Chapter Two
D aisy survived the surgery, but she had lost a lot of blood, and now she was in a coma.
Anthony sat in her room and saw she was hooked up to the machines. Her arm had a needle coming out of it and her mouth had some kind of breathing tube. Whizz and Lacey were dealing with all the necessary paperwork. They would not look at him, and he knew why. They blamed him for what happened, and it was true. Last night had been messed up.
In all his years, he had never once cried or needed support from his father. He was the one who didn’t need anything, who could handle whatever life threw at him. It was his way of dealing with everything.
He took a deep breath and stared at his pale girl. Daisy usually had brown hair, a dark rich color, but for Halloween, which just passed, she added a mix of red and blue highlights just for fun. That was what she told him.
It didn’t matter what she did to her hair, or even her face. He loved her. Ever since Tabitha left, Daisy had started to visit the salon and the spa a lot. She would allow a few of the cosmeticians to do her makeup and pamper her.
She was exploring everything, as Daisy hadn’t opted to leave Fort Wills and go to college. She took classes at the local college, but she worked from job to job, flitting around the Skulls. Everyone needed help, and she was there to provide—be it babysitter, receptionist, errand girl, assistant—there was a job for her to do. Everyone adored her, and deep-down Anthony knew it was part of her insecurity.
Unlike most of them, Daisy was not a real member of the Skulls. Her parents were pieces of shit who spent most of their time forgetting about Daisy’s existence. They would forget about her in school, not even wash her clothes. Some kids had complained more than once that she stunk. Anthony knew she couldn’t help it, and she did the best she could. Daisy’s family had been slobs.
This is why Daisy always had her hair done now, neatly styled, rarely messy. If she so much as dribbled sauce on her clothes, she would disappear to change. She would not be seen in filth or in any way unkempt. Her own bedroom back home with Whizz and Lacey was constantly free of dust and filth.
She made sure she was available to all those who needed her. Daisy had become reliable, but the saddest truth of all was she felt no one wanted her. Even though she knew Lacey and Whizz loved her like she was their own, she still knew she was not their child.
Lacey and Whizz couldn’t have children, so they adopted them. There was Sally, who had been a teenager when they took her, and her life hadn’t been a picnic either. Then there was David, their youngest son, and Daisy had been sold to them at a young age, but even now she didn’t think she belonged.
Daisy’s loyalty was to the Skulls MC. Anthony knew he could trust her over most of them. She wanted to be a member. She wanted to belong.
He heard a throat clearing and turned to see Angel, his mother, step into the room. The Skulls had dealt with the others, and Anthony had not gone home.
“There’s no change,” Anthony said.
“I know. The doctors said it could be a while,” Angel said, moving to stand close to Daisy.
Angel was not good at hiding her emotions, and as he watched his mother take one look at Daisy, he knew it was bad. Daisy looked almost lifeless, but he knew she was still in there.
“She looks so peaceful,” Angel said, but stepped away from the bed.
Daisy didn’t look peaceful, she looked close to death.
Anthony clenched his hands into fists. He was not going to shout at his mother. He was not going to do anything he might regret.
Angel came to sit in the chair beside him. He didn’t say anything.
“She will make it.”
Anthony turned toward his mother and stared into her sweet face. Even after everything that had happened to her, Angel had never lost that edge of sweetness. She had a fire inside her, and he knew the club had their doubts on whether she had been able to fill the spot of Lash’s old lady.
Some people had seen his mother’s kindness as a weakness, but he knew it was her power. She surrounded herself with people who only wanted the best for her, and in doing so, bound the club tighter together. They would not fail.
“You don’t know that,” Anthony said.
“I know Daisy is a strong woman. She has someone to fight for,” Angel said. “And that is important.”
He couldn’t believe in fairy tales right now. Not when it came to Daisy. There was no way he could get his hopes up.
The door opened and Whizz and Lacey stepped back into the room. Whizz was a big, scary motherfucker. There was a time he was a tiny computer genius that could hold his own. According to the Skulls’ stories and rumors, Whizz had been taken, tortured, beaten, and a lot of other bad stuff. But when he was finally saved, he turned himself into a machine that would never be at the mercy of anyone again.
“Out,” Whizz said.
“Whizz, come on,” Angel said.
