Page 58 of Loving Smoke

“How do you know all this?” All this time I thought Manny couldn’t care less about family and here he knew way more than me.

“She told me one time. She hated the life he made for them. She even tried to leave once but . . . Remember the time she spent two weeks at that spa?”

“She met with friends for a relaxing girls’ vacation.”

“Mom didn’t have any friends cause he wouldn’t allow it, and the spa was a secluded retreat at the tip of the coast where they treated her for a concussion and broken ribs.”

“What? How did?—”

“She got as far as San Diego when his goons found her and dragged her back, but not before they bashed in her head and cracked a few ribs.”

My mouth dropped open and I swallowed hard against a wave of nausea.

“She never tried to leave again, so she did the next best thing. She made a life separate from him and it worked—until she got caught.”

“If Dad had other women, why would he care what Mom did?”

“Don’t be so naive. A man like him wants it all. He thinks he owns everybody and he sure didn’t want her with anyone else, least of all one of his bodyguards. If he couldn’t have her no one could.”

“You’re lying.” I couldn’t comprehend Manny’s words. “You’re just saying this because you’re jealous Dad came to me to help him.”

“He came to me first. Bragging about how he took care of our faithless mother. Thinking he could talk to me as he said ‘man to man’. He played it off as the perfect setup. He hired some of his goons, copied the Royal Bastards’ cuts, and then staged it out by the pool with all the security around, and us to witness it.”

“He never said that to me. He told me it really was the Royal Bastards. He told me?—”

“I guess he didn’t want to repeat the same mistake he made with me, so he lied to you. Apparently, he thought I was as bloodthirsty as him.”

“But I still don’t understand. If he knows it’s not the Royal Bastards who shot her than why is he going after them?”

“For the same reason he made it look like they were the shooters. According to him the Bastards were cutting in on his territory so making it look like it was them, turns all the other cartels against the MC. This way no one sells to them, only to him. In case you haven’t figured it out yet he’s a sadistic bastard who has to have it all at any cost.”

I stared at my brother with a blank expression. Smoke gave me the same explanation. It was all too much to digest and yet, in some corner of my mind I believed Manny—and Smoke.

“Having me work at The Tropics and get close to Smoke made it easier for him to keep tabs on what was happening at the club.”

“When I turned him down, he said you would work out better anyway.” Manny narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think you wanna know what he said next.”

Smoke was right, my father pimped me out, not for revenge against my mother’s death, but for his own means.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know the truth. It’s fuckin’ hard to walk around every day knowing your father had your mother murdered. Most days I wanna go in there and put a bullet in his brain.” Manny held up the weed. “But instead, I come out here and anesthetize myself.”

I pushed myself off the chaise on wobbly legs. “I have to confront him.”

This had nothing to do with Manny or Smoke—this was something I had to do for my own peace. It couldn’t wait.

“Won’t do much good. I’m sure by now he’s got some other plan in motion. He probably already senses your reluctance and with the Royal Bastards in Tijuana it will be easy for him to call in any number of favors to have them eliminated.”

“I have to try.” I swiped Smoke’s number on my phone and waited. I wanted to at least warn him about setting up any kind of meeting. When it went to voicemail I frantically sent a text, then headed for the villa determined to have a showdown with my father once and for all.

22

My sleep was plagued with nightmares of Marisol drowning while Rico held her head under the violent waves of the Pacific.

When I finally woke up, I checked my phone again and still no word from her. Anxiety crept into my chest tightening the muscles with unanswered questions. Did she get home and decide to blow me off? Did Rico blackmail her into giving me up? Or had something happened to her making it impossible to respond?

None of those scenarios were good so I went behind the bar and retrieved a beer then settled at my table and observed the lunch crowd, but that didn’t fuckin’ help either.

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