CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HANNAH
It shouldn’t feel this right, sitting across their laps.
It shouldn’t feel like for the first time in my life, I’m where I belong.
Logically, I know that, but my body clearly has not gotten the memo, and I find myself relaxing into them with each second that passes.
Rowan sighs, shifting me in his lap slightly, but his grip never loosens. He doesn’t need to say a word for me to know he’s afraid of losing me. “I’m not sure how much of my marriage with your mother you were privy to, but I think that’s likely the best place to start.”
I nod but don’t bother responding. I was aware that their marriage was one of convenience rather than love, highlighted by the facts that they could barely be in the same room without arguing and that they never shared a bedroom, but I was never clued into why.
“I’m not a good man. I had Asher when I was very young with a woman who was not ready to be a mother, which left us on our own when I should have been in high school. You learn a lot about the lengths you’re willing to go to when your child having a roof over their head and food on the table is at stake.
“My own parents were…uncaring at their best, abusive at their worst, and certainly not people I wanted Asher around. But there was one thing that growing up in that house taught me, and that’s how to fight. The jobs I could get as a sixteen-year-old single father hardly made a dent in our expenses, so when a guy at the factory I was working at told me they were looking for new fighters, I jumped at the chance to make some extra cash.”
My heart, despite my better judgment, clenches at the image he’s painting. How scared he must have been without any support. How many nights he probably spent awake trying to work out how to make ends meet.
“I got my ass handed to me more times than I care to admit,” Rowan half laughs, but there’s little humor in the sound. “But the more beatings I took, the better I got until I was finally winning some matches. It was hard as hell fighting at night, being up with a teething baby, and then going to work each day, but that’s what it took to make sure Asher had everything he needed, and so that’s what I did.”
Asher reaches over and clutches his father’s shoulder, and for the first time, I take in the bond they share. The mutual respect that exists between the two of them is a stark difference to the hatred my own mother and I have for one another, and I can’t help but feel a little jealous.
“Eventually, I made enough money from fighting to move us into a nicer place and to hire a proper babysitter rather than just the lady upstairs, and things were good for a while. So good that I quit my job at the factory, and I finally got to spend some time with Ash. Missing all his firsts is one of my greatest regrets as a father.”
“You were doing your best,” I say softly, suddenly feeling protective of the boy he once was.
He smiles down at me, brushing his fingers through the ends of my hair. “I was, but something you learn quickly as a parent isthat no matter what you do, there will always be things you wish you did differently.”
I don’t like the idea that he regrets anything about raising Asher, but I find myself nodding, curious about how this story is going to bring us to his marriage to my mother.
“The problem with being a fighter in an illegal fight club is that eventually you’ll be asked to do something that crosses a line you didn’t think you’d ever cross. The owner of the fighting ring I fought in came to me one day and asked me to send a message to someone who owed him money. I refused at first, telling him I had no interest in getting my hands dirty like that, but then he threatened Asher. He rattled off the park the babysitter liked to take him to, the location and time of the play group I took him to each week, and even the address of a friend who had a son around the same age.”
“What did you do?”
“I did the job.” He shrugs. “I figured if he was willing to threaten me with harming my child if I didn’t do as he asked, then he definitely had someone else on his payroll who would be willing to do it to protect their own. I told him it would just be the one time, but guys like that think they can change the rules whenever they want, and so one job turned into two, until I barely recognized the person I’d become.
“I thought about moving out of the city, getting a fresh start somewhere far away from the shady things I’d done, but the fear of not being able to provide for my son kept me in a loop I couldn’t escape.
“Until Crew came to me with a proposition.”
My brows rise in surprise. “Crew Black?”
He nods. “We went to high school together, and Asher and Bishop were born around the same time. The boys were just starting school, and I’d spent years as my boss’s muscle, unable to escape the endless cycle that made me feel unworthy of beinga father. Crew came to me and asked what I thought of starting my own fight club. One that was still illegal, but that would not be connected to the criminal world in the same way.
“I was hesitant at first, for obvious reasons, but eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. Together, we found enough evidence against my boss that he had no choice but to let me go, and enough of the fighters had had enough of his extortion that we were able to start up fights almost straight away.
“It was a lot of work, way more than I anticipated, but it was worth it to give Asher more stability and to be able to look at myself in the mirror again.
“For years, we were able to continue like that. Crew formed the Syndicate of the Legion, and I ran the fight club, but all debts come due eventually. Your grandfather walked into my office one afternoon like he owned the place with a folder of evidence of the people I intimidated. The club was already illegal, and that, paired with what he slapped down on the table, was enough that I’d spend the rest of my life in jail if he bought off the right judge.
“Asher was twenty, in college and fighting professionally, so it wouldn’t have fucked up his life that much if I’d taken that route, but then Jeffrey told me all I had to do was marry his daughter and remain married for no less than twelve months. A year of my life for my freedom seemed like nothing in the grand scheme of things. But then I met your mother.”
I scoff. The woman has a reputation for a reason. Every man she’s ever been with has run in the opposite direction at the earliest possible opportunity, apart from my dad, who stuck it out for ten long years. Honestly, I don’t even blame him for getting away from her, only for not contacting me since.
“It wasn’t until much later that I found out the reason Jeffrey needed me to marry her. He, too, was being blackmailed for the same thing he was blackmailing me for. He just wanted tocontrol who your mother married, and I was the unlucky son of a bitch that got saddled with her.
“But there was a single bright light in our sham of a marriage.” He presses his palm to my cheek, holding my face with so much reverence I can barely believe I never saw it before. “Falling for my arranged wife’s daughter certainly wasn’t part of the plan, but you were everything. You were the sunshine in my eternal darkness, and I knew early on that there was nothing I wouldn’t do to make you mine.”
