It was there, and it was real.
When the song ended, the silence was deafening until our mother said, “It’s time to come home, Solomon. I miss you.”
“Mom?”
“I love you, Baby. Please come home.”
I could see the hurt, anguish, despair, fury rage within my brother as our mother’s voice registered with him. It was painful to see. I wanted so much to hug him, to tell him that everything was going to be okay. That our mother was alive and well. Yet, I didn’t get the chance. Because before I could say anything, several men stepped out of the darkness, guns were drawn. One with a needle jabbed it into my brothers’ neck as the rest of them grabbed him, dragging him from the room.
I screamed for Savage, for anyone to help me, but no one helped. Toxic moaned as his cell phone dropped from his hand as he tried to get to his feet. He was in no condition to help anyone as he stumbled to get to his feet. By the time I blinked, my brother was gone again.
Standing there in the darkness, I asked, tears running down my face. “How?”
“Angela. For the first couple of years, she would visit him and sing that song to him, holding him until he fell asleep. I would have stayed in the area, but shit went down, and I was forced to take him and leave. It killed your mother. Not seeing him every day. We tried visits for a while, but when Shane was killed, it became impossible. James had to order her to stay away. After that, Solomon changed. He felt the loss of his mother strongly and started acting out and became the man he is today.”
“You could have taken her with you,” I rounded on Toxic angrily. “I would have been fine. I had the club. I had Savage. I would have been fine. My brother needed her! You denied him our mother!”
“Kitty, it wasn’t that simple.”
“Yes, it was!”
“The club wanted him dead. Not you. We all knew that going in. If I took Angela with me, they would know. There never would have been a safe place for them anywhere.”
“You took her son! My mother was never the same. I watched her deteriorate. She was happy one minute, then the next, it was like someone killed something inside her. I never could figure it out, but it was you. You took her child away from her!”
“What would you have me do? Leave him with her so they both could die? That time was fucked up, Kitty. Nobody knew who to trust. We did what we thought best!” Toxic shouted back.
“Fuck!” I screamed. “You still don’t get it! There is a bond between a mother and her son. Something that NO one can break. Severe that bond, and you can cause irrefutable damage. Solomon is the way he is because of you. You took him from the only loving person he knew. Yes, you raised him, but you didn’t love him. He was just a kid to you. A young boy. What he needed was his mother!”
“You’re just emotional. You wouldn’t understand.”
And just like that, I lost my shit and charged the towering bastard. However, I didn’t get far when strong arms wrapped around me, holding me back from ripping into the clueless man. “You ignorant mother fucker! Typically, I would have issues with a man telling me I was emotional, that I’m just a woman, but when you fuck with our children, then hell yes, emotion has everything to do with it. You stay the fuck away from my brother!”
“Kitty,” a low voice said, bringing me out of my rage. I took a deep breath and looked about the room as Blaze and the other club members all looked at me. Worried.
It was then I realized I was in the arms of my brother, Savage.
“Let’s go,” Savage said, ushering me out of the room.
“I need to find him.”
“We will. But not today. We need to leave. Caroline knows about the raid.”
“I’m coming with you,” Toxic said sternly. “You won’t be able to handle him alone.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and rounded on the bastard. “You’re not going anywhere with us. You’ve done enough already.”
Toxic grinned wickedly, getting in my face. “You don’t get a say in this little girl. Either I go with them, or he stays missing. He may look normal on the outside, but Sandman is anything but. He will go off the reservation. Mark my words, and when he does, do you think a little girl like you will be able to stop him?”
“Step away from my sister,” Savage growled. “I’ve had it with all this personal, secret bullshit. I don’t care who you are. You will stay the fuck away from my sister, or I will end you. Do you understand?”
“We’ll see about that,” Toxic muttered, taking a step back.
Savage grabbed my arm and all but hauled me from the room.
Back outside, we quickly got in our rental and headed back towards the way we came. Though we didn’t accomplish what we intended, I did find my brother and learned something new.
Now I just needed to find where Caroline took him.