Page 8 of Riding Hard

It’s his bed and his sheets.

Not only is the bed that I bought him gone, but he’s been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. No, that’s only the icing on my pissed-off cake. The sheets are dirty—almost-black dirty. I’m not sure they’ve actually ever been washed. I would be shocked if they had.

It reminds me of my childhood—something I swore I would never allow to happen to anyone else I ever knew, yet here it is: history repeating its-fucking-self. Except I’m not my father, and I never will be.

There is a knock on the door, and I let out a growl as I turn my back to the room and head straight for whoever is on the other side. Looking through the peephole, I grunt at the sight of an officer and what I assume is a caseworker.

I already know they won’t do shit about the state of the house, Cade’s room, or anything else here. They’re going to care about the fact that she’s been gone for weeks. That’s all I have going for me.

Opening the door, I stand in front of them. I don’t bother giving them a fake smile or trying to be overly friendly. The cop flicks his gaze to my cut, seeing the Iron Flame MC patch before he shifts his gaze up to meet mine again. I see the moment he realizes who and what I am. I can only hope that he doesn’t hold it against me.

“Is this your home?” the caseworker asks.

I shake my head once. My gaze shifts from the cop to her. “It’s my kid’s mother’s house. I pay the bills on it, but I don’t live here.”

She frowns, but I don’t care. She can be pissed I walked in here, but I wasn’t going to sit outside with my son when he could be in here eating pizza. She walks past me and into the house without saying anything.

The cop follows, but he stops in front of me. He dips his chin, his eyes finding mine. When he speaks, his words surprise me. I expect hate, maybe even judgment, coming from him. But that’s not what he gives me.

“I know who you are. Not just the club, but you, Slade. I also know Destinee.”

“Yeah?” I ask.

He dips his chin in a single nod. “I’ll do what I can. Kids don’t deserve this shit.”

I think about telling him that Destinee has had me by the balls for a decade when it comes to Cade, and that’s only because of who I am. There’s no judge in the world who would have ever given me full custody of him.

Now that she’s vanished, left him alone to fend for himself, maybe that’s changed.

“I ’preciate that. I love my son. I didn’t know she wasn’t here.”

He dips his chin in a single nod. I step to the side, letting him into the house. I hope like hell he isn’t fucking with me. That he’s serious and he’ll help me. That he’s on my side, because if he’s not, he could really fuck this up for me and Cade. I don’t think I could ever forget that.

“Let me get a statement from you, Slade. Then we’ll go from there.”

Shifting my gaze to the dining room area, I watch as the caseworker sits across from Cade and talks to him. The only saving grace is that this bitch has done what she’s done when Cade is old enough to articulate what exactly has been going on. The bad part of that same coin is that my son has been living this way for ten years and I didn’t know.

I mean, I knew Destinee was a piece of shit, but I figured she at least did basic things like laundry and bought groceries. Had I known it was this bad, I would have called social services on her years ago.

I should have. I didn’t because I was being a fucking pussy about it. I was scared to death that I would lose what little time I had with my son. But now that he’s ten, I think it’s time. This bitch needs to fucking go. She’s not taking care of our son, and that is my number one priority—Cade.

CHAPTER

SIX

JULIETTE

When the sun begins to rise and there is no sign of Victor, I open the car door and decide I can probably make it to town without being kidnapped from the side of the road by him… maybe.

I mean, he probably could still grab me, but he’s got more of a chance of being caught during the day. Plus, he’s a creature of the night and would probably melt in the direct sunlight if he were out here trying to hunt me down.

I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going. My feet just move. I should have called a tow truck or something. I continue walking straight ahead, one foot in front of the other. I don’t know how I’m going to get my stuff out of my car, but I guess I’ll worry about that another day.

When I finally make it to town, I almost cry at the sight of a gas station, but not because of the gas. No, I practically run for the convenience store and march straight toward the water. I feel like I might actually die of thirst. The sun was hotter than I thought, and when the air conditioning of the store hits me, my body sways with the shock.

I don’t know how or why I ended up in the dry-ass desert when I left Los Angeles.

I wasn’t thinking.