A Biker’s Tiny Present (Rebel Vipers MC Christmas Standalone)

CHAPTER NINE

RILEY

Tiny insisted we ride to the clubhouse in his truck. This is the second day in a row where I offered to take my car, but he’s shot me down both times. Chivalry is one thing, but his insistence in driving everywhere is starting to wear on my nerves.

When I suggested taking my car because of Nicky’s car seat, Tiny reminded me about the base that is still buckled into his backseat. I may be growing angrier at her by the hour, but at least Taylor did a few things right when she left Nicky behind and took off. This morning as I was packing bags for our trip, I realized just how long she must have been preparing for this to happen. I wonder how long she had the bag packed because there was more than a few days’ worth of clothes, diapers, and formula in the diaper bag. I found an envelope full of money tucked into one of the inside pockets—seven thousand dollars.

If she had this kind of money tucked away for a rainy day, why didn’t she use it to pay off her debts and find a new job? Why didn’t she take it with her? It's more questions to add to the list of things I will be asking her when we find her.

How did I not see this all coming? Was I really that blind to her being in so much trouble? How could I not see she was hurting? I’d like to think I’m a better sister than that, but if Taylor didn’t feel comfortable coming to me with her problems, she must not have trusted me. Hell, she even left her baby with a practical stranger.

“What’s wrong?”

I miss the second half of the drive and don’t notice the truck has stopped until Tiny’s question snaps me out of my self-induced downward spiral.

Unbuckling, I turn in my seat to face him. “I’ve taken care of Taylor since she was seventeen years old. I was twenty-four, living with a roommate, when I found out that our mom’s boyfriend was sexually abusing Taylor.”

“Fuck,” Tiny growls so deep I can feel it in my bones. He flips up the center console between us and drags me across the bench seat and into his arms.

Needing to get this off my chest, and so he knows what kind of messy family he’s getting involved with, I unload everything to him. “Our parents were so in love. They’d been together since they were fifteen and my mom was crushed when dad died. He was hit head-on by a drunk driver on his way home from work one night. The other guy was speeding, swerved across the center line as they both crested a hill, and our dad Scott died instantly. I was ten and Taylor was two.”

“What about the drunk driver?”

“He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

“Good.”

All I can do is nod. I came to terms with losing my dad a long time ago and want to leave that sadness in the past. He was a great man, and an even better father, but I like to remember the years I had with him as good memories. This isn’t a good memories time.

“Mom stayed single for a couple years, but once she started dating, it was a constant string of bad dude after bad dude. Some were drunks, others did drugs, and several stole whatever they could get their hands on then disappeared. One guy even took the refrigerator and dishwasher from our apartment. Mom picked us up early from school because we had a doctor appointment, then as soon as we got home, the landlord showed up demanding money for the missing appliances. He watched the idiot load the stuff into his truck and let him drive away. He couldn’t be bothered to try and stop the guy from stealing what was legally his, but had no problem harassing my mom for weeks before evicting us. I don’t know how or if she ever paid him, but I remember her crying herself to sleep about it.”

“Sounds like your mom’s heart was broken and she was looking for love in all the wrong places.”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

I wipe my nose with my coat sleeve and burrow deeper into Tiny’s embrace. I know we should probably go inside, since it’s the middle of December, but Tiny still has the truck running and the heater is keeping us nice and toasty. I also don’t want to pop this bubble we’re in. I’m afraid if I stop talking, I won’t get up the nerve again to finish.

“I started working at the factory right after graduating high school. There was no inheritance or college fund, so a continued education was not in the cards, not that I knew what I’d study even if there was. I worked as many hours as they allowed me to and saved every penny I could. I bought a new car, helped mom with bills whenever I had an extra paycheck in a month or got a bonus, and two years later got an apartment with my friend Alexa. I was twenty and Taylor was twelve.

“Mom even found a boyfriend who I actually liked. His name was Terrence, he had a decent job working for the county, and drove a car that wasn’t new but wasn’t a clunker. He even moved mom and Taylor into his doublewide out in a nicer mobile home park in Henderson. Mom got a new, better paying job. and everything seemed to be going great. We were all happy again. I had gotten a few raises over the years, moved up to different leadership roles at the factory. Everything was going well,” I have to stop to take a deep breath, “until I found out it wasn’t. The day Taylor turned seventeen, she tried to kill herself.”

“What happened, love?” Tiny asks as I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head.

“My roommate was out of town on vacation with her family, so I invited Taylor for a sleepover. We were supposed to watch movies all weekend, pigging out on ice cream and way too much junk food, but the fun didn’t last long.

“Friday when I picked her up from school, she wasn’t herself. Her smiles were a bit forced, and she wasn’t as talkative as she usually was, but when I asked her what was wrong she just shrugged it off. I figured it was just part of being a teenager, hormones or a boy or who knows what else, and didn’t want to push her. I figured she’d eventually tell me when she was ready, just like she always did. When we got to the grocery store to stock up on all the goodies, she seemed to be in a little better mood. I let her buy almost everything she asked for and she was back to being a Chatty Kathy by the time we got to my apartment. We ate too much, watched the first two Harry Potter movies, and went to bed at like one in the morning.

