Page 35 of Saving Her

“You can’t leave, King,” Nicole argues.

I smile, though there’s no joy in it. “Sure, I can. The door is right there and I’m walking toward it,” I argue. I stand up and head that way. I get almost to the door when Nicole speaks up.

“You can hate us if you want to, but you should at least have all the information,” Nicole says.

“I have all the information that I need,” I argue.

“You think so? I think you only have the information that your mother carefully fed you.”

Her accusation pisses me off. “My mother told me everything. How your husband tossed her aside when he found out she was pregnant, how he banned her from his club. She was alone and forced to have her sister take care of me while she went on the road to find a job.”

“Do you really believe that? Do you honestly think she couldn’t find a job?”

“It was a small town, and everyone was below the poverty line.”

“You have an answer for everything. Did your aunt work?”

“Well, yeah. She worked at the local Dairy Queen.”

“Did they never have a help wanted sign, King? There had to be other things in town. Are you telling me you never saw one help wanted sign? There was nothing? Not even when you got to the age where you could work?”

“They were small jobs. The pay was minimum wage or worse. You can’t judge my mother on that,” I argue. “I’m done with this conversation.”

“You’re right. I can’t judge her. I will tell you what I do know, King. I know that if I was alone with my kids, I’d work two minimum wage jobs if it meant I got to stay with them. Nothing would keep me away from my kids.”

“Mom visited when she could,” I argue, but fuck, even my arguments are sounding weak to my own ears.

“I can see your mind is made up. Let me tell you something I know about your father. He never turns his back on his family. If he knew you existed, he would have turned hell itself upside down to find you.”

“That might be your experience, but it’s not the same if you’re not in the golden circle.”

“Golden circle?”

“Yeah, his chosen family from the woman he loves. My mother never qualified for that position. She was just trash to him.”

“You’re right, she was. The reason for that is on her, but of all her crimes, her worst one was that she never told him about you.”

“Nicole, I don’t want to argue with you. You love him. You’re going to take up for him. I’m even willing to admit that he’s probably a better man today than he was when he was with my mother. It still won’t rewrite history. Besides, it doesn’t even matter anymore. Whatever Dragon could have been to me, he’ll never get that chance. There’s just too much time and bad memories between us,” I explain.

Dragon stands up and walks toward me. “I failed you. I should have come to you the minute that I found out you were my son. You’re right though, because by then you were too old to care about me—or any relationship we could have had. I didn’t react great when I found out about you and that’s on me. I never knew you existed, though, King—not until you saved T. I knew then, but I ran from it. I’m a bastard in a lot of ways, but if I had found out about you when you were a child, you would have never lived with an aunt. You would have been with me. Those years I can’t get back and I wish to fuck that I could. I would have been proud to call you mine.”

“Will you just stop? I?—”

Dragon holds up his hands as if to stop me from saying anything else. “You don’t have to believe me.”

“That’s good because I don’t.”

“I have some proof, though. Not for everything, but enough that I think you might understand that someday you may believe that I would have wanted you with me.”

“Where is this so-called proof?” I mutter, wondering why in the hell I still haven’t walked out of here and put an end to all this bullshit.

He nods, like he knew what I was going to say. I do get the impression he was hoping the outcome would be different. “That’s another reason I postponed going after the Feral Kings for another hour. I got your cell number from Ford. My man back home should be sending you some videos and papers through text. The originals are in Kentucky. You’re more than welcome to come by and pick up copies anytime. I hope, after you review everything, that you will give us a chance to get to know one another. I’m not asking for anything else but that. I know I don’t deserve it.”

“Ready, Mama?”

“You go on. I’ll be right there. I just want to say one more thing to King—in private.”

“Mama, let it go. King has enough to deal with.”