His words confused me. I thought about the easiest way to ask the question without being direct. Normally, I would be direct, but it felt like I wanted to handle this with kiddy gloves for some reason. “How do you know Lashonda?”
He stared at me for a beat, then a smile broke through his expression. “The shortest way to answer that question is, I’m your father.”
I knew it, but I needed to hear the words. I had a million fucking questions, but there was one that was louder in my mind than the others. “Where have you been all of my life?”
He snickered. “I’ve been around, just not seen. I’m not sure what your mother told you about me.”
“She told me you was a fuck ass. You only fucked with her to prove that you could fuck a black girl. Once she got pregnant, you told her to kill me and got lost.” I heard the anger in my own voice.
Killian stared at me blankly for a moment before his head turned to the man that stood to the right of him. The man smirked then shook his head with a snicker. They stared at each other for a moment like they were having a silent conversation.
“My, that is an interesting version of events that occurred in a world that must not be in the same that we are in. How about we all go have dinner and talk a little more?” Killian asked.
My head bucked back a little before I peeked at Blake. Her eyes were on me, and they were soft. Yeah, her nosy ass wanted the story. “Nah. I need to go see about my mother.”
Killian waved me off. “She’s not going anywhere. She’s probably too high to move too much. I have men on her, just like you do, at Capital O Empire.”
How the hell does he know where she is?Yeah, we may need to have a conversation. “Lead the way.”
We ended up at what was apparently a McLeod family restaurant. When we pulled up, I smiled at the royal-blue vehicles that lined the street across from the restaurant. See, those were my people. I saw Grady texting on his phone, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure what he was doing. I knew now what it was.
“I remember this block,” I said quietly after we sat down at a table in the center of the restaurant. I spoke to myself more than anyone. It was funny how vividly the memory came back.
Killian shifted in his seat. “Oh, really? Have you been here before?”
I smirked. “Yeah, when I was a lil kid with Lashonda. She was looking for you, but your people ran us off the block.”
An older lady came over with a tray of drinks. Grady, Blake, and I declined drinks and food. We didn’t know these people enough to believe they wouldn’t do any fuck shit.
“You’re not a very trusting man, I see. That is one of the qualities that I think has taken you far,” Killian said. He took a sip of the whisky that the woman set in front of him. “I’m sorry about the ‘running you off the block’ situation. It should have never happened, but at the time, there were a few people that had minds of their own.”
There was an undertone in his comment, but I wasn’t sure if I cared enough to ask. Instead, I had rather settle into my bitterness. “Yeah, it’s real fucked up to shun the woman who had your child. We were struggling like fuck while you were clearly living it up.”
Killian shook his head before he lowered it as he chortled. With his head still lowered, he mumbled, “That woman.” After he lifted his head, he took another sip from his cup before he spoke. “Let’s start from the beginning. When I met your mother, yes, I didn’t see forever with her. She was fun for me, and I was fun for her since she had a man. To clear up one thing, I never told her to abort you. She told me that she had to because if her man found out that you were not his, he would kill her. At the time, I felt that it was better if you weren’t here than in a dangerous situation, so I gave her the money.”
I chuckled at his short skip down memory lane. “Well, as you can see, I’m here. If all of that was the case, why were you MIA?”
“Scott, after I gave your mother the money, we agreed to part ways. I went on with my life. I didn’t know you existed until a year before she popped up on this block. By the time I did find out about you, I was married and?—”
I cut him off. “Oh, okay. I was the bastard child that you were ashamed of and didn’t want your wife and other kiddos to know about. That makes sense.”
“You get the jumping off the cliff when there’s a crossing bridge shit from your mother.” He chuckled with his words. “That’s actually not what happened. I don’t have any other children . . . just you. Like I was saying, when I found out about you, I told my family about you. The reason I stayed MIA, as you put it, was because of your mother. She was a very complicated woman who wanted to complicate the lives of those around her for her own enjoyment. That wasn’t something that I could deal with.
“As far as you all struggling, I am baffled by that since I gave her $5,000 a month. The home that you all lived in was paid for by me. My wife did not agree with any of that, but I may have been a fuck ass for not being there physically, but my money was always there.”
Now I was confused as hell. “What house? We never lived in a house. For as long as I could remember, we lived in apartments and $5000? You sure you sent it to the right address?”
Grady chuckled. He knew more than anyone how I lived as a teenager. There was no way Lashonda got $5000 a month and we lived the way that we did. I would never have jumped off the porch as hard as I did if I felt financially taken care of at least.
“I didn’t have to send it to any address. Your mother came to get it. Tell me this. Was there any activity that you and your mother did consistently that you can remember?” he asked me with an arched brow.
My right ear lowered to my shoulder.Why the fuck does he want to know that?A hand on my thigh brought me out of my thoughts. When I gazed at Blake, she smiled warmly. “Baby, didn’t you say that she had a thing for ice cream? She used to drag you to an ice cream shop until you moved out.”
The memory played in my head. “Yeah, once a month on the twelfth, she made me go to this ice cream shop. She said it was to honor her mother who died before I was born.”
Killian laughed. “Your mother is quite the storyteller. Her mother is very much alive somewhere on the West Coast where she ran away from. The ice cream shop wasHighland Creamery,which is owned by me. I told her the only way that she could get her money was if I laid eyes on you once a month, so she brought you for ice cream on the twelfth.”
“Wait,” Blake blurted. “So you had her bring your son to the shop once a month, but you didn’t interact with him? Don’t you think that’s kind of messed up?”
