Property of Icer (Kings of Anarchy MC: East Texas #3)

Prologue

Icer

Age Seven

“Why can’t Papa help, Mama?” I ask her as I sit on the edge of the bathtub, watching her put medicine on her face after she already attended to my wounds and washed the blood off my face where Dad split my eye open, directly across my brow.

“Because he’d never believe us, Leif,” Mom explains as she winces when the cloth touches her blackening eye.

“Why not?” I ask, confused. Papa is my hero, he’d save me, I know he would.

“Because your daddy is his only kid and he’d protect him at all costs, Leif. You can’t ever tell him what Daddy does, okay?”

I shake my head, and say, “I still don’t understand.”

She turns away from the mirror and crouches down in front of me.

She lifts her hands and places them on my knees, giving me some hard truths.

“Papa is part of a motorcycle club, they’re not always good guys, kiddo.

Papa would blame us and make us leave with nothing more than the clothes on our back if we were to tell him.

We’d have no place to go. Don’t you want to keep seeing all of your friends and Papa?

If we leave, you’d never see them again. ”

That declaration has me vowing to keep what happens at home a secret until the day I die.

My friends are more than that to me, they’re my brothers.

They see me, they make me feel important.

I’m part of the pack. I can’t lose them.

It’s then I realize, for the first time, that Papa loves Daddy more than me.

He may be my hero, but he’s my daddy’s protector.

Age Eleven

Another loud crash has me jumping out of bed and crawling underneath it with my pillow clutched to my chest. Dad has a bum knee and can’t get down onto it and reach me, so this is my safe place, the one area I have where he can’t stretch out and touch me.

“Leif! Get your lazy ass out here!” Dad bellows.

“Uh uh,” I emphatically say with my head buried into my pillow while I shake it even though he can’t see me doing so—there’s no way I’m following his command and leaving my hidey-hole where I’ll end up becoming his punching bag.

Been there, done that, have the black eye to prove it.

“He’s sleeping, Novak,” my mother shakily reminds him. Her voice is quivering, laced with fear.

You don’t backtalk my dad, not if you want to leave the encounter unscathed.

Mom’s become a hermit, a shell of her once vibrant and lively self, never leaving the house so she doesn’t have to answer those pesky and intrusive questions others have when they notice her limping, nursing a split lip, or hiding her bruised eyes behind a pair of big-framed sunglasses that the old Hollywood starlets wore.

“No! No, please, Novak!” Mom cries just before something heavy hits the wall, shaking the entire house.

“Get your no-good ass up and clean this goddamn house! It’s a damn pigsty, I want it sparkling by the time I get back!” Dad issues as I hear the front door slam shut.

I sigh as my shoulders hunch in. The house is always clean before my dad goes on one of his drunken tirades. He’s the one who destroys all of my mother’s hard work. From the time she wakes up until the time she goes to bed she’s cooking, cleaning, and catering to his every whim.

I wish Dad was more like Papa.

Age Fourteen

I drop my homework onto my bed and come barreling out of my bedroom when I hear my mom scream out in pain. When I make it to the living room, Dad is guiding my mom through it with his hands clutched in her hair, the roots pulling away from her scalp.

“Stop!” I yell, my gut screaming at me to get the hell out of dodge and protect myself from what is surely to come.

But I can’t. I won’t. My mother is a slip of a woman compared to my father’s immense size.

“Dad. Stop. You’re going to hurt her.” I don’t say the word again, because I doubt he gives a single shit that he’s hospitalized her in the past. Secretly, I think he enjoys watching his wife and son suffer abuse at his hands.

It makes him feel like a man even though to me, it makes him a coward—a bully.

“Who do you think you are, boy?” Dad asks as he shifts his attention from my mom to me. At least he releases her which has her scuttling away, finding a dark corner to hover in. “You think you’re big and bad, huh?”

I deflate because I know what’s coming next.

Sure enough, the second he reaches me, his fist flies and I find myself dropped to the floor where I tuck myself into a ball, cradling my head with my hands to protect it to the best of my capability.

He’s already given me one concussion, I don’t need another one.

Paps is going to shit a brick when he sees me, he’s already warned me that if I get into ‘another’ fight, since that’s how dear ole Dad has convinced him where all of my abrasions and lacerations are coming from, he’d take my dirt bike away from me and that can’t happen, it’s my only escape from reality.

Rush, Gage, and Rafe find me in our hideout.

I came here to escape from yet another assault from my dad.

