Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(87)

I moved right by him, opened the door, went in, but held it and stared at him to indicate he should come in.

There was a hint of surprise before he accepted my invitation.

I shut the door behind him, went to my couch and threw my bag and briefcase on it.

I turned his way and said, “You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer you refreshments.”

“Hellen—”

I held up a hand.

“You have my promise, I won’t tell anyone. I haven’t even told my girls anything except Core and I are over. I tell them everything, but I won’t tell them this. I mean, obviously, they know you all dealt with the Greeks. But they won’t know what else I’ve learned. What little I know of your secrets are safe with me. Now you all can go your way, and I’ll go mine.”

“Can I ask who told you?”

“Why, so you can beat her down too?”

He flinched.

My body jerked.

Because there it was, easy to read.

Real pain.

No, anguish.

I stared.

He recovered and said, “So it was Nails.”

Fucking shit.

I just had to open my big mouth, and now I had to control the damage.

She was a bitch, but she was my cousin after all.

“She wasn’t nice about it, but she did me a favor. And since I’m not like all of you, she did you all a favor too. We’re not good for each other. So in the end, it works for both of us.”

“Do you think it’s working for Core?”

As that blade sunk true and I mentally staggered under the pain, suddenly, I realized my error.

This was not a good man.

And I’d let him in my house.

I’d let the quiet, contemplative brother of Core in my house, the one who helped build fences, the one I knew.

I forgot he was someone else.

“Respectfully, can I ask you to leave?”

He drew in a big breath.

It seemed to take forever for him to let it go.

When he did, he didn’t leave.

He said, “His father was a drunk.”

So it was going to be this.

Damn.

Right, okay.

He felt the need to do this, I wouldn’t fight it. I’d let him. I’d let him think I was hearing him out, so he could tell Core he did what he could, and more importantly for me, things right now wouldn’t get testy.

I just had to make it through.

“He told me,” I confirmed.

“The man abused Core’s mother.”

“He told me that too.”

“Did he tell you his father beat her to death?”

Every muscle in my body hardened because no.

He did not tell me that.

She died an ugly death.

That was what he said.

But he didn’t come close to telling me how ugly.

“When his old man surfaced from the place he was in his head to be able to do that to her, saw what he’d done, he got his gun, put it in his mouth and blew the back of his head off.”

I staggered back, hit the arm of my couch, and sat on it.

“Core was out with buds when it happened. He was sixteen. He was the one who found them.”

My brain screamed, No!

And my head turned sharply. I looked away, unable to hold his gaze at the same time deal with the pain that seared through me at his words.

“Core thinks his dad did it out of guilt, blowing his brains out. That’s what he needs to believe. I think, from all the rest Core gave us about that fuckin’ guy, he did it because he didn’t want to get into trouble. He didn’t want to go to jail. He didn’t want to be someplace he couldn’t have booze, which was more important to him than his woman and son. And he didn’t want to be someplace where he couldn’t bully and rape—”

My head shot up and the word escaped my mouth as a horrified gasp because my lungs had suddenly ceased working.

“Rape?”

Beck nodded once. “Yeah, rape. Sometimes, he coerced her to have sex with him in exchange for him not beating her up. Core would have to listen to that shit when he was a kid.”

I had the strong feeling I was going to be sick.

“You ever know anyone in the foster system?” Beck asked.

Oh my God.

It just kept…getting…worse.

“There are really great people who take care of kids,” he told me. “And then there are some who really suck at it. Core got those. In two years between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, he had three of them.”

I tried to stand, I didn’t know why, maybe to run away from all he was saying, but my legs were numb, as were my feet, so I couldn’t move.

“He was searching for something, and he sure as fuck found it, hooking himself up with Bounty.”

Wait.

What?

“Bounty?” I asked.

“Who we were before we became Resurrection. Who we were when we did that to Rosalie.”

Man, Core and I didn’t get into anything deep at all, did we?

I thought we had.

But we had not.

“He was fucked-up. He was searching. Found Bounty, and that was perfect. All we wanted to do was party and cause trouble, fight and piss in corners. Pretend we were outlaws and howl at the moon. Anything that would mask what we were really feeling. Anything that would shroud the path that is long and hard and terrifying, which we should have been walking. Take our anger out at anyone and on everybody. Nothing mattered. No person did either. All of that in the guise of brotherhood. We thought we had honor. We thought we understood the true meaning of family. All we did was get tangled up with a bunch of other fucked-up souls and dig the tunnel away from redemption all the deeper.”