That made sense. "Got it. You know where I'll be if you need me."
As soon as we hung up I hollered across to Frenchie. He was paying attention now, but that didn't excuse his earlier behavior. "Might as well take off. I'm sticking around. And the next time I see your fucking nose in your phone when you're on guard duty, you'll feel my fist at the end of it."
He opened his mouth to defend himself, and then thought better of it. He may have been in LD's clubhouse, but he answered to any officer that outranked him. He was older than most prospects. I'd found out that he'd done a stretch in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, and he'd been a sniper in the army. Bull knew him from way back, and was backing him to become a member.
He acknowledged me with a chin lift and started his bike. It was a good sign that he could take orders without bitching about it. I turned to go back inside the house. My gaze lit on Holly as soon as I walked through the door. She was just coming out of the bedroom with her phone in her hands.
"I need to call Annabelle to see if she can sit for me tonight."
I raised a questioning brow.
"I work at Grinders."
Oh. If she’d already told me that, I'd forgotten. I had other things on my mind, specifically the talk we needed to have. I'd gone back and forth about wanting to tell her, but had made a decision. "Wait and call her later. Sit down, Babe."
Immediate worry filled her eyes as the sound of my voice sent warning bells through her. When she started to pull out one of the chairs situated around the small dining table, I shook my head and motioned toward the living area.
"Get comfortable." This wasn't going to be a five-minute talk.
"What's wrong?" There was no disguising the slight panic in her voice. She sank down onto the sofa. "You're scaring me." Her lips trembled with a small, nervous smile.
I sat opposite her in the chair, close to the edge with my knees spread and my clasped hands between them. I took a deep breath. Where the hell did I begin? Because once the words left my mouth, I wouldn't be able to take them back, and Holly would know my humiliation. I thought about Ava, sleeping in her crib. This was for her, too.
"Sax, what is it?"
God, I loved this woman. I needed to be strong for her, yet my gut was churning with the acidic bile that wanted to come up my throat. I could tell that Holly wanted to say more, but something stopped her. Maybe she sensed that I needed time.
I took another deep breath and released it.
"I'm going to tell you a story." I clenched my jaw, searching for the strength I'd need to get through it. "All I ask is that you remain silent until I'm done, or I won't be able to finish."
She nodded, and I could see her throat work as she swallowed.
I decided to begin by ripping off the Band-Aid.
"The first time my father raped me I was seven."
Holly gasped sharply, her beautiful face morphing into a mask of absolute disbelief and horror. When her mouth dropped, I shook my head to warn her not to speak. I'd get up and leave the room if she did that. She snapped her mouth shut, but I could tell that what I'd said was tearing her apart. Tears came instantly to her eyes, but she didn't let them fall.
I looked down to the floor, so many fucking emotions running through me. Shame. Anger. Disgust. I swallowed hard, determined to go on.
"I had a baby sister, Stephanie. She was a couple of years younger than me. She was Daddy's little girl. He adored her. Even at my young age, I knew that he had a different kind of love for her than he did for me. He treated her differently. Always brought her toys home from work, spent more time with her, loved her more. It was obvious, but it didn't matter to me. I loved her just as much. I thought that was the way all daddies were with their little girls, because something made them special.
“He'd treated me differently, even before Stephanie came along. He was cold with me, rigid, said I had to be raised with a tough hand if I wanted to grow up to become a man. He rarely sought me out when he came home from work or touched me affectionately. He pushed me away, and punished me for the same things he let Stephanie get away with. I asked my mom one day why he didn't love me as much as Stephanie, and she laughed it off and said that he did, he just didn't know how to show it. To a little boy, that didn’t make any sense. But after a while, I got used to his indifference. Stopped seeking his attention and affection. I started school and made friends there."
I paused and took a deep breath.
I couldn't look at Holly.
"I was in second grade when Stephanie drowned."
I heard Holly’s shocked gasp.
"We were at a birthday party for one of my friends. They lived on a lake. Parents were there, there were kids all over the place. No one realized Stephanie was gone until it was too late." I finally glanced up at Holly to see that she was silently falling apart. "That night was the first time he raped me. Said it was punishment for causing Stephanie's death. He'd told me to look out for her, and I'd failed. He was beside himself with grief when they found her body. Inconsolable. And then later, when we were at home and it was dark, he came to my bedroom crying and said it should have been me that drowned."
With a cry, Holly left the sofa and fell to her knees in front of me, laying her cheek against my knee. I hadn’t realized that I was shaking until then. That my eyes were wet. I put my hand on her hair, smoothing over the softness.
"Every birthday, every anniversary of her death, every kid's holiday, he'd come to my room drunk and beat me with his belt. It always ended the same way." I breathed in deep for control. "There were times he'd just come to my room, drunk and crying over her. Said I was never going to forget it was my fault that she was dead. That if there was a god, one day I would learn how it felt."
I stopped, leaned back in the chair, and closed my eyes on a long sigh. I felt sick to my stomach, and could feel my heart pounding. The attacks hadn't stopped until I got big enough to protect myself. I'd nearly killed him the last time he’d come to my room, drunk and stumbling, with his belt in his hands and his pants already opened. I'd packed up my shit and left shortly after that, and had never returned.
"Your mom—"
"Never knew." I'd made sure of that. Even after she and my old man had divorced, I’d never told her what he'd done to me. What good would it have done?
"Oh, Sax," Holly sobbed brokenly. I was relieved there was no pity in her tone, just teary sadness for a little boy that had been dealt a shitty hand. "I'm so sorry you went through that! I wish I could undo it all for you."
"Don't," I said sharply.
"I hurt for you. I feel sad for the little boy who only wanted acceptance and love from his father." Her tears left a wet spot on my pants leg where she rested her cheek. "This is why you don't want kids? Because of what your father did?"
I looked down to see Holly gazing up at me, her face ravished by tears. "I used to think so," I admitted. Being beaten and abused by my own father for years had cemented the idea that I would turn into a monster just like him. Fear, disgust, shame were powerful tools in shaping someone's moral fiber. After a while, I'd convinced myself that I would do the same thing to my children that he had done to me. But as I’d grown older and wiser, I’d realized that I wasn't my father. That I could never be like him.