Chapter Twenty-One
Hack
When I lead Pru up the stairs, she heads straight to the nursery, but I grab her arm before she can open the door. “Lettie and Lisa are watching Scarlett. You can go and check on her when we’re done talking.”
“Is something wrong?” she asks, as I open the door to the room we have been sharing and motion for her to walk in.
Concern is written all over her face. I wish I could put her at ease, but that’s not gonna happen any time soon. Something is wrong, really fucking wrong. Even though she knows the Grim Bastards are having trouble with the Saints, she has no idea how serious this shit is. I’ve tried to shelter her from as much of it as I could, including the fact that her mom likes to party with the fuckers that were watching her and our daughter.
“Have you talked to your mom since you’ve been here?” I ask, knowing she has but wanting to see if she will tell me the truth.
Pru’s phone is also a burner phone. Not because she’s trying to hide something, it’s just that she can’t afford anything better. I connected it to my computer and placed a tracker on it the first night she was at the clubhouse. I did it for her safety, not to invade her privacy, and I never even checked it until a few minutes ago.
She walks over to me and lays a trembling hand on my chest. “Why? Did something happen to her?”
“No, baby,” I say, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close. “I just need to know if you’ve talked to her.”
She nods before answering. “Yeah, I’ve texted her a few times and spoke to her once. She has been blowing up my phone ever since I got here. I finally gave in and answered her this morning. We only talked for a few minutes. She kept screaming that I needed to come home and wouldn’t even give me a chance to talk, so I just hung up.”
I close my eyes, thankful she told me the truth. “I need to tell you something, and you’re not gonna like it.”
“What did she do this time?” she asks, leaning her forehead against my chest.
It’s really messed up that she knows her mom has done something fucking stupid, without me having to say a word. I may not talk to my parents that often, not nearly as often as I should. But if anyone started asking me these questions, I would never even consider they’d done something fucked up.
Still holding her, I shuffle her backward until we hit the bed. I gently push her down on the bed and pull out my phone. Searching through my gallery, I pull up the most recent picture of her mother with the Saints and sit down next to her.
I hand her the phone and give her a second to look at the picture before asking, “Do you know the man in that picture?”
“No,” she mumbles, still searching his face. “I don’t think so.”
Taking the phone back, I try a different tactic and pull up the oldest photo. “How about either one of these guys?”
She looks at her mother being fondled by two different men and slowly closes her eyes. “Hack, please just tell me what she did.”
“I will, but first, I need you to answer my questions,” I reply, hating to hurt her further but knowing I need to get the answers out of her.
She opens her bright green eyes and looks back at the picture. “I don’t think I’ve ever met them. Mom never brought anyone to the house, so it’s doubtful.”
“Don’t start lying to me now,” I say, anger starting to creep into my voice. “Your mom’s always hanging onto something with a dick. The kind of woman she is, she’s not gonna hide that shit from her child.”
“I’m not lying,” she says, showing some anger of her own. “I never met more than a couple of her friends when I was growing up. Since I’ve gotten older, the only time I’ve seen any of them is if they happen to be outside the bar when I pick her up.”
“That doesn’t sound like the woman I met,” I tell her, still wondering if she is lying.
She looks down to the floor and keeps her eyes trained on the carpet as she speaks. “When I was nine, she had a bunch of people at our place. I don’t know what happened, because I always stayed in my room when she had company. But sometime during the night, I woke up to a bunch of screaming and banging.”
“Yeah,” I say, urging her to continue when she goes silent.
She tilts her head to the side and gives me an odd look. “It wasn’t the kind of screaming and banging I was accustomed to hearing.”
It doesn’t take but a second to figure out she’s talking about the sounds of her mom fucking some asshole. “I get what you’re saying.”
“It went on for what seemed like forever, but then I heard a very loud bang. A bit more time passed before new voices were added to the mix and it quieted down. Next thing I know, a police officer walks into my room.” She stops for a minute to draw in a deep breath. “I spent the rest of that school year in foster care.”
“Fuck, baby,” I whisper, wrapping my arm around her to pull her close.
“Mom couldn’t get welfare without having custody of me, so she cleaned up her act long enough to get me back. After that, she didn’t party at the house. The social worker had got us a place at the low-income apartments. Mom said the walls were thin and the neighbors were nosy, so they’d call the cops if she tried having fun in her own home.”
She looks up at me with a sad smile on her face. “So, she took her partying somewhere else, and I stayed home alone.”
“Shit, Pru,” I growl, tightening my hold. “I hate you had to go through that.”
She leans her head on my shoulder and quietly asks, “Now, can you please tell me what Mom did?”
I should show her the other pictures of her mom and have her look at the one of the kid who dropped off the boxes. I should at least ask her a few more questions. Instead, I end up telling her everything. I start with the men in the photos being members of the same club that was watching her. Then, I tell her about the trackers on her car and some of the others. I end by telling her about the boxes and her mother’s connection to them.
She jerks her eyes to mine. “It had Scarlett’s name written on it?”
“Yeah,” I reply, envisioning the doll head.
“I can’t believe she would do something like this.” She pulls out of my hold and jumps from the bed. “No, that’s a lie. I can believe it. The woman is a diabolical bitch, and if she gets anywhere near my daughter, I will kill her.”
I expected to see tears in her green eyes, but fury is there instead. Her entire body is vibrating with anger as she flexes her fists at her sides. There is no doubt in my mind that if her mother was here right now, Pru wouldn’t think twice about killing her.
“The club is gonna take care of it,” I say, trying to calm her down. “We’re gonna grab your mom, bring her in, and have a discussion.”
“I hope that discussion involves you knocking her teeth down her throat,” she shouts, nostrils flaring with rage.
“That can be arranged.” I slowly nod my head, never losing eye contact. “You need to remember, she may be being forced to do all this shit. She’s probably just doing what they tell her to do.”
Clair probably is just doing as she is told, but I really doubt they are forcing her to do anything. If I was betting, I’d say the odds are she is getting something out of this. It may just be a ride on someone’s dick or a bottle of cheap whiskey, but the bitch is getting something.
Pru steps forward, placing her hands on my shoulders and giving them a tight squeeze. “I don’t give a shit what the reasoning is behind her actions. She threatened our daughter, and she needs to pay for it.”
Suddenly, I remember her telling me she would have killed the man that hit Holly. At the time she said it, I thought she was just saying what I needed to hear. Looking at her now, I can see she meant every word she said.
“She will pay, and she may end up paying in a way that means you will never see her again,” I say, wanting her to understand that her mother’s life is at stake.
“That’s even better,” she replies with a shrug. “When you kill her, make sure you get rid of her body. Don’t try to make it look like an accident or anything. I don’t want the medical examiner calling me and expecting me to pay for her funeral.”
A smile spreads across my lips as I look up at her face. I expect to hear her laugh, or at least for her to crack a smile. Instead, I see nothing but cold determination. It is in that moment, I realize just how fucking perfect she is.
“You’re gonna make me one hell of an old lady,” I say, pushing myself off the bed and pulling her into my arms.
“Huh?” she asks, but I answer her with a kiss.