Mina
“Dad! What are you doing in here?” Mina sat bolt upright in bed, pulling the sheet up around her naked form. She felt a rush of heat over her face as she realized just who was in bed with her and what this meant.
“I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago, Mina. I shouldn’t have waited for you to tell me, or counted on anyone else to do so. I should have found out for myself!”
Skid was out of bed and pulling his pants on. “Park, you’ve got to listen to me. I’ve got so much to say.”
“Then you shouldn’t have waited until now to say it!” Park roared. His fist went back, and when it shot forward it made a hard, crunching sound as it made contact with Skid’s face.
Staggering backward and putting up his hands, Skid reached for his shirt. “Please, it’s not what it looks like. I mean, it is, but it’s not what you think.”
“That enough talking!” Park yanked Skid out into the hallway and threw him to the floor. He jumped on top of the bigger man, his fists waling. “How dare you do this to my daughter? And right under my nose, you bastard! I should fucking kill you! Maybe I will!”
The other members had come out of their rooms and jogged up the stairs from the other floors. They crowded around the scene, standing on their toes to get a good look at the bastard who had betrayed their president.
“Stop! Stop! You don’t understand! You can’t do this!” Mina didn’t know if she was going to faint or throw up. As wonderful as the night before had been, everything had changed in the matter of a moment. Skid had been wrong. Everything was not all right.
“I can, and I fucking will!” He punctuated his words with his hits. “This is my club, my daughter, and my right to beat you to a bloody pulp!”
Skid’s nose was bleeding, and splatters of blood stained the hallway carpet with every strike. He murmured something between the blows, but it wasn’t loud enough to be heard.
With a ripple of realization that made her lean against the doorway for support, Mina realized that Skid was letting Park do this to him. Her father was older and leaner, and there was no way he could take Skid if he would just get up and fight back. But she knew why he was doing this. Skid thought he deserved this. Though Mina had been just as guilty, Skid had done something awful. He had betrayed his president.
When his face was little more than a mass of red and purple, Skid managed to put his arm up and block several of Park’s blows. The president jumped to his feet, clearly ready for more as his fists danced in the air. “You have something to say, son?”
Slowly, Skid got to his feet. He looked at Park, and then his dark eyes landed on Mina. That small glance said everything.
She cried out to him, but he turned away. Mina knew what was happening. It was her worst nightmare coming true. He was leaving. All her dreams of a house with a man and a baby, maybe even a white picket fence, were disappearing in front of her eyes.
“Don’t, Mina,” Park growled, putting his arm in front of the doorway to keep her from advancing into the hallway. “Skid is finally doing the right thing, making the right decision. He’s leaving.”
“No,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.” But she watched as Skid went to his own room to gather his things. Several of the other men stood nearby, ready to act in case of trouble. From Skid. The man who had risen to become their vice president was now an outlaw.
Through the blur of her tears, Mina’s eyes landed on two people standing just across the hall from her door. They’d had a front-row view of the scene, and they stood close together with smug looks on their faces. Like a bitter pill, Mina understood it all. Jewel had heard what she’d said to Rose that day, and she’d figured out who the father of Mina’s baby was. With Animal at her side—a man desperate to rise in the ranks of Satan’s Legion—they had gone to Park.
“Dad—”
“I don’t want to hear any of it, Mina. You get dressed and get down to my office. Now! As for the rest of you,” he pointed a finger at the members of the crowd, “get back to whatever you were doing. There’s nothing else to see here.”
* * *
She wasn’t able to stop the tears. She could blame it on the hormones, but she knew it was so much more. It was Skid, it was the baby, it was her father. It was even Animal and Jewel, who had betrayed her just to gain traction of their own. She hoped they enjoyed where it had gotten them, especially since Park hadn’t had anything else to say to them before he’d stormed down to his office.
Mina had dressed and run a brush through her hair, but there was little else she could do to make herself presentable. She just didn’t have the energy. What was left for her? Park would confine her to the clubhouse for good. She would have her baby, but she wouldn’t be able to find any joy in it. Not without Skid.
With her face turned to the floor to avoid the stares she didn’t doubt she was getting, Mina slowly made her way down into the bowels of the building. She didn’t knock on the old oak door that led to Park’s office; he would be expecting her.
“Sit,” he commanded.
She slumped down into the chair on the opposite side of his desk but refused to look at him.
“Mina, why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Really?” Her sadness was quickly replaced by anger, and it was all directed at her father. “You really want to know why I didn’t tell you when you just beat the shit out of Skid? Come on, how stupid can you be?”
“Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady.”
“And don’t you call me a young lady. I’m not. I’m not even close. I’m a woman, Dad, and I think it’s pretty fucking obvious that I’m not a lady.” She tried to look at him now, but the tears were flowing so fast she couldn’t see.
“Yes, that’s quite clear! A lady wouldn’t have gotten herself into this situation, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have tried to hide it. She would have come to her father for help, damn it!” Park swiped the papers off his desk with one stroke, sending them flying up into the air so the surface was free for him to slam his fists on. “Damn it, Mina, this isn’t how any of this was supposed to happen.”
“What? Did you think you could just pick out someone for me to be with? Or that I would just wait until you one day magically decided I was old enough to be in an adult relationship? I’m not a child, and it’s time you understood that. Especially since I’m about to have one of my own.” She put her hand protectively in front of her belly, fully aware of the suggestions Park had made before about getting rid of the baby.
“Look, I know that raising you in a clubhouse full of men hasn’t been the best thing. What choice did I have? I did the best I could, and clearly it wasn’t enough.” He sat back down and covered his face with his hands.
