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The blame I felt in those moments didn’t lift. I couldn’t bring myself to mount my bike and go to the hospital. I sat there on the porch, feeling this numbness that coated every blood vessel in my veins.
It was Ivy saying “Dad” softly that pulled me back to the moment. I could see the tears in my daughter’s eyes, and I knew she’d blame me for losing her sister. Fuck. I felt the family I had, the life I had, my purpose for not letting the club or the road take my life, shattering.
With tears in her eyes, Ivy said she had to tell me something, but it was the blame written across her face that seemed to break me even more. Then she swallowed nervously. Ivy placed the letter on my lap—Holly’s suicide letter. I wanted to rip it up, but Ivy said I had to read it because she had made a promise to Holly that Holly would be the one to tell me.
I had no idea what she was talking about. Opening the letter, I saw another note inside it with one word across the folded piece of paper.Dad.
Ivy was repeatedly saying how sorry she was as I unfolded it. I could see the teardrops on the piece of paper. Holly’s tears had stained the letter.
I could feel her pain as I read how much she loved me, but three words changed everything at the end of the letter.
West raped me.
I felt the colour drain from my face. Ivy kept saying if she had known Holly would try to take her life, she wouldn’t have promised to keep it a secret from me.
It was then that I took off on my bike with Ivy screaming how sorry she was as I pulled away.
I revved through the gears so fast that I knew my bike would need a new motor. I flogged it, but I didn’t fucking regret it. The price of a new engine was nothing compared to my daughter’s life.
I got to the hospital and found police and security surrounding the waiting room. They stiffened when they saw me. They thought they only had to deal with Kobra, who had a temper and a habit of throwing things. The boy got that from me.
I walked in, and Zara, the woman who gave me purpose and life to my children, was sitting in a plastic chair. Tears spilled from her eyes. One of my real weaknesses that always got under my skin was seeing a woman or girl crying. When I lowered in front of Zara, she wouldn’t look at me. That was when it hit me. My world was shattering. I always knew what I had was too good for the likes of me.
Expecting Zara to push me away, she wrapped her arms around my neck instead as she cried and pleaded with me to do something to save our baby girl.
I never believed in a higher power, but I prayed. I fucking prayed like a desperate man as I held my shaking wife in my arms, pleading with me not to let her go. I prayed, over and over—Don’t take my daughter. Don’t let her go into the light.She was our light, the light of our entire family. Without her, the darkness would suffocate us.
Kobra didn’t stop pacing, saying fuck every couple of minutes. I think the boy only sat down for a few minutes. I saw him breaking, just like the rest of us, and ended up forcing him to sit down when Zara left to go to the toilet.
That was when I saw my son, a man with my eyes and my strength, break. Kobra went on that it was his fault. He knew she wasn’t well. He knew like the rest of us that her depression was always bad. Said he roared at her yesterday when she was in the kitchen. Said it was the first time he had seen her since it happened with West. Said he was angry that she would betray our trust like that and sleep with him behind our back. How could she have a secret relationship behind our back! He kept saying these things over and over.
It made my stomach tighten, but I didn’t say anything. I just listened
Then, as tears ran down Kobra’s cheeks, he turned his head to look at me. Fuck, it was like staring in a mirror. His words still floated in my mind—I told her, Dad, that I never wanted to see her again. He repeated it again and then followed with a sentence that seemed to push him to the brink—I fucking did this. I knew she was fragile, and I pushed her. I—
It was at this point that I gripped his neck, pulling him into me. As he cried, I told him it wasn’t his doing. I made him look me in the eyes, and I told him, I fucking promised him, that this wasn’t his doing.
As soon as Zara walked back in, Kobra pushed himself out of the chair and went back to pacing as he wiped his eyes clear. Just like me, he never wanted the girls to see his weakness. He always wanted to be their strength.
A trembling Ivy arrived within an hour. Seeing the pain on her face suffocated my anger with her. I understood why she did it. She and Holly had a strong bond. She couldn’t have known Holly would do this.
So I hugged her. I had Ivy crying under one arm, and Zara curled into my other side. The sun slowly set. It was dark when the doctors came in.
My heart, my world, our world, paused as they approached us. I had to stand up, gripping Kobra’s arm when I saw the six police officers behind them. A sickness fucking flooded me.
That was when the doctors said the words we were waiting to hear. She survived. But I couldn’t believe it, not until we walked into her hospital room. There was my angel, laying in a hospital bed, still sickly pale but breathing on her own. I pulled up a chair beside her. As a family, we were reminded just how fragile Holly was, and we were never going to forget that.
As I held her hand, I spoke to my family.
The question continuously rolling through my fucking head wasHow did I not see it? Kobra’s shocked face matched mine, and the rage that followed was also like mine. I had to tell him not to do it as I gripped him by the shoulder.
I knew what he was thinking. Do something fucking stupid, get arrested, end up in prison and kill West, maybe get a life sentence. I knew because I had already thought of it too.
But this family needed to stay whole.
“We do this smart,” I said. During the hours I had spent in the waiting room, holding my wife and daughter as we waited to hear if Holly lived, well, I knew how this was going to play out. I locked eyes with Kobra.
Kobra was furious because West was now doing a four-year sentence. But that’s when I told Kobra we had four years to make sure that when he got out, everything that kept him breathing was gone. I then made the vow to my son in front of my family. I would ruin West Brooks.
