“If you call them, I’ll press charges. I’ve got a lot of shit you don’t want dragged out in front of a judge.” I point to the bubble mounted over the compound door. “A lot, Shayla.” A lot more than her acting like a fool on my driveway, thank God.
“For fucking what? Trying to get back my kidnapped kids?” She starts to lose steam, because she knows damn well she’s on the losing end of this fight. All I have to do is push a little harder, and I know she’ll snap and probably commit enough criminal acts to ensure the cops would have plenty to charge her with.
I stand perfectly still, not baiting her. Just waiting until she chills the fuck out.
She’s a monster, so she does what I expect. She bursts into sobs. “I want to see my babies,” she cries, not a single real tear rolling down her cheeks. “Why didn’t they come home last night?”
Viper shifts uncomfortably in his boots, and Shadow rakes a hand roughly through his hair. I hate to air myshit in front of my brothers, but I need witnesses for this, and they know it.
I don’t want to take away Shayla’s right to see her kids, but the last few months, she’s become unstable. It’s one thing to hate me and to show up here causing a scene. But there’ve been other things.
Too many other things.
At the beginning of the summer, she left the kids home alone. When she didn’t get home by eleven, the kids’ weekend bedtime, they started calling and texting her. Nothing. Not a word in response. The girls had the good sense to call me at three in the morning. When she didn’t respond to my texts offering to come pick her up, bail her out, whatever she needed, I went and got the girls. We reported her missing at noon the next day.
She eventually stumbled home and tried to blame me for forgetting that she had plans for a few days with a new boyfriend, but that was not only a lie, it was the last straw. With a little help from a private investigator, I found out what that little disappearing act was about.
And it’s time Shayla knows everything that I’ve been doing since then.
“Look,” I tell her, trying real damn hard to see the woman I once loved in the mess of a human in front of me now. I fail miserably. I don’t even recognize her, but it still hurts me to tell her this. “Shayla, my attorney filed an emergency petition with the court. I’m going to get full custody of the girls. They’re not coming back with you, so I need you to get yourself together and go home.”
I’ve never seen a woman stop crying so fast.
“Like hell you are,” she says, her voice low and mean. Gone is the hysterical Shayla. This version of her is far scarier.
That’s why I have no choice. I must take these kids from their mother.
“Shayla, you fucking listen, and you listen to me good,” I say, meeting her lethal tone. “You think I don’t have ways of knowing you got yourself locked up in June? Fucking shoplifting like a goddamn shithead at the mall. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
She starts sputtering, but I hold up a hand and tell her to keep her goddamn mouth shut.
“If you don’t listen, I’m going to let Viper do whatever it is he’s been wanting to do since you set your sloppy ass on compound property.”
“Fuck you, Viper. You lay a hand on me, and you’ll lose that hand so fast…”
“It’s over, Shayla. Whatever you’re going through, get some help. But you’re not dragging the kids through the shit with you.”
“You son of a bitch,” she seethes. “After all the years I supported your sorry, loser, criminal ass.” She lunges at me then, clawing at my face, but I’m faster, stronger. I grip her by the forearms and stop her before I lose an eye.
“You already know that theft of goods or services over $750 is a felony in the state of Florida because of that little stunt you pulled back in June.” My tone is a low warning. She stops fighting me and listens. “And what you tried to pull at the hair place yesterday? I know because I fucking paid it so that salon ladywouldn’t call the cops on your children. Yourchildren, two minors, who you tried to involve in your commission of a crime—and not your first. You know what could have happened to you or to them?”
I release her arms roughly and take a step back. “You’re lucky I took the kids before the goddamn state did.”
I turn my back on her and head back toward the door. “Don’t set foot on this property or any place else where the kids are, or where I am, or I’ll add a restraining order to the filing.”
She’s standing there with her hands clenched into fists, listening and looking shocked, as if the full gravity of what’s happening is finally hitting her.
“Don’t contact me or the kids directly again until the court sorts shit out. You got my lawyer’s number. You got something to say, say it to him. Get yourself together, Shayla. For your own sake, if not for the girls’.”
“If that isn’t the fucking pot calling the kettle black. You’re the goddamn criminal, Phantom, you know that! The girls don’t respect you. I don’t respect you.” She hauls off and spits, and I feel the dampness of her spittle strike the back of my arm.
I turn so fast I kick up a cloud of gravel dust. “I loved you once,” I spit out, waving my hand from her sloppy expression to her filthy clothes. “And I don’t know who the fuck this mess is anymore. Get the fuck out of my life.” Then I turn to Viper. “Make sure she gets safely to her car.”
He and Shadow take that as their cue, and theysurround Shayla, not touching her, but letting her know without saying a word or lifting a finger that her visit here is over.
When I go back inside, Savage is right on my ass. “I’ll send a copy of the video to your lawyer,” he says.
I nod but don’t say more.
