Page 59 of Wild Card
“Jesus Christ." Grizz looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head like he’s seeking some kind of strength from above.
“I guess you better stick around to hear this; it involves you, too.” Grizz looks to Ash.
“Involves me?” Ash looks stunned. “How does you doin’ the business with Ruby’s mom involve me?” he asks.
“Keep your damn mouth shut for long enough and you’ll find out.” I can see Grizz already losing his patience with him, and when Ash goes quiet and wraps his arm around me, I look to the man who claims to be my father and wait for his explanation.
“I met your mom years ago. We lived in the same town, and she was nothing like the whore that this town thought she was, before she came here,” he assures me, looking mad just from the thought of it. “Her parents would drag her to church every Sunday. She was a sweet, respectful girl, and back then I was a?—”
“Sweet, respectful boy,” Ash interrupts him, earning himself another scowl.
“How about you stay silent for this one, Wild Card?” Grizz narrows his eyes at him warningly.
“We dated a while; decided to be each other's firsts. It happened on prom night, and I guess that's when you must have been conceived because that's the last I saw of her.” He strokes his hand through his wiry beard, looking a little wounded.
“When she showed up in town all those years later, with you, I asked the obvious question and she told me it was impossible.”
“If she said it was impossible, she meant it. My mom never lied, and she sure as hell wouldn’t lie about something as important as that. She knew how curious I was about my dad. I was always begging her to find him so I could know him.” I wipe away the tears that start to spill.
“There's always exceptions to people's rules, darlin’, and I guess you were an exception to your mother's. She must have been tryin’ to protect ya. I got no doubt in my mind that she’d tracked me down and had every intention of giving you what you wanted…but when she saw the man I'd become, she changed her mind.” He looks sad as he takes another swig from the bottle.
“So how did you just find this out? My mom's been dead for three years.”
“Two weeks ago, Byron sent me on a job; he needed me to clean up for your fiancé after he killed Kaleb Kingston.”
“He didwhat?” I hold my hands over my mouth in shock.
“Sweetheart, that's a whole other story, and I’ll tell it to ya, let's just get through this one first.” Grizz tries to calm me.
“When I got there, the scene wasn’t right; everythin’ looked too staged and the way Byron was acting was all too fuckin’ weird. So I started up a little investigation. I had to keep it from the brothers, cause I didn’t know who was involved, and what I found out changed everythin’.” This time, his eyes are focused on Ash, and they start looking sympathetic.
“Dom must have had his suspicions about you being mine.” He continues his story. “He was the only one I told about me and Josie’s history, and he never was one to let things lie.
I was going through Byron's house, looking for evidence I could take to Jameson that would confirm he was behind this drug situation, and I found a letter that was addressed to your dad.” He stares at Ash, who suddenly looks angry.
“Wait, my dad's been dead years; long before this drug problem started, and he loved this town.”
“It wasn’t anythin’ to do with that.” Grizz clears his throat. “It was the results for a DNA test that he’d sent away for. One that confirmed you were my daughter,” he tells me.
“Wait, how thehellwould Dom get hold of my….Oh, my god.” I suddenly remember that day at the summer fayre, all those years ago.
“He yanked my hair when I got off the Ferris wheel.” I touch my hand to the fancy hairstyle Esmé did for me this morning. “I remember thinking how odd it was, and when I turned around, he just laughed at me like it was some kinda game.”
“So my dad sent off for these tests…why wouldn’t he tell you the result?” Ash questions Grizz, moving us on.
‘He never got the chance to… Look at the date on the letter.” Grizz takes it out of his cut and places it on the table.
“This would have arrived the day before he died.” Ash reads it, and I feel my heart stop because I know what's coming next.
“I’m sorry, Ash.” I turn to look at him, knowing that all the love he claimed to have for me is about to turn to hate.
“What are you sorry for?” He laughs, though I can tell he’s nervous; he must have picked up on the way me and Grizz are both looking at him.
“All these years, I’ve been desperate to find the man who killed your dad, Ash,” Grizz tells him.
“But it wasn’t a man. It was my mom,” I confess, looking away because I don’t want to see the look on Ash’s face.
“She was coerced.” A voice I recognize comes from the door, and when I see Earl start hobbling his way over, I suddenly remember that strange conversation we had before I stepped into church. “She told me what happened, but by then it was already too late. She’d got herself tangled up with those monsters.” He takes a seat and looks at me. “I swear to ya, Ruby, up till now, I thought Byron had been helping her. He pulled the wool over my eyes, too. It wasn’t till Grizz called me last night that I started putting together the truth.”
