Page 32 of Hawk

“Her mom’s name is Margaret?You’re shittin’ me right now.Right?”

“Why would I make that up?”

Chains looked more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen a man look.“Uh, no reason.”He scrubbed the back of his neck.“I’m just gonna, ah, I’ll be in my apartment, Knuckles.I gotta…” The man was actually pale.

“Yeah,” Knuckles sighed.“Go on.Superstitious little shit.”

Everyone roared with laughter.Well, everyone but Miles, Flagg, and Randall.The latter two were in misery while the former just looked confused.

“I’ve really got to watch that movie.”

Miles stiffened.“Movie?”

“Yeah.Apparently, there’s a movie namedCarrie.Chains is freaked out by it or something.I’ve not watched it yet.”

To my utter surprise, Seth “The Hammer” Miles, criminal kingpin in charge of the region, burst out laughing.In fact, he laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks and someone had to get him a chair.He actually wheezed with laughter.

When he finally calmed down, Miles sat with his head down for several minutes.When he looked up at me, it was with such grief and pain, but also a love so heartbreakingly deep it brought tears to my own eyes.“Your mother would have loved this story.I know how you came to Kiss of Death.The men you killed.All of it.I couldn’t get to you, so I drove you this way by putting people in your path who would help you get here.To these men.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because, when you left, I knew Flagg would be close behind you.What I didn’t know was how he’d started to lose his mind.He was always a mean son of a bitch, but I’ve been getting reports he was becoming worse.”

“Why would you just… give him your daughter?”I was on the verge of shattering.If this man had been so cruel as to force my mother into marriage with a monster, I wasn’t sure I could handle it.The thought was too much to contemplate.

“Carrie, I swear to you, I didn’t.Margaret told me she was in love with him.She begged me to allow it.I didn’t want her to marry him, but I wasn’t going to deny my only child what she wanted most.”

“Then what happened?”

Miles looked over at Flagg, then nodded at Knuckles again.Knuckles grinned, then hit Flagg again, this time on the other side of his jaw.Flagg tried to scream, but it came out more of a strangled gurgle.His jaw now hung loosely.Next to him, watching the whole thing with dawning horror, Zeb Randall looked like he was going to be sick and was pleading with Knuckles not to hit him all at the same time.

“She had a difficult pregnancy with you.Looking back, it was probably stress and anxiety.I didn’t know it at the time, but the abuse started a few months after Flagg found out Margaret was pregnant.She told me she was fine, that she was just tired from all the vomiting and swollen feet and just being pregnant.

“Two days after she was ordered on bedrest, I got called overseas to… arbitrate.”He sidestepped whatever his reasons were, but that was OK.I didn’t want to know about his businesses or whatever.I only wanted to know about my mother.“Are you sure you want to talk about this here?”

“Why wouldn’t I?If you’re trying to get me to go with you somewhere to talk in private so you can take me away, you can try something else.”

“Honey, no.”He shook his head.“I just want you to have the option to hear this in private.Family matters are often sensitive.”

I thought about that.“Yeah.They are.But this is my family.They’re the ones having to live through it with me now.”

To my surprise, Miles nodded.“I suppose you’re right.”He scrubbed a hand over his face.“He waited until he knew I was gone.Then he called in a doctor he paid to deliver the baby, then kill Margaret and make it look like an accident.He chose insulin.”

“Why didn’t the coroner rule her death a homicide?”

“Because they didn’t check for insulin since she wasn’t a diabetic, and her doctor was at her bedside when she died.I wasn’t there and no one questioned the doctor’s account of what happened.”

“What about me?”

“He told me you’d died with Margaret during the birth.Then he paid the funeral director and the doctor to file all the appropriate paperwork for a stillborn death, had a closed casket for the child, then buried both side by side with a nice headstone and everything.”The longer he spoke, the more fury filled Miles’s face.He nodded at Knuckles again who punched Flagg in the crotch with those brass knuckles with what looked like all his considerable strength.

My father squealed over and over, crying and begging.I really should have felt bad, or been uncomfortable with seeing someone so obviously suffering, but I couldn’t really muster the energy to care.

“Took me years and years to find out differently, Carrie.The second I did, I reached out to Vic.”

That got a gasp of outrage from Father’s brother, Zeb Randall.“Vic?You betrayed us!”

“That’s rich.Coming from you.”For the first time, Vic joined the discussion.He reached out his hand to Knuckles who handed over one brass knuckle.Vic put it on his right hand, then hit Randall across the as yet uninjured side of his jaw.He now looked similar to Flagg.Sounded about like him too.“It was your idea to get rid of Margaret so you could groom her child to be the perfect pawn in your game.You could marry her off to create an alliance.She’d be wife and bodyguard in one.You’d program her to be subservient and obedient.Then you’d gain an ally as well as a spy in the home of your new friend.”

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