Blade (Silver Shadows MC #1)

Chapter Thirty

Beck

I took a deep breath.

My father was going to lose his shit.

“I was upstairs putting clothes away when I heard the kitchen door slam open. I assumed Micah had forgotten something, so I rushed downstairs, and Grant was standing there. He started in immediately about me kicking his ass and then getting more from whoever you sent after him.”

Taking another deep breath, I looked around the room.

“I have a confession to make. I know you all saw the videos. Both the one from in here and the one from the restaurant.”

I turned and looked at my dad.

“I lied to you when I gave my statement. Well, I didn’t lie exactly. I just left out a lot. I’m sorry.”

Reaching over, my dad squeezed my hand.

“I know you did, baby girl. I knew you were lying then, but I didn’t want to push.”

“When he attacked me, his intention was to rape me.”

Micah tightened his hold on me, kissing my shoulder.

“What I kept from all of you was what he said during the attack. What he was saying made no sense. I thought he was just acting crazy.”

“Take your time, sweetheart,” King allayed.

“He kept saying ‘ you owe me, you belong to me, she said I could have you. We had plans, you screwed it all up’. And something about getting the land back. He wasn’t making sense. So, I just put it out of my mind,” I explained, shrugging my shoulder.

“Today, he said the same things, only they were a little different. ‘I came to collect what should have been mine. She told me I could have you. She said we would get married, we would have babies, that would connect us forever. And there was nothing that asshole could do. She lied to me. She took you away’. He said because ‘ he had me’ the plan wasn’t fixable . She called him when I came back and told him I was still a virgin and that he could have me if he hurried.”

I looked down at my hands and my cheeks heated.

Letting the men in the club know I was a virgin was one thing, but saying it in front of my dad was mortifying.

I felt Micah’s hand on my back.

“That was when I had my suspicion. That whoever she was knew who Micah was to me. Then he confirmed it.”

I looked at my dad. He was leaning forward, his elbows on the table. His hands clasped in front of him. His gaze focused on the table.

“He said ‘She told me once the old bat died, we could get the land back. We’d sell it and everything else she had would be ours. We could leave this place, get away from him for good’. That was when I knew for sure.” I reached over, placing my hand on my dad’s arm. “That he was talking about my mom.”

Silence surrounded us.

Nobody moved, no one said a word.

King, Micah and I had already heard him threaten my mom once. I didn’t know if the others knew what my dad was capable of. Despite only knowing him for a short time, I could see what he was capable of when it involved me.

“Are you sure, sweetheart?”

Without looking away from my father, I nodded. “I’m sure.”

Keeping his gaze fixed on the table, my father rasped, “Ghost, what have you learned?”

Ghost looked up at King. When he nodded for him to go ahead, he confirmed what I suspected.

“Beck is right. Grant told us everything. This went back to when they were in high school. Connie devised a plan once Grant came to town. It seems Grant’s grandparents own a large chain of hotels. His family is worth millions.”

I watched my father unclasp his hands, balling them into fists.

“From what Grant said, Connie had a plan for Grant and Beck to end up together, putting them in line to inherit all that money. He didn’t know why she cut the plan and moved away, but she got in contact with him again when she found out Beck was coming back here.”

“She knew I was here,” Micah muttered into my neck. “She never wanted us together, even before we were together. She never wanted us to be friends.”

“No, she didn’t. After you died, she was awful. She always insinuated that your family deserved what happened.”

“Well, she wasn’t wrong regarding my father.”

“What else?” my father growled.

“Connie helped him get away from the hospital,” Jingles told us. “He also said the land was here, that the clubhouse is on. She wasn’t happy Willow sold it to us. Connie wanted it back so that Grant could approach his grandparents about building a hotel resort here in Diamond Creek.”

“She is nothing but a money grubbing, gold-digging whore. I would wish I’d never met her, except then I wouldn’t have my daughter.” My father looked up at Jingles. “Did he say where she was?”

It was Ghost who responded this time, “He said he didn’t know where she was staying, but that she couldn’t be far.”

