Thirty-Eight
FANG
“Outside.” I thrust an arm toward the general direction of the front door. “You can wait while I get Molly ready for you, but I don’t want you in here.”
“Why?” Reno sets her elbows on the arms of the parlor chair and pushes her chest forward. “Scared I’ll spook your little toys?” She eyes Darla, seated at the low table to play a round of checkers with The Kid.
“Get out.”
“Make me.”
“Reno…”
“Fang.” She tilts her chin down and gives me doe eyes.
After the bullshit with Freckles, I am not in the mood. “Out!”
Reno flinches at the power in my voice, yet stays firm. It was always her problem, her refusal to back down. “You said you wanted to talk when I got back, Fang. So do it. Talk.”
Bitch has me on that one. “You done with the job?” I fold my arms. Maybe if we get this over with, she’ll fucking leave.
“Nope.” Woman inspects her nails and then glances at Darla as the brunette guides Anna from the room. “Where are the rest of them?”
“Who?”
Her serpentine gaze sharpens on me. “The women you idiots brought back here. Surely there’s more than just one of each age category—legal and not.”
“Careful with your words, woman.”
She shrugs. “Saying it how it is. You’re fucking morons for taking those women. Years of avoiding conflict with the surrounding clubs, and in one night you fuck that all up. Was it worth it? Were they worth it?”
Who the hell told her? Matty. It has to be from Matty. “You prefer we left them there?” I ask. “If it were Molly held in some sick fuck’s basement, would you rather we just left her to be used like that?”
“It wasn’t Molly though,” she grits, leaning forward in the chair. “It was goddamn women you have no association with. What the fuck was Chaos thinking?” She leans back with a huff.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” I catch sight of the man in my periphery, hair mussed and clearly fresh off the road.
“Ask me what, Reno?” He steps into the parlor, T-shirt and jeans dusty, feet bare.
Vanessa slips through the foyer and down the hall, taking the long way around/safer route to the kitchen.
“You mess with the legacy of this club starting a fight of this magnitude,” Reno says, doubling down on her self-righteousness.
“And you think your opinion matters what to me, exactly?” Chaos counters. “Last I checked, club business wasn’t your business. It never was.”
“This ain’t what I wanted to discuss,” I remind her. “Either shut your mouth or talk about things that concern you.”
“Fuck off. The both of you.” She launches from the seat, standing between my president and me. “This does concern me. It concerns everyone in this fucking town. What you assholes do in the coming days and weeks affects us all.”
“Since when have you given a fuck about anyone other than yourself?” Chaos steps forward, a warning in his hardened eyes. “Take your daughter and fuck off home, Reno.”
“Actually,” I say, tipping my head. “That’s part of what I did want to talk about. I think she should stay here.”
Reno chokes with a sudden scoff. “What made you change your tune? I thought it was too dangerous for her?”
“Maybe so, but at least with me I know she gets given the bare necessities.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.” I take a step forward.
Chaos leaves the room, but not before giving Reno a warning look that tells her to be gone when he gets back.
“She doesn’t have proper school clothes, Reno.” I turn my head a little, anger pulsating beneath my skin. Skin that feels too tight. Too hot. “Does she have all her books? Pencils? All that shit she needs? Or did you spend the money buying more clothes for yourself to get men to fuck you?”
Her palm flies through the air.
I catch her by the wrist, doing all I fuckin’ can not to break my rule about hands on women.
“How fucking dare you,” she breathes. “How dare you judge me for what you made me.”
“I didn’t make you anything!” I drop her hand and step back, putting distance between her and me the best idea.
“You were no different when you first walked onto club grounds. You were just younger and more naive.” I stride over to the window, staring out to the yard briefly before spinning back to face her.
“Ain’t nobody to blame for how you are now but yourself. ”
She regards me with pure surprise, tendrils of blonde hair framing her wide eyes.
“Are you fucking serious? When was the last time this fucking club actively encouraged one of their property to further herself? Huh? Sure, nobody had a gun to my head and said I had to fuck your miserable asses for board and food, but hell, Fang, nobody cared to help me do anything different.”
“You never showed any interest in being different,” I counter. “You’ve left the club. You aren’t property anymore, Reno. And what are you doing? Still selling your fucking body! Tell me again how you want to be different.”
“I don’t have any other skills,” she hollers, taking a step toward me. It’s the most genuine I’ve seen her, like this, in her anger. “What the hell else can I do?”
I open my mouth to reply, yet stall when Vanessa steps through the doorway to the dining room. “You might want to take it elsewhere,” she suggests. “Molly can hear everything you’re saying.”
“Good.” Reno strides out of the room to presumably collect our daughter. “Let her hear what her daddy’s really like.”
She’s got another thing coming if she believes she can walk out of here without anything having changed.
“Fuck.” I run a hand over my head. It always happens like this: we yell, we throw knives, and neither walks away unharmed.
It’s why things are the way they are. It’s why I can’t do it all over again, with another woman.
“Don’t take her words on board too heavily,” Vanessa offers, crossing to where I stand, torn. “She has other options. She can wait tables. Like I do. She could clean. Choose to study a low-cost course and do office work. She’s a smart woman, capable of a lot more if she really wanted to.”
