Chapter 16 #2
Two excruciatingly long hours later, everyone has gone home except for the Sheriff and his wife who are still sharing a drink with my parents while I wipe down the kitchen, doing everything I can to avoid being in the same room as my father.
How dare he take it upon himself to contact the president of my school, re-enrolling me without my knowledge?
I scrub at the solid marble worktop, so lost in my thoughts that I don’t hear my mother and Susan enter the kitchen behind me, so when I turn on my heel, I slam straight into Susan, the contents of her wine glass spilling down the front of my dress.
Susan gasps. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!”
I stare down my dress, the dark red stain soaking through the fabric. “Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. I’m just going to go change.”
I rush out of the room and head through the hallway, my attention snagging on my father’s voice as I pass by his office on the way to the stairs.
“…need this handled, now,” I hear my father say.
I’ve eavesdropped plenty over the years, but a lot of my father’s work is boring and so I’m not exactly sure what makes me stop this time when I hear him speaking. My footsteps slow as I lean closer to the door.
“Agreed. We can’t allow them to continue,” Sheriff Collins says.
“Nice work on the girlfriend by the way, couldn’t have done it better myself. Too much of a liability having one of their whores on the force,” my father spits.
Oh my God…
Allie. Myles’ fiancée.
My dad was part of the reason she was suspended.
“So, what’s next?” Collins asks.
“We need to pick them apart one by one… They have businesses, start there. I don’t care how, as long as it gets done.”
“Why now? Has something happened?”
“I’ve heard Killian Hunt has been sniffing around my daughter. I don’t want that piece of shit anywhere near her.”
“Need me to handle it?”
“No, I know how to handle Hunt, you leave him to me,” my father replies.
“I’ll see what I can do about the others.”
“I appreciate your loyalty, Collins.”
I hear movement on the other side of the door and I scurry down the hall and tiptoe up the stairs to my bedroom. My mind races a thousand miles an hour as I crash down on my bed as I try to process what I just heard, my heart beating heavily in my chest.
My father’s going to destroy the MC, and he’s working with the Sheriff to do it, but I’ll be damned if I let them succeed.
After changing my outfit and returning downstairs, the sheriff and his wife are just leaving, and as soon as the front door closes, the shift in the atmosphere is instant. It’s like all the air’s been sucked out of the room like a vacuum.
My father steps into the living room where I’m sat on the sofa, my mother hovering by the window fiddling with the vase of flowers on the window ledge.
“I don’t appreciate you showing me up in front of my colleagues, Kaia.”
“And I don’t appreciate you putting me on the spot like that in front of your colleagues, going behind my back and talking to Knowles.”
“I’m trying to help you, why can’t you see that?
You’re my daughter and I want what is best for you, that’s why I contacted President Knowles.
He understands the stress of school got a little too much for you and he’s been kind enough to let this little…
blip slide. Not everyone would receive the same courtesy, you should consider yourself lucky. ”
“Well, I won’t be going. I’ll email President Knowles myself in the morning and tell him the same.”
“This is the thanks I get, hm? Everything I do is to secure your future and what do I get? You throw it back in my face.” Here we go again.
“Secure my future? Why not just marry me off to some trust fund baby? Either way, I’m not going back to school.”
“Think very carefully about this, Kaia,” he warns.
“I have and I’ve made my decision.”
He clicks his tongue the way he does when he’s annoyed. “Well then, if you insist, but from now on you’re on your own. You certainly won’t be sponging off of your mother and I.”
“I never expected to, which is I why I have a job.”
“Glad to hear it. Now off you go.” He waves me away dismissively with his hand like I’m a pest he’s trying to shoo away, and I don’t have to be asked twice.
On my way out I hear him muttering something about me being a disappointment and how he won’t let it tarnish his reputation.
His precious reputation…
I crash onto my bed with a bounce. I kick off my heels and strip off my clothes as a single tear drips onto my bare thigh.
I’d say that living with my father has made me pretty thick-skinned, despite not spending a lot of time here, but every now and then, despite the defences I put up around me, the harshness of his words still cut deep.
After all the hurtful things he’s said the past few weeks, I’m done.
Fuck it. Fuck him and his reputation.
I’ll never live up to his expectations and it’s pointless trying. Whatever I do will somehow affect his reputation, and for years I’ve done everything to ensure that doesn’t happen, so maybe I need to do the exact opposite.
And maybe all I need is a dark-haired tattooed biker to do just that.