Chapter 19
Nineteen
Welcome to adulthood. Hope you like ibuprofen.
—Eddy to Weaver
Eddy
A major break in my parents’ case came the day that I got released from the hospital.
Boston and I were happily drinking down a coffee from the local coffee shop—definitely not a Starbucks but something way better—when my phone rang.
I was with Nettie, Boston and someone wholly intimidating—the president of the Dixie Wardens MC Sawtooth chapter—Denver.
Denver was a great guy.
I’d only met him this morning when he’d shown up in my hospital room and announced he would be the one taking us all home—to Weaver’s home.
Since I’d gotten the message from Weaver that a telephone pole had fallen and cut off power to the nursing home down the road, and that he’d be sending someone to give us all a ride home, I hadn’t questioned the man from Weaver’s club showing up.
Denver had proven he was a sweetheart by asking us all if we wanted coffee, then he’d taken us out to breakfast after picking up our fatty drinks.
By the time that I was able to be released to work out again, I’d have to be rolled into the gym.
We were halfway through eating when my parents came storming into the diner, looking furious.
My dad saw me, pointed at me, and roared, “How could you do this to me?”
Denver got up and placed his body in front of the booth, physically stopping my father from coming closer.
“Sir, I think you need to leave.” Denver stood his ground, his voice scary soft and icily intimidating.
“Oh, you think?” Dad sneered. “My own daughter is accusing me of something heinous, and you think that I’m going to take it lying down?”
The whispers started, and I felt my face heat.
“What was it that she ‘accused’ you of?” Denver asked, sounding curious.
He damn well knew what it was my dad was being accused of, though.
They—the Dixie Wardens MC—all knew.
They’d all taken it upon themselves to do what they could to help, and would never stop. Not only because it was a sick thing my parents were doing, but because I now belonged to one of their members. I was one of them.
“What is he talking about?” I heard Boston whisper to Nettie.
Nettie replied, but it was too soft for me to hear over my mother who started screaming. “How could you, Edith?”
More whispers.
What a shitshow.
There were better times and places, and they were only making this worse.
“You’ll get what’s coming to you.” My dad stepped back, giving me a clear view of his angry face. “And when it finally catches up to you, you’ll know that you were the reason this all happened.”
My mother and father left just as abruptly as they arrived, leaving the diner in stunned silence.
“Call Black,” Denver said quietly. “Right now.”
I assumed he was talking to me, because there was no one else at the table that could’ve known what he was talking about.
But then a man I hadn’t observed at the counter stood up and reached for his phone clipped to his belt.
I recognized him as Odin, the town grump and expert glarer.
He’d scared the absolute crap out of me ever since he’d started showing up in town with the Dixie Wardens last year.
The first time I’d seen him he’d gotten in a bar fight with one of the workers at Paul Bunyon’s Logging.
The man had been the size of a brick shit house, and looked like he could bench press a Buick.
Yet, Odin had found offense when the man had tried to force his wife to drink a shot that she didn’t want to drink.
After telling the man off, Odin had gone back to his business.
But the abuser had hauled his wife up by her hair and all but shoved the shot down her throat, and Odin had rightly objected to that move also and shown him the error of his ways.
From that moment on, I’d had a wary respect for him.
Now, looking at him, he looked even more scary, which should’ve been impossible. However, I was experiencing it with my own eyes, and the man looked like he could flay the skin off your bones with just a narrow-eyed glare.
“Black,” I heard Odin rumble. “Something’s happened.”
“You okay?”
I looked away from Odin to see Denver looking at me like I would break.
But that’s the thing about my parents. Their opinions of me had stopped mattering the day that I’d emancipated myself and moved out at seventeen.
“Yes,” I lied.
I might not get my feelings hurt as easily, but that didn’t mean that everyone else’s opinion of me didn’t matter.
Especially the two men standing in front of me looking quite ferocious.
They meant something to Weaver, so that meant they meant something to me.
And I liked to make good impressions when it mattered.
“What’s with that look on your face, then?” he asked bluntly.
