He taps on the glass, bends to peer through the window, and spots me. I open the door and step back. I can tell by the smile on his face that he’s ready for sex, certainly not a fight.
He glances back to lock the door, saying, “Hope you’re ready for me ’cause I’m gonna throw you over my shoulder and carry you to that bed, woman.” He turns around and Buddy runs to him, whining and jumping and wagging his tail a mile a minute. Sly drops his hand to scratch his ear. “Good boy.” Finally, his gaze lifts to take in my stone-cold expression, and he frowns. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
I hold up the paper. “This.”
His eyes on my face, he takes it slowly from me. His gaze drops to the paper and quickly scans it. “What the fuck?” His blazing glare flicks up to mine, and his brows shoot up. Sly’s voice has a hard edge to it when he bites out, “You think I wrote this?”
“Tell me. Did you kill him? Did you shoot my father in the head that night?”
“Are you fucking serious with this shit?”
“Tell me,” I snap.
“You know I didn’t.” He spits the words through snarling teeth.
I arch a brow. “Do I?”
Sly’s taken aback. “Don’t you? Maybe I fucking misjudged you.”
“Maybe I misjudged you!”
“You seriously think if I’m gonna threaten to kill a man, I’m gonna put it in writing?” His voice is deep and the volume has escalated. Buddy retreats under the kitchen table.
“What about this?” I hold up the picture of the glove.
He snatches it and studies it. “What is this?”
“Evidence. The report says it’s the glove my father was wearing when he pulled the trigger.”
“Why the hell was he wearing gloves?”
“Exactly. And why does this one have KC monogrammed on it? It’s Kings of Carnage, isn’t it? You wear black gloves. I’ve seen them.”
“Babe, you seriously think I wear gloves with monograms on them? Mine look nothing like this. This is a rich man’s glove, not biker gloves.”
“Just shut up. You’ve been lying to me right from the beginning, about all of it.” I don’t want to hear any more of his bullshit. The man could talk me into believing anything. I yank the envelope I’d prepared earlier from my back pocket and hold it out to him. “Here’s the rest of what I owe your damn club. It’s all there, every fucking penny. Now get out.” I point at the door.
Still as a statue, he just stares at me. “Babe, calm down and think this through. None of this makes sense.”
“It’s all making sense to me now. Get. Out.”
Sly’s jaw hardens and then he turns and pitches the envelope on the table. “Keep the goddamn money.” He storms out, slamming the door behind him. I don’t move an inch as his boots pound down the stairs, and then his bike thunders to life. He roars out of the alley and down the street. I listen to the sound as it drifts away until it’s silent again. Then I move to the kitchen table, fall into a chair, and with my face in my hands, I burst into tears. Buddy comes out and puts his paws on my lap, trying to tuck his head under my arm and reach his mouth to lick the side of my face.
I relent and scoop him up, holding him tight and rubbing my cheek against his head. The emotional pain that’s tearing me apart is crushing. My heart is breaking.
I so wanted to believe in Sly. I wanted to believe in the goodness I saw in him, the way his face lit up with his smile, the way he’d look at me with tenderness. A million images flash through my mind: his help with the broken sign and the Easter boxes; the way he held me at the cemetery and offered to take me away from here, anywhere I wanted to go; the way he sat at my grandfather’s table and gave him his word the club would give me no trouble.
I huff out a laugh. They’d already given us plenty of trouble, apparently.
I dash at my tears, pissed off at myself for wasting a single one on a man who probably killed my father. Maybe the evidence is circumstantial, but right now, all the pieces fit, and I’m no one’s idiot.
Twenty-Seven
Sly—
I roll up to my mother’s small house on the edge of town, coasting most of the way so I don’t disturb her neighbors. I park the bike and cross the low porch. The screen door is all that separates me from the scene inside. The television is tuned to the nightly news, and Ma’s asleep sitting up in the corner of the couch.
The hinges on the wooden frame creak as I enter. I shake my head; not even the hook on the door. I don’t know how many times I’ve told her to lock up. Maybe this neighborhood is relatively safe, but she shouldn’t count on it.
Her head is tilted; a crossword book lies limp in her hand.
I shake her shoulder gently. “Ma.”
She wakes, takes the glasses from her face, and straightens. “Hi, baby. How was your trip?”
“I’m too tired to tell you right now.” I sink into the couch, slump back, and rub my eyes.
“You just get in?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“You should have gone straight home and gone to sleep.”
I drop my hand and look over at her. “I promised you I’d fix that leak under the sink.”
She reaches over and pats the knee of my dirty jeans. “My problems can wait.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I guess I do.” She smiles. “When you were a child, you never let anybody help you with nothin’—whether it was buttoning your shirt or tying your shoes.”
Normally, I would laugh with her. I don’t and she notices.
“What’s wrong, Son?”
I shake my head.
“This looks like girl problems. You ain’t had ’em in a while, but I still know the signs.”
The corner of my mouth pulls up. It’s all the response I give her.
“Cullen’s daughter?”
I nod.
“So do I ask what’d she do or what’d you do?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Bullshit.”
I huff out a laugh. Direct as ever. God love her.
“Un-complicate it for me, then,” she pushes.
“You want it blunt—Michaela thinks I may have killed her father.”
“What?”
“I didn’t.”
“Of course you didn’t. But why would she think that?”
“She found something that points to the club, well … me, actually. It’s bullshit, but it’s got her questioning everything about me, about us.”
“So, set her straight.”
“I tried. She wouldn’t listen.”
“Give her time. She’ll come around.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“She has to, because it ain’t true, and none of that jives with the man you are inside. Surely, she’s seen who you really are by now, right?”
I shrug.
“Do you love this girl, Son?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Okay, yeah, I do. I thought I did. But I’m not the kind of man who wants a woman who’ll believe the worst in him.”