He stared at his ringed hands, at my name inked into the inside of his strong wrist. His other hand covered it up, as if it hurt him to bear witness to his love for me.
“Called home, tried to get Lou to help me understand where my little girl coulda been coming from. How she could be shunnin’ her family for a mother that don’t deserve the name, a man who’s taken Fallen blood, a Prez who wants your family dead. Shocked the shit outta me when Axe-Man took the phone from ’er and told me he’d seen ya at the ambush coupla weeks ago, stealin’ from your own goddamn family.”
No, God, no.
My skin felt like it was coming apart at the seams, like my stuffing was falling out, instinct driving me to plug the holes, sew myself shut by confessing to my father all I was doing for him, not against him.
But I couldn’t.
I’d been loved all my life by the greatest men I’d ever know.
A brother who beat up my bullies on the playground and stood up to our mother even when it meant going without food.
A father who treated me like a princess, placing me so high on a pedestal I was safe from harm, open to admiration and removed from the tragedies of reality.
And an entire battalion of brothers, uncles, and friends from The Fallen who enrobed me in a love so fine it felt like silk spun by fingers so rough from callous and stained by grease it only made the contrast more exceptional.
I don’t know how I went wrong, how I chose a love so black it consumed me in its inky folds before I could think to break free. But I chose it over them even before I knew there was a decision to be made between the two.
And even though that lover was gone, I was still sunk deep in that dark mire, battling to be free, to rejoin my family in light.
They said I was a thing of beauty, but all I’d ever caused was pain.
It wasn’t intentional, but did that really matter in the grand scheme of things?
The same men who had loved me so well all my life would hate me now, reeling against the reality I’d forced them to face.
That I was no longer a member of The Fallen family.
That I’d turned my back on everything I’d ever known in order to take up with the very MC that wanted my father killed, my pregnant step-mum raped and my clubhouse burned.
In their eyes, I was fucking a man named Wrath who used his infamous fury to pound in the faces of Fallen brothers caught unawares on dark roads and crowded highway bars. I was no longer the princess of The Fallen, but an old lady of a Berserker.
To make matters worse, if they knew the truth, they’d be horrified to learn I was also fucking a cop, working undercover for the men in blue my culture was founded on hating.
I was involved in a war, but on the wrong side of the battlefield, a turncoat of the highest order. And I knew with a certainty I felt in the pit of my gut, in the marrow of my bones and the tick of my heart, that I would never be accepted back home.
Words clogged my throat, hard and sharp as stones, but I remained quiet. I remained resolved.
“Always been proud of my little badass. God knows you caused ’nough trouble over your life to earn that label but I was a proud dad ’cause you were smart as fuck and twice as noble at your core.”
My lip curled under, wobbling precariously. This wasn’t a gift he was gearing up to give me, not after what I’d done, what he thought I’d chosen.
It was a condemnation.
An excommunication from the only religion I’d ever practiced.
Zeus Garro, President of The Fallen MC, stood before me, taller and broader and fiercer than any other man I’d ever known. I watched as that man transitioned like Jeckel into Hyde from my father to my Prez. The wet in his blade grey eyes froze over and his twisted, broken-hearted features smoothed out and hardened like battened down hatches. He stood to his tall, strong, dazzling height and walked a few heavy steps toward me in the open door. In those few seconds, he cut me out of his heart and closed himself off to me forever.
I choked on a monstrous sob but forced myself to look him in the eye as he delivered my fate.
“You’ve just proven to me, to everyone that ever thought there was good at the heart of all that bad, that they were fuckin’ wrong. You turned your back on your friends, on your fuckin’ family and you gotta know, Harleigh Rose, now we’ve turned our back on you. The home we kept open to ya even in your darkest, worst fuckin’ hour. It’s closed. If it’d’a been just me you fucked over, maybe I coulda let it pass ’cause fuck, you’re my kid, but you put Lou in danger and your fuckin’ unborn siblings and your goddamn brother. You think I can let that slide?”
He took a step away from me, just a small one but it felt like a million miles and he was already turning away from me when he landed the final punch. “You’re done. In The Fallen and as a fuckin’ Garro.”
The words hit me worse than Cricket ever had, so hard my bones seemed to splinter beneath my skin, my organs bruised from the force, my body swaying visibly backwards so I had to catch myself on my back foot.
Impulsively I reached out for my dad as he moved passed then flinched when he evaded my touch and walked through the door without once looking back.
I collapsed to my knees, my fist in my mouth to try to stem the awful force of my sobs as my body shuddered with agony. Giving up on containment, I sunk farther to the floor, so my wet cheek was plastered to the cool floor, the same floor that had seen Cricket’s blood, the same floor I’d nearly been raped on, the same floor that I laid against transformed again by tragedy, now orphaned and nameless.
I don’t know how long I lay there for, but it was long enough that my tears dried, my bleeding soul shriveled up like a drying husk, and I was numb to everything but the feel of that floor against my cheek.
He came for me.
I should have known he would, but thinking was too painful, so I hadn’t allowed myself to do it.
I heard the jingle of Hero’s tags and the simple sound brought tears to my eyes again because it reminded me that I did have some family left at least.
My man and his dog.
Hero appeared in front of my face, whining sharply, bumping my face with his wet nose then licking gently at my salt streaked face. I wanted to hug him, to wrap my aching body around his warm, soft one and bury my face in his fresh air scented fur, but I was too weak and wasted to move an inch.
“Rosie.”
There was so much pain in that one word, each syllable shaped like a gaping wound. His empathy soothed me. It reminded me that if anyone could understand my anguish, it was Lion.
He crouched beside Lion, only his worn Timberland boots visible to my eyes from where I lay. His hand found the damp hair in my face and pushed it back behind my ear, his fingers tracing the shell.
I didn’t move.
“No one could do this to you, but your father,” he noted softly, and when I hummed weakly in agreement, he punctuated his displeasure with a growl. “Fuckin’ bastard.”
“No,” I whispered through my swollen throat. “I wronged him.”
Danner sighed angrily then shifted, going to his belly on the ground beside me, displacing Hero so that he was lying face to face with me. His eyes were deep green pools, safe and still as lake water. His hand found my hair again and gently detangled the threads.
“You’re doing this for him, for your family. He doesn’t know that so maybe one day I can forgive him for gutting you like this. But you have got to remember it. You aren’t a victim here, Rosie, you aren’t letting life catch you up in this fierce fucking storm. You are the storm, this is your set up, these are your choices, and you’re strong so you’ll blow furious and true until you see this thing through. You’re no victim, rebel Rose, but you are a martyr. So, I’ll lie here with you as long as you need to absorb this blow, then we’re gonna get up and I’m gonna take you home. Tomorrow, we’re going to wake up together and face the day that way, side by side, every day from now until we break this case and then I’m going to be at your back again when you go up the mountain and let your family take you back.”