“I can’t say that I quite like the idea of my business being aired like it has,” I admitted. “But I know that something like this wasn’t ever going to stay secret for long.”
Denver grunted and took the seat next to me again, boxing me in and blocking my view from everyone else in the diner.
“Nobody’s opinion but your own matters,” Denver said quietly. “Do you want anything else to eat?”
I was already shaking my head. “I have no room left in my stomach.”
He eyed my mostly finished plate before saying, “You eat like a rabbit.”
“She eats pretty heftily,” Nettie interjected. “Her appetite is still coming back after the bear attack.”
Denver’s eyes lit on my face. “I heard the 9-1-1 call.”
I nodded. “I’m sure everyone has at this point.”
“Wasn’t even there, and didn’t experience it with you,” he said. “But literally gave me chills.” His eyes were intense when he said, “I used to let my daughter go on trail runs by herself. Not anymore.”
I shook my head. “You should let her go. I won’t let anyone stop me from going on my own solo hikes. This was a freak accident, and it literally could’ve happened to anyone. Even a man who might’ve had a better chance at fighting it off.”
“I don’t think that a man could’ve made much of a difference.” Denver shrugged. “It’ll take me a while to forget about how horrible that call was. My daughter is used to me being overprotective.”
“You mean suffocated?” Bossy asked curiously.
Denver’s eyes moved from mine to her.
Denver narrowed his eyes before saying, “You’re not much better, darlin’. Didn’t I hear your dad ban you from ever leaving his sight again?”
Bossy grinned. “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean I’ll listen.”
Denver just shook his head. “Women.”
Nettie polished off what was left of her egg white omelet.
Bossy finished off her pancakes. And Denver finished off my waffle.
By the time we were done, it’d given Black enough time to arrive at the diner.
He came directly to where we were sitting in the corner of the room—in the Dixie Wardens MC corner as I’d coined it in my head when I was here last with my sister.
Black marched in like he owned the place and came straight toward us.
“You heard, I’m guessing?” he asked.
“Heard what?” Nettie asked.
Black’s eyes flicked toward her, then to me. “That your sister has a hit out on her.”
My mouth fell open.
Nettie’s screech caused the entire restaurant to turn our way. “What?”
“Your mom and dad took a hit out on you.”
“They would be stupid to openly do that,” Bossy pointed out.
Black sighed. “It’s not confirmed that it was them. But there is a hit on you. Apollo has been dealing with it all night.”
I looked over at Denver who didn’t look the least bit surprised.
Then I thought about how nervous Weaver had been when he was about to leave us at the hospital, and I knew why it was that the president of the Dixie Wardens was here.
They were all protecting me.
“They found out that you were the one behind the original video that is tying them to this evidence,” Black said. “I’m not sure how that information got out since we didn’t release it, but they did.”
“You may not want to admit that you have a leak in your own carefully curated department roster,” Denver pointed out. “But it’s not going to change the fact that you do.”
Black looked disgusted.
“They’re not going to be so open about doing this,” I agreed. “But that was probably what today was about. I was wondering why they would bring attention to themselves, and now it makes sense. They want the attention on them to make it seem like they wouldn’t be behind the hit.”
“This is such a dad thing to do,” Nettie grumbled.
“Do you remember when we were in high school, and he found out that we were emancipating ourselves? We went to church that last time and he showed us around like we were the best daughters ever. He tooted our horns when he told everyone about our scholarships. He was so happy for us that we were accomplishing our dreams. Then Audrey purposefully hurt you an hour later.”
“Audrey hurt you?” Denver asked, looking at me.
“Nearly took me out with her car,” I said.
“Who did?”
I looked behind me to find Apollo standing there looking curious.
“Audrey Stanley,” I answered. “She’s the daughter of a deacon at my dad’s church.”
He frowned. “Was she your friend?”
I scoffed. “If anyone, she was friends with my parents.”
A gleam entered Apollo’s eyes. “Interesting.”
He sat down again, effectively putting himself out of my line of sight seeing as I couldn’t turn to keep him there.
Denver, Black, and Nettie kept talking.
Bossy and I sat silent as we listened to them speak.
“Yahtzee!”