Chapter 13

Rage

I f anyone had told me a few months ago that my house was gonna become a day spa and beauty salon for little girls, then I’d have told them where to go. Sleepovers seem to be Mia’s new favorite thing, and given what her life was like before, I can’t do anything but indulge her.

I don’t know about this newest activity Mia and her friends want to do. I’m letting Priscilla sleep late this morning after I wore her out last night. Plus she’d had the girls alone all day yesterday while I was out doing surveillance, so it was only fair that I did my bit. I looked at the assorted bottles on the counter and I had watched five instructional videos, and the parents have approved this idea—yet I was still more terrified than ever. It’s just the execution that I’m worried about. I would feel worlds better if they waited until Priscilla wakes up, but Mia wants to surprise her mom with what she calls the full effect .

I lift Mia up first, then Louisa, and little Amy last, lining each of them up onto the counter in back mud room. We’re being watched by Mister Boots who’s giving us the side-eye. He looks about as confused as I feel.

The girls are super excited as I pull out the little pot of temporary hair dye. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? You can still change your mind.”

Mia shoots back, “We’re not changing our minds.”

Amy adds, “It was hard talking Dad into giving permission. I’m not taking any chances on him changing his mind.”

I give Louisa a questioning look. She quickly speaks up, “I’m all in. I know everyone expects me to chicken out but I’m not gonna.”

I set the container down, put both hands on the counter and ask, “Where do you want your purple streak, in the front, side, or back?”

I know they discussed this extensively last night, between ghost stories. After a momentary pause, Mia speaks up, “We decided on the right side near the front.”

Amy nods her approval. “We’re gonna braid them because it will make the purple streak more noticeable.”

“Alright, but you know that since we’re not bleaching or lightening your hair, the color won’t be exactly the same on all of you.”

Mia responds, “We thought about that. It’s the reason we decided to put it in the same place on our head.”

“You got it, pumpkin,” I quip as I glove up.”

The girls giggle, whether it’s because of my pet name for Mia or because they’re bursting with excitement, I’m not sure.

As I’m prepping the supplies, I’m in fucking wonder at myself. I never in my life thought I’d be doing half the shit I have been. At first, looking after Mia was to help Priscilla while she was in hospital. I didn’t know what I was doing, but somehow muddled through it. As the weeks wore on, I realized that Mia is a pretty neat kid, and I enjoyed doing things with her. She looked up to me and respected me. I never had that as a kid getting kicked from one placement to another, so it made me feel good to be able to step in when she needed someone. I’ve been holding back with Priscilla, because part of me was shit scared of getting hurt again, but I realize that you can’t live your life scared of heartbreak. Sometimes you just gotta jump in and go for it. I want Prissy back and I want to be a father to this little girl. It’s fucking massive but seeing her and her friends this morning is just making me even more sure of my decision.

Each of them holds still as I section out a chunk of hair on the right side of their head and isolate it using aluminum foil. I learned from the videos I watched that this is the best way to ensure I don’t dribble the hair dye on the rest of their hair. The last thing in the world I need is to end up making a sloppy mess.

Mia complains, “You’re taking too long. I can’t sit still this long.”

I stop long enough to grab Mister Boots and put him in her lap. “Want to know the difference between a good idea and a horrible one?”

She nods as Boots settles down on her lap.

“It’s execution. We’re gonna do this right or not at all, okay?”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, but you’re almost done, right?”

I give her a decisive nod. “Yes ma’am, I most certainly am. Now, hold still for just a few more minutes.”

The other two are much more patient and I had all three of them prepped in no time. The second I open the container of hair dye, Boots hisses, jumps down, and runs off.

I try not to do the same because the concoction I’m supposed to put on their hair smells nasty, even though it’s natural and kid safe.

Mia wrinkles her nose.

“Did you change your mind, pumpkin?” I ask in a teasing tone.

She shakes her head enthusiastically.

I dip the application brush into the dye and paint all the way down the strand, getting a little extra for good measure. Then I fold it over to keep the dye from drying out while it did its thing.

Amy says excitedly, “Do me next.”

So, I do. By the time I get to quiet Lousia, she was showing more enthusiasm. I set the timer on my phone and the girls all turn around to look into the gigantic wall mirror behind the long eight-foot counter. I don’t know at what age kids can manage to sit on a counter without falling off, so I stand guard over them like some overprotective helicopter parent.

When the alarm on my phone goes off, I carefully lean them over the sink and rinse the locks of purple hair. By the time I finish, we marvel that there really isn’t that much of a difference between the shade of purple they ended up with. I can’t help but wonder if the other brothers do things like this with their kids. They must, right?

Louisa and Amy want to get down to braid each other’s new purple strands, but Mia is content to just stare at her new purple streak in the mirror. Although her back is to me, when I gaze into the mirror, I can see her happy expression as she turns her head back and forth to catch the light shining down from overhead.

I do a double take.

The thing is, I can see me too. And for the first time, I realize how much we look alike. She has the same thick wiry brown shoulder hair that I do, only I keep mine tied back at the nape of my neck and Mia’s spills down over her shoulders. Her eyes are the same shade of green as mine. She has a similar complexion, and her nose is very similar to mine. The resemblance is uncanny. I daresay she looks more like me than her own mother.

