Page 7

Seven

I don’t know why doctors only give stickers to kids. Like, hello, I was also brave today, too.

— Aella’s secret thoughts

AELLA

So they didn’t end up doing anything with my mom.

Chevy suggested letting her go, but I knew better.

My mom would go to the first cop she could find and shout it from the rooftop of the police station that the Truth Tellers MC had been the ones behind stealing from a bank.

She needed some incentive not to talk, and I was going to be the one to give it to her.

The Truth Tellers helped her get her car off of their property, and they’d helped by taking all the money out of the trunk and making it a lot lighter. Then they called for a tow to take it as far from their compound as they could.

One of the Truth Tellers had taken off with the money with the promise of being back before sunup.

I’d waited until the rest of them, including Chevy, had disappeared into the barndominium before walking back to my car.

When I got there, it was to find my mom getting into an Uber.

She didn’t spare me a glance as she did exactly what I expected her to do—go straight to a police station.

When she got out and went inside, I followed suit, waiting in the wings of the largest police station in the area.

There was a lot going on, but as soon as my mother started yelling about a bank robbery, cops started to listen.

When one came up to her, a stern look on his face, I stepped up to her side and said, “Actually, if you want to find the bank robber, you might need to do a deep dive into where my mom’s been the last couple of days. I approached her because she decided to steal my rent money, and she pops the trunk of her car and tries to hand me some cash. Her entire trunk was full of the money.”

The cop’s eyes focused on me.

Detective.

The man was a detective.

Had to be.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“This one’s ‘daughter.’” I paused. “Though, I’d like to consider her more of an egg donor. She has made my sister’s and my life a living hell. She’s taken out loans in our names and not paid them back. She’s ruined our credit, and any possible chance to have even a simple bank account. A lot of that I reported, as well, but nothing has ever been done about it. When I say that she’s a mastermind, she is. Though, from what I overheard her say, the man that did the actual bank robbing was the flavor of the month for her. He died after getting a gunshot wound.”

“That’s a lie!” my mother cried, putting on her dramatic show.

I was already shaking my head. “I promise, you can look me up.”

Two officers came up, and I noticed that they looked very similar to each other.

Siblings.

Rawr.

They were both very sexy, but not as sexy as a certain someone…

“What are you doing?” my mother cried when one officer took her by the elbow.

“Going to take you somewhere so we can ask you some questions,” the officer replied.

The name on his upper chest read “A. Carter.”

“Ma’am,” the one next to me said. “If you’ll follow me.”

I did, not putting up a fight.

The older man that’d been with us followed, and I wound up in an office down a maze of hallways.

The sign on the door said “Chief Carter.”

Were they all related here?

“Sit down, ma’am,” the older gentleman said, though it wasn’t much of a suggestion and more of an order.

I sat and wrapped my arms around myself protectively.

I didn’t like police.

After the first time my mom had fucked up then blamed it on Silver, my sister, and me, I’d had an abhorrence for them.

The cops had taken my mom at her word and had arrested Silver and me for theft.

From that point on, we’d been very, very careful about what we did and how we did it.

We always, always shared our locations with each other. We made sure to have each other’s backs in anything and everything, and we emancipated ourselves at the age of sixteen.

My sister, Silver, and I weren’t twins.

Well, I mean, I guess technically we were.

But in reality, I was conceived ten days before Silver was, and both of us had different fathers.

How did we know this?

Because my mother was forced to get a DNA test after both fathers had denied their involvement with my mother. Doctors had performed some tests, and it showed that my mother had conceived us at different times with different men.

Silver resembled her bio dad, who was half Native American and half Italian.

I, on the other hand, was conceived with a Swiss man that left to his home country before I’d even been born.

Silver’s dad had warmed up to being a father to Silver, but only Silver.

Meanwhile, my mom threw such a huge ass fit when Silver’s dad refused to take me or have anything to do with me that she’d gone to court. There, a court had decided that it was cruel to break up “twin” sisters, and had forced Silver’s dad, Barry, to take me with them on all major holidays and vacations.

Barry and his family hated me, and never went a day without showing it.

And when I emancipated myself, I also stopped going to any and all holiday events that pertained to the Donahue side of the family.

It was the best and worst decision ever.

One, it made it to where Silver didn’t have to constantly worry about me and whether I was having fun or a good time. Two, I no longer had to suffer the scowls and indifference of the Donahues anymore.

