Chapter Sixteen
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DAISY
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It’s been nearly a week since Preach said we would talk, and I still haven’t heard a word from him. Well, I’ve had enough. If he isn’t going to talk to me, I’m gonna talk to him. I know something is going on with the club. Cops have been searching all their properties and questioning members. Still, he could have taken the time to answer his phone when I called, or at least sent me a text.
Walking into the clubhouse, I see Timber and Reese over by the bar. Ice and Kidd are standing near the hallway, his arms wrapped around her and her face buried in his neck. After she was kidnapped, things changed between them. She quit fighting him. Now, it’s them against the world.
As I walk closer to the bar, I see Reese staring at them. His eyes are full of heartache. I swear his pain is almost palpable. It breaks my heart to see him hurting so much. I know that he truly loves Ice, but he couldn’t claim her while he was married to Roxy.
I’ve never really understood why Reese has stayed with that bitch so long. I know that it has something to do with Pebbles. The daughter they share just happens to have red hair, bright green eyes, and too many freckles to count, which seems a little odd, considering both Reese and Roxy have dark hair and dark eyes. In fact, Reese has a mixture of Native American and Polynesian blood. I could be wrong, but I doubt he could ever produce a red headed and green-eyed child. That doesn’t matter to him, though. Pebbles is his daughter. Even though Pebbles is nearly grown now, he thinks he has to put up with Roxy’s crap.
I guess none of that really matters now. He made his decision, so it’s too late to change things. Kidd has made his claim, and Reese has missed his chance to claim the woman he truly loves. He’s stuck with a bitch and has lost Ice forever. It’s sad, heartbreaking really.
“Hey guys,” I say, smiling as I walk over to Reese and Timber.
“Hey, Little Flower,” Timber says, bringing me into his side. He places a whisper of a kiss on my jaw line that causes a spark of excitement to flow through my body. He may not be Preach, but he is still sexy as hell.
“You guys see Preach?” I ask, pulling away from Timber.
They share a look, one I don’t like. My eyes narrow, “What?”
Reese clears his throat. “I don’t think you want to know the answer to that question, Daisy.”
“I really need to talk him, so yeah, I kinda do,” I say, getting impatient.
“I’ll take you, but don’t blame me if you don’t like what you see,” Timber says as he climbs from the barstool.
Reese just shakes his head and looks at me with pity. “Don’t run off without talking to me. I got a few things I need to say to you.”
Something in his tone worries me. I know whatever Preach is doing is going to piss me off, but I can tell it’s more than that. I can’t stop myself from wondering what in the hell is going on.
I follow Timber down the hall to Preach’s room. He opens the door without knocking. When I step inside, my stomach starts to roll. The smell of puke and sweat assaults me as I look around. Preach is lying on the bed, naked as the day he was born. There’s an empty bottle of Jack beside his head, and dried vomit is pooled on the floor.
Tears slip down my face as I instinctively take a step back. “What the hell happened to him?”
Timber grabs my hand and leads me back into the hallway. I try to pull away, wanting to get back to Preach. “Someone has to help him.”
He shakes his head. “No one can help him until he decides to help himself.”
I’ve been around my dad enough to know Timber’s right, but I have to fight every instinct I have to keep from running back in the room. “What if he never does? What if he ends up just like Dad?”
“He’s not worth it, Little Flower. I’m not sure what demons he’s trying to drown away, but you do deserve better than what he can give you.”
I don’t need Timber voicing my own thoughts, so instead of replying, I turn away and walk down the hall. Before I reach the door, Reese grabs my arm. He wraps his arms around me and walks me out to my car. “I know he’s fucked up right now, but you still need to find a way to let him know you’re pregnant. If you don’t do it soon, someone else is going to tell him.”
I freeze at his words. “What?” I breathe out. “How did you find out?”
“Daisy, I’ve known you since you were just a kid. You’ve been off lately, nothing like your normal self. It’s obvious that you’re losing weight. I heard a few of the girls from The Kitty Kat say that you’ve had to call in sick a time or two, which you’ve never done before. Skittles even mentioned that you’re always tired and so dizzy that you can’t even get on the stage anymore. I just put it all together.”
I can feel the tears falling down my face as his words start to hit home. “How many people know?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but you know how those bitches are at The Kitty Kat. Sooner or later, one of them is going figure it out. When they do, that shit will be spread far and wide. You need to tell him before that happens.”
I can’t control the sob that makes its way out of my throat. Hearing my pain, Reese pulls me into him. He wraps his arms around me and does his best to console me. “He loves you, Daisy. I can see it in his eyes, but he’s got something eating at him. Been there since the day I met him and it just keeps getting worse and worse. You need to decide if his love is enough. If not, you need to scrape his ass off.”
No matter what, we will share a child for the rest of our lives. How do you just walk away from that? “I’m not sure I can just scrape off the father of my child.”
Not sure that I could even if I wasn’t pregnant, I don’t think you can turn your back on someone you love.
Squeezing me tightly, he agrees, “Nope, I don’t guess you can.”
After a few more tears, I pull away from Reese. “I’ll talk to him later, but for now, I gotta get out of here.”
Placing a kiss on my forehead, Reese shoots me a smile. “If you need anything, I’m always here.”
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PREACH
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“We need to talk in your office,” I say to Kidd as I look around the room and see Reese and Timber. “Its probably better if you bring them in too.”
Waking up in puddle of my own puke for the third day in a row is enough. I can’t keep doing this shit. Everything changed for me when I had to clean up the mess I made at the warehouse. I killed a woman. She was a fuckin’ bitch, but she was still a woman. It brought everything back up for me. All the times I saw Father beat me, the times he beat Tabby and I couldn’t do shit to stop it, and even the few times he took the strap to my mother. Lessons is what he called it, but to me, it was just beatings. I can’t take the chance of doing the same thing to the woman I love.
