Page 123 of Kings Have No Mercy
The last part are words he’s never spoken. Words I didn’t know I’d want to hear.
But hearing them from him means something. It doesn’t change any of the bad things we’ve been through, or even the bad feelings between us, but it’s a start. For the moment, that’s enough.
“Listen, Mace,” he says. “About Velm…”
“It’s not on you. You had no way of knowing she’d turn out to be a lying piece of shit.”
“For so many years.” The shock sounds in his gruff voice.
“She’s six feet under where she belongs.”
“I heard from Tito that you’ve got an old lady. The girl that was with you all the day you came to visit. I didn’t get a real good look at her, but I saw her waiting with Cash. That her?”
“That’s her.”
“Kurtis Hawk’s daughter? Jacob Singer’s adopted daughter?”
“That’s her,” I repeat.
He whistles. “She’s damn near MC royalty. That’s gotta be some special old lady rank she’s got going.”
I grin. “You’ve got a point. She’s real special.”
“You’ve seen the photos in the club charter book. Those photos show our history. A few of them—the ones from our old get-togethers between clubs—are her history too. She might wanna see ‘em.”
We hang up after a few more minutes. It’s not ’til we do I pick up on the noises coming from the rest of the saloon.
It sounds like the rest of the club and the Hellrazors are having a hell of a time.
Sydney appears in the doorway with a tap of her knuckles. She’s got on a Steel Kings t-shirt she’s tied at the navel and another tight pair of jeans that show off her hips and ass.
Leaning against the doorframe, she smiles. “What are you doing all alone in here? Come out. Ozzie’s singing karaoke to You Give Love a Bad Name.”
“Sounds like a good opportunity to laugh my ass off at him.”
“You’d be joining everybody else. Something on your mind?” Sydney breaks away from the doorframe and starts toward me.
I lean back in my chair and survey her. The first and only woman who can ever call herself my old lady.
Tom was right. She’s fucking special beyond words.
The little purple book on the corner of my desk catches my eye. I reach out for it and then hold it up for her to take.
“You probably want this back?”
Surprise flits across her features. “My journal. But…?”
“It’s yours. Take it.”
She turns the book over in her hands a couple times, staring at it cover to cover. “I’ve spent years writing every little thought inside here. Did you read any of them?”
There’s no use lying. After it was discovered Sydney was here with potentially bad intentions and I banished her, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. So I read more parts of her journal. The earlier stuff from before I knew her. I read about her confusion over her birth family and her times in college studying for a journalism degree and bartending most nights.
In a way, it was like getting to know Sydney even without her around anymore.
Cash was right to call me on my shit—I did miss her. I was reading her fuckingjournal.
“I might’ve read an entry or two,” I fess up, giving a shrug.