This time, it wasn’t me saving my mom since I’m still babying cracked ribs from the last time I did so, but instead, she pushed me in front of her, using me as a shield.

It’s then that I lost any respect I had left for her.

Who puts their kid in harm’s way to save themself?

My mom may not be June Cleaver, but any self-respecting woman would take a blow intended for them instead of shoving their kid in front of them.

“What happened this time?” Rush asks as he sits down beside me, handing me a bottle of water and over-the-counter pain relievers.

“Same shit, different day,” I mumble as I shake out four pills and pop them into my mouth before guzzling the entire bottle of water.

“Do you know what set him off?” Gage asks as he shakes a first aid kit at me and opens it up, removing the iodine and wet wipes.

I shrug my shoulders and give a smartass response, “A blade of grass blew in the wrong direction? Who knows, man. It doesn’t have to be anything valid for him to go off the handle.”

“I think we should tell Paps,” Rafe states, sitting Indian style in front of me. “If your papa isn’t going to do anything about your dad’s heavy-handed ways, Paps will.”

I snort because as much as I love my papa, he always comes up with various excuses on the fly for my dad’s temper and lack of responsibilities. He’d rather pass cash along than deal with his son’s self-pitying tantrums.

There’s always one reason or another for us not having enough money to pay the bills. My dad is a functioning alcoholic who still holds down a nine to fiver so nobody can figure out where all of his paycheck goes, and I can’t tell them where since according to him, I’m a liar and a thief.

He uses me as a crutch to get away with his abusive ways.

As if I’d go through his wallet and steal from him, I’d rather have food in my belly and a roof over my head than to use his ‘hard-earned’ money to go out with the guys.

“This has to stop, Leif,” Rafe remarks.

“And it will, someday,” I surmise.

“When?” Rush asks, sounding perturbed.

“When I’m eighteen,” I state, sounding nonchalant because I’m numb. Numb to any type of feeling and I can feel it settling into my psyche.

“And if he kills you or your mom between now and then?” Gage asks.

“What do you want me to say? Nobody would believe me anyway, and y’all know it,” I point out. “You know what he’s portrayed me as. The brothers hide their damn valuables whenever I’m around. It’s a kick to the teeth and tells me that I can’t trust them to have my back.”

Nothing else is said after I say my piece. They know I’m right. But hey, silver lining, if he does kill me, at least I’ll never have to feel another one of his hits or hear any of his comments about me again.

In death, comes peace.

Age Sixteen

I made it my life mission to get buff and take some boxing classes so I’d know how to defend myself.

I’ve gotten pretty good at it too, well enough that the gym’s owner has asked me to join a team of guys who are trying to make it their career.

I declined because I have no interest in being on the other end of a man’s fist again, even if it’s a sport.

As the days progress, so does my anger.

I’ve become more withdrawn from my friends, keeping them at an arm’s length.

I can’t let them know how much worse things have gotten at home.

Now that I’m bigger than my dad, he’s taken it as a slight against him and has doubled his efforts.

I haven’t swung back… yet, scared that if I do, I’ll be outcast from the club and guys.

I may not be as close to them as I once was, but I’d still do anything to protect them and keep them safe.

They’re the weakness used against me when threats are unleashed.

“Accidents happen,” Dad said to me during one of his many drunken stupors, which is what caused me to take a giant step back from our brotherhood and put distance between me and the guys.

The days of motorcrossing with my brothers behind the club’s property are a thing of the past. I watch them jumping over the hills and racing each other, but I don’t join in because I need Dad to believe that they just aren’t that important to me anymore.

Nothing can be or they’ll pay for associating with me.

Even Papa isn’t safe from the nefarious taunts.

“Old ships sink and your Papa is past his prime, it’d be easy to make everyone believe his ticker gave out.

” So I no longer spend weekends with him, tinkering on bikes.

Instead, I took a job at Carlson’s funeral home, learning the ropes.

When Dad said I needed to find work and contribute to the household, the first thing that came to mind was a cemetery so I could bury him—dead or alive, didn’t matter to me as long as he was six feet under.

Since I accepted the position with Marlon Carlson, everyone is convinced I have a morbid obsession and do everything in their power to step around me.

Good. The less people I have to converse with, the better.

Loose tongues get people killed and I need to make sure mine stays locked up in my mouth because the temptation is there to lay it all out on the table—that is, until Dad’s words dance around in my head and I scowl instead, making people leery of me.

I’m persona non grata. I’d rather people fear me and avoid me like the plague than discover the secrets I’ve kept since I was old enough to understand why I needed to.