“He would’ve died either way,” I said croakily, raising my eyes to meet Will’s. Looking for absolution. “If I hadn’t been there, they still would’ve killed him.”
“Yes,” he replied firmly, crouching down in front of me. His hand lifted up and wrapped around the side of my neck. “They would’ve killed him whether you were there or not. The minute they had him, it was over.”
“But I shouldn’t have been there,” I said softly.
“I wish to God you hadn’t been,” he murmured tenderly. “I’d take it all away if I could, sugar. But you bein’ there didn’t make one damn bit of difference for your dad—except maybe gave him the chance to say goodbye.”
“He knew before we left. He knew. I could tell.”
Will nodded. “And he still got you outta there. Good man.”
“He let them beat me, Will,” I whispered, my gaze holding his. “Why would he do that?”
“Don’t know, baby. Could be, he thought that nothin’ he’d say would help, which is probably true. They weren’t lettin’ you out of there without scarin’ the fuck outta you first.”
I let that sink in. Maybe Will was right. Maybe my dad had known from the beginning that they were going to beat me, but he hadn’t realized how bad until they’d broken my arm. That’s when he’d agreed to talk. When it had gone beyond a punch, he’d used his trump card.
Would they have let me go if he’d started begging them to when I’d first shown up? No. I knew deep in my gut that if my dad hadn’t held out, Reb and I would be dead. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath. If he would’ve started begging when I’d walked through the door, they would have taken the list and never let me and Rebel go. He would have looked weak.
“Do you think he told them? Did they get what they wanted?” I asked, opening my eyes again.
“Not sure, Moll. We’ll know soon, though.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. I looked over my shoulder at Reb to find her watching us intently, her hands pulled tight against her chest.
“She won’t sleep without her stuff,” I murmured, looking back at Will. “I’ve tried before and she was still wide-awake at four in the morning.”
Going home didn’t even cross my mind, not when those men were out there somewhere. Surrounded by people in the clubhouse, I felt safe, the exact opposite of what I’d thought I would feel back when Will used to invite me out there.
“Got her blankets,” Will said, his lips tipping up in a smile. “Give me a sec.”
He left the room and I let my mind wander. Had anyone gotten ahold of Mel? I was surprised that she wasn’t there. If she knew what had happened, there’s no way she would stay away. I shifted on the bed and hissed in discomfort. I was so sore. My head and torso throbbed, even with the painkillers the hospital had given me. I wondered how long until the swelling in my face went down. I couldn’t work looking like I did, but Reb and I needed the money. I barely made enough as it was, working when I could. Nurses made bank usually, but with my schedule and the number of times a week I had to get off work early to take Reb to her occupational and speech therapy appointments, we didn’t have a lot of extra left over. I couldn’t afford to take time off.
“Look what I have,” Will said softly as he came back in the room.
My eyes watered when I caught sight of the bag full of Rebel’s overnight stuff that I’d dropped at my dad’s.
“How did you get that?” I asked as Rebel scrambled to the edge of the bed for her things. My poor baby was exhausted and she wanted her blankie and animals.
“Couldn’t leave anything of yours there,” Will murmured in apology as he set the large bag on the bed and pulled my glasses out of his shirt pocket. “Cops can’t know you were there, baby.”
My eyes widened in horror. I knew they’d found my dad, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d just leave him there. He was their friend.
“They just left him?” I asked tearfully, lifting my glasses to my face before realizing that my face was too swollen for them to fit me. My hands began to shake as I started pulling soft items out of the bag. I froze as the tips of my fingers met the cold screen of Rebel’s Kindle. They really had grabbed everything. “He’s just lying there—”
“Had someone call it in,” Will said soothingly, taking his cut off. “Cops were there hours ago.”
“Are they looking for me?” My stomach churned at the thought.
“Probably will tomorrow, just to let you know that he’s gone,” Will explained, stepping out of his boots.
“I can’t talk to them like this.”
