Part 5 (1/2)

Finn closed the open file in front of him and sighed again. ”Michael, I respect your pa.s.sion. I know you love your boy. I believe one-hundred percent that he should be with you, and that you were treated unfairly at nearly every turn. But I need you to let me be your lawyer and give you counsel you'll take. You look better the worse she looks. Let's find Dakota and see what she's up to. Let's just see. If she can be useful to your case, then let's use her. If she can't, we'll leave her alone. I think you can control yourself for that, don't you?”

Demon laughed a little. Finn had no idea. The most control over himself Demon ever felt was maybe half. And that was on a good day, when everything was chill. Put him in eyeshot of the woman who'd f.u.c.ked up his child, and no, he didn't think he'd be able to control himself. Especially since the c.u.n.t got off on sending him over.

He'd liked her a lot at first, and he was fairly sure she'd honestly liked him at the beginning. He didn't 'date' much at all. Usually he stuck to club girls, because that was simple. But sometimes he got lonely for more than just a f.u.c.k. He'd had somebody once, only for a brief time, but long enough to know the peace in a bond like that. So sometimes, he was lonely.

In the year or so after he'd been allowed to come back home, he'd had trouble adjusting. The club moved-and became a different club-and he'd been struggling with staying in one place after the years riding Nomad. He'd started thinking about what he'd almost had before, and he'd felt even lonelier. So when Kota came up to him at a bar and started talking, he'd been open to listening.

They'd been okay for a while. Just hanging out, steady but not really serious. It never occurred to him to put his ink on her; that wasn't what they'd been. She was a stripper, and he was fine with that. He'd gotten between her and a few overly excited customers who'd been lurking after hours, and she got to calling him her bodyguard. She'd given very enthusiastic head on those nights.

But he'd been a moron, because he hadn't known she was using, all that time. He didn't figure it out until it had taken her over completely. She'd robbed him blind. Then she'd started whoring herself out for her fixes. He'd ended it and left her to her vices.

And then she'd tried to use the club to blackmail him. She didn't know anything about the club; he never talked about that s.h.i.+t. But he'd opened up to her, during their good times, and told her about his childhood. Things he'd never said to anyone, not even Faith. Secrets and shames he'd harbored. And Kota had said terrible things that night, promising to twist old pains into lies that would hurt him now, make his club, his family, see his wrongness, make him lose what he'd only just gotten back.

All to squeeze more money out of him to get her next fix. He barely remembered what had happened after that. Except he remembered her laughing in the middle of it, her mouth full of blood, and he remembered thinking that she didn't even care if she got her next fix. She'd been high on tearing him down.

In the ER that night, while he was in lockup, she'd found out she was pregnant.

She'd declined to press charges. They'd let him go, and he'd gone to see her in the hospital, to apologize for hurting her. She'd told him about the baby and said it was his. Demon didn't know why he'd just believed her, but he had. He'd brought her home to his trailer, and he'd tried to help her kick the junk. He'd tried and tried, and he'd failed and failed. But he'd stuck it out with her, finding her again and again in some flophouse, her belly getting bigger and bigger, trying to figure out how to keep her away from trouble and never coming up with the answer.

Tucker was born with his mother's habit. He'd had a rough first few weeks. But the first time that boy's eyes met his own, Demon had known for an absolute fact that he was looking at his son. And he'd known purposeful love for the first time in his life.

DCFS didn't take Tucker from her, despite the addiction she'd shared with him. They put her in an outpatient program and gave Tucker a caseworker, and they sent them home. Kota moved out of Demon's trailer right away and took his boy to live with a girlfriend.

His fight to be a father to his son had started then and still hadn't stopped.

He stared hard at his lawyer. ”Go ahead and look. You better know your business, though. Keep her the f.u.c.k away from me. Don't tell me where she is. Just do your thing. But if this blows up in my kid's face, then I'll know who to blame for it.”

Demon pulled up to Hoosier and Bibi's house later that afternoon, and he was relieved and disappointed that Faith's car wasn't around.

When he'd left that morning, he'd stopped cold on the sidewalk. She still drove Dante, and the car itself was in the same cherry condition it had been in before. But now it looked finished, completely covered from top to bottom and front to rear in art. It was beautiful, and so very Faith.

He'd had an urge to hug the f.u.c.king thing-that urge, at least, he'd been able to master. But he'd ridden off with his stomach in knots.

She was gone now, though. That was a good thing. He needed time, and if she hadn't been gone, even though he'd been as prepared as possible for her to be there, he'd have panicked-which would have led to stupidity. But he didn't know if she was gone for good or just for a while. He had no idea why she'd even been there in the first place. Maybe last night had just been a special torture for him, stirring up everything and then coming to nothing.

