Page 103 of The Heir
“What the fuck do you know about house-arrest equipment?” I spat, not wanting another episode with the court.
“I know enough, Sis,” he promised, placing a gentle hand at my back. “I won’t let him get hurt. I promise.”
The last part was whispered, so only me and Blaze heard. Blaze laughed, but I flashed my brother a grateful half-hearted smile.
“Just handle it and get your ass back home, already.” I shoved a kiss against Blaze’s cheek and shot toward the door.
I didn’t know how to let him go. I didn’t know how to stop him. I didn’t want to stop him, but I didn’t want to lose him, either, so I just removed myself from the equation. The last thing I wanted was him thinking about me and some outburst when he needed to be focused on armed confrontations and making sure that Dwayne got a trailer-sized bonfire.
I was halfway down the cemetery hill when I realized what was going on. It might have even been the sight of the graves that slapped me with reality.
They weren’t going to burn his house.
They meant to kill Dwayne.
I stopped at the T and stared at my mother’s grave in the cemetery across the street. I’d heard Donnie ask if Dwayne was still breathing, but that was just how people talked around us. They were mean mother fuckers, every last one of them. It was like when my brother used to shriek,‘I’m going to kill you,’ when I took the last of his favorite sweets when we were kids. They were just words, right?
The sea of headstones staring back at me said otherwise.
The air in the car was sucked out all at once, or maybe it just seemed that way because I couldn’t draw a breath. I kept gasping over and over, my knuckles tightening on the wheel. I stomped on the gas and made a sharp turn.
Goddamn it.
What the fuck was I doing? I couldn’t let my college graduate husband throw his life away with this bullshit. He didn’t even know Nikki or Dwayne. He probably couldn’t name any of the founding Disciples beyond his grandfather and mine. This wasn’t for him!
My thoughts were racing. So many dark memories consumed me, I ended up pulling over on the side of the road. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t help anything. The memories became more vivid.
The spinning, lightheadedness was replaced by the racing of my heart, and a trembling that left my legs thumping on the floorboard while images of my childhood flashed before me.
Mackie’s chest to my back, his hand firmly over my mouth while we watched through a slightly cracked door. I could hear my mother long before I saw her. She was screaming like she was in the fight of her life. The sound grew louder and exploded just as he came marching in the front door, his hand tangled inher hair. Dad lost her at one point and scrambled, taking out strands of hair in his missed swipe at her head, the fighting left her shirt twisted up around her bra. When he got ahold of it again, he jerked, dragging her over the carpet and banging her head off the leg of a kitchen chair on his path to the bedroom with her
Tears were streaming down my face when I came back to myself. I slumped back on the seat exhausted and absolutely certain that my father saw Blaze as the same threat he had my mother. He’d done that to his own wife for trying to take his daughter away, what would he do to a person he didn’t give a fuck about? Someone who just randomly appeared from Georgia.
Someone to blame Dwayne and the fire on.
I wanted to be wrong, but in my heart…
I was shaking so violently I didn’t trust myself to steer and my legs felt so light and numb. I threw the car door open and let the breeze wash over me.
“Focus, March,” I coaxed myself.
It took a while, but the shaking slowly subsided. I reached for the door, taking a hold of it with every intention of swinging it shut. That was when I saw the cop in the rearview mirror. A wave of dizziness hit me hard. I clung to the door and my mouth watered, sweat prickled at my brow, and the air suddenly seemed to take a chill as I inhaled through my nose.
I heard boots on gravel, and the subtle white noise of his radio before he read my plate aloud.
I exhaled through pursed lips and shifted, causing the door to lurch while I was trying to wipe my brow.
“Whoa there, you okay?” the officer asked.
“Uh– yeah.” I swallowed, only to lean forward and vomit. I barely had time to throw the door wide enough to miss.
“Oh– Okay.”
I shakily wiped my mouth and gave him an apologetic look, “I’m sorry. I’m— I think I might be pregnant.”
“I see that.” He nodded vigorously.
His uniform identified him as a county officer. ‘Ludwig’ was stitched over his breast in bold letters, along with a badge number.