Page 20 of Brave as It

“No, you fuckin’ won’t there is a difference.”

Yes, I let her sleep right there in my arms. I didn’t get a wink of shut eye. The thoughts of how to keep her from running plagued my mind.

“Why are you running from us? What we have is good, I know you feel it. You know I fuckin’ love you. I know you love me. I don’t understand why you are leaving.”

“I’m not running, Wes. I tried to tell you. This isn’t enough for me. I’ve decided I need to see more in the world.”

“Bullshit, what are you hiding?”

She drops her head avoiding my gaze. “Wes, you say you want to marry me, but you can’t get on one knee to propose. I’m not blind I can see that. I’m here when the ghost pains seize you in the middle of the night. I watch the way you look at the bikes when everyone pulls away. I see you, Wesson Vaughn. I feel your pain. But I can’t do this. I can’t pick you up. I can’t watch you be half a man. And that’s what you are.”

Her words cut.

Her body shakes as my mind races. “You don’t have to watch me be half a man anymore,” I whisper.

I have never hated myself more than right now. I fell in love with a woman who saw me as me, not a man trapped in a chair. That woman is gone and what’s left of her, I have to let go.

I watch her carry the bag of her clothes out to her car without so much as a goodbye.

It’s for the best I tell myself. She’s wrong about what she can and can’t do. I don’t need her to pick me up. Her breathing the same fucking air as me keeps me high on life like never before. But she’s right about me.

I’m half a man and that’s all I’ll ever be.

“Are you fuckin’with me right now, Link?” Karma yells into his phone waking me.

My head pounds while my mouth feels like I swallowed a pack of cotton balls. I look around taking in the space. We are in one of the duplex crash pads. Roundman had these built ages ago on the compound so when other charters came to visit Haywood’s Landing or one of the brothers didn’t need to drive home, we had a place to sleep, shower, shit, and exist.

Apparently, I let the alcohol do my walking which landed me in this bed. I’m still in my shirt, cut, and shorts. My chair is wheeled to the side of the bed ready for me to transfer. That tells me it was my brother, mother, or Boomer who set me up because they know how to set the chair.

“Why the fuck did she do this?” Karma roars. “He’s my fuckin’ son. She can’t leave Onslow damn county without notifying me. Are you one hundred percent it’s his tracker pinging?”

Oh fuck, this can’t be good. He is pacing the space. As I begin to transfer to my chair, the noise gets his attention while he’s still on the call.

“Where did she ping last?” He pauses, “send the link to Busted’s phone. He’s here with me. I can look while we plan.”

I get my chair turned, grab my phone from the nightstand and wheel to him. His eyes are full of fury. “Bitch took my son out of state. Link got the alert when Hollis crossed into Georgia. He’s sending you a video from a business she’s at.”

Link is Lincoln Jacoby of Jacoby Investigative Services. He is also Karma’s cousin. Jacoby Investigative Services is owned and operated by Lincoln, Draven, and Nixon. Three brothers who are as big as Karma and determined to find every mark they are hired to locate. They are the best. And I’m not surprised there is a system in place to track Hollis. After everything his mother put Karma through, using him as her meal ticket, she can’t be trusted.

I roll into the kitchen area with Karma beside me as he switches his phone to speaker phone, and I put in my passcode for us to look at the video.

“How far did she get?” Karma asks the phone then looks to me, “they started calling hours ago, but my drunk ass was passed out and missed them. If she’s still in Georgia, it’ll be a miracle.”

“Hey, we got people, Ravage will step in if she’s in Georgia. One step at a time, brother.”

My phone alerts and we click the link in the text message.

“She’s at a laundromat called Get the Funk Out in St. Petersburg, Florida.” Link explains. “I hacked into the camera system once Hollis’ tracker stayed in place for more than five minutes. They have been here about twenty, I guess she needed to do some laundry.”

Karma slams his fist down on the table as the video comes to life.

There in color on the small screen is Hollis Jacoby and his mother. She’s pacing the space, hair out to there, and looking frazzled. Hollis is sitting on a bench playing on his phone, eating a pack of those white powdered donuts that possibly came from the vending machine in the laundromat.

“Thank fuck, he looks okay,” Karma states breathing a sigh of relief. “She’s tweaked as fuck.”

“I’ll get shit sorted, we’ll go down and get him,” I explain with my hangover headache leaving because I’m too pissed at this piece of shit mom to care about myself right now.

Before I can wheel away to start getting to my van to go grab my go bag, I’m stopped dead in my tracks.

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