Page 24 of Gonzo’s Grudge (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Dreadnought, NC #1)

IvaLeigh

I knew the dinner was wrong the second my mother said we were having it. Life was upended and turned upside down. Nothing felt right.

She tried to smooth it with her voice—“Sunday roast, sweetheart; your favorite, lemon pie”—but there was a tremor under the words, the kind you hear when a bridge starts to creak under too much weight.

I stood in my old bedroom, the one with the faded quilt, and stared at my phone sitting dark on the dresser.

I hadn’t turned it on since I sent him that text. I shut down and the world out.

I pulled my hair into a low knot and changed my top three times before I stopped pretending it mattered. I wasn’t dressing for anyone. I wasn’t dressing for him. If he even came—God, if he came—the world was spinning crazy again thinking about

“Dinner,” Mom called, too bright. I didn’t want to upset her when she had to learn I was used by the man she invited to her dinner table.

I went downstairs and stepped into a room I didn’t recognize.

My father stood at the head of the table like he didn’t know where to sit.

Jacket on, tie off, sleeves rolled. The place caught the light the same as always—linen runner, silver polished, candles set but unlit—but the air was wrong.

It felt like the hallway outside a courtroom. Stale and uneasy with anticipation.

“Hi, honey,” Mom said, kissing my cheek. Her lipstick was perfect. The hand that smoothed the napkin by my plate shook.

“Where’s—” I started, and then the doorbell rang.

Dad flinched.

Mom’s eyes went wide with a warning I didn’t understand. “I’ll—uh—I’ll just?—”

But he was already moving. “I’ve got it.”

I sank into my chair and wrapped my hands around my water glass. Cold bit into my palms. The front door opened. Boots against hardwood. A mutter I felt more than heard.

And then he was there.

Gonzo filled a room without trying. He didn’t touch me; he didn’t even come close enough to pretend to. He took the empty chair at the far end of the table. His eyes met mine for a breath—wind and road and a man who looked carved out of something heavier than the rest of us—and then slid away.

No denial of our situation. No explanation. No apology. No plea. Just presence.

I didn’t speak. If I opened my mouth, I was afraid of what would come out.

Mom carried in the chicken and set it down like it weighed a hundred pounds. “Grace?” she asked, because in this house we still pretended that part mattered.

No one took hands. Dad cleared his throat. “Before we eat,” he said, and his voice cracked on the first word. “There are things I need to say.”

Questions plagued my mind. Why now? What did he have to share? What did he know? How was he tied to Gonzo? The room went still in a way I felt in my teeth.

“Conner,” Mom whispered, warning or prayer; I couldn’t tell. “Let’s eat first.”

“IvaLeigh,” Dad started, looking at me. He looked older than he had a month ago. “You deserve the truth. Your mother does too. I should have said it long before the world found ways to say it for me and use it against me.”

Something in him sparked this anger inside of me. I couldn’t explain it, but somehow my gut knew that the heartbreak I was feeling had to be because of his actions. “Say it,” I taunted. My voice didn’t wobble. I was proud of that. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

He exhaled, shut his eyes once like a man stepping off a cliff, and opened them again. “I’ve been unfaithful to your mother.”

Glass knocked on wood. Mom’s water sloshed. She reached for a napkin she didn’t need and pressed it flat with both palms. She didn’t look at him.

“I had an affair,” he went on, voice stripped to bone. “With a woman from Ashe County. I’ve been having an affair. It began over two years ago. It should never have started. I wanted to end it. But before I did, someone—Hampton Stanley—made sure he had proof.”

While this was earth shattering, but what did this have to do with Gonzo? What did Hampton Stanley have to do with my dad having an affair?

Dad swallowed. “He used it. He used me. He told me where to sit and how to rule and who to hurt. I let him. I told myself I was protecting this family, protecting both of you, protecting the bench, protecting… everything but really I was denying the truth. I denied motions I should have granted. I signed orders I should have burned. I sent people to prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

I handed down the maximum sentences for first-time offenders simply because I was told to.

I took the law into my own hands. In the matter of Gabriel Gonzales Jr., also known as GJ—Gonzo’s son—I allowed myself to be guided by Hampton’s will, not the law. ”

My ears buzzed like a hive. In the corner of my eye, Gonzo didn’t move. That stillness felt more dangerous than anyone’s anger. This was the tie between my father and Gonzo. And my world crashed around me inside my head. He didn’t love me, treasure me. He used me. I barely kept it together.

