"It took a couple years but the MC bought the bar. Lu wasn't starvin' for money and he financed us buyin' an auto parts store." He lifted a shoulder like the conclusion was inevitable. "That didn't help the situation out."
"I bet."
"Just the way shit is."
I tried to process everything he'd explained. Why the Reapers hated the Widowmakers. Why they'd be such jackasses. But there was one thing about his explanation that didn't make any sense.
"Why did they let my dad borrow money if he was a Widow?" Right?
Dex slid a piece of pancake between his lips, his dark blue eyes hooded. "No clue, babe. Maybe they were expectin' him not to pay up. Who knows."
Well, shoot. That didn't add up but it wasn't like I could hound Dex for an answer he didn't have.
“I just don't get it, I guess. Neither one of us is close to him," I didn't need to be specific about who him was. "He won't give a crap about either one of us paying for his mistake.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, disappointment and sadness pierced my belly.
It was the truth. The awful truth. Curt Taylor wouldn't give a shit about his son getting beaten up. Getting a freaking concussion and left behind at a freaking park. Alone. Unconscious.
Just as quickly as the sadness had poked at me, it disappeared, replaced by pure anger. It was red and hot and just... dark. And I hated it. Hated that I could feel so much disdain toward a man that I should have loved.
A man that should have loved me.
Should have loved his sons.
"Babe," Dex murmured, reached out to place a hand on my forearm. "Baby, quit it."
"Quit what?" I asked him in a gloomy voice.
He squeezed my forearm. "Quit thinkin' about him. I already told you that prick's not worth you gettin' upset."
How the hell did this man know what I'd started thinking about?
I had to swallow back that weird feeling and try to plaster a smile onto my face. "I wasn't—"
"You were."
Crap. I sighed. "I know he's not worth it but it still just... gets me.” My fingers flexed around the silverware I was holding. “I want to punch him in the nuts so bad."
Dex choked. "What?"
"I said it." My tone was husky, almost a growl in frustration. I shouldn't be calling him an asshole. I told myself that I wouldn't but he'd gotten Sonny hurt. I could forgive the old man for a lot of things, ignore a lot of things but this had crossed the line. "He's so stupid."
Stupid for messing around with a group he had to know would only bring trouble. And so friggin' stupid for the dozens of other mistakes he'd committed along the way. I don't know how long I sat there, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth to calm down but when I managed to, I caught Dex looking at me with an amused tilt to his mouth.
"I don't like feeling this angry," I admitted to him, feeling incredibly vulnerable.
Like all things Dex, his response was so simple I wanted to laugh. "Then don't."
~ * ~ *
We pulled into the parking lot opposite from Mayhem about twenty minutes later, parking the solid black motorcycle into the closest open spot next to another Harley. Hoofing it across the street, I spotted the same guy that had come into Pins a few weeks ago standing by the door. The one who had gotten into an argument with Dex my first night in Austin, I finally realized.
"Dex." The man tipped his chin up before looking over in my direction, a smug grin crawling over his lips. "Sweetie."
I smiled at him weakly. “Hi.”
“How you doin’?” His thick eyebrows went up.
“I’ve been better, and you?” Crap, what was his name again? I couldn’t remember.
That smug grin grew wider. “My day just got a whole lot better, sweetie.”
Dex’s presence, broader and slightly taller than the other man, maneuvered its way between us like a barrier. His eyes burned a hole in his direction. “Don't you have shit to do?” he asked brusquely.
The man shrugged, that pleased smile still plastered on his dark pink mouth. "Yeah."
"You don't get paid to stand around scratchin' your balls," The Dick, who had apparently come out to play, bit off before pulling the bar's door open and pushing me through a little more roughly than he needed to.
I looked at him over my shoulder, frowning. "Watch it, would you?"
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and waved me forward. "My bad, babe."
With a flick of fingers, Dex led the way through Mayhem. The place was empty and dark as we crossed the hardwood floor to the stairs that were on the far end of the floor. On the second floor, he turned and pushed open the door that closed off the stairwell from the rest of the building, holding it for me. I got a chance to look and see that the stairs went up another floor.