Page 21 of Hawk
I crossed my arms in a defensive pose and asked, “Why?”
He scoffed. “Why? Why not?”
“I . . . I let her be abused. There’s no way she’ll ever forgive me for what she’s lived through.”
“That’s not what she told me.”
I sat stunned for a moment before clearing my throat. “How . . . what . . . she . . .”
Hawkins relaxed his posture and lifted one cheek in a half-smile. “Hailey is an amazing young woman. She’s got a great support network, a club full of brothers who love her, but the one thing missing from her life is you.”
I tried not to think about my daughter surrounded by leather-bound killers.
“You’re lying. Melody was her mother, for all intents and purposes, so there’s no way she misses me,” I replied, using my anger to mask the intense pain building in my chest.
“That cunt wasn’t her mother. She was her abuser and her captor. You are her mother, and she wants nothing more than to know what happened all those years ago. She knows you’re her mother and that bitch was nothing to her but her tormentor.”
I placed my hand across my throat, feeling the air bleeding from my lungs as I asked, “How does she even know about me?”
“Your brother, Devlin, explained what he knew to her, and for the last few months, he’s been searching everywhere for you.”
Now, it was my turn to scoff. My brother was just as bad as our father and deep down, I felt like this was a ploy to drag me back into a nightmare. “How do I know this isn’t a setup?”
“Why would I do that to you? I didn’t even know your real name until Devlin showed Hailey an old picture of you and I realized how connected I was to this situation.”
It was true he hadn’t known my real name. When he arrived all those years ago, helping ferry me away from the madness I’d lived in, my ‘husband’ called me by a different name. It took almost a year of being with my redeemer before I started using the name I was given by my mother at birth. Hawkins knew me as Lilith so I knew he was at least being honest about that.
“How . . . how did Hailey end up with my brother?” I asked as I stood from the table and walked to the fridge. Grabbing two bottles of water, I waited for his explanation. He puckered his lips, and my trust for him began to dwindle as I returned to the table. “Either tell me the truth or leave now.”
“I don’t know where to start, but the short story is she was being stalked by a crazy man who was loosely connected to one of the club’s old ladies. Something about her kept nagging Devlin, and he went to find out who she was and why that asshole was so obsessed with her.”
I took a healthy swallow from the bottle and recapped it before asking, “What did he discover? And who do I need to kill?”
He cracked a smile and shook his head. “She knows how to take care of herself, and she handled the situation all on her own. Reminded me of you.”
I pushed past an unspoken memory and felt pride well up that she was able to protect herself from danger. If I had been as strong as he said she was, maybe I could have avoided all the years away from her. History couldn’t be rewritten, but I needed more information.
“That doesn’t explain how she discovered I was her mother.”
I lifted the vape pen and took a deep draw off it, waiting for him to answer. Hawkins reached into his leather vest, and I rested my hand on the gun out of reflex, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He pulled out a small, square metal case and opened it to show me what was inside. Four rolled joints with a strong odor were presented to me, and I gave him a nod as I placed the pen onto the table and released the gun.
I needed something stronger to get through this conversation, so I waited for him to light one then took it into my fingers as I waited for his explanation. The weed caused a burning in my chest, and I fought a cough as I handed it back to him.
He took a draw and blew the acrid smoke into the air before he spoke. “She was lost, alone except for her Granny Kate, and your brother offered to help. He discovered she was related to him but didn’t know if she was yours or Lucian’s.”
“Do not say that motherfucker’s name around me. Are we clear?” I took the joint back and inhaled deeply.
My distrust for Devlin was on one level, but the hatred I had for Lucian, my oldest brother and my father’s protégé, was something completely different. He’d helped hide Hailey and Melody, paid her handsomely, and turned a blind eye while his niece was being abused. If I saw him again, I was going to shoot him between the eyes for betraying not only her but me.
Hawkins crinkled his forehead in confusion but nodded before he continued. “It turned out she wasn’t . . . his, so that left you. That’s when the pieces started to fit together and she grew curious.”
“So, they sent you to retrieve me?” I asked, pain seeping through the cracks.
“I wasn’t sent by anyone. When I saw the picture they found of you, I knew I needed to at least try to speak with you. Hailey deserves to know you, and you deserve to have her in your life. She’s a wonderful woman, but she still feels lost and alone.”
I stubbed the half-smoked joint out in the small plant in the middle of the table and blew the smoke out. “How do you know all this?”
“Hailey’s one of my best friends,” he replied, and I shook my head.
