Page 110 of Savage Cravings

I shook my head. I told myself not to get so involved. I wondered if it was simply too late now.

“Why don’t you come to Texas?” she said, surprising me.

“Texas? Where you are?”

“Yeah. You can come live with me for a while.”

“You don’t want me to live with you,” I said matter-of-factly. It was true. I had clung to the idea of her leaving me because she couldn’t take another moment living with Dad. That it wasn’t me she was abandoning, but her marriage. But I knew I only clung to it because any reasons besides that, would hurt.

Although I had only seen Dad get rough with her a few times, I didn’t know what went on behind closed doors. She might have endured worse abuse from him.

But if that was the case, then she chose to leave me behind with a man who abused her.

And she didn’t care. No matter how many times I’d tried to paint her in a better light, the picture just didn’t come out pretty.

And now she wanted me to come live with her?

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I want you to live with me.”

The little girl inside me who had always craved her mother’s love and approval wanted to say yes. The cautious woman she’d made me into told me this was a heartbreak in the making, and I would be better off living by myself.

“I’ll think about it,” I answered finally.

“Well, don’t think about it too long,” she quipped, annoyance and perhaps anger in her voice.

“Right. Well, do you know what happened to Dad?” I asked.

I hadn’t really searched anything on the web about the MC since the first time I’d tried. Maybe she knew more than me.

“Sweetheart, haven’t you heard?” she asked.

“Heard?”

“Yeah. It’s all everyone in our circle can talk about. It hasn’t made it into the news yet, for the public, but I’m sure it will.After all, a massacre of an entire MC is not something you see every day.”

“A massacre?” I whispered.

“Most everyone in the club that night was slaughtered. There’s been some word that pictures are circulating on the dark net.”

“Why?”

What kind of sadist would not only slaughter an entire club, but take pictures and share them?

“It’s a warning,” Mom said, her voice toneless. I was sure she was more affected by this than she let on. After all, she had made herself at home with the club years before everything turned to shit with my father. There were probably people there whom she still cared about.

“A warning? Do you know who did it?”

“I don’t have anything concrete, but everyone is saying it’s the three heads of the Irish mob. Of course, it would be them. You don’t just come in and attack a family home, killing the mob boss, without expecting his children to come back for you.”

“Children? You mean the men who killed Dad and the club members are children of a man who Dad killed?”

“Killed? Your dad didn’t just kill. Twenty years ago, your dad took on the Irish mob and gained control of their narcotics trade. That was how he made a name for himself. And those kids your dad let get away, ’cause he got cocky? They’ve grown into men out for revenge.”

I shuddered. “So now they’re taking over Chicago.”

“Just about. They have other gangs to contend with. They need to prove to everyone that they’re ruthless enough to take over.” Mom let out a dry chuckle. “I don’t think that will be a problem. They don’t call those men the Savages of Las Vegas for nothing.”

A chill ran up my spine. “Las Vegas?”

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