“You can,” he assured me, sitting down next to me on the bed. “You got into a four wheeler accident today, so you stayed the night with your boyfriend so he could help you with Rebel.”
“My boyfriend?”
“Nothin’ else is going to make a damn bit of sense.”
“But wouldn’t I have called my dad if this happened? I left voicemails on my dad’s phone asking him to keep Reb. I—”
“Already taken care of,” Will cut me off. Got a tech guy that’s tits. He got into your dad’s voicemail and erased all of it. Casper found your dad’s phone and it’s toast. They find out you called him? Fits in with the story that you got hurt and you were trying to let him know.”
“I don’t know if that will work,” I murmured, watching Rebel as she pulled a stuffed animal to her chest and hugged it tightly.
“It’ll work, sugar. You just tell them that you were over here for the party and we decided to take a couple of the four wheelers out. You wrecked, I took you to the hospital. Did you call your dad? Yep. He didn’t answer. Did you text him? Same thing—no response.”
“You thought of everything,” I said faintly, staring at Rebel as she made herself a little nest of blankets in the middle of the bed.
“Molly, look at me,” Will ordered. I turned my head to find him watching me intently. “These men aren’t fuckin’ around. They find out you talked and it’s gonna be that much harder to protect you. You gotta do what I ask, sugar. There’s no other option.”
“Why did this happen?” I asked in confusion, my breath catching. “I don’t understand why this happened.”
“Your dad was workin’ to take them down, baby. He knew what the risks were.”
“But why? How did he even know those guys?”
“That’s not somethin’ I can tell you,” he answered, his voice dropping.
I nodded. Did I really want to know more than I already did? No. I didn’t want an even larger bullseye on my back. This wasn’t my life. I was the single mom of a daughter with special needs and I worked as a nurse. I’d been raised by a successful single father because my mom had died of an overdose when I was still a baby. I’d had the same best friend since third grade.
“Where’s Mel?” I asked, standing so I could walk around the foot of the bed and crawl into the spot between Rebel and the wall.
“Her and Rock left for the weekend,” Will said as he unbuttoned his jeans and dropped them to the floor. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the dresser and slipped them on before striding back to the bed. “They were goin’ up campin’ and we haven’t been able to reach either of them.”
“Do you think they’re okay?” I asked as he lay down on the other side of an already snoring Rebel.
“Sure they’re fine,” Will whispered back. “Service isn’t good out where they were headed. We’ll probably hear from them when they head back in a couple days.”
“Okay.”
“It’s going to be okay, Moll,” he said, reaching over Rebel to rest his hand on the curve of my waist. “I’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” I said groggily, letting my eyes fall closed.
“You been handlin’ your own shit for a long ass time,” he replied as I relaxed completely against the bed. “But not anymore.”
Chapter 16
Will
“Church,” Casper ann
ounced the next morning as I sat at the bar with Rebel on my lap. She’d woken up at five, but I’d been able to smuggle her out of the room before she could wake up Molly. I wasn’t sure how Rebel had woken up after less than five hours of sleep, but I didn’t mind getting up with her.
She’d changed so much. Her wispy brown hair hand grown past her shoulders and the baby curls were gone. She’d also thickened up, and seemed sturdier than she’d been before. Her brown eyes were still the same, though, and still magnified behind the lenses of her glasses like a little bug. She signed a lot more, which meant I had no clue what the fuck she was trying to tell me most of the time. She also talked. Not much, but some. She knew what she wanted, and she didn’t let you ignore her.
“I’ve got Reb,” I said, getting to my feet. She growled and bent in half to reach the rest of her donut sitting on a paper plate on the bar.
“Bring her,” Casper mumbled, stuffing a donut into his mouth.
One of the old ladies had sent out a prospect to get breakfast, and the bar was covered in bakery boxes. There were a lot of us in the clubhouse. Dragon hadn’t announced a lockdown, but most of the families were there anyway. We had no clue what we were dealing with yet.
I followed Casper to the room behind the bar, and stopped at the threshold.