“Ok, big brother, how do you wanna handle this?” King directed to my dad.

He looked up at my uncle, and I swung my eyes back and forth between the two. Neither said a word, but I knew they were communicating.

“No.”

I stood from Micah’s lap and walked to the front of the room. I stared at my uncle, waiting for him to move. He stared back at me until I lifted my eyebrow at him. Sighing, he stood up, giving me his seat that was directly in front of my dad.

“Daddy.”

Yeah, I was pulling out the big guns. He looked up from the table and stared at me. I could see the fury in his eyes.

“You can’t do this. You are the goddamn sheriff here, and you aren’t dirty. The only option for you is the law. She hasn’t actually done anything illegal.”

“Beck—”

“No, Dad.”

“He tried to rape you. He would have tried again if the boys hadn’t gotten to you in time. She has to answer for that,” he rasped.

“But you can’t prove it. Unless she admits to telling him to rape me, which you know she would never do, you have nothing.”

“She’s right, brother, let us handle this,” King agreed.

“No.”

I swung around on my uncle. “That is not what I meant. I have an idea. I need you to trust me and let me do this my way.”

“What does that mean, baby?” Micah asked.

“It means I am the only one in this room who knows the real Conifer Washington. I know how to hit her where it hurts.”

My dad stood from his chair and walked out of the room without a word to anyone. We heard the front door slam as we spilled out into the main area. Walking over to the bar, I closed my eyes in defeat. Laying on the bar top was my father’s badge. His gun was gone.

King stepped up beside me and spied my dad’s badge.

“He knows what he’s doing, sweetheart.”

“He’s being stupid.”

What was he thinking? He couldn’t just shoot her.

She was my mother, for God’s sake.

“Yea, well, your father hasn’t always made the smartest decisions when it involves the people he loves. He’ll be ok.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

I knew there was a lot to learn about both men. Anything King could tell me now would help me find my father before he did something he couldn’t take back.

“A lot,” he simply replied, walking away. “Let him be. He’ll come home when he’s ready.”

“Baby, I need to go deal with Grant,” Micah said without looking me in the eye.

Micah knew I wasn’t stupid. He knew I understood what that meant. I should stop him, make him promise not to kill him, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about what happened to Grant.

He had already attacked me twice. I knew he would do it again if given the chance. Micah would make sure he never had that opportunity again.

“Ok, I’m going home. Take your time. I’ll see you when you’re done.”

I kissed his cheek. If he noticed I was brushing him off, he didn’t say a word. Walking back across the street, I tried to call my dad. Of course, he didn’t answer. I knew he wouldn’t, so I left him a message.

“Hey, Dad, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but this isn’t smart. I know we haven’t known each other for long and I know it’s her fault, along with a slew of other things, but you’re a good man. Let me call her, let me talk to her, let me handle this. I know how to handle her. Let me do this. I love you.”

Once I got home, I called my mother.

Surprise, surprise, she didn’t answer, either.

I left her a different message. Not one pleading for her to be the good person I knew she couldn’t be. She had never been a good person. She wouldn’t change now. Instead, I asked her to come here.

I knew what I was about to do would piss off everyone, but by the time they knew what I had done, it would be over.

Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

It was less than an hour later when a car pulled into my driveway. She walked in without knocking, like she owned the place.

I knew she thought she should.

“Alright, Rebecca, I’m here. What do you want?”

I looked at the woman that gave birth to me. I knew her personality. Knew her temper. I knew what buttons to push to make her react.

“Why did you do it?”

She raised her eyebrow.

“You need to be more specific.”

“Grant. Why did you push him to go after me?”

She threw her head back and laughed.

“Grant was a catch. He was handsome, rich, and he wasn’t an asshole. You could do a lot worse. You have done a lot worse.”

She threw herself into the kitchen chair and looked around the room.

“God, I hate this house. It needs to be torn down. That’s probably why she left it to you. She knew I would have demolished it.”

She looked back at me.

“What do you really want to know?”

“Why did you lie to my father and tell him you had an abortion? Did you hate me so much that you didn’t want me to have a dad? Why didn’t you get the abortion if you didn’t want me?”

