Page 6 of Ruthless Son

Mia

My alarm blared to life earlier than I wanted it to. The sun blazed through the flimsy curtains, and I rubbed the crust from my eyes, feeling the grittiness of my fatigue. It was 9 a.m. here, though I was still running on UK time which meant that my body was currently awake at 4 a.m. Ugh. I needed a strong coffee with a heavy dose of sugar to get through my day.

After catching an Uber from the hospital, it had dropped me at the closest motel with an available room. The driver had been merciful and let me check for vacancies before leaving me at the door.

The bed was lumpy and the pillows were flat but the sheets were clean, it’s all my mind could comprehend last night when all I was capable of was stripping down to my underwear, leaving my clothes in a puddle on the floor and dropping face first onto the bed. I hadn’t even stopped to clean my teeth, that’s how absolutely destroyed I was.

Now, the furry gross taste in my mouth had me regretting my choice of choosing sleep over hygiene.

Throwing back the covers, I dug around in my suitcase until I grabbed my wash bag, equipped with toothbrush, toothpaste and, yessss, a travel sized mouthwash!

My hair was a rat’s nest of epic proportions, the long strands twisted into tangles that my fingers couldn’t dig through. Just for this morning, I threw the mass into a messy bun at the top of my head and forgot about it, before jumping in the shower to scrub off a day’s worth of travel and to actually feel like a human being again. I don’t know how anyone could function on so little sleep, even with my demanding job, I needed at least eight hours minimum or I couldn’t survive.

Finally, feeling refreshed, with clean underwear especially, I sank to the edge of the bed and just allowed myself to breathe. The motel room faced a parking lot and across the road, an old-fashioned diner like you saw in movies already had a steady stream of customers.

That would be my first stop once I’d been through the hospital documents that horrid nurse gave me. Pulling out the scraps of papers I’d shoved in last night, I smoothed out the curled corners, trying my best to make some sense of the bills, instructions and other shit.

As I shuffled the small pile, the business card that Rex gave me slid out, landing on the bedspread right by my hand. Gripping the little white card, I flipped it over, seeing the black printed writing on the front.

But what shocked me even more was what was written on it. I suspected the name of a business, or even an insurance broker… not a funeral home.

Kings Funerals scrawled across the card in swirly letters with a number underneath, that’s it. Just a name and a number.

Dammit.

I thought it might be something useful, but unless Millie had plans on dying, what use did I have for a bloody funeral home.

Tossing the stuff back into my handbag, I shoved my feet into my slip-ons, grabbed the room key and walked out, slamming the door closed for good measure.

“Can’t believe he gave me a number for a funeral home!” I mumbled, stomping down the stairs. The receptionist waved as I walked past hastily for the front door. In the mood I was in, she was lucky she got a closed lipped smile, the poor woman probably thought us English people were so rude, but I was just not up for being polite right now. I was running on hardly any sleep and zero coffee.

Blinking into the morning sunshine, I gazed around at the quaint little street that housed the motel and diner. A string of small shops ran down one side of the street, in the other direction, miles of open road and a view to die for. Trees bordered either side of the asphalt, tall and lush, they stood as if they were guarding the township, watching over the inhabitants.

A laundromat, pizza place and cinema were all I could see with my hand shielding my eyes; more shops stretched further than I could see, and since I would be here for at least two weeks, I figured the best thing to do was to venture out into this crazy little town that boasted ‘the best pizza’, once I’d seen Millie of course.

The minute I saw her and ripped her a new one for worrying us all, I would take an afternoon to myself and just unwind from the stress of the past couple of days and wander about doing some sightseeing. It wasn’t every day I got to visit small town America and relax.

Rumbles of engines filled the quiet morning sky, vibrations growled under my feet as a formation of bikes pulled into the diner’s lot, lining up as if they practiced every day. Squinting under the glare of the sun, I watched familiar leathers waltz into the place that I was about to step into. The same men who had been in the hospital last night, now took up tables in one corner.

I guess I wasn’t getting away from them that easy. The place seemed tiny after all. I should have expected to see them eventually, but not so soon, and not when I was still pissed about the card.

Hell, they probably wouldn’t even remember me as I looked way worse last night than I did now.

A bell jingled overhead, signaling my entry to everyone inside, though I was thankful that most seemed to look up, realize I was a nobody and completely ignore my presence by turning back to their breakfasts. A few, I noticed, did a double take at a complete stranger encroaching on their territory.

But my relief was short lived when a large arm reached up, waving fanatically from the biker corner. “Yoo hoo, sugar, over here!”

Heat burned my cheeks as every single face turned toward me. “Oh God, kill me now.” My whispered plea went unheard as Sly kept waving, a stupid grin split across his face.

The men, a couple recognizable from my stint in the hospital last night, most complete strangers, watched with eagle eyes as I debated making a run for it. The door was just at my back, freedom from the embarrassment of being on display called to me.

“You should just go over, hun. Sly is a crazy sumbitch, but he’s harmless and he clearly took a liking to ya.” The pretty redhead dressed in business attire reached up to offer me a pat on the shoulder, her friendly demeanor a complete contrast to the sharp cut of her suit and fuck-me heels. But even those four-inchers only brought her curls to my chin.

I towered over the small woman, and she didn’t even seem fazed as she strutted toward the group in question, sitting extremely up close and personal to a large bald-headed man that everyone seemed to hang on every word of his.

As Sly’s hand flagged, dropping to his lap, another familiar face stared back at me—those shocking blue eyes held mine before trailing over my jeans and hoodie; his gaze burned a hole through my clothes. I was sure his heated stare could see through my layers to the plain cotton knickers I’d donned this morning—but at least they were clean!

My sight narrowed on the blue-eyed hulk, the funeral home’s number burning a hole in my bag as a reminder of his ‘help’.

---