“You comin’ in or what?” Dragon grumbled, his eyes bloodshot. He reached up and drug his hands through his hair.
“Got the baby this mornin’,” I said, staying where I was.
“Take her to your ma,” my dad ordered, dropping down into his seat.
“No,” I shot back. I scowled at the table of surprised faces turned my way. “She’s stayin’ with me until her mother wakes up.”
“Then wake the bitch up,” Samson said with a frown.
“She needs her sleep,” I ground out.
“Jesus Christ,” Dragon barked, waving his hand at me. “Bring the kid in with you. I don’t wanna be here all goddamn day.”
I nodded briskly, then stepped inside, closing the door behind me.
“First, we haven’t talked to Rock yet, but I’m not worried. He was headed up to the national forest and we all know cell reception is shit up there.”
“Rock!” Reb said seriously around a mouth full of donut. “Auntie. Rock.”
“It’s a fuckin’ daycare in here,” Samson grumbled.
“Second,” Dragon continued, ignoring them both. “Poet’s got feelers out for the Russians. ATF and DEA were workin’ through the ranks this week. I’m guessin’ the man Molly saw at Duncan’s was Rock’s father-in-law.”
“Ex,” Hulk reminded him as Rebel mumbled Rocky’s name again.
I tried not to be jealous that she was responding to another guy’s name the way she was.
“He’s pissed,” Dragon continued. “With good reason. Those names Rock gave pretty much made the DEA’s case for them.”
“Took ’em long enough,” Samson mumbled.
I silently agreed with him. Rock had given the Feds the list they wanted over a year ago, and they’d sat on that shit forever. Bureaucratic bullshit, if you asked me. Hurry up and wait.
“Russians got no idea who’s next on the list, and they’re scramblin’ to find out what the feds know,” my dad butt in. “Probably why they went to Duncan.”
“Molly said they were askin’ for a list,” I agreed as Reb’s sticky fingers found my beard.
“Dunc would’ve held out as long as he could with that list,” Dragon said quietly. “Givin’ the feds some time.”
“Should’ve told them what they wanted to know,” I snapped, wiping Rebel’s hair away from her maple frosting-covered mouth. “He held out when his daughter was gettin’ beat.”
“They would’ve beat the fuck outta her anyway,” Casper replied, using the same logic I’d fed Molly earlier. “She showed up. They weren’t just gonna let her bounce—had to put the fear a’ God into her first.”
“You think they’re gonna come here?” Hulk asked Dragon.
“Doubt it,” Dragon said. “They got what they wanted. Probably halfway outta the country by now. Musta knew we were comin’ if they left their man behind. Even Russians don’t leave their own dead for the cops to find.”
“How do you know they got what they wanted?” I asked.
“Killed him,” my dad said quietly. “If there was anything left to know, they woulda kept him alive. Took him with ’em.”
Dragon nodded.
A knock on the door interrupted us and I opened it up to find Trix’s face pressing into the opening.
“Cops called Molly. They’re on their way here.”
“Shit,” I grumbled as the men stood up from the table.
“You get that shit straightened out?” Dragon asked as I moved out from in front of the door.
“She knows what she’s supposed to say,” I assured him.
“Let’s hope she sticks to it.”
I nodded and left the room, searching for Molly. If she’d talked to the cops, that meant she was awake, and I wanted to see how she was feeling.
I found her sitting at a table with Farrah at the edge of the room. Lily and Rose were standing next to them, and I could tell by the way that my sister was standing that they were begging for something.
“He’s here now, you monsters,” Farrah said as I walked up to the table.
“What’s up?” I asked as Rebel dived for Molly. I barely caught her in time, then set her gently in Molly’s lap, being extra careful of her arm. They’d sent her home from the hospital in a soft cast because her arm was still too swollen to put in a hard cast, and she had to go back tomorrow so they could change it.
“We wanted to come get Rebel, but Mom wouldn’t let us,” Lily said, her hands on her hips.