“That is my daughter in that bed. She’s there because of him, and right now I need him to leave, and since this is my daughter’s room, he leaves now .”
Anthony got to his feet and nodded his head. He looked toward Lacey and saw the struggle she had, but she didn’t fight Whizz. He got to the door and held onto the handle. It was respectful to leave. Daisy was here because of him.
He had every intention of opening the door and leaving, but to do that meant leaving Daisy. Stepping away from the door, he moved to the other side of the bed, and he heard Whizz’s growl.
He put his hands delicately on either side of Daisy’s head. “Daisy, come back to me. I know you’re scared, but you don’t have to be. Come back to me, please come back to me. I need you. I don’t ... please...”
He leaned down and kissed her head, not getting in the way of the machines hooked up to her. He wanted to stay with her but knew he couldn’t. For now, Whizz and Lacey needed their space, so he stepped out of the room.
He didn’t leave the hospital. Moving out of sight of the door, he leaned his back up against the wall and then slid down. No doctor stopped him, or any nurse.
His father had taken his leather cut from him, but that was to be expected. He had disobeyed the club. There was a chance now that he was never going to be a Skull. He had acted without orders and without the best interests of the club.
Running a hand down his face, he tried to think, tried to focus, but it was impossible.
Daisy was lost to him.
He had heard tales of people in comas being able to hear, but he couldn’t help fearing she was lost in her own nightmares, with no way of escaping.
Whizz wanted him gone, and he would accept that.
There was going to come a time when Lacey and Whizz went home. When that happened, he would be here.
****
D aisy, Sixteen Years Old - What Really Happened on the Day Her Father Died
This was the last of the money. Daisy pulled the envelope out of her bag and stepped up to the house that looked terrible. She hated this place, just like she hated the trailer where she grew up. She had to either come back to this place or the damn trailer, and most of her nightmares of being trapped were of either place. No matter what she did, she was still trapped by them. No one knew about her nightmares or her fears. There was no point in telling anyone.
Her hands shook. This was not becoming of a Skull.
She needed to get her shit together. The Skulls were not afraid of anyone or anything. As she moved, she couldn’t help but feel the pain in her back. The last time she had come here, it hadn’t ended well. Her real sperm donor of a father had struck her, and he made sure to do it where no one would see. It was like he knew she would try to hide the evidence of her coming here.
She felt sick. Each time he contacted her, it got worse. Not only did he always want more money, but she felt she had no choice but to pull away from her friends. She was a bitch to Tabitha, and she hated it. The truth was, she wanted this to end.
Knocking on the door, she waited, and sure enough, her father answered within seconds.
“Well, it’s about time,” he said, and without turning his head, he gave out a large belch.
She didn’t know what had happened to her mother. The rumor was she had gotten the hell out of Fort Wills after Daisy had been adopted by Whizz and Lacey.
“Well, come in,” her real father said.
The house he lived in stunk. The walls had paper peeling down them, and there was mold everywhere.
Being here brought back horrible memories not even connected to this place, and she was so embarrassed. No amount of deodorant or body spray was going to change the stench that seemed to claw into her paws once she came here. Her father hadn’t even cleaned the place up. She was sure The Skulls had paid him for her, and then moved him out of the trailer park into this house as payment. Only, he’d not kept this place looking as beautiful as it probably had been. He’d allowed it to decay, just like he did everything else. Like she feared he would eventually do to her.
“Where’s my money?” he asked.
She held out the envelope, and he snatched it from her hand and let out a little chuckle.
“Until next time,” he said.
That was it. He was never interested in her, not that she ever wanted his interest.
This would go on and on and on, until there was nothing left. Daisy knew this, and as she stared at him, she didn’t know what came over her, she decided she was not going to risk her life at the Skulls for this piece of shit. He was not her father, and he was never going to be her father.
“That’s the last of it,” Daisy said.
Her father had taken a few steps away from her. He paused and then turned to look at her. “Come again?”
“You’re not getting another penny. That’s it. All of it. I’m not coming back here and you’re not going to come to me, and if you do, I’ll make sure the club knows what you’ve been doing.”
She expected that to be the end of it, and her father would just have to accept it. The Skulls were a group of scary men, and he wouldn’t want to evoke their wrath, would he? That would be crazy.
