“I killed my mother.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t turn her head in my direction, or ask me to clarify, but she’s listening. I just know she is, so I continue.
“My dad was a real bastard. He started the Ravens Ruin MC in Miami, but after he fucked the cartel over and got Lynch’s mother killed, he hauled ass to Sutton, and laid down roots. My first memory of him is walking in to see him plowing into some chick while my mom sat in the corner and watched. She wasn’t happy. I remember that much, but she wasn’t doing anything to stop him either. He was cussing her, using words I didn’t even know the definition of at the time, but the gist was easy to understand. He’d take what he wanted from whoever he wanted because he was the king, and no one went against the king in his castle.
“I was two, maybe three at the time, but I knew from that moment that men were allowed anything. As a little shit, I used it to my advantage. I got extra ice cream, more time at the park, even permission to stay up later than normally allowed, all with simple little manipulations I learned from my father.
“I think I loved her. I remember the serenity I felt when she’d hold me to her chest and rock me to sleep as a little boy. I also remember the fear in her eyes when I’d repeat things to the women around the clubhouse I’d heard my father say.”
I don’t look at Kaci as I speak, but I watch her hand as she lifts the remote and powers off the TV.
“I thought I was a bad motherfucker, and the guys in the club loved me. They’d laugh their asses off at my antics. Apparently ‘come suck my cock, whore’ is hilarious to bikers when it’s said by a four-year-old kid.”
“That’s not funny at all,” Kaci whispers.
“I know it’s not. I mean, I know that now, but back then I wanted to be just like him. He yielded so much power from the men around him. I was his pride and joy. I think it was hard for him to look at Lynch, and it wasn’t until the day he died that I realized why.”
Kaci settles her back against the headboard, but I hate the distance, so I pull her against me. She doesn’t fight it. With her head on my chest where she belongs, I continue.
“My father never loved my mother. I’d always thought it was because he didn’t have a heart or the cocaine he snorted like it was his job fucked him up, but honestly, he never got over Lynch’s mom. He’d bought me a toy gun when I was six, and I knew in my soul I was a real Raven then. I was a badass with this little cap gun.”
‘That looks great in your hand there buddy, but you won’t be a real man until you have hair on your nuts.’
“That’s what he told me earlier that day.”
Kaci snorts a laugh, but I can tell she’s appalled by my father.
“Seriously, I couldn’t fucking wait to get hair on my nuts. I wanted to be a man exactly like my father. I idolized him. Later that day, the DEA raided the clubhouse.” Her hand flexes against my side, but I ignore it and push forward. “They rushed in. At the time, I thought there were a hundred guys swarming into our home, but police didn’t scare me, because I remember my dad saying he wasn’t afraid of them a million times before. I lifted that tiny cap gun with steady hands at those fuckers, yelled ‘die pigs’, and pulled the trigger.”
Kaci tenses against my chest, and I allow my hand to trace down her spine for a few seconds before I begin again.
“My mom must’ve predicted what was going to happen because she jumped in front of me, taking three bullets to the chest.”
Kaci gasps, and her hot tears soak through the front of my shirt, but she doesn’t placate me with empty words.
“My dad was wailing, yelling at the police, losing his fucking mind, and seeing him lose it made me lose it too. I was bawling like a baby, trying to tug my mom into my lap, like holding her would stop the red stains from spreading across the front of her shirt. It wasn’t until my dad looked in our direction and realized my mom was dead and not me that he stopped crying. He didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his eyes, but the sobbing stopped like someone had flipped a switch, and he smiled at me. His lips turned up in a proud smile as I sat there with my mom’s dead body on my tiny lap.”