Chapter 17
Driving over to Mom and Dennis’s house to get the last of my things, I can’t help but think over the last twenty-four hours.
Everything was going so good until it wasn’t.
The carnival was a huge success and then those asshats with their ugly snake tattoos and cheap leathers came in and ruined the fun.
I have to admit that I was a little scared when they surrounded us but surely they weren’t stupid enough to try anything further than they did. I talk a good game, but there was no way I would’ve been able to take on all those men if Kane and the MC hadn’t stepped in.
I still can’t believe how Dennis and Mom acted towards the Dead Road men.
It was like they were something stuck on the bottom of their shoes.
Never in all my life was I raised to treat people with that type of disrespect.
Something is going on with Dennis, and after I get back to Kane’s house, I plan to find just what his deal is with the MC.
With my car parked up by the pool house, I see both of their cars are in the driveway.
I have a sinking feeling about this. I try as best as I can to quietly get out of the car and make it into the pool house without being heard.
The noises coming from the house sounds like their having a very loud conversation and I don’t want any part of that right now.
After making four trips to the car, I walk through the pool house one last time checking to make sure I have all of my stuff along with any of Sutton’s things that she might have left behind as well.
Once I’m satisfied that everything is out and the place looks just as I received it, I pull the keys from my keychain and walk towards the main house to return the key and leave this place for good.
I knew coming here was a terrible idea, but I wanted to give my dad some alone time with his new wife, Claire, and not have to worry about entertaining me.
They both deserve to be happy in their post nuptial bliss.
I didn’t want to have it end as soon as I graduated from college.
I wasn’t sure where I wanted to put down roots and staying with Dad just made sense until I did.
I tried to put the past behind me to forgive and forget what Mom had done to our little family, but the more time I’m in her presence the more I’m glad I stayed with Dad all these years.
She is still the most superficial person on the planet and it shows more now than ever.
Knocking on the backdoor, Paula, their housekeeper, answers with a warm smile.
She directs me to where the raised voices are coming from, giving me a sympathetic look.
After taking a deep breath, I square my shoulders and tightly walk down the hallway to Dennis’s office and give a firm three knocks.
“What!” I hear screamed out.
I open the door but stay in the hallway. No way I’m I going in there with him raging on like that.
“Well, if it isn’t the little turncoat,” Dennis sneers at me then gulps down the drink in his hand by the bar area on the wall only a few feet from me.
Ten in the morning is a little early to be drinking, don’t you think?
I glimpse over and see Mom sitting on the couch staring daggers at me.
“I just wanted to drop this off and let you know that everything is the way it was before I moved in,” I explain and walk over placing the key to the pool house on his desk.
“Wow, you sure move fast, don’t you?” Dennis spouts, and I have no idea what he is talking about. “I mean it didn’t take your mom that long to move from one bed to the next. So, I guess like mother like daughter, right?”
What the hell!
How dare he try and compare me to my homewrecking mother.
My blood starts to boil in my veins and I’m as hot as the sun on a Texas summer day.
The nerve of this asshole. Before I can stop myself, my mouth gets the better of me.
I know I shouldn’t engage with him because his approval or regard means nothing to me.
This is what he wants, but I can’t let it go, he crossed a line.
“If my mind serves me correctly you, yourself were also in bed with someone else at the time you fucked my mother, so what does that say about you, you self-righteous son of a bitch?”
CRACK!
In a flash my ears start ringing and a hot white pain surges through my cheek all the way up past my ear.
Oh my god! He hit me. He really, actually hit me.
Cupping my face where the pain is shooting through me, I take a step back dazed and eye over at my mother. The woman who gave birth to me and used to read to me every night before bed. The one who would sing to me when I had nightmares about monsters under my bed.
She looks mad and I think she is about to lay into Dennis for what he just did to me, but then I really look at her. Her outrage isn’t towards him but at me.
Me.
Her own daughter. I continue to take steps backwards to the door to get out of this room, out of this house before anything else can happen, but Dennis starts to yell again. I can’t stop the flinch as the volume in the room rises.
