Page 29 of Karma (Deranged Drifters MC #23)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Griffin’s Beach VP
“ H ey, son,” VP says and walks into the house Zane bought for Lane when he found out they were having a baby. “Pretty hard day?”
“No, not really,” Zane says as he stacks the last of the boxes left.
The house sits mostly empty, and it brings back a familiar memory that causes an ache in VP’s chest. He’s done this before. Moving out after his wife died was one of the hardest things he’s ever done.
Zane had memories around every corner, and that’s exactly the reason they had to move, too. It was too hard to be happy with Emma with the ghost of Margaret haunting him.
“It’s not?” VP’s genuinely surprised.
“It’s needed. Lane wanted me to move on, and I have to take this step to do that. It sucks to leave the home Maggie had so many firsts in, but it’s time.”
“Maggie, huh?” he asks with a smile. “That’s what I called your mom.”
No one else is home, and as much as he’d like to see his granddaughter, the space has been good for him. He wasn’t ready to raise another child, and there were moments of head-butting between them.
Moving outside, Zane sits on the front porch. Seeing the signal, VP follows suit. “Anne started calling her that. She likes it.”
“She’s taking to your girlfriend pretty good?”
“There are moments I can tell it’s difficult, but yeah. No matter what happens, she’ll always miss her mom, but she’s much better adjusted than I was.”
“You lost your mom. You were allowed to have a difficult time.”
He looks at the sidewalk. “And so did she. The difference is that she wasn’t allowed to take her pain and anger out on everyone around her like I was.”
“I came to ask what you want to do about your mom,” VP says, deciding it’s best not to entertain the direction of the conversation any longer.
“What about her?”
“Well, what do you want to do about what Phillip said about the poison? Do you want to see if there’s an option to prove she was poisoned?”
Zane shakes his head. “No.”
“No?”
It wasn’t the answer he expected. It’s killing VP not to know for sure what killed his wife. Was it the cancer? Was it poison? Was it both?
“Let her rest in peace, Dad. Mom’s been dead for over thirty years, and there’s no reason to dig her up. It won’t bring her back.”
“I’m surprised,” he admits. “I figured you’d be chomping at the bit to know the truth. She used to mean so much to you.”
Snapping his head up, Zane glares at VP with a look so deadly that it honestly frightens him. “Fuck you.”
“Excuse me?”
“She does mean so much to me, but digging her up to learn whether my brother killed my mother or not won’t change a damn thing. At the end of the day, we lost her, and it’s not worth disturbing her.”
VP scoffs. “Zane—”
“What’s it going to prove in the end? That she’s still fucking dead? Pretty sure the body in the ground already tells us that.”
“It could tell us if Nero killed her.”
“Who cares at this point? He’s dead, too. Knowing for sure whether cancer or my brother killed Mom isn’t going to do anything for me.”
“Stop calling him that.”
He smirks and laughs. “That’s what he is.”
“No, he’s not.”
“I don’t need to know if he lied or not.”
“What if it would do something for me?”
Standing, Zane walks down the steps and turns to face his father. “You should feel guilty.”
“Come again?”
“Phillip was your son, and you just threw him away.”
“He was crazy!”
“No shit,” he shouts. “You gotta stop taking the easy way out of everything and making everything about you.”
VP leans back and stares. Who the hell do you think you are? I always thought we were cut from the same cloth, son.
“I did everything I could for you, Zane. Do you realize how ungrateful you sound?”
“And what about Lex?”
“What about her?”
“You are impossible!” Zane says and tosses his hands up in the air. “Absolutely impossible.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You’re just pissed at getting kicked out of the club. And I get it. I fought, but I fucking lost.”
“I am not… Why the fuck would I be pissed about that? I’m glad it happened.”
No one in the club would be happy they got tossed to the fucking curb, son. You’re confused. You’re grieving and navigating a new life and a new woman. I have to be patient with you.
“Zane, you don’t have to put on a front with me.”
“I don’t know where I’d be right now if those men hadn’t stepped up and did what you should’ve done years ago.
Nothing I did was okay, and at some point, you have to be a father and fucking say that,” he says.
“Not just for me, but for Lex, too. She paid the consequences of all your actions, and I don’t think you’ve ever thought to apologize to her. ”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” VP says, standing to leave.
He doesn’t have to stay here and listen to this. No one understands the sacrifices he made for his family, and he’s not going to explain them to an ungrateful son.
“I know I never should have been given an out to do half the shit I did. Especially to her. I know that if Maggie ever did that to a sibling of hers, I’d tell her how wrong she was. Why didn’t you ever do that?”
He shakes his head, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’m not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m not going to stand here and listen to you tell me how shitty a father I was to everyone because I did the best I could with you!”
Zane scoffs. “Again, what about Lex?”
“Why do you keep… This is about you and me.”
