“What happened to your mom?”
“What?”
I had no idea what I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“You talk about your dad and the club. But you’ve never mentioned a mom.”
“My mom was a club girl my father knocked up. Though he denied that for years until she finally got a paternity test. When he had the proof, she was allowed back in the clubhouse with me.”
“How old were you?”
“Um… maybe four? I don’t remember. But I don’t think I was in school yet.”
“Did she pass away?”
A bitter laugh escaped me at that.
“That might have been easier, actually. No. She stayed for maybe a year or so. I don’t know exactly, just that I was in school. Because she wasn’t at the bus stop, and I had to walk home alone.”
“At five? In that wooded area?”
“Yeah. I knew my way, but I remember being nervous.”
“I bet.”
“When I got back to the clubhouse, my mom wasn’t there. And when I was hungry for dinner and there was none because she still hadn’t come home, I finally went to ask my father where she was. He told me she was gone.”
“What’d he really say?” Colter asked, sensing the wound there, and seeming to know it needed to be opened back up to leech out all the ick so it could heal right.
“He told me that my ‘stupid fucking whore’ of a mother stole his money and took off with one of his club guys. And that if she ever tried to come back, he would slit her throat and bury her in the woods behind the clubhouse.”
“Jesus Christ. You were still a baby.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding.
“How the hell did you survive with such a shithead of a father?”
“Kids are resilient,” I said, shrugging. “There was always food around. There was a bus to and from school.”
“Yeah, but who took care of you when you were sick? Played with you? Comforted you when you were upset?”
“No one.”
Colter’s hand moved out, grabbing me by the back of the neck and pulling me forward just enough to press a soft kiss to my forehead before releasing me.
“Can I ask one more thing?”
I couldn’t possibly be more exposed than I was right then.
“Sure.”
“Why the fuck do you wear that bastard’s leather jacket?”
“Oh,” I said with a strange little laugh. “Spite,” I admitted. “He caught me trying it on once. He ripped it off me and told me that ‘bitches’ have no right to wear a club jacket. He also wantedto be buried in it. But fuck him. This bitch does wear his club jacket.”
“Spite is a powerful motivator.”
“Do you hate your ex-wife?” I blurted out.