“Why?” I asked. The word was small. It had teeth.

Dad looked at his hands like he’d never seen them before.

“Because I was weak. Because I was a coward. Because I thought the worst thing that could happen was my reputation burning. I was wrong. The worst thing is a man rotting in prison because I was too afraid to stand up to the bully who owns this town.”

Mom’s chair scraped back. She stood, walked to the sideboard, and put both hands on it to keep from falling through the floor. When she turned around, her face was set in a way I’d never seen—a mask cut out of something that wasn’t going to break today.

“And this dinner,” I said, hearing my own voice from very far away. “What is this? A confession because you got caught? Or because”—I glanced, against my will, to the far end of the table—“because you invited him into our home to finish whatever this game is that you both have played with me?”

Dad’s mouth shook. He steadied it with a breath that looked like it hurt. “He didn’t invite himself. I did.” He looked at Gonzo. “He told me the price of his help was the truth. Laid out plain and real. Truth. In this room. In front of both of you. I owe you that more than anything.”

Help. My chest tightened. I stared at Gonzo again. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away. He took my scrutiny like a man letting the tide hit him because he knew the rocks behind were stronger than they looked.

“What do you want?” I asked, not bothering to hide the accusation. “From him. From us. From me! You came into my world what is the goal?” I locked my eyes to the man I had allowed to consume my heart. I wanted to hear it directly from him.

“The wrong against my son to be righted,” he stated clearly, simply. “I told you, IvaLeigh, I’m not a good man. I told you in my world, loyalty was everything. My son deserves a free life not some prison sentence and a cloud hanging over his head.”

Dad cleared his throat. He couldn’t find a place for his hands.

“I’m giving Devyn—GJ’s attorney—everything.

Orders. Emails. Approvals. The memos Hampton dictated that I pretended I wrote.

Chain-of-custody for the poison he fed the court.

Enough to vacate judgments and blow the doors off this whole mess.

I’ve written my recusal and my admission.

I’ll file it tomorrow. I’ll tender my resignation to the circuit.

If I survive the week, it’ll be a miracle.

I don’t expect to. I’m going to be disbarred and disrobed, but I have earned it all with my selfish decisions. ”

Mom’s breath hitched. I felt it through the table.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” Dad said to her. “I’m asking you to hear me say it out loud before someone else gets paid to say it first.”

“For once,” she whispered. “You’re early.”

He flinched like she’d slapped him. She hadn’t. I wanted to.

“And Hampton Stanley?” I asked, because there was a hole in this confession big enough to drive a fleet through. “What happens to him? He told me I stepped into a man’s war. He told me to run to Paris and play tourist so I didn’t get crushed. What happens to him?”

The room held its breath. Dad looked at Gonzo. Gonzo looked at me.

“The club will handle Stanley,” Dad said quietly.

“No,” Gonzo said, voice a low engine in my chest. “The truth will find and deal with Stanley. We’ll make sure it gets where it needs to go.”

I stared at him. The man was cold, calculated.

The other people who warned me, maybe they were right.

Catalina had slammed the door and told me he would ruin me.

Then Hampton Stanley sat in my room and said I was just a pawn on his board.

Every time I closed my eyes, those sentences slid around each other like knives looking for the next part of my heart to stab.

Now he sat in my mother’s dining room and used truth like a weapon he knew how to wield.

I pressed my palms flat on the table to stop them from shaking. This was another part of his game. He wasn’t here for me, that was obvious. “You came here to watch him bleed,” I stated, looking directly to Gonzo. “Or are you here to help him? Or is it that you need him to help you?”

“All of the above,” he stated clearly. Honest. It cut cleaner than a lie would have.

Mom finally moved. She picked up the carving knife, set it down again, and laughed a laugh that broke halfway through.

“We are not eating,” she explained in the strangest tone, and then put both hands over her mouth like laughter was a sin she couldn’t afford.

Tears pushed through her fingers. She shook her head and muttered, “I set the table for a slaughter of my entire life. What kind of woman does that?”

Dad went to her. She held up one palm without looking and he stopped like she’d pushed him into a wall or she had some voodoo magic power that held him in place.