Page 37 of Biker's Collar: Property of Scrap

“I want you to sit your ass down,” I tell her, my eyes softening once I look directly at her. “I’m not having you clean my baby mama’s house. We’re here for Waverly and honestly… once I get her… I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Looking around, I don’t know that I can leave my daughter here in good conscience. But legally… I might have to do that. I try not to let the shame knock me off balance as I lead Vickie to a seat at the small round kitchen table, which only has a smallmess on it. There are dishes in the sink and the rest of the place is still a mess.

Vickie looks over at me with more sympathy than I’ve seen from her.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“I didn’t need you to clean up my mess the first time you met me.”

She pipes down after that. I try not to let all my emotions get the better of me. I told myself that with my mom checking in once in a while, my brothers within driving distance, and Kaylee-Marie fighting tooth and nail in court for our daughter that she would be safe. She would be happy.

This place isn’t even fucking clean. When Kaylee-Marie walks through that door without our daughter in her arms, I’ll have to do everything in my power not to snap her fucking neck. I might not be perfect, but I would never keep Waverly under these conditions. I couldn’t stomach it.

I expected my brothers to get back with Kaylee-Marie before I got the kitchen done, but I get the place cleaned up and mopped, plus all the carpeted areas on the ground floor picked up and vacuumed. Vickie stares at me like an alien when I pick up the vacuum cleaner.

“What? I bought this Dyson for her. It’s sexist to think a man can’t vacuum.”

“It’s not sexist. It’s just something I’ve never seen before,” Vickie says. “And you look like an ex-con or something. It’s not every day you see that.”

“I look like an ex-con?”

“Tall, evil looking eyes, bearded, covered in tattoos.”

“More like your fantasy of an ex-con,” I grunt before powering on the vacuum and drowning out more of Vickie’s potential commentary until the floor looks partially cleaned. Once I’m done with that noise, Vickie offers me another sympathetic look. She seems embarrassed when I catch it on her, but before I can accuse her of having romantic feelings towards me, her face screws right up and I hear the sound of Ethan’s ghetto ass bike coming up the driveway. He refuses to fix the knocking sound from the crankshaft on that thing.

Crazy motherfucker. I walk over to Vickie, trying not to look too closely at her collar because I can’t afford an erection right now.

“The less you say, the better. I’ll handle this and get us out of here. Don’t let Kaylee-Marie get under your skin.”

“I’ve never met a white girl whose ass I couldn’t beat,” Vickie says calmly.

I’ll take her word for it, but I once got my nose broken for attacking someone who called Kaylee-Marie a pit bull with lipstick. Got my ribs broken the second time someone called her that. The third time somebody called her that, I started to think maybe I had a blind spot for her.

Blind spot didn’t matter. She still left me. Took my kid. I fought so hard for a woman who didn’t love me, and who I treated like dirt right back. Waverly was the only good thing to come out of that relationship.

The front door opens up and when I hear Kaylee-Marie’s heels, the hairs on the back of my neck instantly stand up. I got into a couple bar fights over some names Kaylee-Marie was called over those high heels. I myself wondered how she got herself to balance in them but… here she comes. I stand defensively in front of Vickie, like that has a shot at making the situation better.

Ethan and Wyatt enter the room on either side of her like bodyguards or hopefully more like prison guards. Kaylee-Marie has neon eyes that can see straight through me, I swear.

“Why the fuck did you bring a hooker into my house when your daughter is kidnapped?!”

Seventeen

Vickie

Owen has to understand that situations like this are why a woman might drug him and run out the fucking window. I’ve barely been around him for three days and this situation has already escalated out of control. I hate to think this about another human being, but the resemblance is so uncanny that it just jumps into my head. You know how some people look like horses, just a little bit? This woman looks like a pale, blue-nosed pitbull with soft, clear blue eyes but a mean ass mug that looks like she’s going topounceon Owen.

I have a lot of nerve comparing that woman to a dog with a collar around my neck. But it’s just the truth. And I don’t feel great about the collar either. What choice did I have? Owen has the clear capacity for brutality and… the leather isn’t too tight. I can handle the collar around my neck for a lot longer than I can handle Owen’s tightening fingers.

The two bouncer-looking-ass motherfuckers standing next to Owen’s ex-girlfriend don’t make me feel any safer. It’s some kind of fucked up three-headed-dog situation and I’m glad that Owen is currently standing between us. I don’t have a weapon, but even if I had one, I doubt he would want me to use that on his brothers or the mother of his child. Shit, he’s the boss rightnow, so I guess I could do mostly everything he asked as long as it wasn’t too sick…

His ex-girlfriend is shorter than I thought she would be, clocking in at no taller than five-foot-two while wearing high heels. Her hands are on her hips and her nostrils are all flared out with her hair in a Snooki from Jersey Shore style bump in her hair. I haven’t seen that hairstyle in a damn decade. The men standing next to her at least wear name tags, although I recognize Bear’sface once I see him. His beard is fully grey compared to the last time I saw him and his hair isn’t jet black anymore. Bear’s salt and pepper hair is a couple inches long and messy from his bike helmet. He looks like an old black bear now, instead of just a terrifying grizzly.

I feel strangely calm and just observant of the entire situation. I don’t feel insecure around the mother of Owen’s child, although maybe I should. The way she comes out swinging like that… Well, I get it. But I don’t want those kinds of problems and if she pushes me too far, I’ll do what I have to do.

“She’s not a hooker,” Bear says, which is weird, because he literally paid me to have sex with his brother. “And I swear, Kaylee-Marie, I hear one more word from your ass, I’ll shoot you myself.”

Kaylee-Marie tosses as much of her hair as she can over her shoulders. One of her extensions hangs off a little bit. I avoid making eye contact with the loose hair extension. Kaylee-Marie turns her furious gaze over to Owen’s brother but she’s smart enough not to sass him back. He’s much taller than Owen, and he looks like he breaks necks for fun.

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