Page 62 of Nicoletta
“You’ve seen my body, babe; you know I got scars.”
“Yes, I just didn’t know how you got them.” I take another sip of the steaming brew.
“I’m an outlaw, and outlaws have scars.” He grins at me. “And now you’re an outlaw too.”
“According to Clark Williams, my biological father was also an outlaw.”
“I wouldn’t believe too much of what that bastard said. Maybe the guy was just down on his luck.”
“Either way, the only reaction I felt when Clark revealed the truth about my parentage was relief. It really ate at me that the man I called my father all these years was capable of such horrors.”
“I know all about shitty fathers, but I’d say you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known outside of my mother.”
That admission stops me cold. Of course Bolt had parents, everyone did, but somehow I could also imagine him being constructed out of welded steel, held together by sinewy muscle.
“You’ve never mentioned your mother.”
“Hmmm.”
I don’t want to push, but I can’t control my curiosity. “Is she still?—”
He slowly shakes his head, and my heart catches. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.” He digs his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. “This is all I have from her.” He holds up a chain with a St. Christopher’s medal dangling at the end.
“How long has she been gone?” I somehow sense he wants to talk about her, but he doesn’t know how.
“She died way too young.”
“Cancer?” I venture.
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “In a way. My father was an abusive bastard. Just kept taking and taking—like a cancer.”
“And?” I prod.
“Came home from high school and found her hanging in the basement.”
I gasp, then school my reaction. “That’s truly terrible. I’m so sorry you had to find her like that.”
“The next day, my father took off, and I was alone. We didn’t have shit, so the state had her buried. A week later, on my seventeenth birthday, I took off too. Headed south, bummed around San Diego doing odd jobs, getting my ass in trouble, in and out of jail. Six years ago, I came down to Tijuana with Diesel. We fought for the cartel first, then Smoke and Blood recruited us to fight for the Royal Bastards.” He spreads his arms wide. “And here I am.”
I reach for his hand and place it between mine.
“I want you to know something.” He leans in until we’re face to face. “I never told that story to anybody.”
I cock my head. “Not even Smoke or Diesel?”
“Nope. Nobody but you.”
“Why? You’re so close to both of them.”
“Just not something you spit out over a few beers.”
“Then I’m honored, although I don’t think I deserve it.” I lower my eyes, and try to form the words correctly, then realize there is no correct way to explain betrayal.
“I never wanted to lie to you about the knife.” I draw in a breath. “That’s not entirely true. That first night, it seemed like my only option, then I just . . . I was afraid of your reaction, and the longer I waited, the worse it got.”
“Funny, I never thought of it, but in an indirect way, it was my mother who told me about the knife.”