“No, it’s not. That’s the root cause of this problem. You need to start thinking about her because if you ever had, you’d see that neither of us treated her fairly. But I’m her brother, not her father.”
Walking up the sidewalk, Emma stands frozen and stares at them. “Sorry, I thought you told me to stop by now, Zane.”
It’s been so long since VP has seen Emma, and he aches. He misses her, but she walked away from him. Twice. But damn if she doesn’t look good. She’s lost some weight, and she looks… happier.
“I did,” Zane says. “VP just kind of showed up. I have a box of stuff I’d like you to have.”
She walks past VP and doesn’t even glance up at him as she takes the box from Zane. “What is it?”
“Things I have of my mom’s. I’m sorry I ruined your mom’s crystal. I don’t exactly remember doing it, but I’m really sorry.”
“Thank you, Zane.”
“You’re giving her your mom’s stuff?” VP asks with a frown. “Why?”
Her face falls, and she looks at the box in her hands. Zane just shakes his head like VP’s the irrational one in this situation. “They were friends, remember?”
“You think I don’t remember?” he asks, suddenly furious. “Of course, I fucking remember!”
“Then what don’t you get?” Zane asks, stepping forward and getting in VP’s face. “Huh?”
“You don’t have to give up your mother’s stuff to replace—”
“Irreplaceable heirlooms? Yeah, I fucking do. Because I never should have done it in the first place.”
This makes no sense. “Zane, what is going on with you?”
“You lied to everyone about Phillip. He went on a killing spree, and then he planned to kill Lex and me. Almost succeeded with Lex. You claim you didn’t recognize the shop in the photos, and you lied about hearing from me while I was gone.”
“Zane—”
“I look at Maggie, and I realize that having a son or not, I will never let anyone treat her the way you let me treat my sister. As a father, I will die to protect my little girl. It’s why I had to leave.
I was a danger to myself, but more importantly, I was a danger to her.
I needed to protect her until I came to my fucking senses again. ”
Emma’s lip quivers. “Thank you for acknowledging that, Zane.”
“Zane, I was trying to help you. You lost your mother.”
“And Maggie lost hers! That’s not an excuse to act like a shithead. If she did even a fraction of the shit I have, I’d lock her in her fucking room until she snapped out of it.”
“Why can’t you see—”
“You didn’t help anyone but yourself!” he nearly screams. “You hindered me from growing into a well-adjusted human being. I never learned how to cope with loss, and at the end of the day, you did nothing to protect or help any of your children.”
Of course, he blames me. They all blame me. It’s all my fault. World hunger should probably get added to that list, too. I throw out food starving kids would love to have, right? “So, everything I’ve ever done in my life has been nothing but a screw up to the rest of you? I’m just a shit father?”
“Yeah, you are,” Zane says. “You blame everyone else for the shit you do, and you come up with excuses and ways to overlook everything. Worse than that, you did a lot of fucking damage to Lex. Damage I will never cause Maggie.”
“She doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
Winding back, Zane clenches his jaw and lowers his fist. “She heard you, you know. When I destroyed her fifteenth birthday party, she heard you tell Emma she was the lesser child.”
“I never said that!”
“You told her mother that she knew better than to throw her a party for her fucking birthday. What else does that tell a fifteen-year-old girl?”
His stomach twists in knots. He never knew Lex heard him say that. Hell, he barely remembers saying it, but it sounds right. “That’s not how I meant it.”
“Yeah, you did, Nash,” Emma says. “Zane deserved parties, and Lex deserved quiet dinners.”
“You should have done everything you could to protect her and teach me right from wrong,” Zane says. “She never thought she was enough because of how we treated her. We fucked with her view of self-worth, and we have to own that. That’s on us.”
“Mostly Nash,” Emma says.
VP gapes at her. “Zane’s blameless?”
Setting the box on the ground, she moves to stand between the two men, pushing Zane backwards. Her blue eyes glare with pure hatred, and he’s never seen her this angry before. He hates how hot it is.
“He was the child, and you were the parent.”
“Em—”
“No, this deflecting blame has to stop. Yeah, Zane’s made mistakes, but who taught them to him? Who showed him it was okay to act this way? This is not on the child when the parent failed. If you’d been half the parent he needed, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
VP blinks between the two of them. “I guess I’m just the asshole, huh?”
“What happened to you, Dad?” Zane asks.
“Everyone sees me as a terrible father and person, so I guess that’s up for interpretation. Maybe I should see Lex’s therapist and get their opinion.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” he says. “You’re not right in this situation no matter how you try to spin it. You picked a favorite child, and that was wrong. Parents should never love their children conditionally.”
Bending down, Emma picks up the box of VP’s late wife’s things, and she gives him a small smile before walking away. Everything in VP shouts to run after her, but he knows it’s over. There’s no coming back from it this time.
“Go home, Dad. Figure out how to move forward. Maybe you can figure out how it can make you a better person before it’s too late.”
Maybe I am the asshole.