“Laius, why are you telling Ty this?” The concern in her eyes didn’t go unnoticed. She was worried I was giving him ideas, making it sound okay to murder your own dad, when he’d just tried to murder me.
“I want him to know I understand what he’s feeling, and if I were the man Delilah said I was, then maybe I deserved it, too.”
“Mom never said you touched little girls,” he said.
“But she said I always cheated on her because I never wanted her or you, and that I beat the crap out of both of you. She even went to the police, and I got in prison for it.”
“Don’t even think about denying it. I remember.”
“What? What do you remember?”
“She was beaten. Her face was all black and blue and her hip was broken. She had blood everywhere and she was screaming at you to let us go.”
“Did you see me do it? Did you see me beat her?”
He paused. “Who else could have done it?”
“Eugene Flores. Bandidos.”
“The MC?”
“Theirformerpresident.”
He snorted with an eye roll. “Why would he?”
“Listen, I never said anything to you because she’s your mama, and I know how much you love her. I met Delilah at one of our parties. She was…something. I liked her right away. We had a nice night, and she kept coming back. I had no intentions of having a wife, but that woman had her way with things. I’d give her that. She was so ambitious, and when I was voted president she never left. She loved the life, kept the sweetbutts in check, and I thought she’d be a good queen. We got hitched. She got pregnant. I was over the moon.
“Then, after you were born, things got weird. She wanted…more. She kept complaining that I wasn’t giving her enough money, and the other clubs were richer and their ol’ ladies were fancier. We started fighting, and then…”
“Then what?” he growled.
“Then she started to play my men against me to take my president patch away. She even tried to offer herself to one of them as a prize if he did it.”
“You’re one fucking son of a bitch. Don’t you dare say another word about my mom.”
“You think it’s fucking easy for me to say this shit? To you? Even to myself? I won’t tell you which man so you’ll ask around yourself and find out if I’m lying.”
“I will ask around just to prove you are.”
“After you do, FaceTime Delilah, or whatever app y’all use to talk to someone face to face. Mention the name Eugene Flores to her and see her reaction. By the way, she never knew I found out about the affair she had with him when my men refused to be a part of her game. She thought his club was stronger than us and he’d snatch her out to give her the life she deserved.
“He gave her a broken hip and a bruised face instead, which she pinned on me. She’d figured Flores was a lost cause, and she needed an out so she could find someone else to give her the life she wanted. She threw me in the slammer, ran away to Frisco and scored with McNamara, another fucker that beat her, but it doesn’t matter to her because she’s married to the mayor’s nephew.”
“You’re lying.”
“Well, do you have a phone on you?”
He stared at me, clenching his teeth, wheezing with rage. Then he dug his phone out of his pocket and stormed out.
Jo stood and walked slowly toward me. Then she sat next to me. “I’m sorry about what you had to go through with your father and your ex.”
“I don’t care about them. All I care about is you, baby girl. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Madeline. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done some serious stupid shit. When the Lanzas showed me the photo of you when you were a little girl, I felt so protective over you, like I’d felt for her. But when I fucked my hand in the cell, thinking about you, you didn’t have blond hair and blue eyes. I didn’t even know for sure you were her daughter until the end of thatvisit, when I’d already fallen for the hazel eyes and brown ponytail. You know that.”
“Then why did you keep it from me all this time?”
“Because, after what happened to Madeline, there wasn’t a day that I didn’t hate myself for letting her go.” Tears triumphed over me. “I couldn’t protect your mother, Jo. I wanted to prove to you and myself I could protect you first before I told you the truth.”
Crying with me, she nodded, and then she nestled in my arms. I held her tight, filling my nostrils with her scent. Then I kissed her tears on her eyelashes and her lips. “Forgive me?”
