Page 7 of Knuckles

Have they fucked?

Wait, no, he’s in a relationship with Clark's best friend, Belle…

I shake my head as Benny mutters, “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it,” and I walk over to the other kids and say, “We’ll help you load up the kids in the van.”

“Knuckles?” Crash calls, but I put my hand up, and I grit, “Not now, brother,” not wanting to discuss the woman whose eyes I can feel on my back.

I don’t know why she has this effect on me, I haven’t met her before, and I don’t want to know why. As far as I’m concerned, after today, I won’t fucking see her again.

And there goes the drop in my stomach… Fuck.

Chapter 2

Kodi – Twenty-Three Years Old

I gently bite my bottom lip as I tap my pen on the pad before me. The piercing blue eyes glaring at me have me entranced since last night, eyes I had never seen up close before.

Knuckles.

I don’t know the man well, heck, I didn’t even know his name until last night and if anything, the last time I saw him was in high school. He never paid any attention to me, never looked my way. I always knew he was guarded and kind of a prick, but that may be because he beat my brother up, who always called him prick instead of his actual name.

I sigh as I drop my pen and glare at the report before me.

I’m supposed to be filling in all the paperwork about the kidnappings and how the men mysteriously disappeared, which I know Dad will be pissed about. Of course, Benny has left meto deal with him when he gets back to the station because his girlfriend of three weeks had a water crisis- as in, her apartment being flooded, kind of crisis.

“Your dad's on his way,” my partner, Masters, says, and I nod but don’t respond or look at him.

When Dad partnered us up four months ago, he was hoping I’d fall for a fellow officer who wouldkeep me in line.All it did was make me resent him even more because Masters is a pig, a womanizer, and a degrading little prick who eyes me up on a daily basis. I don’t get time away from this insanity because I can’t take vacations thanks to my dad micromanaging my entire life.

“Your mother has been killed…”

Dad's choked sobs still echo in my ear when he stormed my place of work, my dream job, with half his work force, petrified for my safety and dragged me away from my life.

Four years ago, after Mom couldn’t convince him to release the leader of the Chargers, her secret lover. Cans had her killed out of revenge, her and her unborn baby, who was most likely not Dad's child not that Dad is aware of that.

I hadn’t spoken to my mom in three years before she was killed, after she threatened my brother's job within the force if I told Dad about her affair. Anddefinitelynot after Cans threatened to rape me. When Dad said she was dead, I just felt numb.

I was angry at her because I knew why he killed her. I heard her on the phone, promising the sick asshole that she would get him out when he was arrested for murder. I heard her tell him she’d continue to give him whatever money he needed for his business ventures, such as kidnapping and selling children.

She was using her husband to help her boyfriend not caring what he was doing.

I used to look up to the woman, and then she showed her true self. When Dad refused to allow a murderer to run the streets, his men raped and brutally killed her, chopped her body up into pieces, then sent them to the station wrapped in a tight bow.

I sigh as I begin to write up the report of the kidnapping, trying to forget about the woman who birthed me.

The kids are back home, safe, with only minor cuts and bruises thankfully.

Apparently, the MC got to them just in time, according to Laura, something about them wanting to inspect their ‘goods’. Trauma therapists have contacted the state home, and even though that is all good news, Dad won’t see it that way.

He’ll see we allowed the MC to run the show and take the nasty men who deserve to be chopped up. Not to see inside a jail cell where they’ll get three meals a day and a warm bed to sleep in.

“I can’t believe you allowed the kidnappers to get away,” Masters grumbles from across the room, and I lock my jaw to stop myself from snapping at him. He sighs when I don’t say anything and says, “Whatever, you and your brother can figure your dad out. What are you doing after our shift?”

I tighten my grip on my pen and mutter, “I have a class to teach,” and he scoffs.

“I don’t understand why you’re still teaching that class, your dad made it perfectly clear that your art was a waste of time,” he grunts, and again, I lock my jaw to stop myself from snapping at him.

I’m fully aware that Dad believes art is a waste of time. He went from supporting me after my work won show after show, earning thousands of dollars and praising me for being offered a full-time job at the best art gallery in the state. Then flipped to dragging me out of college and forcing me into the police academy.