She doesn’t ask, but I give her the answer anyway. “My mom left, not long after I was born. She couldn’t deal with the club. The demands on his time. She left me behind.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “No parent should abandon a child.”
“It was a long time ago.” I never missed what I never had. “I loved this place. Never felt like I was missing anything. There was always something happening, always someone watching out for me. For both of us, really.”
I wish I’d brought up a drink. “I think I was around sixteen when my dad met someone else. Her name was Katherine.”
I don’t say anything for a while. Briar twists her head to look up at me. “We can stop, Jenson. It’s okay.”
Carefully, I slide my arms up and around her waist. “I want you to know. But it’s not… it’s not a great story.”
“I’m tougher than I look.” She doesn’t look away. “I can take it.”
Her quiet conviction bolsters my own. “Katherine was… pretty. Beautiful, really. And she knew it. She wound my father around her little finger, until he was obsessed with her. He became blind to everything else. Nothing else mattered to him but her. Making her happy. The rest of it was just an inconvenience to him.”
His club. His business. His son.
“There was somethingoffabout her,” I murmur. “I didn’t like her. She needed to be adored. It was like an addiction. I didn’t, and she hated it. And my father, he just got worse. Fighting in the club, with his friends, people he’d known all his life. Members started to leave in their droves rather than stay and risk him focusing on them. Accusing them of wanting her, of being horrible to her, of being too nice. His obsession became paranoia, Katherine dripping poison in his ear at every turn. River’s parents left to go traveling rather than stay and watch, but he wouldn’t leave. He knew something was happening.”
“He’s loyal.” A single, careful tap of her finger against my arm wrapped around her stomach. “Fiercely so.”
“Not that I ever deserved it.” I stare out into the clubhouse.
Her response is gentle. “Maybe he saw something different in you than you see in yourself. What happened to your father?”
I suck in a breath. “He was out one night.Finallydoing something, after I spent weeks trying to tell him how bad things had gotten while he was wrapped up in Katherine. The Diamonds were falling apart. The prez of the Spades was trying to push in, and we had no men. So he went for a meeting to try and smooth things over.”
I drop my head, breathing in the scent of raspberries. “I was sitting here. At this spot. Nobody else was here. Hell, nobody was left, and not anyone that wanted to be in the clubhouse.River was out, trying to stem some of the gaps even though we weren’t even old enough to act as full members. Katherine came out. She asked if we could start over. She said she was worried about my father. About his behavior. And she poured me a drink. I was seventeen. Never had vodka before.”
Swallowing, I close my eyes. “I started to feel sick. Dizzy. And she – she took me into the bedroom. That one, in the corner.”
Hands. And lips. And that fucking voice in my ear.
Briar turns to stone in my arms. “No.”
I run my hand over her hair again. For my sake, as much as hers. “I told you it wasn’t a good story.”
“She…,” her breathing turns harsh. “Sherapedyou.”
It takes me a minute. “Yeah. She did. That was my first time.”
“Jenson.” She starts to shake, then. “I’m so sorry… and I lied to you. I put you in that position.”
“You didn’t know. But... it gets worse, Briar.”
“Tell me.” Her voice trembles. “What… what happened?”
“I woke up.” My throat feels almost as dry as that day. “And Kai was there.”
“He was part of the club?”
“I’d never even seen him before. This skinny, underfed kid, shaking me. He wouldn’t speak. But he kept pointing to the door. There was shouting. My father came home, and he found me. He thought – thought Iwantedit. That I’d set him up to leave, so I could be with Katherine. I wasseventeen.”
Bile rises in my throat. “She’d been keeping Kai there without any of us knowing. And he must have known. In the fucking closet, living like some kind of animal. Eating scraps at night with my father turning a blind eye. And she’d hurt him, Briar. Not like… not like me. Physically. He was so small. But he wouldn’t stop shaking me. And he wouldn’t leave me there.”
My eyes feel wet. And Briar is crying. “God, Jenson.”
“My father had set it all on fire,” I say numbly. “The clubhouse. Everything was on fire. She was there, somewhere. He knew I was in the bedroom; he knewKaiwas there. But he poured gasoline all over this place and threw the match down anyway, with all of us inside.”
