Page 16 of Protecting His Woman

D amion had never been good with kids. Even when he was a kid, he’d never been great with his peers.

It was Saturday, and Vicki was working at the diner. Delphine was busy, which was convenient. Smithy and Pete were at the church helping with final preparations. He was due to marry Vicki next week.

Six days.

Dhalia and Betsy were sitting at his dining room table. Betsy was drawing a picture, as she didn’t have a lot of schoolwork. According to the teachers, Betsy always finished her work early and did her homework in school as well. The young girl was so adorable.

He sipped his coffee and saw Dhalia scratching her head.

“Fuck!” she said.

Betsy gasped. “That’s a bad word.”

“I know. I know. I just ... math is stupid. There is no point to it. It’s stupid.” She rubbed her temples. “Ugh, it’s giving me a headache.” She looked toward him. “Do you know when Vicki is getting home?”

“Three hours.”

Dhalia wrinkled her nose. “Nope, I can’t spend three hours trying to figure this out.”

Damion didn’t want to do schoolwork, but when Vicki got in, he didn’t want her dealing with it either. Even though he had kept his distance from these two since they had moved in, he had no choice but to sit at the table and act like the adult.

He sat down next to Dhalia and held out his hand. “Let me look.”

She handed him the book, and as he suspected, it was algebra, which was fucking stupid, but it needed to be done. So, for the next two hours, he and Dhalia worked through the equation, and he guided her as best he could.

Once those two hours were done, Dhalia closed her books, sunk back, and sighed. “Thanks,” Dhalia said.

“Don’t mention it.”

“You know, you didn’t have to ... take us in,” Dhalia said. Betsy was still coloring.

He got to his feet, because he needed more coffee. Actually, after two hours of algebra, he needed a fucking whiskey, but he was not going to cave in to that impulse. Dhalia didn’t take the hint, and followed him to the kitchen. She grabbed a soda from the fridge.

“Your point?” Damion said, knowing there was no reason for him to put off this conversation. If they didn’t have it now, he had a feeling Dhalia was going to find a way to do it another time.

“Simple, you could have taken Vicki, got her to leave us behind, or at least paid for us to stay in a separate house. No one wants a woman’s baggage, and we’re Vicki’s siblings, not her kids.”

“Again, I don’t see your point.”

“It’s not a point, it’s a question.”

“You haven’t asked me anything, Dhalia. You’ve made statements.”

“Why did you?” Dhalia asked.

He looked at her. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Because I love Vicki, and I know she loves you, and whatever she loves, I love,” Damion said.

He saw his words hit Dhalia hard, and it was in that moment he realized something. Annette had fucked with these kids’ heads for a long freaking time. They didn’t know who their fathers were, and their mother treated them like a burden.

“Love?” Dhalia asked.

“Yeah, I know we don’t know each other a lot. We’re new to each other, but I care about you, Dhalia, and your sister, and your brothers. Even that little shit that’s joining The Lords. I care, and that is not going to stop. Once I care about someone, there is no letting go.”

Dhalia nodded her head and he saw the tears in her eyes. “I’m really happy Vicki found you.”

“One day, there is going to be a guy, or a girl, whatever your preference is, and when that happens, I’m going to make sure they treat you right.

I don’t want to think of you as my kid, Dhalia, because I’m not going to think of Vicki as my kid, but know this—the moment you moved in here, you became mine.

I will take care of you, and all that bad shit is over. ”

“Thank you,” Dhalia said, then she surprised him by throwing herself at him and hugging him tightly.

At first, he didn’t know what to do. This teenage girl, hugging him. He placed his arm around her and tried to give her the comfort she sought.

“It’s going to be okay now,” he said.

Dhalia nodded and kissed him on the cheek.

He poured himself a mug of coffee and saw he still had forty minutes until Vicki would be home.

Sitting at the table, Betsy lifted from her drawing and looked at him. “Dhalia’s happy here,” she said. “I’m happy here. We’re all happy here.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

Betsy moved a picture to him. “There’s you and Vicki, and Dhalia, and me, and Pete, and Smithy.

Frank’s there as well.” She climbed off her seat, and without waiting for an invite, sat herself right on his knee.

He was going to have to get used to this.

He hadn’t exactly been careful with Vicki, and there was a chance she might already be pregnant.

“Dhalia cried a lot in the old house. She hated Mommy. Mommy scared her. Mommy scared me.”

“She did?” Damion asked.

