“He wants to go after the person who pulled the trigger,” I tell her, my hands nervously smoothing over the top of the box on my lap. “I know dad tried to find him and all these years later he hasn’t got close but Warren is determined.”
“It’s his way of dealing with it,” Rosa said gently. “He isn’t ready to look at these pictures yet.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Now that you do know what happened, how do you feel about it? Not what happened to her, that was awful, and I’d never ask you to put your feelings over that into words,” she added before I could say anything. “I mean about Danica. Your dad has never let go of the desire to take her down. When he thought she was dead, he changed. Randy said he went back inside himself, disappeared for a few days, no one knew where he’d gone. It was just before all this stuff kicked off and you cameback,” she told me. “I’m not sure he was relieved or destroyed that he wasn’t the one to take her out.”
“Warren is a lot like him, huh,” I pick at the edge of the box, my eyes on it.
“He is. And you’re a lot like her.”
My eyes lift and I know she can see hope there. Because I so want to be like her. I hated the thought of being anything like Danica, but Delaney… From the little I knew, it sounded like she was an amazing person.
“She wasn’t a pushover either, despite how young she was when she came here, the shit she’d been through too. Danica was this loud-mouthed pushy bitch and Delaney always seemed content in her shadow, but she blossomed when she fell for King. She started standing up to Danica and King too,” Rosa chuckled. “Had a strong will that girl. I don’t think King could have been tamed by anyone else. Wave,” she reached over and took my hand. “I know it’s hard to forgive him for what he did, not telling you both about your mom, and I agree it wasn’t right. You hate that he hid it, that he took the choice of knowing her away from you both. Take it from someone who was there when Delaney died. And after he found out what really happened. He'd put his trust in Danica with you two. When he’d lost it and couldn’t face you both, he allowed her in.”
“He told us that part,” I said, slumping back in my seat.
“And it killed him all over again when he found out the truth, knowing you kids started callinghermom. He’d pushed her into your lives, and he couldn’t forgive himself for that. He wanted you to hate her. He wanted you both to never want to go after her.”
I hadn’t thought of it in that way before. It actually made a weird kind of sense. There was a time where I had wanted to find her, where I had dreamed of her coming back to take me away from the MC. God, it must have killed dad when he heard me talking about her. I’d never forget the time he lost it with me when I was around nine and started asking about her. He’d been so mad, I’d been so scared, I didn’t talk to him for days. Now it was all so clear.
It didn’t excuse that he’d continued to lie to us, especially now we were adults, but I felt my anger towards him mellowing. I hadn’t seen much of him since that day when he told us the truth, it was like he’dreverted back to type. Hudson kept telling me not to take it to heart, he had a lot on his plate, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath that things could change that easily.
I chose not to dwell on it and with a deep breath, I opened the box. There were plenty of photographs inside, all varying sizes, varying degrees of age. Rather than pick them out individually, I scooped them up and set the box aside. As I went through the pictures, Rosa talked me through who it was, when it happened and occasionally joked about some of them, making me laugh too.
Then we got to a photo of my dad, and the woman it weirdly felt like I knew, but I didn’t. Dad looked really young, and he was smiling so broadly it was jarring. I don’t think that was an expression I had ever seen on my father’s face. I focused on the woman beside him.
She was dainty, a lot smaller than my father anyway. We’d obviously gotten our height from him. I could see Danica in her, a lot, which meant I could see us in her too. Warren more than me, they had the exact same smile, the same cheekbones and narrow chin. Sometimes people told my brother he waspretty. It pissed him off so much but this was clearly who he got that from.
I flicked over it and saw many more pictures of the two of them, sometimes standing together, mostly just around groups of other people enjoying parties, hanging out and even a few of them on dad’s bike. There were a few of just Rosa and Delaney too and I glanced up at her. Her eyes were a little glassy as she was looking at the pictures and I realised she was close to my mom. I didn’t ask her any questions, I just kept going through the photos until I got to the end, then went back through them again.
I stopped on a photograph of my parents on their wedding day. It was at the compound, where most of the weddings happened. A few of the brothers were ordained, they didn’t even let that be something outside of their world.
Dad was wearing a suit, no cut, which surprised me. Delaney was in a vintage looking chiffon and lace gown that was as delicate as her. It was backless coming to a soft triangular point at her lower back, with long lace sleeves that fell over her wrists, almost hiding her hands.
She was clutching a bouquet of wildflowers and her hair was down and flowing over her shoulders. There was a beautiful smile on her lips and dad was staring at her like she was his world.
Delaney was absolutely stunning. And King was so in love with her I could feel it coming out of the photograph.
“You okay, honey?” Rosa asked gently.
“Can I keep this one?”
“Of course, she said, twisting in her seat then coming back around with a packet of Kleenex. I took one gratefully and dabbed at my eyes. “You can take as many as you’d like.”
“Just this one,” I kept my eyes on it. I liked seeing my father in this as much as I liked seeing her.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
I turned at Hudson’s voice, concern etched into his face as he took in my tears. I hadn’t heard him arrive. I packed up the box and passed it to Rosa, standing with the photograph in my hand. Hudson’s eyes dropped to it, and I held it out to him. He took it, looking from me to Rosa, then back at the picture. The concern faded away and a softness filled his eyes.
“War looks so much like her,” he said.
“He was her mini-me,” Rosa agreed.
Hudson handed the picture back to me and I clutched it tightly but made sure not to crease it. I didn’t want it to get damaged on the ride home, but Rosa popped up with an envelope to put it in and Hudson slipped it inside the large pocket on his leather jacket, making sure it didn’t bend. He thanked Rosa, which was a good job because I didn’t even remember walking out of her house or getting on Hudson’s bike. I only came back to reality at the cold bite of wind on my cheeks as we flew along the road, heading back to the compound.
Hudson didn’t say much as he helped me off the bike and we went inside. The clubhouse was quiet for a change, but I did see my dad in the hallway leading to his office, his gaze caught on me as I walked alongside Hudson, our hands clasped together. He gave Hudson a chin dip, then looked my way again.
