Page 66 of Bear
My nostrils flared at the sight of it right before I turned my head. “Fine. I won’t confront him about it. You know I’m not going to let him hurt you, Luanne. I might be pissed at you for keeping this shit from me but you’re still the only mother I’ve ever known. Being mad doesn’t mean I’m going to throw you to the wolves.”
She stood and looked me in the eye. “I know you mean everything you say, Bear but Griff isn’t like you. He doesn’t have an ounce of good in him since he split from your mother. She was the only thing tethering him to anything that resembled goodness. I know he’d kill me in a heartbeat if I no longer served him and that’s why I’ve made sure all these years to be the best at what I do. Because if he killed me, your mother wouldn’t get to see you anymore. She wouldn’t get to see pictures of you or watch you discreetly. I’ve been her only link.”
“Well, Griff doesn’t run shit anymore, Luanne. I’m tired of him pulling strings from jail. I’m tired of him acting like I’m not good enough on my own when I’ve been in control of everything for nearly ten years. I’m tired of him controlling every-fucking-thing I do.”
“Bear,” Luanne warned with her tone. “I already know what you’re thinking and…”
“And you know I’m going to do it. I don’t make promises I can’t follow through on.” I folded my arms and stared down at the woman I’d known my entire life. The woman who’d seen me do the most heinous shit imaginable and still managed to smile for me. “Tell me who my mother is.”
She was quiet for a long while. I knew she had to contemplate letting a decades-long secret out into the open. I knew she thought about the cameras in the house and the possibility of being bugged. I knew every thought that raced through her brain. But I also knew she couldn’t keep holding things in. It wasn’t good for her.
She wrung her weathered hands together and shifted her weight from foot to foot. When she parted her lips to speak, Cecily walked into the room and looked from me to Luanne. “Why do I feel like I just walked into a freezer? Everything okay between you two?” I saw the newest bite mark I left in the center of her bottom lip and shut my eyes for a moment.
I was like my father in every fucking way. Even down to the way I claimed my woman. When my eyes slid down to Cecily’s collarbones, I saw faint red marks from my teeth and I knew what lied beneath the collar of her shirt.
It didn’t help matters that she loved that shit. She loved being choked and bitten and she went insane when I pulled her long, pretty hair in my fist. Even thinking about making her moan and come had my heart racing against my chest.
“Luanne was getting ready to tell me who my mother is.” I smiled but it was sheathed in ice and Luanne knew it. She tipped her nose up slightly, taking the hit I doled out like a pro. Cecily’s cognac eyes grew wide with astonishment.
“What?” She laughed but the smile on her face faded fast when she looked to her mother for the truth. As if I would make up something like that. “Mom, you know who Bear’s mother is?” Cecily’s hand found the bear paw necklace I’d given her and she toyed with it instead of her hair like she normally did.
“I do. So do you. You’ve known her your whole life.” Luanne looked at me with sad eyes and said, “My best friend, Lane, is your mother, Bear.”
The bomb she dropped rattled my chest.
I’d met her best friend Lane when I was too little to remember. She was always around. Whenever Mr. Paul couldn’t pick Luanne up from work, Lane would come. Lane was around whenever I went to Luanne’s house. She popped up during certain moments that I thought she was out of place in but now I understood everything.
I stood rigid and still as the realization washed over me.
“What? No. You can’t be serious! Lane? She never said a word. Never let on. She’s seen Bear. She’s talked to him and never once…” Cecily shook her head unable to wrap her mind around it. “How could she not say anything? As a mother, how do you let your child sit in front of you without saying a single word to him?” Her words echoed my thoughts.
“She feared for her life and for Bear’s life and…mine too. Do you think Griffon would have hesitated to put a bullet in her head if she’d opened her mouth?” Luanne walked over to me. “I’m so sorry you feel like I’ve betrayed you. My only hope was to keep you alive and let Lane see you as much as possible.” Tears twinkled in her eyes and it hit me in my fucking gut.
I knew how it felt to be torn when you thought you were doing something to help but ended up hurting instead. That’s how I felt when my words got Hawk shot in the head. I couldn’t let Luanne feel that way when I knew she was only doing what she thought was best. Her intentions weren’t ill and I felt that in my core.
I just needed someone to blame and the real source of my issue was behind bars so I couldn’t come for his neck the way I wanted to.
When a lone tear rolled down Luanne’s face, I felt my heart squeeze.
Fuck.
Did I love her too?
I wiped the tear away with my thumb and mustered all the empathy I could hold inside my chest. I cupped her face in my hands and shut my eyes.
“Luanne, I love you. I know you weren’t trying to hurt me. I know Lane was only trying to keep me alive. I understand but it doesn’t change the way it makes me feel, okay? All of this stays between us. I need you to know something…” I let her face go and she looked up at me like I hung the moon. Like I was her biological child and she was so proud of me. I hated that I had to pop the pride shining in her eyes like a fucking bubble. “I’m going to kill my father when he comes home. You don’t work for him anymore. Understand?” I tucked my fingers under her chin and made her lift her head up. I didn’t tolerate a lowered gaze around me. “Now, since you’re my employee I’m asking you to keep everything that has transpired in this room confidential. I’m asking you to only answer to me and I’m asking you to only answer to the soldiers that I point out. Got it?”
“Yes, of course, Bear.”
“Good. Take the rest of the day off so I can get my thoughts together. I love you but I don’t want to look at you right now, Luanne.”
“That’s fair. Let me finish the laundry and fix you and Cecily something for dinner.” She rubbed my back then gave Cecily a hug. She stared at us while she stood at the doorway. “I know that I called you Lane a lot last week when you were at the house, Cecily. I know that’s why you called her over for dinner. I guess I just see so much of Lane and Griffon in you and Bear that it put my mind somewhere in the past. You two be careful with each other.”
Once Luanne left, Cecily’s shoulders turned to stone and my hands moved to massage the tension away. “I’m so tired of hearing that shit, Bear. You have no idea how much everyone has told me to be careful when it comes to you. My father, Lane, now my mother? Shit, even Kareema said it before she left to go back to school. I hate that so much.”
“I’m a bad guy, baby doll.” My fingers inched up her dainty neck and she shut her eyes.
“No, you’re not. Or maybe you are, I don’t know anymore. All I know is that I feel safe with you. I don’t feel like I need to be careful. I know right now…” She reached behind me and gripped the handle of the pistol tucked in my waistband. “You have a nine-millimeter in your waist. I know there are guns stashed all through this house in the walls and drawers and cabinets. I know you have a knife right here.” She moved her hand to the side of my belt and touched the sheathed knife I had. I know you’ve killed more men than I can count.
