Chapter Three
My mother beamed, like my calling her ‘Mom’ was equivalent to all of her birthdays and Christmases coming at once.
The urge to puke was suddenly very real.
I swallowed the excess saliva in my mouth slowly, trying my hardest to settle my roiling stomach.
I was tied to a chair, my arms behind me, the last thing I needed to do was cover myself in vomit.
I took long, deep breaths, my eyes pinpointed on a large stain on my sweatpants.
It was blood. I didn’t know whose but my heart thumped at where it could have come from.
No one had spoken while I was trying to keep my shit together.
My eyes flicked to the man in the corner, the VP of the Kingsmen.
Mace? He looked like he was made of marble.
He’d barely moved, except to stop his President from hitting me.
His eyes were penetrating right into me but I refused to allow him to see how uncomfortable I was.
How confused and, if I was brutally honest, scared I was.
I got the feeling I wasn’t pulling it off.
It felt as if he knew everything that passed through my head.
Eventually, I pulled my gaze from him and focused on the woman in front of me. “You’re supposed to be dead," I said flatly.
I’d given her enough emotion already, once I’d realized who I was staring at.
Now I knew the truth, it was obvious. I could see myself in her face, Warren too.
We had our father’s eyes but everything else we’d inherited from her.
Our faces were the same shape, she had the full pouty lips Warren and I shared, hell, even the shape of our foreheads were the same.
I hated that I could see all of these little things in her.
Over and over in my head I repeated ‘she may have given birth to me, but this woman is not my mother.’ After everything I’d learned since being back in New Jersey, any fantasies about her being a loving mother forced to leave us were long gone.
Now this? She was behind all of it? She was responsible for me being taken from the Devil’s Chaos.
From her interaction with the President, it was obvious there was a lot more going on than even my father knew. He thought she was dead. Jesus, they were against far more than they realized, and I had no way of letting them know.
“Oh, believe me, the old Danica Walker is well and truly dead.”
My fists clenched behind me. Had they realized I was gone yet?
Would they know who took me? And Connor.
I couldn’t stop the tremor in my lower lip but I fought valiantly to shut him out of my mind.
All that did was make me think of Warren and Hudson.
I had no idea how much time had passed since Lily drugged and took me from the house, leaving Connor behind.
What would they be thinking? Warren would be out of his mind over Connor.
And Hudson? When he left, things had changed between us.
One phone call from the Kingsmen may have undone everything we’d built over the last few weeks.
I’d seen the way his face shut down. He hadn’t even said goodbye.
He just walked away. Now I’d been taken, what was that going to do to him?
I lifted my head and looked at Mace. His jaw was shifting slightly, like he was clenching his teeth. He looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here. I glared at him. He was one of them. One of the assholes responsible for everything that happened. Itchy. Declan. The original attack on Connor.
“I never was a part of the Devil’s Chaos,” Danica interrupted my thoughts. “Sure, they took me in, but they didn’t treat me the way I was supposed to be treated, even when he claimed me. He did it out of obligation.”
“Like you did it for love?” I sneered. “You were part of a rival MC. They didn’t have to take you in, but they did. They saved you from what your own sick family planned for you.”
“They made me a whore,” she yelled, her persona slipping a little. Danica took in a deep breath, composing herself. It was fucking eerie how quickly it happened, her outburst waved away like a flick of her hand. “They weren’t any different than my family.”
“Yeah, but you clawed your way out of that, didn’t you?” I wasn’t sure baiting her was the right way to go but the words were out now, the resentment clear on my face.
Her lip moved in a dangerous smile. “I see Oliver has told you his side of the story.”
“His side?” I shook my head. “I think it’s pretty obvious who is telling the truth, Danica.”
Her face went stony at me calling her by her name. I might have slipped up when I realized who she was, but that word would never pass my lips again. We stared at each other, her quiet malevolence was thick in the small room.
“This is fun and all, but can we move things along? I have places to be,” Mace said.
I flicked my eyes to him again, but Danica’s gaze never left mine. “It’s done when I say it’s done,” she told him. “And I haven’t finished the talk with my daughter.”
