Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AMbrOS
We left the women to talk and head out to the backyard with a beer each.
“This whole situation is fucked-up. He’s not gonna back off unless we give him Lil, but with Lil in the wind, that’s not an option,” Havoc grunts.
G glares at him.
“Don’t look at me like that. I wouldn’t hand Lil over to that motherfucker even if she were here, but at least I’d be able to pump her for more information about this guy.
Right now, we need to take out his lackey.
That shit at Star’s school? We know that has the PI all over it.
No way will we find Dr. Dickhead on there. ”
I look between them, feeling like I’m missing something.
“I’ve been digging into the doctor. He jumped around in specialties before eventually settling on plastic surgery, where he made a big name for himself.
He moved around a lot, and I’m not just talking from hospital to hospital.
I’m talking country to country. He even did out-of-pocket work in places like Sudan and Syria, earning himself quite the reputation as a philanthropist.”
“I can picture this guy working on aging rock stars not ready to admit defeat, but not kids maimed and disfigured,” Havoc admits.
“Always two sides to a coin. If he only had bad qualities, he would have nothing about him to draw Lil in,” G tells him. I have to admit, it makes sense.
“That doesn’t mean there haven’t been rumors, little whispers made by people too afraid to speak up.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“Controlling and coercive behavior, I found in one report that was dismissed. Sexual misconduct by another, but the person withdrew their complaint. I dug a bit more and found at least a dozen in the various places he worked, and those were just the ones reported. The people he messed with were lower in status than him—cleaning crew, admin, etc.”
“He was a classic predator, and he picked victims that he knew others would view as disposable while making sure he wasn’t.
So even if they reported him, they either wouldn’t be believed or their complaints would be brushed under the rug.
” Havoc gets up and leans over the railing, looking out across the yard.
“So this guy has been a walking time bomb all along?”
“And his missing wife is the trigger. I just don’t get why now. She’s been missing for a decade.”
G looks up sharply. “Unless they crossed paths here at the hospital. She was training to be a nurse, remember? And all of a sudden, she quit right before she took her exams.”
“That was just before shit went down with Bear, right?
“Yeah. There wasn’t much in it, though. It’s gonna sound like shit, but the attempted coup stole the focus off everything.
A lot of things slipped through the cracks, Lil included.
I hadn’t even known about her sleeping in her car or shelters because she was too afraid to sleep in the clubhouse overnight. ”
“Okay, but if that was the case, that was six years ago. If he knew Lil was here, he’d have made his move before then, surely.”
“Lil has proven to be smart, far smarter than we ever gave her credit for. My guess is she led him on a merry goose chase. Hell, she probably had it all set up just in case he did find her. No, I think he left to keep looking for her. Something brought him back, though. Maybe she let something slip that he’d just pieced together or…
” G drifts off with a frown, pulling out his phone and scrolling before he curses.
He turns the phone around and shows a photo from a local newspaper, which was also posted across social media.
It’s the shelter Lil helped set up. And lo and behold, there in the background, talking to a man in a wheelchair, is Lil, a big smile on her face as she listens to him talk, both of them completely oblivious to the camera.
“Fuck. Well, at least we know how, and we know why. But in this day and age, even with him being who he is, he can’t force her to stay with him.”
I look at Havoc and shake my head.
G sighs. “My dad wailed on my mom for years, and the police did shit. It didn’t matter if she wanted to press charges or not.
It didn’t matter that there were kids in the house.
Cops might drag him into the drunk tank for a few hours, but they always sent him home afterward.
Eventually, we got a piece of paper signed by a judge and everything, saying he had to stay away.
Know what that did? Fuck-all. I used it to mop up the blood from my mom’s busted nose.
The cop even turned around and told me the paper was a waste of time and that I should just get my mom to leave and hide if she couldn’t handle it.
Like it was so easy to pick up three kids and run when you had nothing. ”
“A lot of the time, people don’t realize that domestic abuse and financial abuse go hand in hand,” Havoc agrees.
“Exactly. He earned the money, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom with very traditional values. Though the sanctity of marriage was nothing but a trap to hold my mom in a cage. Me and my siblings were just extra locks on it.”
“She ever get out?” I ask.
“I was a scrawny runt, but I worked to change that. The first time I knocked him out was the last time he laid a hand on my mother. He was a coward, but then aren’t they all?
By this point, the cult-like community we lived in had turned into a bunch of devoted zealots.
They couldn’t control me, so they kicked me out.
I went off on my own, made a life for myself, and hoped that one day my mom would join me.
“I offered to buy her a place of her own and help her start divorce proceedings, but my father had an unexpected heart attack before I could convince her to leave. After that, she wouldn’t leave my siblings, who all believed in the same values as my father had.
Deep down, I think it was more about staying for the grandkids.
I won’t pretend it didn’t gut me. And then a year later, she was dead too.
Complications from routine knee surgery, they said.
