Page 19 of Live Love Steal (Destroyers MC: Skilletsville PA #2)

Maintenance - Sketch

N oah didn’t have dress clothes at my place, and my suit was wrinkled from spending the better part of yesterday crumpled in a heap at the foot of my bed.

And I didn’t have time to fix that, but I managed to get us fed, clean, and dressed in the time between getting released from the hospital at four a.m. and our meeting with the lawyer at nine thirty.

I’d gotten about two hours of sleep somewhere in there.

In contrast, Sharon looked well-rested and fucking chipper.

And her clothes were new. My eighty dollars did that.

She breezed through the security checkpoint.

Noah did as well.

My wallet set off the alarm. Then my belt buckle. Through it all, I let them wand me and all the other bullshit so I could get upstairs.

Sharon and Noah took the elevator.

I was just getting my shit straightened out when some poor asshole behind me set off the detector. They’d made the crucial mistake of hanging onto their cellphone.

The guard stopped them and said, “ You can’t use your electronics in the courtroom.”

I smirked.

Then took the stairs to the seventh floor.

My lawyer was waiting with Sharon . Noah leaned on my ex, still feeling wiped out from the night we had. I wished for the millionth time that I had someone who could take care of him when I needed to do bullshit like this.

But that wouldn’t be a problem after today.

Last night was a wake-up call. My life was too volatile to be a full-time dad.

I’d come so close to losing everything yesterday.

And , despite being a horrible person, Sharon had a point.

Eventually , being a Destroyer would get me arrested.

So , I begged her for one last night with Noah .

She agreed too quickly and took off, leaving her son with me at the hospital.

You’d think I’d be used to that treatment by now.

“ Are you ready to go in?”

My lawyer held out her arm to lead us to one of the side chambers. I stopped at the door and asked her if she could hang back for a moment.

Briefly , I explained the situation at the hospital last night. “ I wasn’t there for him yesterday. And I’m willing to compromise, if she can just make more time for me to see him.”

My lawyer frowned. “ Now is not the time for cold feet. You want full custody, don’t you?”

Someone cleared their throat behind us. Jackson stood in the hall with Bear at his back. Griz and Wolf filled in behind them.

“ What are you doing here?” I asked.

Jackson stepped forward and handed off a folder to the lawyer. “ We cleared the release of his holdings information, and you will see our proposal in there as well.”

She flipped it open. On top was a check. I grabbed it to look at the zeroes. “ Ten grand?”

Jackson nodded. “ There’s another one written for twenty-five. Our max to offer if she’ll walk away.”

I shook my head. “ It doesn’t work that way.”

The lawyer pulled the checks out and handed them back. “ He’s right. You can’t buy custody.”

Jackson’s jaw worked. “ Had to try. Sketch is a good brother, and he’s an even better father.

And no matter what happens today, I want you to know we got his back.

” There was a coldness in his tone. The words were simple enough.

The underlying message, anything but. Then Jackson addressed me. “ We’re here for you. No matter what.”

Sentiment aside, there wasn’t much a show of force would do, except screw my case further. But it meant a lot they’d shown up. “ How’d you know?”

Jackson dipped his head. “ You told us last night that you were going to be here.”

I had. But how did they find me? That question went unanswered because it was time to go in.

Noah went off with a court representative. The guardian ad litem for him left with them.

As the lawyer and the judge went over the papers, my lawyer sent me a questioning glance, as if warning me I wouldn’t like what she was doing. Then pushed her agenda. “ The move and subsequent distances will impede visitation.”

The judge frowned and flipped papers back and forth. More than once, he looked at my disheveled clothes, the tattoos peeking out of my cuffs and collar, and the haggard circles under my eyes.

“ Apologies for my appearance, I was up all night. Noah was sick.”

“ I was up all night, too,” Sharon interjected.

I hung my head.

“ Were you?” my lawyer asked her.

I’d told her how Sharon stormed out of the hospital, leaving me with Noah .

“ Yes .”

My lawyer’s jaw tightened. She flipped open the folder Jackson provided. “ We’re also worried that the monies for child support will be disrupted during the court transition.” She placed a paper on top of the stack.

This one got a lot of scrutiny. “ What am I looking at here?” the judge finally asked.

My lawyer clarified. “ This is a list of the number of times additional funds were sent to Ms . McMullen? —”

“ Kayne ,” Sharon reminded everyone, “ Miss Kayne .” She crossed her arms.

