“Shut the fuck up, Rita,” Remy retorted.

“No! If her own mother didn’t want her, why the fuck do you?! She’s going to ruin you, Remy—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, RITA!” He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her roughly out of the room. Her screams were heard even long after she was out.

“She never wanted you, even when she got better! You were never going to be let back in!”

Remy slammed the door shut. Chaos continued to unfold out in the hallway for a few more minutes. Then other voices, of men telling her to “shut the fuck up” or they’d do it for her. I could tell she was being dragged away because the screams grew more distant with each passing second.

Remy had his back to me, facing the door still, taking in absurdly long breaths of air. He was no longer bare-chested and was wearing a white plain shirt that emphasized his tanned skin. When he finally turned to look at me, I saw remorse in those eyes.

“I’m sorry ‘bout my sister,” he apologized.

I shrugged passively. “Can’t be helped. I take it she found out about…”

He nodded. “Yeah, she was being the nosy bitch that she is.”

“Then she was obviously caring for you.”

He walked over and took a seat beside me. “She overreacts all the time, says things she doesn’t mean. Don’t take it to heart.”

I didn’t try to hide the scepticism in my face. I lifted a brow at him. “Come on, Remy. Stop bullshitting me. I trust you and want you to be honest with me. Without honesty, there’s nothing.”

He licked his lips red, and for a split second I was reminded of the one other man who did the same.

“What do you wanna know?” he carefully asked.

“She’s telling the truth, isn’t she? About my mother not wanting me.”

After a few painstaking seconds, he nodded. “Yeah.”

“Did she ever say why?”

He nodded again. “She… she said you reminded her of the bad in her life. That even after she got cleaned up, she still looked at you the same.”

I could no longer afford any more heartbreak. I didn’t want to feel anything at all. This was all business to me. Find out the answers and deal with it.

“Why?” He knew why. He was skirting around this very masterfully.

Without looking me in the eyes, he sighed and said, “You were the product of a rape, Birdy. The club put the man that did it to her in the ground, but… she never coped. She had some post-natal depression after your premature delivery, and everyone figured she’d get better with time. She didn’t. Her father tried his hardest with you, tried to get her to see that she was placin’ blame on someone innocent. Rita thinks she turned to Norman because he liked how unfeeling he was to you. It made her feel like she had every right to hate you because he did too.”

Scratch what I just said about lacking the space for heart break. Because my heart broke. Hard. Into jagged pieces in my chest. I bit down hard on my lip, but a tear emerged from my eye and fell gracelessly down my cheek. I quickly removed it, unaccepting of these sudden tears. I’d faced a near death experience and yet I was emotional over this? I had some serious psychological issues.

“Keep going,” I demanded quietly.

He exhaled hesitantly. “Sara –”

“Keep going, Remy.”

“When she got clean, she knew she’d treated you wrong. Like I said, what Rita just said was an overreaction. Still, Joanne wanted nothin’ to do with you. Wanted only memories of when you were a baby, back before you remembered her. Your mother was very fucked up, Sara. She was very volatile.”

“Why did she want you to look after me then?”

“She owed it to you. Wanted you never to have to struggle. There was love there, I’m sure. She just… She just couldn’t look at you the way a mother looked at her child. That’s the fuckin’ truth for you.”

“And what was the real reason you never contacted me after she died?”

He tensed. Maybe he was surprised I’d caught on to his lie. “She… She removed you from her emergency contacts. Left everything for… for Rita. I didn’t want you to have to know that at the time. Didn’t think it was fair of her to do that to you. Thought that would break you more than her death.”

“Oh.” My fears had been confirmed. She’d grown attached to Rita and wanted nothing to do with me. Left everything to her. And me? I was left with nothing. How does one take that kind of news?

In my heart of hearts I always knew she never loved me the way a mother loved their child. I tried so hard to convince myself that it was her alcoholism that distorted her emotions and made her cold and unfeeling. It wasn’t. Now I knew why. She’d been raped and left with me. The trauma would have been extensive if she’d never been able to look at me like I was half of her. It explained so much now that I reflected on my childhood.

“I’d like to be left alone,” I whispered.

Time for me crash and burn. To see how strong I really am. To stop this weird dependency thing I’d developed for Remy. Running away from emotions never worked. They had to catch up sometime, and if it was going to change me forever then… well, what the fuck did I have to lose anyway?

Jaxon

The text message was a godsend. He was losing his mind in the unknown. He needed to be back in the loop. Perched on the step of his mother’s house, he read the text over and over again until his mind could bear it no more.

There was an attack on her. Explicit direction carried out for her kill. She’s back at the clubhouse and safe. R won’t let her out of his sight. She won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Afraid you have little chance of seeing her. She’s clung onto him like she’s been on her own for some time. Wish I could tell you more but everyone’s in the dark.

An attack? Jaxon gripped the phone so tight, the corner of the screen cracked. He inhaled sharply, trying to calm every raging cell in his body. If Damien hadn’t been able to find out where Remy had hidden her, how the hell did this assigned killer do it? Something wasn’t right and he needed to find out what.

He raked both hands through his hair and then he hastily replied.

I need you to do something.

*****

Jaxon rested his back flat on his two inch thick bed, staring up at the cement degraded ceiling. “Fish” they’d called him; a derogative word that was passed around to new prisoners. They sized him up and he’d never felt so alone in his life.