It was a cruel twist of fate that by the time her cage was left open, she was too scared to fly away. ”
Neither of us says anything about that. What is there to say? The world is a fucked-up place, and we just all have to find a way to survive in it.
“So what you’re saying is we should find this doctor guy, and scare him enough to give him a heart attack?” Havoc deadpans.
It’s quiet for a beat before me and G start laughing. If only shit were that simple.
“Fuck that. This guy seems more like an annoying STD. You can treat it, but it’s never really going away.”
“I say cut off his hands. That’s gotta mess with a surgeon as much as cutting off his dick would.”
“No more dissected dicks, thank you very much.” Havoc grimaces.
I throw a questioning look at G, but he just grins at me.
“Either way, I say, instead of looking for Lil and this PI guy, find the doctor. He’s more high-profile, so that should make it easier. Besides, if he’s bankrolling this PI, there must be a paper trail.”
“Agreed.” G nods. “Lil’s proved that she can look after herself.
So for now, we’re going to have to let her.
Besides, if we can find this guy, then she’ll be free too.
The PI will likely stand down if we find the doc.
Nobody wants to work for free, after all.
And if he doesn’t—because truth be told, there is something off with the guy—then there will be no need to find him, because he’ll find us. ”
“I need to make sure my girls are safe. The school did everything right, not letting him collect Star today, and I applaud them for that. But this is the US, where our classrooms have more dead kids than supplies. We can’t guarantee she’s safe there, and you know it.”
“You wanna keep her home instead?”
I scrub my hand over my face. Star needs to have social interaction after spending years in isolation. “Maybe I can talk the school into letting Star have a guard.”
“I doubt they’d let one on school grounds, and you know what these parents are like. If Star can have one, then they’ll want their precious boy to have one. And before you know it, we have a classroom filled with armed men, which defeats the fucking purpose.”
I throw my beer bottle across the lawn with a growl.
“Then tell me what to fucking do, Havoc, because all I see right now are bad fucking choices. I love this club, I do, but I love those girls more. And if I can’t keep them safe here, I’ll pack them both up and get them the fuck out of the country and away from small-dicked motherfuckers with big man syndrome. ”
My chest is heaving by the time I’m done, but Havoc and G just stare at me, surprised by my outburst because I’m usually level-headed.
“Ambros?”
I turn at the sound of Citi’s voice and open my arms as she walks toward me.
“I love that you want to keep us safe, more than you’ll ever know, but you can’t hide us away from the world. Not again.”
I huff in frustration. “I can’t lose you, too, Citi.”
“You won’t. Because Ravens are going to find this guy and make him regret the day he was ever born.”
* * *
Later that night, when the house is quiet and my girls are fast asleep—one tucked up in bed, one wrapped up in my arms—I find myself wide awake, staring up at the ceiling, wishing I had all the answers.
I stroke my fingers through Citi’s hair, but she doesn’t stir, the stress of the day having pushed her to exhaustion.
We discussed things further before G and Havoc left, but none of us had any definite answers. I feel like we are just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and there is no worse feeling than being on the back foot.
Knowing sleep isn’t coming for me, I slip from the bed and head downstairs, turning on the lamp before sitting on the sofa with my head in my hands. There has to be something more we can do, something I missed or just haven’t seen yet.
I rub my eyes before grabbing my laptop and diving into a project I’ve been working on for Citi.
I’m not sure how she’ll feel about it, which is why I’ve not said anything yet.
I find a million little things that need doing, but realistically, I’m just stalling.
This has the ability to hurt her just as much as it can help her.
By the time I’m done, the light is peeking through the blinds. I stretch and groan. It’s going to be a long day.
Putting the laptop away, I head up to the bedroom and slip on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, my eyes on Citi’s sleeping form.
She’s rolled over since I’ve been gone, lying on her stomach with her leg cocked.
Her T-shirt has ridden up, showing me the pink of her pussy just beneath it.
Usually, she slips her underwear on after we fuck, but the frenzy in which we came together seemed to suck all the energy right out of her.
She slipped a T-shirt on and fell asleep within minutes.
Taking the throw from the chair, I gently lay it over her so she doesn’t get cold, and so I’m not faced with a temptation that’s hard to resist. I head out, tugging the door closed behind me.
As I pass Star’s room, I poke my head inside and find her sitting on her bed, rubbing her eyes.
“Hey.”
She looks at me before grinning. She gets off the bed, grabs her unicorn, and walks over to me, slipping her hand in mine. Damn, this kid is killing me. I walk her downstairs, but instead of heading for the kitchen, I head to the sitting room.
“How about we watch a movie and I order us some breakfast?” I offer, not feeling up to cooking right now.
Her answer is to climb up on the sofa and grab the remote.
I grin and sit beside her. She can navigate this better than me now.
She picks something with singing blue birds in it before curling into me.
I tug the blanket from the back of the sofa and tuck it around us before I lean forward and grab my phone from the coffee table.
I fire off a text to Con, asking him to pick up a few things from the bakery when it opens, then lean back and get comfortable.