Then, he started to laugh. “You’re going to bring me double, and you can do so next week.”
“No,” Daisy said.
He took a step toward her, and she wasn’t prepared for the slap across the face. It was open-palmed and wouldn’t leave a bruise, but it took her by surprise. Her father had struck her many times, usually a punch to the gut, not a slap across the face.
Anger rushed through her.
It was strange, a punch to the gut seemed ... different than the slap across the face. No one could see her gut as she kept her stomach covered. She never wore small, revealing clothes, always opting for ones that covered her body.
He grabbed her hair and pulled until she let out a cry. This did hurt.
“Let’s get something straight, little girl, you want my silence, you want me to keep all of your club’s secrets ... a secret, then you keep paying me. Otherwise, everything I know is up for sale. Now, get your skank ass out of here, because if I could use you, I would.” And with that, he shoved her to the floor.
The floor was dirty. Her clothes were filthy, just like they had been so many times when she was a kid. The stench seemed to waft up into her nostrils, and it was like it stayed firmly attached with no way of her making an escape. She was drowning in it, and she hated every second. The stench was disgusting.
Scrambling out of the house, she took a deep breath but couldn’t get too far before she bent forward, and with hands on her knees, she threw up everything she had eaten that day. Whenever she had to come here, she didn’t eat, as it always spoiled her appetite.
She put a hand to her stomach and tried to settle her nerves. The moment she did so, she looked up, and there was a beacon of hope—a shovel leaning against the side of the house. She stared at it for several seconds. There was a way to stop all of this.
Daisy didn’t think, she walked over to the shovel and threw her bag to the ground. It was time to end this. Her piece of shit father was never going to hurt her family. She was not going to allow him to do anything to her parents, or to ruin the life she had with them.
No one would miss him. No one liked him.
She opened the door, and he was already sitting at his table counting the money, with his back to her.
Daisy slammed the shovel around the back of his head. Pulling back, she did it again, and again, and again, until his head was no longer recognizable.
She gasped as she suddenly realized what she had just done, and then turned, wanting to run, only she came face to face with Anthony. She still held the shovel. She looked into Anthony’s eyes and expected to see fear, disgust, anger, something that would make her feel anything.
Only, Anthony looked toward the body of her dead father, and he reached for the shovel. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Anthony, you cannot do that. I need to take care of this. Oh, no, everyone is going to know.”
“No,” Anthony said. He caught hold of her face and forced her to look at him. “Look at me.”
It was strange, but the moment he touched her, it was like her panic went right out the window.
Anthony had blue eyes. The most intense and sexy blue eyes. They reminded her of the ocean, or at least how she once imagined the ocean would have looked. When she first met Anthony, and for many years after, she had never seen the ocean, until Lacey and Whizz had finally taken them away for a short time.
It was then she came to realize that Anthony’s eyes were so much better than any ocean. Staring at the water didn’t make her feel calm. Anthony did. He always did, even now.
“You were not here. Your father was cleaning one of his guns and it went off, that is all anyone is going to know. You weren’t here, and if anyone asks, I was here. I took care of it.”
“But you didn’t do anything.”
“I did. I killed him.” He looked at her and then nodded. She glanced down her body and saw that her shirt was covered in blood. “Give it to me.”
“Anthony, I cannot let you do this.”
“You are going to let me, and only you and I will know the truth.”
She knew she should fight him, but one glance back at the mess, and she could not deny that this scared the crap out of her. Removing her shirt was easy, she had a sleeveless tank top underneath. Anthony took it. He gave her another look up and down, then he nodded toward the door.
She didn’t want to run away, but she followed Anthony’s words and quickly made her way out of the house. She took off, running as fast as she could, the moment she cleared the gate.
Daisy didn’t know where she was going, but she somehow made it to her home, and there was no one there. This was a miracle in itself, as she was used to at least Lacey being home. Lacey and Whizz prided themselves on being home at all times, or at least one of them.
She ran upstairs and went into her bedroom, slamming and locking the door. She didn’t know why she locked the door. Rushing to her en-suite bathroom, she tore out of her clothes and stepped under the spray of the shower. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, allowing the spray to hit her body. The warmth flooded her, and she tilted her head back, allowing it to take over. The water was so hot, it turned her skin a bright red. After several minutes of the scalding heat, she slowly turned it down until it was normal again.
