“Not today, she’s probably getting ready for the funeral. It’s in an hour.”
My stomach drops, my head falling in my hands. A funeral, how could I forget such a thing?
“I didn’t even think to ask.”
“Well, you’ve had your hands full with being kidnapped and getting knocked up, I could see that. You’re going though, right?”
Taking my bottom lip between my teeth I look out the window of our booth. “I’ve learned some interesting things about my father over the last week, he was not who I thought he was.”
“I’ve heard stories.”
“You have?”
“I mean, it was just talk around the department. I didn’t think any of them were true. Were they?”
Inhaling a breath I think about what Zeek told me, memories of my father resurfacing. I was angry with my father with the way he lied, and presented himself as something he wasn’t. How he set me up in a department so dirty, I was bound to walk away with stained hands, or be killed. But, the moments that meant the most to me, even if they were pretending, they’ll always be a part of me. “Probably so.”
“Wow.” Her eyebrows reach her hairline, her jaw dropping dramatically. “So you’re not going then?”
“I need to see my mother, and even if my father was a creep, I can’t shake the thoughts of the times he wasn’t a Lieutenant and was actually a father.” I look at her, and she nods in understanding.
“I get that, I totally do. You’re a bigger person than me though, ‘cause I’d hike my beautiful black skirt up, and piss on his grave if he was my father.” The corner of my mouth curves into a smirk imagining Alessandra pissing on a grave.
“I am going to run home and change. I’ll catch you later.”
Standing from the booth, I race home to change into something morbid and black.
Zeek
FLEXING MY KNUCKLES, blood splattered on them, Flex, Machete, and I have cleared out those who were patched in by my uncle, or those who turned on us and sided with him. There isn’t a lot of us left, but I’d rather have ten loyal men, than thirty untrustworthy men behind me.
Sitting on a stool, Machete hands me a beer.
“You.” I point at him. “You trashed Jillian’s house.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“I picked up a pair of your fucking underwear, man,” I explain with disgust.
“You probably have the clap now.” Felix laughs, sipping on his beer. His hair pulled up into one of those man ponytail things.
“Shut up, she was clean.” Machete throws a beer top at him.
“Wait, you fucked someone in her house?” Machete looks at me with wide eyes. “You get prospect duty for that, asshole!” I narrow my eyes at him.
“How did you let the club get this out of control, I never understood that?” Aunt Carola interrupts our back and forth as she picks up some broken glass from one of our fights.. “I mean, you were the President of the club, baby, why let anyone but yourself make the rules.”
“I respected my uncle, hell, I was just a kid when I was put in the position of being president. I looked to my uncle for direction on a lot of things. It never occurred to me that at some point he started working me, making me do shit for him out of his own best interest and not the club’s. Not until it was too late, and even then I didn’t want to believe it.”
Everyone goes quiet, and I take a sip of my beer.
“So, if we’re done swapping sentimental stories, we going to finish getting this place cleaned up or…?” Felix asks, derision on his face. Laughing, I punch him in the arm.
“What are we going to do about Cross?” Machete asks the million-dollar question when Aunt Carola walks out of the room.
“You guys didn’t find anything on him?”
“Nothing. Not even a blood trail,” Felix informs.
“Work the town, find him.”
“You think Frank was blowing smoke up your ass when he said Cross was your dad?” Felix flicks a brow, a beer halfway to his mouth. I sigh, sick of this conversation. It makes me sick to think about the possibility.
“No, I don’t. That’s why we need to find him.”
“Why is that?” Machete looks confused.
“Because if I was Cross, which a part of me is, I’ll be coming back. And when I do, it’ll make the fucking history books.”
Every weasel has to surface at some point, and when he does I’ll be there with my gun down his throat.
Jillian
I LOOK ON FROM AFAR. Everyone is at the cemetery circled around my father’s grave, a flag draped over his casket. It doesn’t feel right to step up there, not when I have the baby of the man who murdered my father in my womb.
Plus, I’m not sure I wouldn’t get arrested on the spot. I still need to handle that.
After everyone leaves, I spot my mother sitting on a concrete bench. Wiping my tears, I head over to her. My black heels sticking into the soft ground.