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“Nope. Bet he wishes he was once he wakes up, though.”
She chewed her bottom lip. “Why?”
“Let’s just say an eye for an eye.”
She sank onto an empty chair across from me. “Jed didn’t start out hitting me.”
“Doesn’t matter, honey.”
“I guess not.”
“Anyone you want to call?” I asked, smacking the pack into my palm before sliding out another of the Marlboro Reds. Picking up my lighter, I lit the end, drawing the nicotine into my lungs.
“My sister Callie.”
“I reckon you don’t have a phone.”
She shook her head. “Too much money.”
“Bet he spent whatever he wanted.” Asshole. “Here.” I swiped across my cell as I pulled it from my jeans pocket. “Call your sister. Tell her where to find you.”
She didn’t hesitate to reach for the device, tapping in her sister’s number. I heard it ring twice before a sexy as fuck female voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Callie, it’s me.”
“Sadie!? Are you okay?”
“No, but I think I will be,” she managed to say before the tears began to fall.
I stood up, giving her a little privacy as I watched the road for red and blue lights. Once I had my phone call, I’d let Rook and the club know where I got locked up. Not much point in contacting my pres until then. Wasn’t shit they could do.
“So, Sadie,” I began, accepting my cell as she handed it over. “I can call you Sadie, right?”
“I think you earned the right,” she joked, wincing when the half smile on her lips tugged at the cut and bruising beginning to form around her mouth.
“Tell me you won’t be a man’s punching bag again.”
“No.” She touched the side of her swollen face. “That’s why I left him.” She stared at me with big brown, curious eyes, even if one of them couldn’t open more than a slit.
Nodding, I realized that was why I found her on the road. “My old man liked to solve problems with his fist,” I admitted, answering her unspoken question, “when I was strong and big enough, I learned to become better at it than he did.”
She swallowed hard. “You hit him back?”
“Only took one night to set him straight,” I mused aloud, taking a long hit from the cigarette. “He spent three months in rehab and never could walk right again after I busted his knees and ankles with a bat. Didn’t hurt my mamma again until I moved out.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. He got to her one night when I was out of town.”
“She’s gone?” Her eyes filled with tears, not for what she endured, but because of my loss.
“I couldn’t save her,” I choked, hating the memory.
Sadie’s breath sawed in and out of her chest as she shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I got justice,” I replied with finality. And that was the cold, hard truth. The reason I didn’t care if I spent time behind bars. I did it once to save a woman’s life and it seemed like a damn good reason to repeat the experience. My mother survived another ten years on this earth before the man who fathered me ended her life. At least I could say he didn’t breathe for long afterward.
