CHAPTER 42
Maverick
I take her hand and sit back down on the bed. “Did you make an appointment today?”
“Uh yeah. Friday at two. Are you going to come with me?”
“I want to go to all of them if I can. I want to know what’s going on with it.”
Kaya chuckles. “It?”
I smirk. “Until I know if it’s a boy or a girl, it’s an it.”
She smacks my knee playfully. “Still not an it, but I want you to be there.”
“If you think I’m letting you out of my sight until every one of these bastards are in the ground, you’re crazy.”
She leans her head against my shoulder. “Can I ask you a question?”
I kiss her head, taking in the coconut and floral scent of her hair. “Sure.”
“What happened to your sister? I didn’t even know you had one until Jessica pulled up.”
My muscles tense and I know she feels it.
Tatum. My little sister and what she went through is something I hate to think about, let alone say out loud.
Plus, Jessica and my mother are tied to it.
Explaining one means explaining all three.
It’s a part of my history that I prefer to leave where it is, but Kaya should know.
I sigh and fall back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“My mama got around. She used men as a way of getting what she wanted. She was a horrible woman, but she was also beautiful. Men were always sniffing around our place looking to get with her. It’s how I met Phoenix.
He was one of them. After Phoenix took me, he still checked in on my sister to be sure she was safe. ”
Kaya lays back on the bed and rests her head on my shoulder while her fingers massage my abdomen in comforting motions.
“Tatum was seven years younger than me. My mom loved her and treated her better than she ever did me. I still saw her after moving to the clubhouse. My mom took advantage of me being out of the house and would drop her off so she could go out and do whatever the hell she wanted.”
I think back picturing my baby sister with her big blue eyes and brown hair that she always wore in a braid.
She would have grown up to be a prankster.
She was always smiling and laughing. She loved messing with the guys at the clubhouse, moving their things, hiding their keys, and just being a menace.
I huff out a breath, trying to keep my emotions in check.
“Every guy at the club loved her and Jessica. They were always together, running around causing havoc. My mom started seeing this guy Ted when the girls were eleven. I noticed a change in them both. They seemed to lose their spark. I knew something was going on but they denied anything was wrong. A few months later, Tatum went missing. My mama was crazy with worry and showed up at the clubhouse. The entire club, police, and neighbors all went out searching for her…” My breath hitches as I’m pulled back in time to that day.
The worry, fear, and aching feeling that I knew the worst had happened.
Kaya’s hand comes to my face and gently rubs my beard and cheek until resting it on my chest above my heart. I bring my hand to hers and grasp it, needing her touch to get through the rest of the story.
“She was found in the middle of the night under a pile of brush. Dead. She was naked and had been strangled.” I pause, taking in a deep breath. “Sexually assaulted.”
Kaya gasps, her hand squeezing mine. I bring her hand to my lips, kissing it. She doesn’t speak, just gives me the time I need to continue.
“At first, we had no idea who could have done it. Ted was known around town as a decent guy, a local farmer who came from a good family. With all the men my mama had brought to the trailer the suspect list seemed endless, until Jessica came forward and finally admitted what Ted had been doing to both of them.”
Kaya sits up. “Oh my God! It was happening to Jessica too?”
“Now you see why Phoenix and I took care of her. She was a kid too, but felt responsible. She thought that if she would have told someone sooner, Tatum would still be alive.”
“That’s crazy. She was just a baby too.”
“I know. We watched out for her, took her in time and time again and treated her like family. She went off the rails though and started drinking and smoking weed by 13. I showed up over and over trying to save her, because I couldn’t save Tatum.
But as she got older, she got this fucked up idea in her head that we were meant to be together.
When she was fifteen, she followed a girl I had slept with and threw a rock through a window at her house.
The older she got, the more aggressive she became.
I tried talking to her, tried letting her down easy, but she wouldn’t accept it. ”
“I went from treating her like a sister to hating her, but I still couldn’t let her go completely.
” I shrug. “Even after I went to Texas, I still checked in on her. I sent her money when she needed it and even rode back home when she was really down. But when she was twenty-one, she crossed a line that got her in big trouble. I rode back home after I got a call from her. She was threatening suicide and sounded really bad, crying, and saying she just couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.
I went back to Tennessee for a few weeks.
While I was there keeping an eye on her I started sleeping with this woman, Libby.
She was a waitress. Well, Jessica was caught behind the diner where Libby worked, cutting her brake lines.
She was busted by the owner of the diner and he called the cops, so she caught charges.
It was after that, that I decided I was done with her.
I cut all ties, but still checked in with Phoenix to see how she was. ”
“Oh my God! Does she have family? Where were they in all this?”
“Her parents weren’t together. Her mom was nice enough, but could never control her. Her dad was around, but was too busy working and hanging at the local bar to pay attention to his crazy daughter. She has an older brother too but they have different moms and were never close.”
Kaya shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I feel bad for her.”
“Don’t. I know she went through some terrible shit, but she’s had every opportunity to change her life, and she refuses.
Between me and Phoenix, we paid for classes for her to learn to do hair, nails, and one semester at community college.
Phoenix even made her go to counseling for a while.
” I shake my head. “She quit every single one.”
“So that’s why you were so pissed when she showed up here.”
“I never wanted to see her again.”
Kaya tilts her head and raises a brow as if she’s thinking. “What happened to your mom and Ted?”
“The club got to Ted before the cops. They beat him, removed a few body parts, and left him for me. After I had my time with him, I put a bullet between his eyes. He was the first man I killed. As for mama…” I sigh. “She killed herself the night of Tatum’s funeral.”
Kaya’s eyes widen in shock. “I’m so sorry.”
“She adored Tatum. She was never going to be able to live with the fact that someone she brought into their lives did that. I wasn’t even surprised.
It may sound fucked up, but I was more relieved than anything.
They were together and I didn’t need to be bothered with her.
The mom she was to my sister, wasn’t the mom she was to me, but I would have taken care of her anyway.
” I shrug. It’s true. My mama was horrible to me.
She beat me, denied me food as punishment when I was young, broke my toys when she was mad at me, burned me with cigarettes, and even let one of the men she dated shoot me with a bb gun, but I still would have taken care of her.
“She was awful to you,” Kaya states, matter of fact.
“Yeah,” I mutter, my voice cracking.
Kaya lays across my chest hugging me, burying her face in my neck. “We may not know how to be parents yet, but at least we know how not to be.”
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me, tightly. We lay in silence for the next few minutes, until a knock comes to the door.
“Yeah?” I call out.
“Need to see you and Kaya in my office.” Ace says from beyond the door.
“Be there in a minute,” I call back.