Words clogged my throat, hard and sharp as stones, but I remained quiet. I remained resolved.
“Always been proud of my little badass. God knows you caused ’nough trouble over your life to earn that label but I was a proud dad ’cause you were smart as fuck and twice as noble at your core.”
My lip curled under, wobbling precariously. This wasn’t a gift he was gearing up to give me, not after what I’d done, what he thought I’d chosen.
It was a condemnation.
An excommunication from the only religion I’d ever practiced.
Zeus Garro, President of The Fallen MC, stood before me, taller and broader and fiercer than any other man I’d ever known. I watched as that man transitioned like Jeckel into Hyde from my father to my Prez. The wet in his blade grey eyes froze over and his twisted, broken-hearted features smoothed out and hardened like battened down hatches. He stood to his tall, strong, dazzling height and walked a few heavy steps toward me in the open door. In those few seconds, he cut me out of his heart and closed himself off to me forever.
I choked on a monstrous sob but forced myself to look him in the eye as he delivered my fate.
“You’ve just proven to me, to everyone that ever thought there was good at the heart of all that bad, that they were fuckin’ wrong. You turned your back on your friends, on your fuckin’ family and you gotta know, Harleigh Rose, now we’ve turned our back on you. The home we kept open to ya even in your darkest, worst fuckin’ hour. It’s closed. If it’d’a been just me you fucked over, maybe I coulda let it pass ’cause fuck, you’re my kid, but you put Lou in danger and your fuckin’ unborn siblings and your goddamn brother. You think I can let that slide?”
He took a step away from me, just a small one but it felt like a million miles and he was already turning away from me when he landed the final punch. “You’re done. In The Fallen and as a fuckin’ Garro.”
The words hit me worse than Cricket ever had, so hard my bones seemed to splinter beneath my skin, my organs bruised from the force, my body swaying visibly backwards so I had to catch myself on my back foot.
Impulsively I reached out for my dad as he moved passed then flinched when he evaded my touch and walked through the door without once looking back.
I collapsed to my knees, my fist in my mouth to try to stem the awful force of my sobs as my body shuddered with agony. Giving up on containment, I sunk farther to the floor, so my wet cheek was plastered to the cool floor, the same floor that had seen Cricket’s blood, the same floor I’d nearly been raped on, the same floor that I laid against transformed again by tragedy, now orphaned and nameless.
I don’t know how long I lay there for, but it was long enough that my tears dried, my bleeding soul shriveled up like a drying husk, and I was numb to everything but the feel of that floor against my cheek.
He came for me.
I should have known he would, but thinking was too painful, so I hadn’t allowed myself to do it.
I heard the jingle of Hero’s tags and the simple sound brought tears to my eyes again because it reminded me that I did have some family left at least.
My man and his dog.
Hero appeared in front of my face, whining sharply, bumping my face with his wet nose then licking gently at my salt streaked face. I wanted to hug him, to wrap my aching body around his warm, soft one and bury my face in his fresh air scented fur, but I was too weak and wasted to move an inch.
“Rosie.”
There was so much pain in that one word, each syllable shaped like a gaping wound. His empathy soothed me. It reminded me that if anyone could understand my anguish, it was Lion.
He crouched beside Lion, only his worn Timberland boots visible to my eyes from where I lay. His hand found the damp hair in my face and pushed it back behind my ear, his fingers tracing the shell.
I didn’t move.
“No one could do this to you, but your father,” he noted softly, and when I hummed weakly in agreement, he punctuated his displeasure with a growl. “Fuckin’ bastard.”
“No,” I whispered through my swollen throat. “I wronged him.”
Danner sighed angrily then shifted, going to his belly on the ground beside me, displacing Hero so that he was lying face to face with me. His eyes were deep green pools, safe and still as lake water. His hand found my hair again and gently detangled the threads.