But just because they were in Silver’s life didn’t mean that they were great people.

Silver’s family was poor.

They’d been that way all their lives, and some of them had zero aspirations in life.

The most any of them accomplished was finishing high school, and most of them accomplished it by getting their GED.

Not that that was a bad thing, per se, but more so it was because all of them had dropped out of high school because it was “too hard.”

“Ma’am, can you tell me from the beginning what happened?” the older man, who I now realized was the chief of police, asked.

I gave him everything, ending with, “And I think that she was trying to frame the Truth Tellers. They fired her from her job last week. She had a month to find alternate accommodations.”

I was such a liar.

“What happened when you got to their compound?” he asked.

“I parked beside my mother’s car and got out,” I said. “I confronted her, and the rest you know.”

The older man pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Dad, there are quite a few reports filed against the mother, but none of them were ever substantiated,” the officer at my side, the detective, offered up as he scanned a laptop in his lap.

The elder Carter shook his head. “Give everything you have on the mother to Fort Worth PD. This isn’t our jurisdiction…thank God.”

My lips almost twitched.

“Do you know where the money is now?” the chief asked me.

I was already shaking my head before he’d finished his sentence.

“Nope,” I said. “I didn’t want to touch it.”

At least I didn’t lie about that particular bit of information.

I could honestly say that I had no clue.

“Okay,” he said. “Give me your number.”

I gave him my number, both my cell and my work phone, and stood up.

“You know Val?” the older man asked when I stood.

I smiled, and it was a genuine one to boot. “I do.”

I didn’t know her well.

She worked in the emergency room most of the time while I worked in med-surg—the place where people came for surgeries—and we rarely crossed paths.

But, despite the hospital being so damn big, it was kind of small. If you didn’t know them personally, you knew of them.

I’d heard about Val before I’d even met her.

She was the hero of the hospital, saving the life of a…

“Hey, is your son the cop she saved?” I blurted.

The eldest Carter stood up and said, “My youngest, Garrett. And yes, she did save his life.”

I grinned then. “You know she’s a legend in that hospital? They all talk about her and how she saved a gang banger.”

“She deserves that legendary status,” Chief Carter said. “Son, show your girl there out of the station. I’m calling Fort Worth PD to let them know they have an incoming with the crazy woman.”

The man beside me stood, left his computer on the edge of his father’s desk, and fell into step with me as he guided me out of the station.

We passed a room where my mom was handcuffed to a table, and I made sure to flip her the bird as I passed.

My mother narrowed her eyes, her lips pinched.

That’s when I remembered…

“Excuse me,” I said as I walked toward my mother.

My mother stiffened, likely thinking that she was unable to defend herself with her hands handcuffed to the table in front of her.

I bent forward and yanked both of my socks off of her feet.

My mother cursed, and I narrowed my eyes at her. “If you ever steal my money, or my clothes, or my freakin’ tire, or my freakin’ makeup again, I’ll lose it.”

My mother sneered. “I brought you into this world. What’s yours is mine.”

I snorted. “You keep telling yourself that.”

I looked her in the eyes long and hard, letting her see the anger and the outright refusal to ever let this happen again, and her eyes widened.

I also didn’t miss the way her pupils were nearly blown.

“She’s probably on drugs, too,” I admitted as I walked back toward the detective waiting on me. “I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that she’s not using something.”

“You used to that?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” I admitted. “My mom spent the majority of our childhood making our lives miserable. Drugs. Prostitution—though she calls it ‘getting a sugar daddy.’ Child abandonment. You name it, she fucked us with it.”

“You and who?” he asked.

“I have a twin sister,” I said. “We’ve spent the majority of our lives trying to figure out how to live after she massacred every avenue we had to make a life for ourselves. I can’t tell you a single time in my childhood when she was actually a great parent.”

“What about your father?” he wondered as he came to a stop near the doors that would lead out into the blistering Texas heat.

I gave him a quick rundown of my birth, which had him shaking his head. Then I told him about Silver’s father, and how mine took off.

He just blew out a breath in exasperation. “Sometimes, the system fails its kids.”

I snorted. “Understatement of the year, Carter. Understatement of the year.”

I didn’t stay long after that.

Instead, I drove straight home and then dropped my rent off with the front office.

After a quick “I’ll fucking kill you if you fuck this up again” look in my eyes, I headed to my place to finally catch some sleep.

At least, that was my intention, anyway.

Chevy Clayborne had other ideas.