Page 25 of Gonzo’s Grudge (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Dreadnought, NC #1)

“Sit,” she commanded, voice shredded but steady.

“Finish what you started. Then you can sleep in the study. Or the yard. I don’t care.

But you asked me to prepare a meal. You told me Gabriel wanted to join us.

I assumed it was to fix what he broke in IvaLeigh.

No, the two of you weren’t here to mend anything.

So please, while you are shattering the world around us, do finish what you’ve started. ”

He sat.

I watched him. Watched the man who had taught me how to tie my shoes and parallel park and keep my voice level even when men talked over me, and I tried to put him next to the man who told things exactly as they were.

He warned me. I didn’t listen. The man who raised me sat in front of me as a stranger, the man beside him as an enemy I wished I could forget.

. The pieces didn’t fit. They were both wrong and somehow, Gonzo was still right. That was the worst of it.

“Why tell me to run?” I inquired of my father, voice low. “Why did you let him come into my dorm and tell me to get out of town like I was a… a problem you could send to Europe on a scholarship? Why get me out of the way?”

Dad shut his eyes. “I didn’t know he went to you until after. I never wanted any of this near you or your mother. If I would have known, I would have?—”

“You would have what?” I snapped. “Called him and asked him to schedule his intimidation for a better time?”

He swallowed. “I would have met him myself. He doesn’t touch my daughter. This doesn’t touch you.”

“It already did. He already did,” I stated sternly. “With words.” I looked to Gabriel, “and you with your actions.”

Silence clamped tight around us.

Gonzo’s chair scraped softly. He stood, not to leave.

To take off his cut and hang it over the back of the chair again like he was laying a weapon down on a table so no one mistook what kind of room this was.

“I asked him for this,” he explained to me, not to Dad.

“I told him if he wanted my help, he had to put the truth out where it hurts the most. You didn’t owe me forgiveness.

You still don’t. But you deserved to hear it from him, not from a man who played people for a personal agenda. ”

“Why?” The question came out a whisper. “Why do you care how I hear it?”

He didn’t blink. “Because you told me you won’t be a pawn. You were right. The only way to prove it is to show you the whole fucking board.”

There it was. I felt something in me shift, not toward him, not away from him. Just… aside. Making room for a fact I couldn’t swallow yet but couldn’t spit out either.

“What happens now?” Mom asked into her hands. “What do we tell… anyone?”

“The truth,” Dad stammered, stealing the word like he had the right to use it now. “I’ll make a statement to the commission. I’ll speak to the DA. I’ll give Devyn everything tonight.”

“Tonight,” I echoed, because it mattered. He nodded. GJ didn’t deserve what he was going through.

I sat back. The room blurred and sharpened.

I felt like a child and a woman who lived a thousand lives all at once.

The girl who stayed close to home because the world was a scary place was gone from inside me.

In her place was someone altogether new.

She was the woman who watched a biker pull her out of a war she hadn’t known she was already in.

And she was going to endure and stand tall through the mess.

“I want to hear you say his name,” I said this to my dad. “GJ. Say it. Gabriel Gonzales, Jr.”

He swallowed. “GJ.”

“Say what you did. Own it.”

“I denied him bail,” he whispered. “I let a jury hear what Hampton Stanley wanted, I intervened with their deliberation, and not what the law would have allowed. I refused motions I should have granted. I let a boy get swallowed by a system I knew was crooked because I was afraid to lose a robe.”

“Say it,” I remained stern. “Tell his father that you took away his freedom and you were fine with taking away his life.”

My dad looked down, the shame washed over him. “I did. I took away his freedom and I didn’t care about his future or his life because I was selfish and hiding my own transgressions.”

The sentence hung between us like a weight no one dared to lift.

Because I also knew deep inside, Gabriel was full-on outlaw Gonzo and came for me to mess with my future and take away my freedom to love as payback for what my father did to his son.

And I think that was what cut the deepest because I was head over heels in love with an outlaw who played me for the fool.

I nodded once, because a part of me needed that. Then I stood. The chair legs scraped. Mom flinched like a gun had gone off.