Every time I think about seeing Daisy, I imagine her with a black eye or busted lip. She may say I didn’t hit her, but Lula says the opposite. Lula may be a lying bitch, but what if this is the one time she’s telling the truth. I can’t do to her what he did to us.
I walk toward Kidd’s office, listening to their footsteps as they follow me. My heart is pounding so hard, it feels like it’s gonna jump out my chest. For the first time in years, I feel true fear. I’m not a pussy. I can take a beating, but the thought of losing my brothers and Daisy at the same time scares the hell out of me.
I’m the first one through the door. Reese is the last, slamming it as he walks in. He looks at me, eyes narrowed. “What the fuck do you need to talk to us about? Cause I got to tell you, man. Right now, I don’t really want to hear anything you got to say.”
I ignore him and make my way to the back wall. I lean my head back against it and close my eyes. I knew the boys were getting tired of my shit, but my guess would be that they’ve now had enough of it. “I fucked up, fucked up bad.”
I feel the tension in the air before Kidd starts to speak. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Ignoring the warning in my head, I press on. “I think I may have hit Daisy.”
“You fuckin’ bastard,” Timber shouts, storming toward me. “How could you do that shit?”
“I don’t know, man. To be honest, I don’t even remember it. If it wasn’t for Lula, I would’ve never known.”
Timber doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s too consumed with rage. Before I can even blink, his fist is flying toward my face. The force nearly sends me crashing to the floor. The second punch does. I don’t even get a chance to defend myself before Reese is pulling Timber away. “Calm the fuck down.”
“He hit Daisy. He fuckin’ hit her. She’s half his damn size. One punch could have killed her,” he shouts, trying to break free of Reese’s hold.
“You need to listen, man. He didn’t say he hit her. He said he thinks he did,” Reese says, struggling for control.
Timber looks at me, pure hate flashing through his eyes. “You better fuckin’ hope you didn’t. If I find out you did, I’ll put a bullet in your damn head.”
I don’t respond because there isn’t anything I can say. If I hurt her, I deserve whatever the hell happens to me. I push myself off the floor and do my best to prepare for what’s coming. Instead of another punch, Kidd steps in between us.
“Nobody is dying just yet. Let’s figure out what happened first,” he growls out, his own anger obvious.
Timber ignores him. “You stay the fuck away from Daisy. From this moment on, she’s mine. I’m claiming her.”
His words hit me like a kick to the chest. Before I can reply, Reese starts to laugh. “Brother, there’s no way you can claim Daisy. You told me yourself that she was a hot piece, but you weren’t going there because you still think of her as that gap toothed little kid that used to run around in pig-tails.”
Timber sneers at me. “I figure that as soon as I get between her legs, all thoughts of those pig-tails will fade away.”
“Motherfucker!” I shout out as I rush past Kidd and send my fist into Timber’s face.
This time, Kidd and Reese let us go at it. I’m not sure how long we trade punches, but by the time we are done, both of us are covered in blood. “I’ll stay away from her if that’s what you all want, but I don’t want you claiming her, not just to protect her from me. Daisy deserves someone that really loves her.”
Kidd steps toward us, shaking his head. “Before you start saying shit you don’t mean, why don’t we figure out what the fuck is going on.”
I shrug. “I told you, man. I don’t know what went down. If it wasn’t for Lula, I would’ve never known I’d even seen her that night. That’s why I’m coming to you. I got to know the truth. This wondering is fuckin’ killing me.”
“What did that bitch say happened?” Kidd asks, sounding confused as hell.
Running my hand through my hair, I replay my conversation with Holt and Wayne and what they said Lula told them. Then, I let him know about the shit she said to me. I also tell him Daisy’s claims of an accident, but her words sound weak coming from my lips.
“Why the fuck didn’t you come to me?” he shouts.
I lean forward, placing my head in my hands. “The Renegade Sons is my life. I couldn’t lose the club. We all know how you feel about shit like this. If Lula’s telling the truth, I’ll be an outcast.”
“You wouldn’t have lost the club, dumbass. Sure, you would’ve taken a beating, but you would still be a Renegade Son when it was over. If it happened again, you wouldn’t have just lost your cut; you would have lost your life.”
I jerk my eyes up to Kidd, shocked at his words. “You told me any violence against a woman meant losing my cut.”
He nods. “I meant it when I said it. If I had seen you do it, or Daisy had come to me, I would’ve took your cut away, not even called for a vote, but neither of those things happened.”
“We need to find out what did happen. If you hit her, I’m gonna call a vote my damn self. Kidd may be the Pres, but the brothers have the right to decide if it’s a beating or your cut. Daisy’s not just someone off the street. She’s a Renegade by blood,” Reese says.
Kidd’s eyes jerk toward him “That’s not your call.”
Reese places his palm over his VP patch. “When you gave me this, you made it my call. You told me it’s my duty to not only keep the boys in line, but your ass too. This isn’t a decision for you to make on your own. You owe it to the brothers, especially Daisy’s family, to help decide his fate.”
Kidd’s eyes narrow, his body growing taut. “You saying I’m not doing right by my brothers?”
Reese shakes his head. “I’m not saying shit, other than this should be a club decision.”
“All this talk is for shit, unless we find out what really happened. As much as I hate the bastard right now, I don’t feel right calling a vote until we know the truth. If this is another one of Lula’s lies, then Preach didn’t do shit for us to even be discussing,” Timber interrupts, surprisingly still having my back.
“Well, what the fuck are you waiting for then? Get your ass out there and find out the fuckin’ truth. After that, we’ll decide on what has to be done,” Kidd barks out after shooting another glare in Reese’s direction.