Released(Devil's Blaze MC 3)(57)

My hand wraps up into a fist and I lean over the table to be closer to him, to study his face.

“I see I have your attention. Would you like to hear how I learned twenty years after it was done that I had not one daughter but two, Skull?”

Hijo de puta.





“What the fuck kind of game are you playing?” Torch growls. I’m with him except, looking into the son of a bitch’s eyes, I don’t think he’s playing. He’s deadly serious. Christo!

“It is no game, son. It’s a story of a mother and child working together to destroy an old man with stars in his eyes. Lilly was younger. Much closer to Viper’s age than mine. I shouldn’t have touched her, but I couldn’t resist. Her father was in debt to the club for gambling. His choice to pay the money was offering Lilly. Sweet beautiful Lilly, who was innocent… fresh, pure, white snow. I was instantly captured by her and couldn’t bear the thought of not having her near me. I forced her into my bed, kept her there, even though she hated the idea of being with a man who was with another woman. A dreamer, my Lilly, despite her circumstances. She would beg me for freedom, even as she craved the love I gave her. At times, I think she hated herself and me, but she never turned me away.”

The old man is telling his story, looking out across the room. I think he’s swamped by ghosts of the past and not even aware what all he is revealing. Or maybe he is, because each word is laced with regret.

“The club had some trouble in Florida. I was sending my second because I couldn’t imagine being away from Lilly for a week. I was a stupid fool. We had a fight, which again ended in her begging me to set her free. I told her I’d claim her before the club. Fuck, they all knew she was mine. But she didn’t like the life. She didn’t like that she was sold to the club. So much she didn’t like… She begged me to leave and start over with her… My Lilly was a dreamer and I was fucking tired of going in circles. I thought being gone a week would give her a chance to see what I knew. She was mine… When I came back, Lilly was gone, and so was Fox, a member of the club. She left a note telling me she never loved me and that she was using me just to get her freedom, and since I wouldn’t give that to her, she found someone who would.”

He sighs. When his eyes return to me, I can see the agony this caused him. Mierda! Is this what I am doomed to? To grieve a woman even twenty years later?

“I thought to hunt them down,” he begins again with a sad half-smile that speaks of pain and even more regret. “But then she left me, and it was done. I gave her the freedom she wanted—or at least I thought I did.”

“If this is true, then how the fuck did Katie and Beth end up in the fucking hands of the Donahues, and why are they in such a fucking spin to get them back?” Torch asks, taking a seat beside me. I just sit and listen, instinctively knowing whatever the fuck this Tucker tells me is going to solve a lot of my questions.

“My son and my bitch of a wife, may she be rotting in hell, sold Lilly to Redmond while I was gone. Then they set about covering their tracks and killing one of my men, just to add to their fucking bed of lies,” the old man says bitterly.

“How do you know the girls are yours and not Redmond’s?”

“My son is an imbecile. He records everything in a fucking journal like a moron. Imagine my surprise when one of the club girls brought it to me. When I confronted him, the bastard showed the first real sign of balls by not denying it to me. He even enjoyed telling me how Redmond thought the girls were his and forced his wife to claim the children publically so he would have heirs to the throne in the family.”

“So that’s why you have that cut on?” Torch asks, looking at the president tag.

“It is.”

“Why the fuck is he still breathing?” I ask, because there’s no way the son of a bitch would have been taking clean air if it had been me.

Tucker rubs his hand along his jaw, while he considers his answer. “I’ve asked myself that. It’s not quite so easy, brother, when it’s your own blood staring back at you.”

His answer stinks of weakness. If Beth’s safety was in question, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill. But with Beth gone… maybe he’s right. I focus on Gabby. The thought would be chilling. Could I do it?

“Is that the point of this meeting? Do you want us to finish what you couldn’t? ‘Cause I got to tell you, esé, I’ve got zero interest in cleaning up your messes. Got enough fucking pots on the fire as it is.”

“I want to meet my daughters.”

“Not happening.”