“When I woke up Saturday morning, I knew something was wrong. Every other time she’d slept over, she was up before the sun and I’d find her out on the couch, watching cartoons and eating a bowl of three different kinds of cereal all mixed together. She got the idea from an episode of Gilmore Girls, and ever since, one kind of cereal was never enough. Only this morning the sun was up, the curtains were still closed, the television was off, and the couch was empty. It wasn’t until then that I heard the water running from my bathroom. I slept in my roommate’s room when Taylor was over because she was a restless sleeper. I had a full size bed at the time and Alexa had a king, so to avoid Taylor kicking me in the middle of the night, I would bunk with Alexa.

“I heard the water running, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t be a cause for concern, but I remembered she had taken a shower before going to bed. I rushed into my room and hadn’t even reached the bathroom door when I realized the carpet was wet. I don’t remember much from the next hour because everything happened so fast, but I do know I managed to pull her out of the tub, started giving her CPR, and called 9-1-1. Next thing I know, the paramedics were loading her into the ambulance and the police were asking me what felt like a million questions, but all I could hear was Taylor screaming my name.”

“So, she tried to drown herself in the bathtub?”

“Yup,” I reply with a nod, then swivel around to face Tiny again. I need to see him to get through this next part. I need the connection to someone to confront the demons from that day. “Taylor had it all planned out. She’d taken a handful of pain pills I had gotten from when I had my wisdom teeth removed and figured she’d drown after passing out. Somehow I’d gotten to her at just the right time. Me giving her CPR caused her to throw up most of the pills, so she didn’t technically overdose, but it was still bad. The police let me ride with her to the hospital, but said to be prepared for even more questions once she was being taken care of by the doctors.

“The entire way there, Taylor cried and screamed and insisted I not tell mom what happened, but it was too late. The police had already contacted her because Taylor was a minor. That’s when she told me and the paramedic about how Terrence was sexually abusing her. He had been sneaking in her room at night, raping her, and even forcing her to do sexual things to him. He was hurting my baby sister for almost two years and I had no idea.” And that’s when the dam breaks.

Even in the cramped space of the truck, Tiny pulls me in until I’m straddling his lap. My knees are bracketing his hips, my arms wrapped around this torso, and my head is buried in his neck. He rubs circles on my back, whispering softly in my ear that everything will be okay and that he’s so proud of me for being so strong. I don’t feel strong. I feel like a limp, mushy, overcooked noodle.

I don’t feel strong, but I have to be for Nicky. Tiny says he’s here for us, but until I’m sure that he’ll actually stick around for the long haul, I need to pull up my big-girl-britches and be enough.

As I untangle myself from Tiny’s chest, a few fast food napkins magically appear in his hand. I wipe away as many tears as I can, blow my nose, then stash them in my coat pocket.

“What do you need from me, Riley?” Tiny curls my hands into his giant, inked covered fists. “The club and I will do everything we can to find Taylor, but what do you need me to do for you?”

“You’re doing it right now.” I pull our joined hands to me and kiss the top of his knuckles. “But I need to finish telling the story before we go inside.” I hear a small wiggle from Nicky’s car seat, so I know he’ll be awake and wanting a bottle soon, so I have to finish quickly. Thankfully we’re almost at the end.

“It’s gonna get worse before it gets better, ain’t it?” Tiny asks with an expression of sadness and anger mixed together. His eyebrows are scrunched together creating a deep crease between them as well as redness spreading across his cheeks.

“I convinced Taylor to report the abuse to the police and it all went downhill from there. They questioned, then arrested Terrence, but mom still sided with him. Long story long, she refused to believe he would do such an evil thing. When Terrence tried to say Taylor asked for it because of how she dressed, he basically wrote his own guilty verdict. Turns out the arresting officer was a single dad of a teenage daughter, so he didn’t like that excuse one bit and slapped the cuffs on Terrence right there in the hospital waiting room. He went to jail for two years, got put on the sex offender registry, then was killed by his new girlfriend less than a month after he got out.

“We haven’t seen our mom since she stormed out of the courthouse the day of sentencing. She tried to reach out to me a few times over the first couple years, but I changed my cell number and haven’t heard from her since. The courts gave me guardianship of Taylor since she had less than a year until she turned eighteen. We moved first to an apartment in Tellison, then to the house we’re in now, and have been there ever since.

“Taylor is in trouble, again, or she wouldn’t have taken off like that. She may have bounced around to a few jobs over the last few years, but when she started working at the club, I thought things were good. She lied to me about what she did there, and when she needed me, she didn’t feel like she could come to me for help. It’s happening all over again and I don’t know what to do. I’ve been in her corner since the day she was born. I held her hand in the delivery room, took care of her son while she worked, I did everything she asked of me since the day the pregnancy test showed a plus sign, and yet she chose to leave Nicky with you instead of me. What did I do wrong?”

“You did everything right, Vixen.” Tiny reaches around me to turn the truck off with his right hand, then uses his left to open the door. He swings both of us out of the cab before turning and setting my butt on his seat. He presses his hands down on my thighs holding me in place, then leans in. “Nothing you did for her was wrong. Maybe she wanted you to be safe. Her journal said her boss was threatenin’ to hurt you and Nicky, and she knew he’d be safe with me because of the club, so that’s why she did what she did. I will try my hardest to find her so she can tell you all of the whys herself. Do you believe me?”

I don’t know why I do, because it’s only been a day since I met this brute force of nature, but I do. “Yea. I believe you.”

“Thank Lucifer,” Tiny growls again, making my insides tingle like they did when he had me under him in my bed last night, and all I can do is soak up his warmth as the cold bares down around us. Nicky lets out a squawk, alerting us to his unhappiness about the cold, and probably a full diaper, so Tiny rushes us inside and into our new life.