Betsy nodded her head. “She had strange boys around. They would stare. Vicki doesn’t know but she wanted Dhalia to be friends with one of the boys. Mommy slapped Dhalia when she screamed no.”

Damion gritted his teeth.

“Then Vicki came home, and she kicked the boy out. He wanted to be friends. Is it bad to be friends with boys?”

Okay, this was a fucking heavy conversation.

“No, it’s not bad to be friends with boys, unless they are staring at you weird,” Damion said. “Or ... you don’t want to.”

Betsy nodded. “Good, because I want to be your friend. You’re nice and you make Vicki happy.”

Kids were so different. He was used to dealing with manipulating piece-of-shit adults. Not kids.

“I think it is time you get ready for bed, okay?” he asked.

“Yes.” Betsy kissed him on the cheek and left. He took a sip of his coffee.

“That was when Vicki decided to move back in,” Smithy said.

Damion looked up to see Smithy and Pete in the kitchen doorway. “What?”

“Mom was an addict. That you know, and Dhalia was getting older, and some of the guys she brought home liked to look at Dhalia. This one day, the guy wanted to see Dhalia without her clothes on, and Mom tried to make that happen. She hit Dhalia. Well, Vicki came home and took care of it. Frank got there as well. They put a stop to it. From that day forward, Vicki gave up her apartment and moved back into the attic. She made sure Mom was never alone with us after that.”

“Fuck me,” Damion said.

“Thank you,” Smithy said.

“For what?”

“For taking us in. We know you didn’t have to.”

This was a lot. These kids had been through a lot. He knew there were kids out there that had it a lot worse, but also a lot of kids that had it a hell of a lot better.

He ran a hand down his face. “How was the church?”

“It’s all set for Friday. Everything is in place,” Pete said.

“Good. Good.”

“There is only one thing,” Smithy said.

“What?” Damion asked.

“We need to talk to Frank. It’s our sister and he should be there.”

“Frank is not going to be at the wedding. He is already starting his initiation process, and I can’t intervene with that.”

“Not even for Vicki?” Pete asked.

“He can’t,” Smithy said. “If he does, it’s going to cause a shitstorm, right?”

“Yeah, it is. I can only do so much. Even for your sister and your brother. This is now up to Frank. It’s not up to me.”

The two boys nodded. Then they left, and Damion couldn’t fucking believe everything he had been told. All of this was fucking shit.

Annette was a piece of fucking work.

Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed Neil’s number. He needed to make sure Annette was not going to be a fucking problem to any more kids. The woman had always been a piece of work, but after what he had learned, he now knew she was even worse than he could have imagined.

“What’s up?” Neil asked. “If you tell me you’re getting cold feet, I’m going to kill you.”

“You’ve still got Annette, right? You haven’t sold her.”

There was silence on the line.

“Damn it, Neil, that woman is a fucking hazard—”

“She’s dead,” Neil said.

Damion was silent. “How?”

“Simple, I had her in withdrawal, with the intention of cleaning her up. Figured that is where it all went wrong for her. She didn’t like what I was doing and broke into my supplies.

Took the wrong stuff, and we found her dead from an overdose three days ago,” Neil said.

“She’d rather get fucked up than consider being with her kids again. ”

“Fuck.”

“I don’t know how to tell Vicki.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Damion said, and hung up the phone.

****

I t was the day before the wedding.

Vicki watched as Delphine poured another large glass of wine.

She wasn’t interested in drinking and was still nursing the first drink the other woman had given her.

Betsy was having her hair braided, and Dhalia was enjoying little sips of her glass of wine.

Over the years, with the way her mother was, making friends wasn’t exactly easy for her.

No one wanted to be around her because of her mother.

The news of her mother’s death didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her was the fact she didn’t seem to care. Yeah, that freaked her out just a smidge. She didn’t care, and in fact, there was a tiny slither of relief mixed in as well.

Her mother was dead and that meant she could no longer harm any of them. They were free. There was no fear of her arriving at night, drunk or drugged, with men whose names she didn’t even know.

Her siblings also hadn’t cried over the death of their mother. Years of being let down, bullied, and at times, attempted to be used just to serve her needs, had taken their toll. No one loved Annette anymore, and she would not be missed.

Pushing thoughts of her mother out of her mind, she took another sip of her wine. She wasn’t too sure on the taste, but she wasn’t about to spoil her night. Delphine had insisted on having a girls’ night of just the four of them before she got married.

“Are you scared?” Delphine asked.

Vicki tucked some of her hair behind her ear. “Of what?”

“Of getting married? Settling down, doing all that good stuff?”