No, no way. He’d strangle me with his own two hands. There is no way.
Me and his brother swore we’d take our ill-advised one-time fling to the grave. And from the looks of it, I’m about to.
Shit.
“I’m done talking to you,” he says dismissively as he stands up, the impenetrable mask of his Preacher persona back on his face.
My heart starts racing. I know what’s coming. I’ve seen him do it to his enemies and rival cartel members before, but I never thought he’d do it to me.
“No, please, Carlos! I'll do anything, please!”
He opens the trailer door and nods to someone. “Wait until she starts shaking, then tie her to the jeep.”
“No!!!”
He locks the door behind him and condemns me to hell.
Epilogue 1
Marissa
5 years later...
“Where is Piper?” I ask after not even squinting helps me locate her smiling face in Dylan’s car.
He glances to the left. “It, er… didn’t work out with her.”
“That’s too bad,” I frown as I reflexively rub my baby bump. “I really liked her. DJ did, too.”
Dylan rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not sure she’s step-mom material. She’s not…” He swallows and finally meets my eyes. “She’s not you, Riss.”
I roll my eyes as dramatically as I can.
“Wow, and I mean at least a little offense, but you’ve got to stop idealizing your exes! That’s what got you into this mess in the first place, Dylan. Besides, it’s dehumanizing,” I add when I see his offended frown.
“You spend too much time with Molly,” he says grumpily.
It’s nice to be able to talk to Dylan like this. For a while there, after everything that happened with Rebel and DJ, he was really struggling to come to terms with what his life had become. Susan even feared that he might do something crazy and that we might lose him.
The therapist Yoda recommended helped a lot, but in certain areas of life, I sometimes think that Dylan still doesn’t get it.
“Why can’t you live in the present? Or look at the person you’re with as they are instead of in relation to someone else?”
“I can! I do! Our situation was different. Rebel was a cancer on my heart, preventing me from being happy. She and I were bad for each other, toxic even.”
Not for the first time, I wonder what Preacher has done to her, but I quickly cast those thoughts aside.
I’ve had my own countless therapy sessions with Yoda where I unpacked all my feelings of guilt on that topic, together with my other issues. We worked on my mental resilience, the abandonment issues stemming from my childhood, my low self-esteem...
Having my new family members helped, too. After I finally gathered the courage to send in my saliva for that DNA kit, I found a cousin on my mother’s side, my aunt’s daughter. Unexpectedly, I learned that my mom's entire family had been desperate for any news about her.
When it was time to meet them, I flew to the East Coast without worrying about their acceptance or approval. I already had my son, a wonderful husband, a big biker family that loved me, and an enjoyable job that made me really good money.
I walked into that meeting completely and utterly confident, and it was awesome.
My mother’s family are good people, but I could see how a 15-year-old flower child might have found them boring. We all cried and talked for hours, and the one takeaway we all came away with after that weekend was: It wasn’t us, it was her.
My grandmother and aunt told me that the entire family, including my deceased grandfather, would have been thrilled towelcome my mom back at any point in her life, but she never reached out to them.
