“You believe that, even after everything you’ve been through?”
The front door opens a second later, the answer to my question walking inside, my mom’s face lighting up, and I instantly know who it is. She only lights up like this for two people, and I’m one of them.
“Well, this is a nice surprise! Rhys. It’s so good to see you! What are you doing here?” my mom’s wife says as she walks into the kitchen, dropping grocery bags at her feet. I stand, pulling her into a huge hug.
“Hi, Kate. Was just missing my momma. I see you’re taking good care of her.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she replies as she pats my chest. “Now, be honest, what’s the real reason?”
“Jesus. You two are eerily similar. Aren’t couples supposed to be opposite?”
“Not when you’ve been together as long as we have. Now spill.”
“Rhys here has fallen in love with a woman who’s engaged to another man,” my mom blurts. I shoot her a glare, my eyes squinting playfully. I could never be mad at her. My mom’s a saint.
My dad had always been with Hell’s Heathens, and he was a smooth talker when it came to the ladies. He swooped my mom off her feet when she was just eighteen, got her pregnant with me, and then shit went downhill fast. The control started first, he just wanted to keep her safe since he was in a club, then once he became the vice president, the grip he had around her got tighter. When she pushed back, the physical abuse started, and then it got worse. I kept it to myself for a long-ass time, not sure if anyone at the club would give two shits, unsure if they all didn’t beat their wives or not.
It wasn’t until I started to get bigger that I realized the only way I was going to stop the pain he was inflicting was to take him on myself. No one was going to save her but me. I started working out the second I was twelve and puberty started, and by the time I was sixteen, I was bigger than him.
The shatteringof glass wakes me from my half-sleep, followed by the slurred, deep thunder of my father’s voice. I’m out of my bed faster than I’ve ever moved, grabbing the baseball bat that I keep next to my bed, and bolting out my door. My bare feet slap the hardwood floors, running toward the ear-piercing cry of my mom in pain.
I reach the living room just in time to see my dad throw a potted plant across the room in the direction of my mom, the clay shattering against the wall, shards of reddish-brown mixing with soil and crashing to the floor. My mom huddles against the wall, her knees to her chest, blood dripping from above her eye, her lips puffy, cradling one of her arms.
I stand frozen for a moment, my heart in my throat, blood thrumming between my ears. My dad takes a solid step toward my mom, his words muffled to me, as I grip the bat tighter between my hands.
“Leave her the fuck alone!” I scream, but the sound is something I don’t recognize.
My dad turns on me, and I brace myself to swing.
“A bat? You’re just as pathetic as she is. You’re weak, pathetic, just like the whore who birthed you!” His vile words make my mom flinch, but they don’t affect me. The only thing that matters is getting him to stop. I stand there, waiting for him to lunge for me, but instead, he just spits at my feet, turning quickly and kicking my mom hard. She screams out, his fist rising, and then I’m on him, swinging the bat as hard as I can into his side, an ear-piercing crack echoing out into the room. I jump on his back, my fist railing down into the side of his face.
We tumble to the ground, and I quickly get the upper hand, raining down my fists until he’s a bloody mess, his body limp andunconscious.
“You’ll kill him! Rhys! Rhys, he’s out, it’s over, baby!” my mom screams as she pulls me off my dad. I collapse back into her chest, heaving for breath. My fists are covered in blood, but I don’t register the pain, not the physical kind, anyway. When I turn to look at my mom, one of her eyes is swollen shut, but tears still stream down her face, her lips raw and bleeding.
“Promise me you won’t kill your father, Rhys, even if he deserves it. You can’t come back from that.”
“He deserves to die.”
“But killing your own father will break you in a way that I know your heart can’t take.”
“And if he kills you one day because I didn’t? Then what, Mom?”
“Just promise me, Rhys, promise me that no matter what happens, you won’t kill him.”
“If he touches you one more time, I’ll make sure he’ll never be able to look at you again, I promise you that, but I won’t kill him.”
He didn’t hither again. Until he did. This time, I was in my twenties, and Queenie had just died, leaving the president’s spot open and unfilled. Camden was a wreck, having lost the only man who was like a father to him. We went back to my house, needing space from the places Queenie used to walk. The screams could be heard from the driveway, my mom’s bloodcurdling cries echoing out into the night.
Camden looked at me for a split moment before we were both running into the house, finding my mom nearly unconscious only moments after her screams, my father on top of her, barreling down punch after punch.
Camden got to him first, wrenching him off my mom’s body. We beat him to a pulp, reacting on pure instinct and adrenaline, and instead of killing him, we took him downstairs to his new home, where he’s spent the last eleven years alone, a place where he can’t hurt her ever again. It was rough at first, keeping him hidden, but once we built him a cell, it was easier. I’ve maintained the house since it belongs to my family, but I’ve never stayed there, preferring to stay in my bedroom at the clubhouse. It’s his coffin, and I plan to burn the place down once he’s dead.
Camden and I cleared our accounts for a down payment on a house off Heathen property, and I took out the loan for the rest of it, buying my mom a modest house in Amberwood where she lives now. I’d give her everything. She met Kate at a domestic violence survivors’ group, and their friendship blossomed through their shared trauma; they’ve been together ever since.
“So, Rhys, I assume you have a plan for winning her heart over?” Kate asks as my mom dramatically drops her head into her hands with a huff.
“The girl is taken!” my mom bellows.
