Page 62 of Biker Daddy

She nodded and moved on to the next painting. This one focused on a man rounding the corner, a bag of Chinese food in his hand. Drew painted the scenes as if they were a graphic novel but in realism. His face in the scene was in shock, his mouth open in a shout.

“What were they doing to this guy?” Addi pointed at the man that Mauler held as his father, fist extended, was about to hit him.

“Teaching him a lesson, I suppose.” Drew stepped further into the room to point out his father to Addi. “This is my father, the president of the Skull Grinders. This is Dingo, acting sergeant at arms here.” Drew pointed to the victim. “I don’t know what this guy did, but he crossed my father so they were going to make an example out of him.” Drew shoved a shaking hand through his hair.

“My job was to keep six.”

“Keep six?” Her bows scrunched and he fisted his hands to keep from pushing her hair back from her face. He wouldn’t touch her now. Not until she knew everything.

“Lookout, babe. I was the lookout.”

“But you were just a kid.” She frowned, and managed to look both angry and sad. “You should have been at home, doing schoolwork or playing basketball or street hockey.”

“I was the future president of the Grinders, babe. I had my place. It was what was expected of me.”

“You didn’t want to be a biker?”

“Not the kind the Grinders are.” He drew in a breath. “These clubs can be really great places for guys like me to feel like part of a brotherhood where everyone has each other’s back. The Grinders were into bad shit though. I’ve never been interested in hurting anyone.”

She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing the painting of Drew’s dad and then moved on. The next scene was of the shot, a flare of orange at the front of the gun, and the guy lying lifeless in the filthy street. Addi covered her mouth and squeaked as she saw the boy in the alley. His pants were wet and his eyes wide in horror.

“A child, a baby?” she stammered.

“The off-duty cop’s son. He witnessed his father’s murder.” Drew swallowed hard at the memory, his chest constricting as if an anaconda had him.

The next painting showed his father shooting the other man, Drew holding his hands over the cop’s wound, blood seeping through his fingers and a shadowy form hovering over Drew. The form was hooded and dark, a sickle in its hand. He’d painted more details, like a sketch pad on the ground beneath the bike’s tire and the bag of Chinese food tipped to its side, but it was the reaper she stared at. It was what drew his eyes too. It was his interpretation of what had happened as the man died beneath his hands. He’d become the reaper. That would’ve been his patched name.

The paintings were his living nightmare on display before the woman he loved and it chilled him when he watched her face examining them.

Addi moved to stand before the final painting. It was of Drew shoving the boy behind the dumpster.

She stood for a long time staring before going back to look at the others again. And finally when he didn’t think he could stand another second in the room confronted by his demons, with the walls closing in on him, she turned to him. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Oh, Drew. I thought I had it bad. But you… you had it so much worse.”

“I know I was too young to walk away from my father and the Grinders. I know those deaths weren’t my fault. For years I blamed myself but Ray helped me see things differently. The thing is, I still witnessed two men lose their lives and a kid lose his father. I was still the one that called out. And I still took the place of those killers in jail. I’ve been making fucked-up decisions my whole life, babe. This shit has shaped me.” He pulled off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, holding out his arms for her to see.

“Look at me. I’m a man who will never escape my demons. You deserve better.”

“You know what I see when I look at you?” she asked and he swallowed hard. “I see a hero. A man who has always put others before himself. Me and my uncle included.”

“You really believe that?” His brow furrowed tightly.

“Don’t you?”

He shrugged and sat in the desk chair staring. Addi climbed onto his lap. “I give all the proceeds from my art to a couple of charities I founded.”

“You do? Is that for them or because you feel like you don’t deserve it?”

He gave her a sad smile. “You know me so well already, baby girl.” He brushed her dark hair back from her face. “Both. I want to help them, but I don’t deserve good things either. I helped put that kid through university, and countless others but it’ll never make up for what I did.” He looked at her pointedly. “I don’t deserve you.” She leaned against him, her head cradled in the hollow of his neck and shoulder.

“When I was twelve my mom was in an accident. She was in a coma.” His hand went to her head and he began stroking her. He knew some of this story from Ray. He didn’t stop her though. She needed to tell it in her own words.

“I had to decide whether to keep her on life support or take her off.” He felt Addi tense against him, so he left her hair to knead her shoulder. “My dad left the decision up to me. I chose to stop all life-saving measures because I knew it’s what she would have wanted, and what my dad and the doctors wanted, but I hated them all for it. Her for needing the adventure and screwing me out of a mother, my dad for not wanting the burden of a family but especially a bedridden wife, and the doctors for taking away my hope. I hated my mother as she struggled to take her last breath.”

“Of course you did, baby girl. You were sixteen. You should never have had to make that decision.”

“I wasn’t enough for her. She always had to have the next adventure. I wasn’t enough to get my father to leave his office.”

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