Chapter Six
Declan
“I’ll take her to meet Kristy,” I offered, apparently having no control over my mouth.
I told myself I wanted to get her alone, so I could convince her to leave.
Bullshit! You want to get her alone because you want to feel her body under yours again.
“No, you won’t. You are going to go see Patch, so he can look at your hand,” Beck demanded, cutting off the argument I was about to have with myself.
I refused to acknowledge the way she felt under me last night when I had her bent over her car, or the way I had her bent over the table this morning. It was simply a move to contain her.
Bullshit!
“I told you, I’m fine,” I growled.
I looked at my daughter, my expression immediately softening. I wasn’t angry with her. I just wasn’t comfortable getting hard while I was talking to my daughter. Fuck, I needed to stop thinking about Maureen.
“Cash, call Patch and see where he is. Dec, get your hand checked out.” King held his hand up when I opened my mouth to argue. “You’re pregnant daughter doesn’t need the stress.”
“Asshole,” I muttered.
He was always using Beck against me. He knew I would do anything for her. Just like I would do anything for him. Which was why Maureen had to go. She couldn’t stay, even if I wanted her to.
There! I said it. Happy? I wanted her to stay. Wanted to get to know the woman standing in front of me. I wanted to hold her in my arms. I wanted to kiss her full lips. I wanted to sink my dick into her.
“Maureen, let’s go.”
Instead, I watched my baby brother lead Maureen through the door and out the front. I watched her ass sway as her thick legs carried her away from me.
“What is going on with you?” Beck asked, pulling me from my lewd thoughts.
“What do you mean?” I turned and looked down at her.
“You’re acting weird.” She grabbed my arm and led me to the kitchen. Grabbing ice from the freezer, she filled a towel and placed it on my hand while we waited for Patch.
“I’m worried about you. Your old man is connected to the Mob. I don’t want them coming here.”
That wasn’t the only thing I was worried about. I was worried about the past crashing down on our sleepy little town, where there were only a handful of cops and less than two dozen bikers.
“Dad, he isn’t connected. His parents were. He was a baby when they left. You can’t hold this against him.”
“I can when his connection puts you and my grandson at risk.”
“How am I at risk? It’s been years since his dad died. They let him go. And you don’t know it’s a boy.”
“He talks to them every six months,” I told her, choosing not to have the same argument about the baby’s gender that we’d been having since she told me she was pregnant.
“Son of a bitch! You couldn’t let me tell her, could you?” Blade barked, walking into the kitchen.
“What the hell, Micah? You are talking with the Mob? The Mob that killed your parents? And you kept it from me?” Beck balled up her fist and punched Blade in the arm.
“Baby, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you worried. With Maureen here now, I was going to tell you tonight.”
Beck stared at Blade, then turned to me.
“I am sick of this shit. I am sick of you both treating me like a child,” she hissed and stormed out.
“Becca!” Blade called after her.
My daughter was pissed, and it was my fault. I wanted to feel bad, but pissed was better than scared. I never wanted to see her scared again.
The day I walked in and found her curled into the couch in her grandmother’s home, her mother standing over her with a knife, was a day that will be forever etched in my memory. It was what I saw whenever I felt like there was a risk to her life. I would do anything to not see that fear on her face again.
“Thanks, I’ll be sleeping on the fucking couch tonight. If she even lets me in the house.”
“Stop keeping shit from her,” I growled. “People have kept shit from Beck her whole life, in the name of protecting her. It’s bullshit. Secrets don’t protect you, they just hold off the inevitable.”
“There was nothing to tell.”
“You’re in the fucking Mob.” I stood up and tossed the towel of ice in the sink.
“I have a twenty-minute conversation every six months. I am not in the fucking Mob.”
“What do you talk about?”
“What?” Blade asked.
“What do you talk about in those twenty minutes? What does he ask you?”
Blade scrubbed his hand over his face. I knew he was stalling.
“It’s just bullshit conversation. Wanting to know how I’m doing, have I told anyone about them, shit like that.”
“Do they know about my daughter?”
Blade stared at me. If he didn’t answer me, I was going to lose my shit. I needed to know how much Sal knew.
“They know I have a woman, but they don’t know her name or who she is.”
“Goddammit, Blade!” I stormed out of the kitchen and into the common room just as Patch walked in, and Blade followed behind me, spouting off more bullshit.
“They know nothing about her,” he reiterated.
“They are the fucking Mob. You think they haven’t looked into everyone you know?” I shouted.
His face paled.
Maybe he was finally getting it.
Shit, that meant he knew I was here. That meant he knew about King. Did he know the truth about who he was?
“Hey, Cash called and said I needed to look at your hand?” Patch said, drawing my attention.
“It’s fine. I punched the wall, but it went through the sheetrock. I didn’t hit a stud.”
“Just let him look at your fucking hand,” Cash growled behind me.
Sighing heavily, I held my hand up and wiggled my fingers. “See, everything works.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Patch clipped, grabbing my hand.
When he saw me wince, he shook his head and started poking around my hand.
“Ok, nothing’s broken, but it’s gonna be sore for a few days.”
“I told you I was fine,” I dismissed, walking to the door. Before leaving, I turned to Blade. “Go home. Stay with my daughter. If you can’t be with her, bring her here, or call me. I don’t want her left alone.”
I left the clubhouse and got into my patrol car. I needed to find out what Sal’s game was. Why did he let Blade live, and why hadn’t he come for me? When my parents died, why didn’t he come for King?
Assuming he didn’t know the truth about King, why hadn’t he made contact with me in all these years? Was it because I became a cop?
These were questions I needed answered, but there was no one to ask but Sal himself. I wouldn’t reach out to him, though.
Instead, I chose to live in ignorance a little while longer.
I wouldn’t dance with the Devil as long as he stayed in hell. If he came to Nebraska, all bets were off. That line I straddled would become nonexistent if I needed to protect my family.
And I would protect my family, at all costs.
Even if it meant killing the only other family I had.