Ride Steady (Chaos, #3)(151)

But now he was with me so he had a kitchen and it did.

And Joker didn’t let it roll off his back.

He retreated.

My Joker didn’t retreat.

He moved forward. He built fabulous cars. He took on a single mom and her kid. He patrolled the streets with his brothers to keep them safe.

But from his father, a still-handsome but aging, beer-bellied man who’d scowl at an old lady for getting in his way in a grocery store, Joker retreated.

This troubled me for obvious reasons.

But mostly because what just happened proved my biker was not good, as he said he was.

He was not good at all.

And that was very, very troubling.

*

“Yeah?”

“Linus, it’s Carrie.”

“Carrie, darlin’, what’s up” Linus asked through the phone at my ear.

I was hiding in the bathroom.

This was immature and possibly hazardous, considering why I was doing it and the fact that Joker might get angry about it.

But I was doing it.

I’d also filched Joker’s phone to get Linus’s number. I had Kam’s and Mrs. Heely’s.

But this had to be Linus.

“Can you talk for a second, Linus?” I asked back.

“Sure,” he said, but that one word was cautious.

I drew in breath.

Then I did what I had to do.

This being whispering, “How bad was it?”

“Sorry, darlin’?” he asked.

“Carson’s father,” I kept whispering. “How bad was it?”

There was a pause before he asked, “Is Car okay?”

“Tonight, we saw his dad.”

“Fuck,” Linus muttered.

“He, well… Linus, he… ran away,” I shared, guilt plaguing me that I gave Joker’s friend that weakness, but something stronger was driving me onward. “My Carson… my Joker isn’t about that.”

“No,” Linus bit off.

“I saw the cigarette burns,” I confided.

“Yeah, Mrs. Heely told me about that,” he replied immediately. “She saw ’em too when Car was eight.”

Oh no.

Eight?

“Before my time,” Linus carried on. “But she told me about ’em. She also told Social Services about ’em. No clue how that motherf*cker got off on that one. Just know he did and the burns stopped.”

Eight.

He got those burns when he was eight.

I didn’t want to ask what I had to ask.

But I asked because it had to be asked.

“What else?”

“He talk to you about this at all?” Linus queried in return.

“He doesn’t hide it,” I told him. “He speaks freely of it. You’d think he was what he wants me to believe, over it. But when I saw the burns, he tried to hide it, pull away, pass it off. I… well, I don’t know how to broach it or even if I should, since he’s convinced himself he’s beyond it.” I paused and shared softly, “He’s not beyond it, Linus.”

“Lotsa ways to f*ck up a kid, and Jefferson Steele did ’em all,” Linus declared.

My chest depressed.

Linus kept speaking.

“Had women over, didn’t hide it, sight or sound, what he did with ’em even at an age way too young for a kid to see that shit. But also when Carson was gettin’ older and all that would be on his mind was that shit. Car, do not know what he’s made of, have no idea how he didn’t get twisted by that, but I’d see him with his girls. I knew there were a lot of ’em, I figured he got some from ’em, but from what little I saw when he was with ’em, he respected ’em.”

I saw that too. And every girl who had him loved being with him (which was torture for me at the time, luckily, fates changed).

Those girls just never had him for long.

“On top a’ that, beat the shit outta him,” Linus said. “Left him standin’ but didn’t mind doin’ it visible. Shouted at ’im. Not sure more than a couple days went by before the whole block heard him lay into Car. Call him a piece of shit. Tear him up. Never heard Car say a word back, Carrie, not once.”

I was pretty certain I could feel my heart bleeding, and as much as I hated the feeling, I had to concentrate on containing it so I was unable to respond.

Regardless, there really was nothing to say.

“Got no good from the man,” Linus continued into my silence. “If he wasn’t yellin’ at him or beatin’ on him, Carson didn’t exist. That is, except to serve him. Anything got done in that house, vacuum goin’, trash out, food cooked, Carson did it because his old man ordered it. No way he’d court gettin’ what he’d get if he told the guy to go f*ck himself, so he did it. He was a slave, Carrie, whipped and broken. He was a strong kid, built, no clue why he didn’t fight back. But he didn’t. Then he took too much and fought back. That was the end.”

“It wasn’t the end,” I whispered.

At that, Linus didn’t reply.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Be with him, give him what you’re givin’ him. He appreciates it, darlin’.”

I knew he did.

It just wasn’t enough.