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“Not at all,” I said, giving him a smile, “but they're stuck with me now.”
He gave me a spine-tingling grin. “You guys involved with all the bombings?”
“All?” the three of us echoed at the same time, making Paine's brows go up.
“Yeah. Lex's, Hailstorm, the Henchmen compound, even Chaz's,” he said, naming off the Mallick family's bar.
Shooter and Breaker shared a look. “Don't know what the fuck is going on around here,” Breaker said honestly. Because while we did know about Janie's part in Lex's house going up in smoke... the rest... yeah that made no sense. “But we have to get out before people start asking questions.”
Paine nodded. “Keep in touch?”
“Yeah. We'll want to know the lowdown as info starts trickling onto the streets,” Breaker said. “Don't go asking for shit and make yourself suspicious, but keep your ears open for us. I'll call you on a new burner soon as we get somewhere.”
“Sounds good,” Pain nodded, clamping a hand on Breaker's shoulder in a show of badass masculine affection. “Take care of yourselves.”Forty minutes later, we were parked outside of Breaker's. And then we all were heading in. I wanted a change of clothes, Breaker wanted to gather supplies, and Shooter wanted to get a drink.
So, all packed up we drove to the motel. I got my stuff out of my room seeing as I still had the key on me. And I walked out to see both Breaker and Shooter scaring the piss out of Creepy Bob. And I mean that literally. He peed himself. Which might have been funny, but the fact of the matter was, just witnessing them being all badass and scary... well... I was close to wetting myself too.
No joke.
They were terrifying.
“Right,” Breaker said, jerking his head at me, “let's go.”
The car was dead silent for a long time, each of us staring off out the windows, lost in our own thoughts.
Finally, about an hour into the drive, the darkest part of night almost behind us already, I turned slightly in my seat so I was fully facing Breaker and asked him the one thing that had been nagging at me since he had said it.
“Why did you tell Lex I was his daughter?”
I felt Shooter's face snap to me, but ignored him.
“Doll...” Breaker said, his tone implying that I was asking something stupid.
“No. Seriously. I want to know.”
“First, you told me yourself what your mom went through at Lex's hands. How she finally got away to raise you. How terrified she was of someone getting their hands on you. How she killed herself when she saw Lex again so she could protect you both. And, I mean... you look alike. And...”
“And?” I prompted, feeling my heart skip around wildly.
“And your names, doll. His name is Lex. Your name is Alex.”
Holy. Shit.
I never... Jesus Christ... I never even thought of that before. That was weird. But still...
“He's not my father, Breaker,” I said quietly.
To this, his head turned fully to me, his light eyes boring into me, sending shivers down my spine. But, well, the good kind. The kind that kinda made me want to tell him to turn back around so we could pay by the hour at the sleep-and-fuck motel.
“What?”
“He's not my father.”
“You can't know that,” he insisted, barely giving the road a glance as he watched me.
“I do. I know that,” I insisted. “Remember when I said my mom went to the hospital that night and she found a detective who helped her get away?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I mean... I never got confirmation because it was a touchy subject for my mom,” I said, thinking about the time I was seven and asked about my daddy because everyone else talked about theirs and I didn't have one and I was curious. She cried all night asking why she wasn't enough for me. I felt so guilty, I never asked again. But as I got older, I started to see things. “He never stopped coming around. As I was growing up, he always stopped by. Sometimes dropping off groceries because he knew Mom was going through a bad spell. Sometimes he just came by for dinner. Once, he dropped by on Christmas morning. He brought me a pink stuffed piggy. Then he left. Weird things like that. Things that didn't mean anything to me when I was little, but as I got older... it started to make sense. I looked like him, Breaker. Not Lex. I have his same hair. His long legs. His earlobes. And, I mean... his investigative drive,” I said on a small, private smile.
I didn't think about him often. He was a fuzzy childhood memory that made me sad if I really mulled it over.
“Why didn't you ever ask him, honey?” Shooter asked, his voice soft, sounding like he genuinely wanted to know.
I felt myself shrug. “He always looked at me like it hurt him to do so,” I said, cringing at the memory. “And then when I was ten... he was gone.”
“Gone?” Shoot prompted.
“Mom wouldn't tell me. She just said he was gone. When I was a little older, I looked him up in computer class. He died. Heart attack. His obituary said he was survived by his wife and two sons.”
“Aw, sweetheart,” Shoot said, resting his hand over mine.
“It's no big deal,” I said, shaking my head. “But you... you really thought Lex was my dad? Why didn't you say something about it earlier?”
“Didn't seem like a subject you'd want to talk about,” Breaker shrugged. “How do you explain the name thing though, doll?” he persisted.
“Honestly? I don't know. Mom was weird like that. Maybe she thought it would be... empowering? To use something ugly and make it something...”
“Beautiful,” Breaker supplied and I felt the word settle with a fluttering in my belly.
“I guess,” I said, ducking my head to cover the heat I felt in my cheeks.
“Hey why don't we... call it a night?” Shooter cut in, sitting back. “It's late. We've all had a shit week. We're far enough out of town now that we won't be suspicious. So long as no one gets a look at her face,” he said, wincing slightly as he looked at me.
