Page 15 of Enforce This

“What’s so funny?” he quietly asked.

“I… I was just thinking about how I’m missing class. I’m going to have to miss another day for mom’s funeral and I don’t know how many days I have left. I mean, you can only miss so many and then they kick you out of the program. And then I realized that is the most ridiculous thought I could have right now. I’m being held captive by some lunatic with a pistol who claims the mafia is after me, and I’m worried about graduating from nursing school…” I laughed until the sound strangled in my throat.

Eric stared at me, his expression unreadable for a few moments.

“I’m not a lunatic with a pistol. I’m just the guy your dad charged with keeping you safe.”

I tightened my lips into a forced smile and gave him a slow nod.

My dad.

“You mean the asshole who got my mother killed? You’re watching me because the asshole who got my mother killed asked you to hold me hostage.”

“Listen, I’m really sorry about your mom. It may not mean much, because I’m just a lowlife biker and all, but she didn’t deserve that. No woman does.”

I fixed my gaze on him, and he hefted up one side of his mouth in a gentle, lopsided smile. I huffed and averted my eyes as the tears threatened again.

“You knew my last name because of the party your dad brought you to,” he guessed after a few awkward moments, “You read it on my uniform that afternoon.”

I sniffed and nodded, there was no reason to deny it.

“I was nine years old.” I recalled, “You were– You were the first soldier I had ever met. It was a big deal to me, because Doug used to take me to see the air shows by the military base. I thought it meant you could fly a jet and soar through the skies, far, far away from Maryette County.”

His eyes tightened and he might have even flinched.

“Kind of neat how kids view the world, huh?” he absently mused. “You know that old ketchup-bottle styled water tower down in Collinsville? My brother, Anthony, was twelve before he realized that sum’ bitch wasn’t full of ketchup.”

I laughed, unable to help myself and stared at him in disbelief.

“Your brother thought a water tower was full of ketchup?”

“It’s shaped like a ketchup bottle and painted like one, too… Haven’t you ever seen it?”

He pulled out his phone, punched something into the search engine and held it out, leaving me to squint at the giant ketchup bottle on stilts that was erected alongside a road. The caption beneath the image reads, Collinsville, Illinois.

“Is there a ketchup factory in Collinsville… I mean, what would possess them to paint their water tower like a ketchup bottle?”

He tilted his head and stared absently in thought for a moment before admitting, “Yanno, I don’t know.”

He instantly started typing away on his phone and forgot about me for a few moments while he scrolled.

I wanted to give in and allow him to distract me, but the hurt and anger boiled back to the surface as quickly as it had simmered.

“Some big, bad biker you are, scrolling and swiping away while the mafia eliminates your club members or leaves them unable to ride.”

There was something deadly in his eyes when he shifted them from the screen to my face.

“Do you understand what it means… if your Daddy can’t ride, girl?”

His voice was cold, gravelly, and the way he called me ‘girl’ left me bristling inside and out.

“How about we just settle for calling him Mark, hm? I’ve had aboutallthe paternal titles I can handle for one day. I have not considered that man to be my father for a year and a half now.”

He silently searched my face for a few moments and when he looked away it was only to pour himself another shot of whiskey.

“What happened a year and a half ago?” he asked.

He didn’t bother to return his attention to me until he had slammed his shot and set the glass back down on the dresser he was leaning against. The place was bare. The decorations were minimal and for the most part looked as if they were homemade. Doug’s mother had hand stitched doilies just like the one he had beneath his shot glass and pistol.

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