A strange idea springs forth from the back of my mind as I stand there comparing our features. Mia could pass for my child. Suddenly, it feels like someone punched me in the gut. Priscilla taking off and everything that happened after. I know what her parents told her—that I was dead, and I’d seen my own fucking grave to prove it—but what if she’d confessed to them that she was pregnant, and they’d started all this as a way to get me out of her life? They’d made it clear that they thought I was no good, and any person who’d get a fake headstone made was capable of anything. Had Priscilla been involved? She seemed so genuine when she told me her version of events, but had she told me everything?

I calmly ask Mia, “What do you know about your father? Your real father, I mean, not Conrad.”

Mia looks sad for a moment, “I don’t know much, Mommy said he died.”

I felt a chill start to creep up my spine, “When’s your birthday, pumpkin?”

Her eyes lift to mine, and she answers without hesitation, “My birthday was seven months ago. Only five more months and I’ll be eleven.”

I freeze in place, as I do the math, it all adds up. I force myself to smile and to act normal. “Best be thinking about what you want your next birthday to look like, pumpkin. It’ll be here before you realize it.”

She scrambles down off the counter, all smiles. “Don’t worry, I won’t go overboard.”

Looking down into her adorable little face, the one that kind of looks like mine, I ask in a teasing tone, “Now where’s the fun in that?”

She practically skips off laughing, but I’m forever a changed man.

Turning around, I start gathering up the supplies and bag them up. All the while, the only thing my brain can focus on is calculating and recalculating the timeline of Mia’s birth. After the fourth or fifth time, I’m forced to admit that my Prissy girl was pregnant when we split all those years ago. Mia is mine and for whatever reason she is lying to me. This morning I was all but ready to ask Priscilla to be my old lady and to make this thing we’ve been building permanent, but now I don’t know what to think.

She’s been lying to me.

I pull off my gloves and throw them in the bag before taking out my phone and calling Venom. He’s not only my club brother but we swore allegiance to each other and sealed it with a blood oath. My blood brother always answers in two rings or less for me.

“What’s up Rage? You still have the rugrats at your place? You’re gonna have to give me pointers for when mine and Amy’s kid arrives.”

“Yeah, the girls are all here. Look, I need to ask you something, do you think Mia is mine?”

There is a pregnant pause as Ven digests my comment. “There’s no denying she looks like you. Why do you think she’s yours, did Priscilla say something?”

“No, but everything fits. Look, can you meet up with me at the courthouse in a couple of hours? I want to go to county records and look up her birth certificate.”

“Yeah, but you gotta know that Zen can look that shit up on the computer.”

“No fucking way. Mia is my daughter. I want to be the one to track down every fucking detail. No one else, just me.”

“Have you asked her?” he asks.

“What? And get another bunch of bullshit lies,” I say.

“Why don’t you do a DNA test? That’ll tell you everything you need to know, I promise you.”

“I’m gonna do exactly that, but I need to see what’s written on the birth certificate.” I can hear the anger in my own voice.

I’m so far down the rabbit hole that I can’t remember exactly what Ven said, only that he’d meet me at the clubhouse. I lower the phone from my ear and stare at the now dark screen. There are a few hairs lying on the sleeve of my shirt. I pick them up and hold them to the light, Louisa and Amy have light hair, whereas this is darker. Shoving my phone into my pocket, I carefully lift the hair, wind it around one finger and slide it into my inner vest pocket.

I’d like to say that my prevailing emotion is excitement, but that emotion is lurking somewhere beneath stone-cold fury and absolute disgust with Priscilla. She lied to me all these years, raised my daughter with another man. My kid deserved better than being raised by the likes of an asshole like Conrad.

I was filled with an intense loathing and anger towards Conrad’s father, thinking he was behind the headless rabbits left on my doorstep, but now, I was in a mood to defy all of Siege and Rigs’ best laid plans for discovering who did his dirty work and forcing information out of him. I’m ready to go and pick the fucker up and beat some information out of him.

I toss the bag I used to clean up our mess into the trash and stalk out of the mud room. Since I’m not fit company for little girls, I go outside and walk the perimeter of my property, looking for anything that might suggest trouble. I send Evan in to keep an eye on the girls. Of course, I find nothing on my walk. Ever since I put the cameras in, whoever was fucking with us has kept their distance.

As for Priscilla, if what I’m thinking is true, I’m disappointed and angry with her for not coming clean with me the minute she found out I was alive. I fucking saved her life, and she repaid me by keeping the most hurtful secret imaginable. All the feelings of betrayal and abandonment from years ago come flooding back in an instant. Priscilla has always been my one soft spot. No one can cut as deep as she can when she effortlessly violates my trust.

I can’t be here, I can’t be around her right now, not when I’m this angry. I need to calm the fuck down.

I march up to my bedroom, where she’s still sleeping and quietly retrieve the Dear John letter I received all those years ago, the one she claims is fake now that she needs me once again. I slide it into my back pocket but when I turn to leave, Priscilla is sitting up in bed.

The look on her face is concerned. “Is everything okay. You were stomping when you came into the bedroom and it woke me.”

Glancing away because I can’t stand to look at her right now, I say, “I’m sorry, but you need to get up and watch the girls. I have club business to attend to this morning.”

“Of course. I’m sorry I overslept. I didn’t mean to dump them on you.”

“Yeah, whatever, I’ll give you fifteen minutes to pull yourself together then I’m gonna have to leave.” Without another word, I turn and walk back out of the room. Truth be told, I’m stomping again and couldn’t care less. I’m going to sort this issue out one way or another today.