I scoffed and looked past both of them to the door. I was not going to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging her. She meant nothing to me. Drugging and kidnapping me only reinforced my bad feelings towards her.
“King Curtis never treated me like I belonged. Or even as his Old Lady. I was never given the respect I deserved for the status we had.”
I huffed out a laugh. Who the hell did she think she was?
“Laugh all you want, Waverley. But it doesn’t matter how well you think you know King Curtis, you have barely touched the surface of what he is capable of.
Do you really think I walked out of the Devil’s Chaos compound willingly?
Hmm,” she tapped a long crimson fingernail against her lips. “He hasn’t told you, has he?”
“Told me what?”
“Of course, why would he? You’re a woman. These biker boys and their bullshit rules. Brotherhood,” she scoffed a laugh. Mace shifted in the corner but kept his mouth shut. “I’m sure Warren, his Vice President knows all about what happened that day.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me, woman to woman,” I said, trying not to sound snarky.
Clearly the woman was unhinged. And bitter. Dad hadn’t told me everything, he may even have filled Warren in on some things he didn’t want me to hear, but what she was insinuating was unlikely. She was trying to poison me against my family.
I’d spent my life being told women were powerless in an MC.
But over the last few weeks, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
Yes, they were kept out of club business, but they were respected.
They were looked after. Hell, Ballistic was one of the most feared members of the MC but the way he was with Rosa…
that was true love. He cared for her and would do anything to protect her.
Hadn’t Hudson shown me the same thing? He went after Andrew, he’d gone after Tanya.
There was no hesitation, no concern, especially with Andrew.
Warren fiercely guarded Connor, even though he wasn’t a woman, he was the person he loved.
It was a testament to the men they were, whether they were feared members of an outlaw motorcycle club or not, they protected those they loved and would do it to the death.
Danica wasn’t worthy in my father’s eyes. He’d made it clear when he gave me the history on their doomed relationship. Rosa backed that up and she tried to welcome Danica into the club.
Danica would never give or have that trust. Not then, not now.
I believed Rosa, even my father, before I believed this woman.
She was still droning on about how she had no respect and was treated unfairly.
I could give two fucks how she felt. All I wanted to know was why I was here.
What her game was with the Devil’s Chaos and why she seemed able to control the President of this club.
Mace blinked slowly and looked at the far wall. It was like the male version of an eyeroll. He was clearly unhappy with the shit she was spouting, especially disparaging his club, yet he said nothing. I couldn’t trust him, even if we felt the same way about Danica.
“He’s right you know,” I indicated Mace with my chin. Danica stopped talking and cocked her head at me in question. “Maybe just get to the point.”
Her face filled with rage so intense, I involuntarily leaned back in the chair, my wrists clenching painfully against the wood.
Being her daughter meant shit if you angered her.
Her eyes were narrowed to slits. Poking the bear might have been a bad idea.
I wondered if Mace would have the balls to stop her. Turned out he didn’t.
I winced when she slapped me. It wasn’t hard enough to turn my head but it stung all the same. I kept my eyes on her this time. My lips in a tight, thin line as I glared back at her, trying with everything I had to convey how much I hated her.
“This isn’t how this was supposed to go,” Danica said to me. She adjusted the cuffs on her blouse as though hitting me caused her discomfort. “Believe me, I had no intentions of hurting you. I just want to talk to you.”
“Threatening my life and kidnapping me. You think that will endear me to you?”
“As I said, it wasn’t supposed to go like this.
Leave a useless, pig-headed asshole of a man to do a woman’s job and things get out of control,” she tossed Mace a look, and his jaw clenched.
She was talking about the waste of space of a President.
“But you allow these things to slide for family,” Danica sighed.
What did that mean? I watched as she transformed back into the sophisticated, elegant woman she tried to portray, like she hadn’t slapped me. The woman was a psychopath.
“Plus, the Devil’s Chaos needed knocking down a peg or two.”
“You’re delusional,” I muttered, turning away from her.
“You’ll come round to my way of thinking eventually. You’ll see. These fools are good for one thing, and one thing only, keeping the Devil’s distracted.”