Inside, he found Hoosier and Tucker in the family room. Tucker was playing on the floor with his beloved wooden train set, and Hoosier was watching ESPN. Bibi wasn't around, but Demon had known that when he'd pulled up-the garage door was open, and the s.p.a.ce for her Caddy was empty.

His grat.i.tude and trust for Hoosier and Bibi was boundless. They were giving him the best chance he'd ever had to be a father to his son. They'd been the closest thing to parents he'd ever had. Since he was nineteen, when he'd started hanging around the clubhouse, they'd treated him almost like a kid of their own. They'd given him a home and a family.

He didn't blame Hoosier for taking it away. Demon had done that to himself.

Hoosier had kept it from being worse. He hadn't lost his patch or his life, and both of those had been on the table for a vote. He'd been exiled, not excommunicated. Not ended. And things had turned out more or less okay.

As much as he'd been torn apart to be sent away from his only home, he'd felt like he fit as a Nomad right away. Rootlessness was something he understood. He'd partnered with Muse right off, and he'd found his first actual friend. They'd been rootless together, except when one or the other of them was inside, and that had been okay.

And d.a.m.n, the s.h.i.+t that the Nomads of their old club had been into. It was life or death business in those days, and they were up to their shoulders in it just about nonstop. Demon had found stability in the surge and release of adrenaline in a firefight, and he'd learned how to channel his darkness and violence into the work that needed doing. He'd found his calling as an enforcer. Sometimes he'd gone too far, but even so, he felt more a master of his impulses than he had before.

He'd been arrested a few times, and he'd done a couple of bids, but they were short enough. If his childhood had prepared him for nothing else, it had prepared him to survive prison. Even to thrive there.

Then, at Blue's funeral, Hoosier had asked him to come home. And Demon had humiliated himself by breaking down into tears.

So he was home. He had a home. And a son. People who loved him and wanted him. And with no outlet for the c.r.a.p in his head, he was losing control of his darkness again.

Tucker looked up as Demon came into the room. ”Pa! Bwain!” He held out a little blue train engine.

”T-T-Train, buddy. T like in Tucker.” He squatted at his son's side.

”Tuh-bwain.”

Demon laughed. ”Close enough. Did you have fun with Gramps?”

Tucker nodded and held out a s.h.i.+ny new engine, this one kind of purple.

”You got a new one! Who's this?” It had a vaguely female face. All Tucker's engines had faces.

”Bwain!”

”Deme. You doin' okay?”

Demon looked up and saw Hoosier eyeing him over the back of the sectional. So Hoosier knew that Faith was in town. It made sense; Bibi would probably have told him as soon as he was back. He ruffled Tucker's hair and stood up.

”Have you been in touch with her all this time?” The words came out more sharply than he'd meant them. He didn't want to accuse Hoosier and Bibi of anything. There were probably dozens of good reasons not to tell him they knew where she was. He wasn't sure even now how much he trusted himself to know.

”Have a seat, brother.” Hoosier waved at the side of the sectional, and Demon went around and sat down. ”Beebs's kept up with her, yeah. Until today, I hadn't seen her since she ran.”

”She's been good?”

Hoosier heaved a sigh. ”Yeah. I guess she actually earns making her weird, rusty art. Remember that sh-stuff she used to make?”

That thought made Demon smile and feel a little proud. He remembered climbing around with her at the salvage yard. She'd been so cute and enthusiastic. He'd kissed her that day. It had been her first kiss ever. His, too, in a way.

He closed his eyes and counted five beats. Muse had taught him that, to focus on his heartbeat until the hurt that made red edge his vision backed off. Sometimes he needed a lot more than five beats.

”Why's she back?”

”There's something goin' on with her mom. Any more is for her to say.”

Not for him, then. Of course she wouldn't have been, but there'd been a little flickering light in the back of his head that had thought maybe she'd come because she couldn't stay away.

”You mind some advice, Deme?”

He shrugged, and Hoosier took that for permission.

”It all went down bad back in the day. You f.u.c.ked up bad. But you were a kid, younger than your years. I knew it. Most everybody did. Even Blue, deep down, knew you were just a kid, too. He couldn't see anything but his little girl, the one who ran around with sc.r.a.ped knees and ratty pigtails stealing sips from beer bottles and getting caught swiping loose parts off worktables. He'd never've admitted it, but when it all fell out, I think even he knew it was more for you than just claiming his little girl's cherry.”

Demon flinched at the rawness of Hoosier's last statement. ”Don't, Prez.”