Chapter Twenty-Three
Roxanna
It’s late-afternoon when I get to my parent’s house. The sun’s hanging at that point in the horizon that’s just an hour or two before it turns into a fading red ball that’ll cast streaks of scarlet across the sky. Trepidation builds inside me as I ride up my parent’s long driveway.
How am I going to tell my father I know what he’s up to?
How do I stop this?
Court’s over. My dad’s car sits in the driveway alone.
I charge inside, insurgent fear rippling through my voice.
“Dad,” I shout. “Dad, where are you?”
Even before he answers, I know exactly where he is — the same place he was most every afternoon as I’d come home from school. The same place where I spent evenings studying, preparing for the SAT’s, college exams, and any other number of tests and projects. He’d sit across from me, silent, doing his own work, but always ready to help the second I ask a question.
It feels so strange now, stepping into his office, being surrounded by books on law, and knowing what he’s done. The image I have of him, shattered.
“Hey Roxy,” he says, hardly looking up from his newspaper.
He’s so calm, it’s enraging.
I storm forward, slam my hands on his desk and lean forward. How can he be so calm about things?
“I know what you’re involved in,” I start. “I went through your files.”
He turns a page of the newspaper. “Do you, now?”
“Yes. How can you just sit there? How could you do any of this? I respected you, dad. I love you.”
“You don’t know the half of things,” he says, still so even-voiced I want to scream. “You’ve rendered judgement with hardly any of the facts.”
“So, what, you’re not working for the Iron Devils? Because it sure as hell looks like you’re taking payouts from someone.”
“I am.”
“What else is there to know? I can’t believe my own fucking father is a fucking criminal.”
“Jesus Christ, Roxanna, watch your language,” he snaps, setting the paper down. “Listen to me: I didn’t have a choice.”
I quiet at his rebuke, but it doesn’t quell my anger. “You’re a judge.”
“I’m a father. A husband. I love my wife, I love my daughter, and, about four years ago, these assholes made it clear that if I didn’t cooperate in this scheme of theirs — help them make money from the custody system — they’d kill you.”
“What the fuck, dad. And you didn’t try anything? Talk to the cops?”
I want to hit him — it’s the same damn thing, with Nash, with my dad — they think they have to solve their problems on their own, in their own way.
He pauses. “When they first asked, I told them to go to hell. A week later, they sent me photos of you. You on on campus, you in the grocery store, you in your apartment. And then, a man came to our door, with a photo of you, asleep in your bed. So I did what I had to do.”
“There were other options,” I say, my voice not much more than a whisper. “Anything other than what you did.”
“And risk losing you? Or your mother? Not a chance. I love you both too much to let that happen.”
“There has to be something else. You could talk to the FBI.”
“I’ve been working for them for years, now. There isn’t any chance I get out of it without going to prison, without having my assets taken because they’re tainted with money I’ve taken from the Devils,” he says, getting up to move around the desk. “I can’t let you or your mother be hurt like that.”
He gives me a hug that feels both familiar and strange; this man is my father, but he’s not my dad. It hits something inside me, something desperate, a part of me that wants to scrabble the pieces around me into something resembling sanity.
I shake him off; push him away.
“How can you use me or mom as reason for doing the things you’ve done? Like it’s our fault that you’re too weak to do the right thing. You’ve torn families apart, dad. For money.”
“I don’t expect you to understand right away. You’re still young. But I know, in time, you’ll get it, Roxy. And I still love you.”
He breaks my heart. With his stubborn commitment to the shit he’s involved in.
I wish my dad were the man I always thought him to be.
I take a deep breath, try to still the wildfire of emotions inside me. I came here for a reason: to try and save him. I cling to the hope that, if I give him a glimpse of the consequences he’s facing, maybe he’ll come to his senses. Death and violence is right on the horizon and I will do anything to keep it from my family.
“Dad, you need to listen to me: something bad is about to happen.”
“What’s that, Roxy?”
“Some really, really violent men are coming for you. They know what you’re involved in. The Wayward Kings, the motorcycle club the Iron Devils are feuding with, is going to raid the sheriff’s impound lot tonight. People are going to die, and the Kings aren’t going to stop with just that. They know what you’ve done. That you’ve taken the daughter of one of their members. This is real, dad. They’re going to find you, and they are going to hurt you.”
He hugs me again. He doesn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. “I’m sorry you’re mixed up in all this.”
This hug doesn’t loosen; it tightens until dots of color swim in my vision. “Dad?”
“I’m glad you told me. Thank you, Roxy.”
My throat clenches, his hug tightens. “Dad?”
I try and move, struggle myself free, get some room to breathe.
“You’re mixed up in something you don’t understand. You might not agree with what I’m doing, but I’m doing it to keep you safe,” he says.
And then he hurls me to the floor. It’s so abrupt, I don’t even think to scream; I blink, and suffer the bruising thud of my body crashing into the floor of my father’s office.
My father’s hands knot in my hair, tight, inescapable, and he drags me across the hardwood until we’re behind his desk. Handcuffs come out of his desk drawer — solid steel, law-enforcement handcuffs — and he cuffs me.
His necktie comes off — silk, expensive, a present I gave him for his fiftieth birthday — and he gags me with it.
I’m dumped in the closet. Hands bound, feet tied, gagged. Helpless.
“This is for your own good. You don’t see it now, but you will. If I go away, your mother will lose everything, and I’m sure you’d lose your internship, too. I won’t let that happen.”
The door shuts. I’m left in the crushing darkness.
“Fuck you,” I scream into the gag.
It’s the first time I’ve cursed at my dad, and he can’t even hear it.
My mind scrambles to make sense of my situation. I’ve lost my father — that’s for certain — and the Kings are just hours away from making their raid.
I calm my breathing. I’ve got to think.
Out in his office, I hear my father’s voice again.
“It’s Judge Pierce,” he says. I listen, straining my ears for every word. “I wish this was under better circumstances, but that impound lot of yours is about to get hit. I don’t know how long you have; maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe more, but the point is, those Kings are pissed. You need to move that cargo.”
There’s silence.
“Where?” my dad says. “I don’t know. Hell, take it to my cabin — the one past Carbonado on the way to Mt. Rainier.” He pauses, I hear him pacing, feet thumping a rhythm of nerves against the floor. “No, no, it’ll be fine. No one goes up there. Just leave the crates behind the wood shed, throw a tarp over them, it should be fine.”
It’s quiet.
Quiet for long enough that I know that whoever is on the other end of the line is no longer there.
The phone rings again.
“He said to do what? Tonight?”
More silence. Heavier, now. I can feel my father’s weighted mood from here.
“And you’re going to get all of them? Fine. Listen, keep my daughter out of this — she was kidnapped, remember? I’ll handle her. You can kill the rest, I don’t give a damn, and hell, burn their clubhouse down when you’re done with them. Just don’t call me again tonight — I’ve got dinner with the wife and I don’t want to be interrupted,” he says. “I’ll put in the paperwork in the morning, have that little girl’s foster situation made permanent. Fuck, we’ll send her somewhere else — somewhere far away. Shame we couldn’t get paid on that one. Maybe next time.”
My heart shrinks to some inconsequentially small thing. My muscles scream against the confines of my handcuffs, against the bindings around my feet, and my teeth gnaw against the tie gagging me.
I need to get free.
He hangs up. The door to his office opens and closes with a slam.
I’m alone.
And in a few hours, it’ll be permanent. My old family burned in my father’s betrayal; my new family dead in a hail of bullets.
I need to get out of here.