“My wife could have been fucking hit!”
“If the little girl can’t care for herself, that’s her problem. Something I always told your mom.”
“The mother you killed.”
Dwayne smiled. “I was framed for that. We were trying to get the insurance money for the house. I didn’t know the dumb bitch had fallen asleep. She should’ve laid off the smack.”
Insurance for the house Ruby had rented. This dumbass was rewriting history, but he wasn’t going to argue with him.
“Is that what those prick bikers told you about me, huh? Never forget you’re my son, not his. That bitch Ruby stole you and wouldn’t even let you visit me.”
His verbal abuse went on. Seb hadn’t known he could hate someone he didn’t know, but the loathing burned alive in his gut.
“You’re just like me, boy,” Dwayne sneered, opening a third bottle. He walked to the window, peeping out from behind the blinds, then sat down again.
“I’m nothing like you.”
“The way you annihilated that little girl on the phone was stone-cold and vicious. Just like me, no relationship ever stuck with me, either. I like to be free.” He toasted Seb.
When the feeling came back in his hands and arms, Seb said nothing. Allowing Dwayne to continue with his one-person bloated show, showing off how he’d tricked Seb for months.
“The way I see it, those bikers stole my fucking life and my son. They owe me.”
“What do you want? A check or a wire transfer? My Prez will get right on that.” Snarked Seb, curling his lip.
Dwayne found him hilarious. “You got my fighting spirit, that’s for damn sure. Once we wash the bikers off you and you start your new life with me, you’ll be set, son.”
“Is that how you see this going?” he had to ask as his legs loosened up. No matter that he wasn’t in full health, he had to do something about Dwayne soon.
Several hours went by. Once more, Dwayne brought out a needle and stuck his thigh with a sedative, checking Seb out of consciousness for however long. When he roused, Dwayne was still there, drinking and reminiscing about a life Seb didn’t remember.
“You were a whiny little shit,” he laughed. “Gave you a few bats around the head, didn’t do you any harm. Kids need to be put in their place. Your mom was useless with that. Now I gotta knock the biker out of you, get you out of that fucking gear. We can burn the jacket. See about changing your surname back to mine.”
Over Seb’s dead body. He blinked away the fog and felt clarity returning to his brain as the light outside the window changed, showing the time that had passed.
Sunny must be going crazy, and his heart bumped harder.
She was his motivation for fixing the situation.
Dwayne’s drunken tirade against the Souls, Ruby, and Seb fueled his plan for retaliation.
Dwayne’s first mistake was not tying Seb up. He was counting on the sedatives to keep him incapacitated long enough to agree with the madman. Seb abandoned any thoughts of escape when Dwayne leveled a handgun at him, placing it on the bed.
“You think I can’t read your mind, boy? It’s not nice to think about leaving when I’ve waited to be around my kid again. Don’t be stupid, yeah? Not when I’m sitting here proud as fuck as a father could be for the man you’ve become.”
“What do you think you’re gonna get from this?”
“It’s already happening. Spending time with you.”
“I don’t know you,” Seb told him. “You don’t know me. The last time you saw me, I was four years old, being pulled out of a house fire.”
“You got my blood in them veins, boy.” Dwayne’s face twisted angrily. “You can’t scrub that away so easily just by sliding on a leather jacket and someone else’s name.”
Seb hated having any connection to him, but he didn’t deny it. His bloodline didn’t determine him. His upbringing, shaped by parental love and his environment, defined him. Not the jerk in front of him.
“So what? Do we play a little ball? Work on an engine together? Then what? You shake me down for some cash?”
Dwayne sneered. “Why? You got some?”
