Page 51 of Absolution

Ricca’s absence hits me harder than I could have ever expected. After years of living on my own, this woman tumbled into my life and reset the delicate balance of everything. Not that I minded, but to miss someone like this was not something that I anticipated. I barely slept the first few days, but the repair work that I had put onto my plate to make this place livable again was ahead of schedule. I couldn’t classify myself as a professional handyman, but installing new cabinets, updating the bathroom, and even laying new carpet was simple enough.

With the intent to move back to California, once this was all said and done, I wanted to make this place good enough to sell. With our marriage, she didn’t need to worry about a cash flow, but I don’t want her to feel completely dependent on me. She needed a nest egg of her own, and if she wanted to work, I wouldn’t stop her. It just wouldn’t be back at Red’s. He had expressed an interest in my wife far before she shared my last name, and I’ll be damned if I allow her to go back to that kind of work place. Willie’s was bad enough, but at least her boss and I had an understanding. While I hadn’t given him all the information regarding her past, I let him in enough to know that she walked a thin line of both sobriety and panic. His agreement to move her to the day shift was a welcomed one, as was his promise to keep an eye out on her. His only stipulation was that he got the first shot at Johnny Monroe or any man that crossed a line. I agreed, but I can’t say that is something that I would be able to honor. She is my everything, and I’d die to protect her.

Setting down my tools for the night, I settle onto the couch with a few slices of pizza on a plate, while I wait for her nightly call. I won’t lie and say that she gave me hell for hiding the fact that I had a house already set-up, and even accused me of doing this alongside of our surprise marriage. But the truth was that I had owned the place for years prior. I just hadn’t told anyone about it, until I needed it. It had been my private project and a way to decompress, after years of working for the club. A couple of beers, a hammer, and some nails were the closest thing to therapy that I had found to soothe my mind, until Ricca.

I employed Dani and Darcy’s help to get the furnishings and home shit in order to make the place ready, but with Ricca there, I insisted that she make the place her own. It was going to be our home for our family. Our private space to just be us, without the weight of world trying to kick in the door and screw it all up.

As I take a bite of pizza, my phone rings. My mouth still full, I grab it and try to answer it.

Her intoxicating giggle fills the phone, as I choke on the food in my mouth trying to answer her.

“You’re supposed to chew first,” she chastises me. “Bite, chew, then swallow.”

“I’m aware, wife,” I tease back. “Hearing your voice was far more important though.”

She giggles again, and I picture her beautiful face smiling back at me, across the miles that separate us. Only a few more days, and she’ll finally be home to me.

“I’d much prefer you’d still be alive when I get home, husband,” she responds back.

Tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder, I sit up from the couch and grab the plate, tossing it in the trashcan. She remains silent, and the fear that the house inspection today didn’t go as planned, sinks in. Silence and my wife aren’t a combination that has boded well for me in the past.

“Everything go okay, Siren?” I hesitantly question.

“Hmm,” she responds. “Oh yeah, it was fine. The inspector checked everything out, and was out of here in less than an hour. She said she would be conducting the reference interviews later this week, and that we should have her final report by the following week.”

“That sounds promising.”

“It does,” she concurs, before the silence returns. “Can I ask you something without you getting mad?”

“Depends. Do you think I will get mad?”

“You might. I did something that I probably shouldn’t have done without asking first.”

My mind runs with what she could have possibly done to suggest such a reaction of out me. There’s only a few skeletons left in my closet that she hasn’t been privileged to, and most of them were club business. Not something she would have just found on her own. Our bylaws are clear on that fact. While Raze did stretch the rules around to allow Darcy to be involved somewhat with our dealings with the cartel that killed Jagger, he didn’t want the women involved. It was too dangerous for them, and any kind of danger to our families affected the group as a whole. We couldn’t protect them and ourselves at the same time. It was better that way.

“Go on,” I instruct.

“I found a photo today in a box from your room at the clubhouse. I was trying to see if there was anything there that I could maybe put up in the house, and it slipped out from a book.”

In an instant, I know which photo she is referring too. While I had given her a glossy overview of my past, there were pieces that I hadn’t told her about. She may have faced her demons and her mother alone, but I didn’t.

“I can’t believe I am even asking this, but who is the girl in the picture? Is she someone you were close with?”

I sigh, before answering her. This wasn’t how I envisioned this call going. My expectations of discussing the inspection, her time out there, or hell even how she has decorated parts of the house were shot out of the water. Instead, I was about to divulge to her a piece of my past that only one other person had known about, and that was Jagger. His act of salvation came with a stipulation and a price. The loss of her.

“You could stay that,” I begin. “The girl in the picture with me is my sister, Genevieve. I called her Ginny for short.”

“Oh,” she murmurs. “You’ve never mentioned her before.”

“There’s a reason for that, but I need to start at the beginning, Siren. If I am going to tell you about her, I need to go back to where it all begin.”

“I’m listening.”

“Our mom died giving birth to Ginny when I was a few years old. My dad decided to cope with his loss by drinking himself to death.”

“Oh, Ratchet,” my wife declares. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s just the beginning, Ricca,” I mention. “Ginny and I bounced around from foster home to foster home, until our caseworker placed us with the Wilson family. I was about fifteen at the time, and Ginny was thirteen. For the first year, everything was great, until our foster mom died in a car accident. After that, everything went to shit. Like my real dad, my foster father also started drinking, and before I knew it, he started looking at my sister completely different.”

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