She felt a pang of sympathy for him, but it didn’t outweigh the fury she felt for what he’d done to Skid. “I don’t think that’s it. You’re just so busy trying to protect me and keep me to yourself that you haven’t been letting me live my own life. I’m tired of it, Dad. You say you wanted me to come to you for help, but how could I ever have done that when I knew you would just explode? There’s no denying it. We all saw what you did to Skid, and quite frankly you never could have beaten him down like that if he had actually been up for fighting you.”
“Don’t start on that,” Park warned, dropping his hands into his lap and glaring at her. “That was the first thing he’s done right. He should have been honest about it in the first place, Mina, and you know it. How can either one of you expect me to be happy after I’ve been lied to for so long?”
Picking up the hem of her T-shirt and swiping at her eyes, Mina could see the pain in her father’s face. “I don’t think any of us did the right thing, if you ask me. And that includes you.” Her voice was calm but bitter. This whole thing had been a disaster.
“Maybe you’re right,” he sighed. “But there’s no changing any of it. I just wish you had been able to talk to me about it.”
“So do I.” Mina heard footsteps above her head and wondered if any of them were Skid, leaving the clubhouse and taking her heart with him. No, he’d probably left before she ever even made it out of her room. He was likely long gone on his motorcycle, his blood leaving droplets on the pavement behind him. Secretly, she hoped he’d accidentally left something in her room, even if it was something small and insignificant. That way, she would still have something of him.
“Listen, Mina, now that everything is out in the open, it’s high time we figured out just what we’re going to do about this … this whole thing.” He gestured vaguely toward her.
She knew what he meant, and she was once again fueled by anger. “What to do? What is there to do? You threw the father of my child out of the club. I guess that means it’s time for me to leave, too.”
“You’re not going anywhere!” Park was on his feet, ready to block her if she tried to leave the office.
It was a tempting thought, but Mina knew that the members of Satan’s Legion were loyal to their president. It would only take a shout from Park, and she would have five men holding her down if need be. “What good do you think it would do to keep me here? It’s not going to change anything! It hasn’t yet, has it? You thought you were somehow going to tame me by keeping me from going out or seeing the man I love, but I’m sure you can tell that’s not worked very well.”
“You’re staying here because I’m not about to lose you, too!” Her father’s face was crimson, the tiny veins on his neck standing out in relief against his skin.
It would have been a terrifying scene, but the last word of his sentence made her understand what was truly happening here. Insight slammed into her like a bullet from behind. “Lose me?” she asked gently. “Dad, I’m not going to die. Just because it happened to Mom doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to me.”
“You don’t understand, kid. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how scared she was when she realized what was going on, and how sad she was at the idea that she might not get to see you grow up. I told her the doctors were wrong, that they could stop the bleeding if they just tried hard enough.” Park sobbed and turned his face away. “At first, I blamed them. I almost beat the shit out of one of them in the parking lot, actually. But I realized that it was just the way things were. There was nothing anyone could have done about it. You’re the only thing I have left, Mina. I just wanted to keep you a little longer.”
“Dad, you’ve got to understand that you’ve only been driving me away.” Mina felt bad about being so blatant, but there was no more time to dance around the issue.
“Yes, I see that now. But it’s a little late, isn’t it? Skid is gone.”
“So we’ll find him. Send your men out. He can’t have gotten too far, yet.” She rose to her feet and reached for the door.
“No, Mina. The thing is, I already know where’s he’s gone. A man like him only has one option, and it’s not a good one. He’ll have gone to find Stomper, and damn it, it’s all my fault. I pressured him into talking to him and getting to know him again because I felt paranoid about the Sons of Chaos taking over our territory. I should have been more worried about them stealing the best damn vice president I ever could have had.” He ran a hand through his hair and then slammed it on the desk, angry at himself now instead of her.
“But Skid has always been loyal to you. If he was interested in leaving, then wouldn’t he have done it a long time ago?” Mina was desperate for her father to be wrong once again. She needed Skid back. They all did.
“You’ve seen him. He’s changed since he started talking with Stomper. I don’t know what it is, but he’s not the same person we’ve known for the last several years. It’s like it’s made him into a different person. You know I’m right, because I never would have found out about your relationship with him if he didn’t want me to. He’s grown careless and distant, and that’s my fault.”
“Then you’re just going to have to find a way to fix it,” Mina insisted, her sharp chin in the air. “I love him, Dad. I’ve loved him for a long time, and I’m going to have this baby of ours. You need to find a way to get him back and quick, before he does something he’ll regret.” It wasn’t the first time she’d been bossy with her father, but at least this time she knew there was a good reason behind it. She wasn’t just acting like a spoiled brat and insisting her buy her a motorcycle she couldn’t drive or throwing a fit over her allowance. This was important.
He nodded his agreement. “I’ll work on it. I need him back in the club. And to be honest, there’s nobody I’d rather have as a son-in-law.”
“Does that mean you would have accepted the two of us as a couple if we had come to you right away, before I even knew I was pregnant?” she challenged.
Park smiled. “Probably not. But I do now. Come here.”
Mina came around the desk and embraced her father, happy that at least this was taken care of. She needed Skid, but she was starting to realize that she needed her father, too. What Rose had said was right. Park had experience with babies, and she would need his advice and experience as she became a mother. Besides, her little one should have as much family around him or her as possible. “You think everything is going to be all right?” she asked against his shoulder.
“It has to be. I’ll make sure it is.”