheriff Briggs knew it would be trouble. He kept an eye on it, too, because he’s a powerful drug lord. Crime was his middle name; he knew it better than anything else and better yet, how to get away with it.
Killings, robberies, unspeakable crimes—he had done all of them.
He and his brother Nic, his henchman for all intents and purposes, among others, reigned terror in the underground crime rings since the seventies, and they never let up. He only got more powerful. I wondered why he had come to such a small town until the connection was made. A safe place, to hide, a cover—for raising a child.
Rosella Cavaro brought him here. His only child, a daughter.
I never knew, not in a million years, that Ella was the product of that monster, because she was so far from it—so innocent and kind… like a mistake was made. Her mother, maybe, but to stay with someone like that.
What I did quickly realize was that Drago came here and even corrupted members of the Kinsmen, so when they left the club after Dad forced them out, Drago was angry, waiting to exact revenge.
I gave it to him when I got with his daughter, when I put a baby in her. But now, he had become patient, calculating monster who was going to tear us apart.
And it was all my fault.
8
Rosella
Once I knew what I had to do, I flew down the stairs in a heartbeat.
I had to go quickly, so I didn’t change my mind and so I didn’t try and see other possibilities. There shouldn’t be any, but there are. With Simon, there always are.
The same thing happened so many years ago, when I had to make the hardest decision of my life—to walk away from the only man I had ever loved and know that I could ever love, only to later discover that I was carrying his child. It took everything in me not to go back and not to try and find him again.
It was after my mom told my father that I was having a boy, against my wishes, that I knew I had to stay away. He would eliminate Simon just so Michael would have to take my father’s name by force, that no one could contest him. I knew this and wanted to keep it a secret.
But…I loved Michael more. It was why I didn’t understand how my mom could have given up my secret so easily, as if she didn’t love me enough to do just one thing for me. I could have slipped away, and dad would never have felt the need to follow me, not knowing if my child were a boy or not. A gender neutral name would have saved me. But I couldn’t trust anyone, not even my Mom. I only trusted myself to keep Michael safe.
And so I had to do this.
It was their laughter that slows my steps—Michael’s cute little cackle, and Simon’s deep, throaty laugh. I couldn’t know what they were laughing at, but I almost wish I knew just so I could laugh too—or try to, at least. I interrupted them anyway, swinging the porch door open. I held my tears at bay, so Michael didn’t see.
As I stepped outside, I get a horrid feeling of chill down my chest, as if my uncle was watching me now. Nic Cavaro was vile and uncalculated, but next to my father, who was more calculated than anyone, he was the second most dangerous.
Although even that was a bit of a qualified statement, because it was impossible to say who was more dangerous—the man who was so out of control that he was unpredictable, or the man who was so in control that he could bend everything to his will as he had seen in advance? Neither scenario was particularly great, which, to me, just made it all the more imperative that I get Simon out of my life for his own sake and the sake of Michael.
Michael came running at me, sawdust on his fingers and blotching his face. His little body hit mine hard as he hugged me tightly. I turned to give Simon the same look that was on my face when I walked in—dejected, alone, and wishing his arms could be around mine. I was feeling so bad that I didn’t even notice that Michael was giving many signs tha
t he had worked with Simon, something that I would have raised hell about just about any other day.
Not today, though. Today was just hell on Earth.
Any time I had had a bad day, his hug and warmth would make it all go away. Back then, a bad day was just a problem with a teacher, sometimes anything that dad had done. But he was always there for me, to make it go away.
He had no way of making this go away.
Michael tried to show me some work he had done, but I was so preoccupied in my mind that I wasn’t even bothered by the fact that Simon had let Michael do some work. I probably was a very bad parent in that moment, but I was just hurrying to get him inside, away from Simon. Eventually, he relented, and I was left with Simon alone.
Well, what I thought was alone—I didn’t have proof, but the feeling of being watched was still there. I supposed that until I could get Simon out of my hair and not give my father or my uncle a reason to be on my tail, I would always have that feeling, but it just seemed especially strong right now.
I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t understand why he wasn’t safe. I could see all of it cross his mind—that I left him in a manner such as this one; that I came back, with no explanation at all; that I had his son and never told him and made no attempts to do so; and that, once again, I was hiding shit from him and, from his perspective, he probably thought I was full of it.
He wasn’t necessarily wrong. I was hiding things from him, so in that regard, maybe I was full of it. For that reason, I couldn’t really say that I deserved the love that he was giving me.
And yet, I could still see that his eyes still expressed love.
I should have gotten used to living in fear by now. The only reason I was not was because I let myself get comfortable too many times. When I was younger, even though I knew my father was a bad person, I told myself that he could never be bad to me because he loved me.
Then I realized that didn’t mean anything, especially to my father. He would only use it to his advantage if he so pleased.
And now that he had found me…
There couldn’t be any more running. Out in the world, I would be defenseless against him, nowhere to run or hide, no one to ask for help. At least in this house, I knew it as my own, and I had a decent measure of distance from my father, if not enough, as the photograph proved.