I glance at her. “Thanks.”
She nods once and backtracks to the kitchen.
Chaos leans on the doorframe, coffee in hand. He fixes his stare on me, yet there’s no malice in it. Just encouragement to sort this out. For me. And for Molly.
Problem is, I don’t know if I can.
My daughter’s voice erupts from the rear of the house, upset and pleading not to leave.
Reno’s harsh directives mingle with hers, ordering her not to cause a fuss.
She has every right to make a fucking show of it.
Her momma doesn’t care enough to give her a good start in life, and her daddy’s no better.
I’ve failed my daughter up to this point, all care and no responsibility. Sure, I funnel regular money Reno’s way, but for what reason? Guilt. Because I sure as shit never went over there to check that it was being spent the way I thought it should.
Where the fuck was I when she needed shit for school? What stopped me from being the one to take her shopping?
I stride through to the foyer and stall Reno in her tracks. “She doesn’t want to go.”
“I don’t care.” Hand to Molly’s shoulder, she steers her toward the door while asking, “Where’s the rest of your stuff, baby?”
“In Daddy’s room.” Tears track my daughter’s cheeks.
I lift her from Reno’s control and hold her to me. Molly buries her face against the crook of my neck, hiccuping breaths as she tries to calm herself.
“You can’t take her from me, Fang,” Reno growls. “You have no right.”
“I have every right,” I growl right back. “Until you can prove your words. I have all the goddamn rights.”
Her eyebrows lift, lips parted.
“Send me details of what you need to re-skill. I’ll fucking pay for you to go to college, as long as you see it through.”
“You can’t buy me off.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort.” A crowd gathers in the small space, not so subtle about their interest in how this plays out.
The Kings are family, and family looks out for one another.
“I’m helping you change your goddamn life.
I’m fixing exactly what you just hollered at me and helping you to be better.
Prove to me that what you say is true—that you want better for yourself.
” I place my hand over Molly’s head. “For our daughter.”
Her nostrils flare, gaze repeatedly moving from me to Molly and back.
Painful seconds pass.
Circus makes his way down from the top of the stairs.
Reno glances over her shoulder at the guy and sighs. “Fine.” She regards each of the faces watching her, waiting for her to leave. The lack of support directed her way lies heavy in her tired gaze. “This isn’t permanent, Fang. You can’t stop me from seeing her.”
“If you choose to behave like this again, believe me when I say I can and I will.”
Reno’s jaw grinds before she heads for the door.
Without saying goodbye to Molly.
To be fair, I think it was probably best given the situation.
Highway quietly enters the foyer from the parlor. “You okay?”
I nod, the sound of Reno’s car tearing out of the yard framing the moment. “I should have done this a long time ago.” I stroke Molly’s head, her sniffles subsiding.
“I know.” He shrugs. “But we all figured you would when you were ready.”
I hold my daughter tighter, guilt and shame knitted in the tension of my muscles. I’ve got to do better for her. Be better for her. Otherwise I’m no different to people like Jenna’s old man—putting club politics before family.
And Molly will be no better than her, Freckles, constantly thinking she’s not enough, not loved, and undervalued.
The words I spat at her in the field turn my gut. I shouldn’t have said those things. But I wanted to hurt her, just like she had me when she said what we did was wrong. That she didn’t believe.
And I did that. Tenfold.
I clutch Molly tight, pressing my face to her soft hair. “You okay, baby?”
“Yes, Daddy.” Her words are weak, but her resolve is strong.
“Should we go see if the horses are still there?”
She nods against my shoulder. “I’d like that.”
I look around for her face, seeking Jenna out.
But she’s not amongst the lingering crowd that talks quietly amongst themselves, yet to return to the house.
Just like I told her to be. Darla returns to the parlor with The Kid, and Kathy’s nowhere to be seen now that Circus has disappeared. Not that either of them would help.
I catch Vanessa by the arm as I carry Molly toward the back door. “Can I ask a favor?”
She looks at my daughter, gaze soft, probably assuming it relates to her. “Sure.”
“Can you find where Jenna went?”
Chaos’s woman nods. “Any particular reason?”
Because I’m too pussy to. Because I’m probably the last one she wants to see. “I said some things that were a bit out of line to her. She might need to be reminded that we’re not all assholes.”
Ness sighs and reaches to smooth a hand over Molly’s back. “Those are the truest words I’ve heard you say, Fang. As tough as this is, I think things have been happening to you, of late, for the right reasons.”
I sure fucking hope so; otherwise, I get the feeling they have the power to destroy me if my situation doesn’t improve.
Thirty-one years, I’ve avoided close personal relationships with women.
I have no fucking doubt in my mind it’s all tied into stored trauma from my parents’ volatile relationship.
But my default when faced with a vulnerable emotion is to turn my words into either a joke or a weapon. And this is why.
Because once you peel the mask from my heart, nothing is hiding behind but a frightened little boy.
A boy who wants to be loved.
A boy who doesn’t think he can.