“Don’t forget to leave those car keys as well you little whore, and good luck on the streets when that biker kicks you to the curb after you’re all used up!” he seethes.
Guess it really wasn’t a graduation gift after all.
Not that I needed him to buy me a car. I have my own money in the bank and can buy fifty of those cars if I wanted to.
“I’ll make sure you get your car.” I stare over at the person I called Mom for twenty plus years. “I hope this is everything you ever wanted because you’ll be the only one on the curb when you’re used up.”
I give her one last disgusting look then storm out of that hellhole hoping it catches fire in my wake.
I’m more determined now than ever to destroy Dennis and watch as everything he’s built is taken away.
Even if it means my mother goes down with him.
I’ve brought down international businesses and Dennis Burns is about to watch his entire world crumble to the ground.
I can’t wait to light the ashes on fire.
After my car pulls out on the street, I make a call.
“Hey, I was just about to call you,” Ivy greets me in her normal cheerful tone and I lose it.
The tears stream out of my eyes. I can’t even talk and really shouldn’t be driving, but I need to get away from this neighborhood as fast as I can.
“Oh my gosh, Raegan what the fuck is happening? Are you hurt? What the fuck is going on? Where are you?” she urges, but I can’t stop the blubbering leaving my throat.
I always knew that my mom wasn’t sorry for what she did to my dad, but I never thought she’d treat me as though I was second class to a guy who only throws money at her.
No child, no matter what their age, wants to feel as though they are not wanted or a mistake.
But after what just played out in that house, I can’t help but feel that way.
Why? What did I ever do to her to make her let a man strike her daughter for no reason?
And not defend me? She just sat there and glared as though I deserved what I got.
I’m brought out of my thoughts by my phone ringing not realizing that my call ended with Ivy.
I answer it without looking and an urgent voice starts yelling at me.
“RAEGAN!” I hear Riot’s voice; I try to form words.
“Ri… Riot,” I stutter.
“Raegan, where are you? I’m coming to get you, but you have to tell me where you are.”
“I… I’m driving…”
“Pull the fucking car over now. Christ, what is wrong with you? Are you trying to get into a wreck?”
I hear Riot yelling back and forth at someone and finally am able to pull over safely on a side street close to Main Street by Sutton’s dad’s church in the downtown area. I hear the doors of a car slamming and then Riot comes over the speaker.
“Okay Raegan, I’m on the way, where are you?”
After I give him my location, I lean my head back and let the tears and heartbreak take over once again.
It doesn’t take long before a tapping on my window brings me out of my breakdown.
Seeing Riot makes me feel better, but I really want Kane right now.
I know he’s busy doing club stuff and will be occupied for a while, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want his arms around me in his safe embrace.
Unlocking the door, he opens it and pulls me from the seat in an aggressive hug.
“What happened, Raegan? Who did this to you?”
I start to speak when Riot hones in on my cheek.
“What the fuck happened to your face?” He looks mad, really mad. “Who did this to you, RaeRae?”
I really hate when he calls me that, but now is not the time to acknowledge it.
Riot tries to gently touch my face, but I wince at the slightest pressure. He softens for about a millisecond before he whips out his phone to call someone.
“It’s Riot…I know, but this is urgent…tell him it’s about Raegan and to meet at his house…just do it now!” he yells after I hear the one-sided conversation and can only imagine who he’s talking with.
Riot places me in the passenger side of my car and gets in to drive. He tries to get the story out of me, but I can’t talk right now. I’m still trying to process everything myself. I think the shock is settling in what happened.
As we turn down Kane’s street I can see the row of motorcycles lined up in front of the house. How did they get here so fast?
Wonderful! Just what I wanted, an audience.
Just as I’m taking a deep breath to face all these men, the door bursts open and a set of hands have me out of my seatbelt and the car.
Slowly gazing up at who they belong to I’m met with a set of smoldering blue eyes.
He’s checking me over as if I’m a wounded animal.
His eyes land on the side of my face that still feels as though I was hit with a bat.
“Who the fuck am I killing?”
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