She didn’t want to step out of the shower, but she couldn’t stay in there all day. Once she was out, she quickly wrapped a towel around herself and started to dry her hair.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Anthony was doing. Each time she thought about him, her heart raced. Stepping into her main bedroom, she grabbed a brand-new pair of jeans, a shirt, and she quickly bound her hair up into a ponytail.
She needed to get the clothes she had been wearing. Stepping back into the bathroom, she picked up the clothes, along with the sneakers, and rushed downstairs. There was still no one home. She stepped out into the garden and knew her father had an incinerator at the back. It was where he burned private documents and stuff that was only meant to be seen once.
She found it and quickly added some papers from the bottom of the shed. She built the foundation for a fire, and then added her clothes, setting it alight with a bit of fluid that would help the flames catch.
Once her clothes were gone, she put the lid back on and made her way toward the house. This time, as she entered the kitchen, she saw Lacey had returned.
“Hey, honey. When did you get back?”
“Uh, a couple of minutes ago.”
“What were you doing out in the yard?” Lacey asked.
“Oh, Dad asked me to burn a few things.”
She called Lacey and Whizz, “Mom” and “Dad,” she knew they loved it when she did. They were her true parents. They looked out for her, took care of her, fed her, clothed her, and never once forgot her.
“Okay. I’ve got fried chicken ordered, and don’t worry, I’m not going to attempt any sides today. Everything has been ordered and is on the way, if you want to go and finish cleaning up.”
Daisy nodded. “Sure.”
She went to her mother, and she couldn’t help it. Maybe killing her father had affected her in ways she hadn’t thought about. Either way, she stepped up to her and quickly hugged her from behind.
Her real father was dead. He was not going to hurt her family, or the Skulls, and she didn’t feel guilty about that. She was not upset that she had killed him. He deserved to die.
“Sweetheart, what is wrong?” Lacey asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all. It has just been a long day, and I missed you and wanted you to know I love you.”
Lacey sighed. “I love you too, honey. I know you’re happy I’m not cooking. Don’t you worry about a thing. Whizz has already told me that if I burn down another thing, my personal allowance is going to be paying the price.”
Daisy laughed. Whizz was always threatening a personal allowance ban or removal, but he never went through with it.
Letting her mother go, she made her way upstairs and closed her bedroom door. She wanted to clean everything up, but she felt a change in the room. She knew Anthony was in her room. Lacey hadn’t said anything so that could only mean he snuck in. This was not unusual between the Skulls’ kids. They were always sneaking into each other’s room, conspiring, preparing, planning. Anthony had snuck in her room multiple times, as had Tabitha, and even Miles.
“What’s going on?” Daisy asked.
“It’s taken care of, and I came to see if you were okay.”
She looked at him, and there was no judgment. With Anthony, when it came to violence, there never was.
Feeling a little sick, she nibbled her lip. “It matters because I don’t care,” she said.
“He is not worth your time, Daisy.”
“But I killed a man.” She looked at Anthony. “Take away the fact that he was my real father and all, he is still a man.”
Anthony moved off her bed, and she stayed perfectly still as he came closer to her. She knew there were a lot of girls at school who crushed on Anthony. He was many a girl’s fantasy, as well as a nightmare. Some people were afraid of the fact he didn’t talk much. He talked, but it would seem he only spoke to her.
“You can try and pretend he was worth saving, but you and I both know he wasn’t. He wasn’t a good man, or a kind one. He was going to hurt you, and he was going to hurt the club. You did the right thing.”
“And that is what scares me, because I don’t care.”
Anthony cupped her face. “You care about what matters, that’s all that is needed.”
This was dangerous. Tabitha had been telling her for years that Anthony felt something for her. The truth she had kept hidden for so long was that she felt something for him, always had. Even when they were kids, and he would often sit alone. Even though he was alone, it was like he didn’t care. Daisy hated to see him alone. He never scared her. She felt for him as well. He was the only guy she had feelings for, and she tried to hide it.
And then, without anyone else knowing, Anthony finally did what she had been craving. In her bedroom, after she had killed a man, and he helped to hide it, he kissed her, and it was the best kiss of her life.
It was a kiss no one was ever going to know about.