“I wanted you, at first. I lied to him because I didn’t want him. He was a great fuck, but he was a beat cop with no drive. Declan wasn’t going anywhere. He had that brat to take care of and I had no interest in raising some punk kid.”

“You mean his little brother? My uncle?” I asked.

“I didn’t want him coming after me. You were supposed to be like me. You were supposed to be my partner in crime. I was going to teach you everything you needed to get a rich husband. Instead, you were like her. She was such a fucking hippie. Who names their kid after a tree, for Christ’s sake?”

She stood up from the table and started pacing. I could see the agitation taking hold, so I pushed.

“At least she loved me.”

“I LOVED YOU!” she screamed.

Taking a deep breath, she continued.

“She held you back. She didn’t want you to do anything more than she did. Wanted you to stay in this godforsaken town for the rest of your life. Born in Diamond Creek, die in Diamond Creek. Just like she did.”

“Is that so bad? She had a beautiful life. She had a happy life.” I stood from the table and walked over to the counter.

The knife block was sitting right behind me, within reach.

“She wasn’t happy. My mother was a bitch. She spent my whole life trying to convince me that poverty was fulfilling. Then she died with millions! She was a fucking hypocrite.”

“Grams was more of a mother to me than you ever were.”

She turned around so fast I didn’t have time to brace. When she slammed her fist into my nose, I felt the bone crack. That was my mistake. I thought she would start with a slap.

See, the one thing I kept to myself, never told Micah or Grams, no one, was that my mother used to beat me.

My hands went to my face. I held my nose, trying to stem the bleeding. My mother grabbed me by the hair, dragging me into the living room.

Shit.

Shoving me onto the couch, she turned back to the kitchen.

I underestimated her. I thought I would have to push more. Thought I knew her patterns. She came back into the room holding the knife I had planned to use.

My plan backfired. I knew she would attack. I knew I could claim self-defense. My father was the sheriff, for fuck’s sake. I had the rage from years of abuse. What I didn’t count on was her rage.

“Did you really hate Grams that much? Did you have something to do with her death?”

She cackled loudly, sounding like the wicked witch that she was.

“I wished I had taken out that old hag. She took that away from me, too.”

She was insane. That was the only reasonable explanation.

“She took everything away from me. She took my friends, she took you, she took the inheritance that should have been mine! Everyone loved her and hated me. Even Declan only asked me to marry him because of you. You deserve nothing. It all should have been mine!”

She slapped her fist onto her chest with the hand holding the knife. She swung her arm around and pointed the knife at me.

“I know how to get everything back. You got yourself all tangled up with a biker gang. Everyone knows they’re all thugs. Shacking up with them, fucking them. Looks to me like one of them beat the shit out of you. Then stabbed you. Oh, maybe twenty-five times. One for every year of your pathetic thieving life. Once you’re dead, in comes the grieving mother. The next of kin gets everything if you die without a will. I’m your next of kin, little girl. I will finally get all of it.”

“You aren’t her only next of kin, Conifer. ”

Spinning around with the knife in her hand, she charged toward my dad. He didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate. He emptied his gun into her chest. Holstering his weapon, he darted over to me and lifted me into his arms.

I buried my face in his chest as he carried me out of the house, where we found over a dozen bikers running across the street with their weapons drawn.

Stopping in the driveway, he handed me over to Micah, who pulled me against him so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. Gunner rushed past us into the house.

“I’m ok, Micah. I’m ok.”

Taking my head in his hands, he looked me over.

“Baby, your nose. I think it’s broken. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I promise I’m ok. It’s over, Micah. She can’t come between us ever again.”

He kissed my forehead and looked at my dad.

“Do we need to hide a body?”

He laughed. “No, justifiable homicide.”

King slapped a hand on my dad’s shoulder.

“You’re gonna need this,” he said, holding out my dad’s badge.

My dad took the badge, pinning it to his chest where it belonged.

He looked over at Nav.

“Call it in. Everything by the book.” He turned to me and winked.