“Of course I read that stuff. I’m your partner in all this, Tenille. You’ve done the physical stuff. Let me help you with everything else.”
Something I said clicked with her, and she sagged against me, her arms tight around my body. The three of us stood together for a long time while she cried and allowed me to comfort her. We’d been together for a while, but I knew she’d always held a piece of herself back. It was in the way she refused to cry in front of me, and the way she clammed up when we talked about certain topics, and the way she was guarded about her dreams for the future. I’d always vowed to break those walls down; I’d just never known how to do it. Maybe this would be the beginning of those walls shattering.
After I’d settled her in our bed and Charlotte in her cot, I headed into the kitchen to find something to cook for dinner. My mother’s voice drifted from the lounge room. “You’re just like your daddy. Smooth with your words. I hope you don’t turn out like him when it comes to sticking around long term.”
I stilled in the hallway, her words cutting through me like sharp blades. Turning, I entered the lounge room and found her sitting in the corner, taking a swig from her bottle of scotch, watching me through eyes that betrayed so many toxic emotions. My mother and I had always had a hard relationship, but the birth of my child had stirred some nasty shit in her, and I’d dealt with nine months of this bullshit.
“How long will you be staying with us this time?” I asked, choosing to ignore what she’d said.
“What? You don’t want your mother staying with you?”
Not particularly. “Answer my question.”
She narrowed her eyes at me as she stood and walked my way. “That right there, that’s your father coming out in you. Refusing to answer my question, but demanding I answer yours.”
My patience frayed at the edges, and I couldn’t hold my asshole side back. She’d turned up on our doorstep three days ago, and if her history was anything to go by, she’d still be with us in three weeks. Tenille didn’t need her around, and I sure as fuck didn’t need to listen to shit about my father for another minute. “I never knew my father, so I wouldn’t know if I was like him or not.”
She stiffened. She hated being reminded of the fact the only man she’d ever loved had walked out on her when their child was seven months old. The sting I’d intended hit its mark. Pushing her shoulders back, she said, “Take my word for it, you have plenty of your father in you. I’ve never felt as abandoned as I did when I was quitting the coke. The way you chose Shane Gibson over me hurt in a way I’ll never forget. And that was true McVeigh style.”
Fuck. She liked to throw out the shit about “McVeigh style” as often as she could. It was the surname I shared with my father—the one he never gave her but that she made sure to give me in her desperate effort to keep him. “What the fuck are you going on about? I was there for you when you quit the drugs.” Hell, I was seventeen at the time and knew more about surviving in this shitty world than most adults. I’d made sure my mother made it through the detox, and I kept our home running while finishing my last year of high school and holding down a fucking job.
“Shane Gibson offered you a job and you jumped at it. You did everything to help that man, and I was the one who suffered. You might have been around a few hours a day, but I needed you more than that. It was the only time I ever really needed you, and you let me down.” She paused for a beat. “I hope your wife and child never know the coldness of your back to them or the despair of you deserting them.”
Before I had a chance to reply, she exited the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I had no desire to go after her. This was the way our interactions tended to go. She unleashed her mean streak on me when she’d been drinking, only to take it all back the next day. It was our vicious cycle.
But her words clung, and I spent far too long thinking back over that time in our lives when she’d finally kicked her drug addiction. It hadn’t been her first attempt, and perhaps there was something to what she’d said. I hadn’t had faith in her. Not after all the other times she’d half-heartedly tried. And I’d been tired of dealing with her crap. So when Gibson offered me that job, I’d taken it and given him 200 percent. I’d wanted to escape the hell of my life. So I had to admit to myself that there was some truth in my mother’s words. But the shit she’d said about me abandoning my wife and child? That would never happen. Tenille and Charlotte were everything to me. There was no way I’d ever turn my back on the two people I loved more than life itself. I was not that kind of man. I was not my father.
Chapter 1
Hyde
Current Day – Sixteen Years Later
Removing my sunglasses, I met Sully’s gaze. “So you’re telling me that her bank account is down fifty grand, and you can’t track where it went?”
He nodded. “Yes. The cash was withdrawn a week ago, and they’ve made no significant purchases that I can see. I’ve been tailing all three of them and nothing seems out of the ordinary in their behaviour. Tenille and Craig go to work the same as usual, Charlotte goes to school, mostly, and the way they spend their free time hasn’t changed. Like I mentioned on the phone, though, Charlotte has started smoking, cutting class, and fighting with her mother a lot more. And Tenille and Craig have had a few fights in public that bordered on violent. She appears to be drinking heavily. The bank statements verify that, as does her public behaviour.”
I glanced around the pub as I sifted through his information. Two in the afternoon was a time you saw the dedicated drinkers, and there were a few there that afternoon. I recognised them just as easily as they recognised me. But none of us acknowledged the other.
Turning back to Sully, I said, “Something’s not right with the family.”
“Agreed. You want me to do some more digging?”
I drained the glass of whisky in front of me. “No, I’m going to pay them a visit and find out for myself what’s going on.”
“You think that’s a good idea, son?”
I wasn’t his son, but he was the closest thing I had to a father. Sully had been working for me, reporting back on my wife and daughter, for fourteen years. He knew my history, and over time, we’d developed the kind of friendship that resulted in the occasional meal together. Outside of Storm, Sully was the only person who showed any interest or care in my life. That interest wasn’t requested, but I’d grown to tolerate it.
“No, it’s a really bad fucking idea, Sully, but I don’t see that I have any other choice. I walked away from my family once. I won’t do it again. Not when they need me.”
“And Gibson?”
I clenched my jaw. “Fuck him. He wants to come at me? Let him fucking come.”
“You’ll take some club members with you for backup?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m doing this on my own.”