Page 23 of Dagger

It had taken twenty minutes to relay everything that had happened over the last thirty years. Not all of it was appropriate for me to tell my children, but every word dug in deep and carved a hole inside my heart.

It wasn’t just that I had to explain my relationship with their mother—which frankly was humiliating enough. What really gutted me was that by the time I’d finished telling them the truth, they knew what Elise had meant to me for all that time.

I hadn’t cheated on Adele, but it didn’t stop the bitter taste of guilt burning my throat as I told my kids how Elise and I were torn apart and the beautiful consequences of meeting Adele.

Namely, them.

They knew some of it already—hell, I’d used it to embarrass them enough over the years—but explaining the nuances of my relationship with their mother wasn’t easy. Not because I regretted my time with her, but in hindsight, it was clear that my insistence on marrying Adele had set off a chain of events that had affected three people’s lives, and not all for the better.

I rubbed my beard thoughtfully, studying the expressions on each face intently. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved your mother but not in the way you love your ol’ ladies,” my stare went to Freya, who was on FaceTime, “or ol’ men.”

“Clearly,” she clipped out.

My heart wrenched.

“You were together for over twenty years,” Kit pointed out. “How the fuck can you be with someone for that long and not love ‘em.”

“I did love her,” I protested.

He cocked his head and muttered, “Not in the right way. All that time, you were pining after someone else.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I countered. “I was content with my life. As far as I knew at the time, Elise had betrayed me. I wasn’t ever goin’ there with her.”

“Yeah, and you got that wrong, too,” Bowie scraped out.

“What a fuck up,” Cash clipped out, stare resting on me. “You know you just swung your ass way over the cliff edge for her? Henderson and his goons will be gunning for ya now.”

“Yeah,” I concurred. “Though it’s nothin’ Elise hasn’t been doin’ for me for the last thirty years. ‘Bout time someone had her back.”

Silence fell over the room while the kids digested everything.

I could understand their anger. In retrospect, I hadn’t dealt with things well, but at the time, all I could do was play the hand I was dealt the best way I knew.

My forehead furrowed as my thoughts went back to that time. “Do I wish I’d listened to my instincts back then and stayed in town to dig deeper into Elise and Henderson’s marriage? Of course I do. But I was twenty-two years old and took things at face value. On top of that, I’d been through some shit in the military myself and probably wasn’t in the best place mentally. Back then, the club was harder and more brutal. I’d been raisedto dog anybody who betrayed us. Your mom was like a breath of fresh air and, at the time, exactly what and who I needed.”

“But were you what Mom needed?” Freya challenged.

I shrugged. “I’d like to think so. We had you, after all. I could never regret any of you kids. What happened to mine and your ma’s marriage was a natural progression. It screwed with me at the time ‘cause I thought us splitting meant losing you lot. You’ve always come before any woman in my life and always will. When your ma left, I wished her well, and I was happy she’d found Tim. Never wanted to hold her back, and she deserved to be loved the right way.”

“Remember wonderin’ at the time why you never fought for your marriage,” Bowie questioned.

“Promised your ma thirty years ago that I’d let her go if she ever found her one,” I told him. “You kids were older by then, and she needed to spread her wings. There was a lot about Adele I didn’t really understand—we’re like chalk and cheese—but I understood that need in her at least, and I’ll give your mom props; she always got my feelings for Elise.” I let out a quiet snort. “Probably better than I damned well did.”

“She’s always been that way,” Cash murmured. “Feels her way around things.”

I nodded my agreement. “Your mother’s somethin’ else. A good woman, one who deserves to find her happy.”

“She’s also pissed at you still,” Freya informed me. “Honestly, I’m shocked you even included me in this call. Last time I saw you in the flesh, you disowned me.”

My heart contracted painfully, but I sat forward and looked her straight in the eye. “Gotta lotta regrets, Freya, but sayin’ those things to you is probably my biggest one. You’re as much a part of this family as your brothers, and you deserve to know the truth. I apologize for bein’ a dick.”

My daughter’s eyes rounded. “Did the immovable John Stone just say sorry to me?”

Kit chuckled.

Cash let out a snort.

“Need you to do somethin’,” I asked softly. “Call your ma and tell her to answer the damned phone. I’ve tried to speak to her, but she won’t pick up.”

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