“I’m going outside,” I shared with no one in particular and absolutely intended it for everyone. “Don’t—” My voice broke. I steadied it. “Don’t follow me.”

I stepped out onto the porch, into air that felt like it had been washed and hung to dry. The sky was the color of a bruise turning from yellow to purple. Farther down the street, a dog complained to the dark like it had opinions about everything.

I pressed my palms to the porch railing and tried very hard not to cry.

Boots on wood. I heard them but more than anything, I sensed him.

Slow.

He didn’t crowd me. He stopped a full arm’s length away. I didn’t tell him to go back inside.

“I got your text,” he stated, voice quiet, rougher than usual.

“I wrote you a letter. Might hit your mailbox tomorrow. It says the same thing I’m about to say.

I didn’t come to this table tonight to win you.

I came so you wouldn’t have to hear the truth from a stranger paid to hurt you.

I came so you understand the man I am I will always face my wrongs as well as my rights.

You don’t have to understand my why nor do you have to forgive me. ”

“I told you I wouldn’t be a pawn,” I stated, trying to keep my voice steady. “I meant it.”

“I heard you,” he remarked. “I believe you. I also want you to understand though, you aren’t a pawn.

There wasn’t some tactic to use you as blackmail against your father.

I won’t lie, though, you were a way for me to get close to your father to be in his face.

I wanted him to look at me with you and be forced to think about what he did to my son.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the woman you are. ”

Wind moved the leaves. Somewhere a screen door slapped. My heart banged hard enough I could feel it in my throat. “Hampton Stanley said I stepped into a man’s war.”

“He’s wrong,” Gonzo responded. “You stepped into a manipulator’s lair. That’s different.”

I looked at him then. Really looked, not the way you peek at a wound to see how bad it is.

He stood with his hands open, not fists.

No apology on his mouth because he wasn’t the one who would be giving it.

No demand, either. Just a man who knew the weight of the thing between us and wasn’t going to pretend it was light.

“Did you use me in any capacity?” I asked, because the knife that had been stuck there since my apartment needed to come out or I was going to bleed around it forever.

“Yes.” He didn’t look away. “I wanted you,” he continued.

“That started before I had all the information. When I did learn more about you, I should’ve walked away.

I didn’t. That’s on me. I asked your father to step up tonight because using you is the last thing I ever wanted to be true, but it is.

I came into this wanting to show your father, I could get to him.

I wanted to remind him there were repercussions for what he did to my son.

And I won’t lie and say there were moments before I shared a breath with you that I thought yes, you deserved to pay for the sins of your father the way my son paid for mine.

But I pulled over after loosening the battery cable on your car and met your gaze in the dark of night.

A moment when a young woman on the side of the road in the dark was vulnerable and I expected to meet a meek, mild girl.

Instead, I locked eyes to yours and saw a quiet strength.

I saw a woman unafraid of the world even the bad things like an unexpected breakdown.

From the moment I shared space with you, I was gone in a way I had never been before.

I wanted your dad to face what he did tonight while I faced you.

I don’t want it to be this way. I wished I could tell you that no, I didn’t use you.

But the truth is, yes that’s how it started, but it’s not at all how it ended.

And the only way to hope you could see that is to put you in a room where you are given all of it and then able choose without anyone’s hand on your back what you want in your future. ”

“Choose,” I repeated, dumbly, because the word felt too big for my mouth.

“Me,” he said, quiet. “Or not me. But now knowing that when I said I wasn’t a good man, you at least know while I am the worst of the worst, I don’t ever do anything without cause or reason.

Yes, I will kill for my family and you should know when I say it, I mean it.

I want this, IvaLeigh. You woke something up inside me that I’ve never felt before.

I can’t tell you it’s gonna be easy. I’m anything but an easy man.

What I can tell you, though, I’d do anything for you including walking away.

I fell in love with you in the midst of the worst experience of my life.

You have seen the worst parts of me and the lengths I will go to and not apologize.

And even with all of that, I’m asking you to choose.

And I’m hoping somewhere you can find a way to still choose me. ”

A laugh broke out of me that wasn’t funny. “You have a way with romance.”

“I’m an outlaw,” he stated casually. “This is what passes for flowers.”

Silence. Not empty. Full.