“You know that room is off-limits,” Farrah said.
“I just wanted to get Rebel.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why did Rebel get to be in there?” Rosie demanded, making Farrah raise one eyebrow.
“None of your business.”
“Rebel, you want to go play with Rose and Lily?” Molly said, breaking up the argument. Reb didn’t reply, but she must have done something that only Molly had seen, because a second later, Molly was sliding Reb off her lap to the floor. “Be good.”
Rose grabbed Rebel’s hand and marched her and Lily toward one of the couches near the far side of the room, where Trix and her boys were playing with some big Legos.
“How you feelin’?” I asked, leaning down to kiss the top of Molly’s head. She hadn’t been responding to my touches, but she hadn’t asked me to stop, either, so I was going to keep doing what I wanted. There was no way I could be near her and not touch her.
“Sore,” she said quietly. She lifted a cup to her mouth and gingerly took a sip of her coffee, wincing. “The inside of my mouth stings like a bitch.”
“Got a lot of cuts in there,” I reminded her as I pulled a chair over and straddled it backwards.
“Just don’t mess with them,” Farrah told her. “The more you fuck with them, the longer it’ll take for them to heal.”
“I know,” Molly replied. “But easier said than done.”
“Rinse with some sea salt, too. It’ll keep ’em clean,” Farrah said. “Think I’ve got some in Casper’s room from the last time I got pierced.”
I looked at her, not remembering the last time she’d had a new piercing. Then I shuddered and looked away. If I couldn’t see a new piercing, I sure as hell didn’t want to know about it.
“Cops are at the gate,” Tommy called from the doorway.
“Let ’em in,” Dragon ordered, meeting my eyes across the room.
Showtime.
“You ready for this?” I asked Molly. She looked scared. Super nervous.
“What if they don’t believe me?” she whispered.
“Baby, I’ll be right here. You tell them you want me present if they ask. It’s all good. They just wanna tell you about your dad—you’re not on
trial, for fuck’s sake.”
“Okay,” she said a little louder.
I reached over and grabbed her hand, lacing her fingers with mine.
“I’m gonna go keep the girls occupied,” Farrah said, standing up from the table. “Don’t stress, Molly. They’re coming to give you bad news, they’ll be nice as hell.”
She ran her hand over the top of my hair, messing it up, then walked away, stretching her arms above her head like she didn’t have a care in the world. She’d always given that impression. The whole I don’t care if you like me vibe. It had been years before she’d actually believed it, though. My Uncle Casper had a lot to do with that.
My dad met the nervous cops at the door, shaking hands and patting one of them on the back like he knew them. They spoke for a few minutes at the other side of the room until my dad pointed toward Molly. Then they headed our way.
“Molly Duncan?” the younger cop asked as they reached us.
“Yes?” Molly stood up awkwardly, looking back and forth between the men.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” the older cop asked, taking her in from head to toe.
“I was in an accident yesterday,” Molly said softly, clearing her throat when she was finished. Jesus, she looked like she was afraid they were about to arrest her.
“An accident?” the older cop asked. “Did you report it?”
“Yeah.” Molly shrugged one shoulder, wincing. “I wrecked the four wheeler I was riding. You don’t have to report that, do you?” She glanced down at me like she was asking if I knew.
“No, you don’t,” the younger cop assured her.
“She was driving?” the older cop asked me. I felt Molly bristle beside me. The guy was a douche.
“Yeah, man,” I said, reaching out to put a hand on Molly’s hip. “I was ridin’ ’bout a hundred yards behind her. Took a year off my life.”
“Did my work call you?” Molly butt in, looking back and forth between the cops. “When I went in yesterday to get my arm checked, they were pretty worried. I think they thought Will beat me up or something.” She gave an incredulous laugh as the cops raised their eyebrows. My muscles tightened, but I didn’t let my expression change. Great, Molly. Tell the cops that the hospital thought this was a domestic abuse issue. Good fucking call.