My lawyer smiled and corrected herself, “ Apologies , this is the number of times funds were sent to Miss Kayne for additional maintenance. She doesn’t work.

” With that, my lawyer tapped on the holdings information.

The proceeds from club businesses I had partial ownership of as a member of the Destroyers .

“ I’m a full-time mom,” Sharon reminded everyone.

The judge scanned the list. “ Five hundred for a copay?”

“ I’m sorry, I should have amended that to eighty. Mr . McMullen wired it to her yesterday. She originally asked for five hundred. My mistake.”

The judge’s eyebrow went up, and he looked at me. “ You were with them in the hospital?”

“ I arrived at about twelve thirty, when she called to tell me she was there with him.”

“ This request is time-stamped at eight-ten.”

My lawyer jumped into the conversation. “ I can play back the voice memo where Mr . McMullen requested she take him to the emergency room at that time.”

The judge stared at Sharon . “ What time did you arrive at the hospital?”

“ I don’t remember.” Sharon looked away.

I still had the admitting paperwork she shoved at me when she took off. I pulled it out, checking to see if there was a time noted. “ Eleven thirty-nine.” I handed it to my lawyer, who circled the time with a red pen.

The judge picked up the list of transactions again. He set it down after quieting Sharon three times for interrupting his perusal. Finally , he asked, “ When you move to Delaware , what will you be doing for money?” He stared at her over his glasses. “ And , where will you stay?”

She shifted in her chair. “ I have a house.”

His eyes flicked to me and my lawyer. This was not news to us, but apparently it wasn’t detailed in the records, or the judge wanted to hear it spoken out loud. “ You have a house,” he repeated. “ To clarify, do you own it?”

Sharon shook her head.

“ Does it belong to a relative?” This time, she didn’t move. The judge studied her expression. “ A boyfriend, perhaps?”

“ He’s got a good job.”

I was embarrassed for her. I looked down at my clenched hands.

I twisted my arm until the ball-point tattoo Isobel drew on it stared up at me.

I’m iron. I can do this. I can be a good dad.

I wasn’t going to be my father, losing me to a mom who was more concerned with screwing him over than taking care of me.

“ Mr . McMullen ?”

I sat up straighter. “ Yes ?”

“ Have you met this… boyfriend?”

I shook my head. “ No , sir.” If I had, he might be dead. Noah didn’t like him, I knew that much.

His eyebrow crept higher. “ Has your son?”

I looked to my lawyer, she’d warned me not to mention him at all. She pulled up a corner of one of the pages in Jackson’s file. Her eyes widened. “ I believe he has.”

“ Miss … Kayne , has your son met the man he’s going to share a house with?”

“ He has.” She sat primly, as if she were relaxed, but I knew that pose. There was a lot unspoken in her posture.

“ And do they get along?” He lifted a finger. “ Hold on to what you’re going to say.” He buzzed his assistant, “ Please send the guardian ad litem in.”

I stretched to see out the door, searching for Noah . But instead, I saw a wall of my brothers. More than just Griz , Wolf , Jackson , and Bear were out there now. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed they all were out there.

Sharon’s face went slightly paler. She had a front-row seat to the tableau outside. And she knew that when she left with Noah , she’d be walking through that gauntlet of bikers.

And me.

I stared at her. Then glanced at the smudged ink on my wrist again. Even if I wasn’t iron, my brothers were.

The court representative for my son sat down and answered the obvious questions. Then the judge asked, “ What was your impression of Noah’s emotions about the move?”

“ He is… obviously anxious.” The young man glanced at Sharon .

“ Anxious as in excited, happy?”

“ No . He is, in my non-medical opinion, making himself sick over it.”

It took everything I had to not blow up. I flexed my hands so they wouldn’t ball up into fists. As I did that, I took a moment to put my thumb on Isobel’s mark and count.

The judge closed all the folders. He crossed his hands on top of them and addressed me. “ Mr . McMullen , I don’t know if you remember this about me or not, but I used to man the bench for juvenile cases.”

That’s why he looked familiar. I’d stood in front of him for Grand Theft Auto . A lucky break and some wonky evidence, and I’d walked free. I picked up my gaze and dared to look at him. If I were going down, I’d go down like a man.

He let that dangle in the atmosphere for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sharon’s smug smile.

“ I remember you.”

He nodded. “ And I also worked several child custody cases. Your mom was a piece of work. Back then, the courts sided with the mother almost always. That was a mistake in your case.”

What was he saying?

“ When you got back into my court a few years later, I knew why.” He shifted to Sharon . “ And you...”