Page 30 of Wreckage of My Life
“You got all the papers signed?” I need this shit tight as fuck before I take off for Texas.
“Yeah, she signed everything,” Wyatt confirms. “Except for one goddamn paper. Then she wanted me to go meet with her in person. She didn’t wanna come to my office. She’s a real piece of work, dude,” my brother grumbles, his displeasure obvious.
“I’d say I’m sorry,” I laugh, “but I pay you enough for this shit where you shouldn’t be complaining, yeah?”
“Fuck you, Dylan,” he starts laughing now as well. “I was supposed to take Ali to her parents’ for dinner. I fucked it all up because of this bitch. Then Ali happened to be at the damn place where Mia wanted to meet, and…”
“Aww, poor Wyatt,” I interrupt him to give him some fake sympathy. “Do you need your mommy?”
“Fuck you, Dyl. The bitch ended up with my phone. I need you to get it from her when you stop there. I refuse to meet with her again.”
Wyatt has not called me by my club name ever since he left the club when he was eighteen. And for some odd reason, in spite of my general resentment toward him, I allow it.
“I’ll be there tomorrow, and I’ll get your phone. I’ll have to go get the boy, anyway. Did you meet him?” I ask as an after thought. I met Ethan twice, but we didn’t spend any time together, and I don’t even think he understood who the fuck I was.
“Not really,” Wyatt sounds pensive. “I’ve never been around kids.”
“Me either. What’s your point?”
“Was Isupposedto meet him? What would I say?” he sounds completely confused by the situation.
“Beats me, fucker.” I don’t even know what I need to do with him myself, now I gotta come up with something for my brother, too?
“You gonna stay here for a while?” Wyatt sounds almost hopeful when he asks that. Almost like he’s been missing me. I wanna give him shit over it, but I don’t have the energy for it.
“See ya tomorrow,” I mutter, then just hang up. I’m done chit chatting.
I get back on the bike and start riding again, continuing to go north, complete opposite of the direction I should take. I do a large loop that adds more than three hours to my trip to Illinois.
As soon as I cross the border, all my hackles rise. I feel like I’m being watched, but I don’t see anyone around me. It’s close to dark, but not quite.
Making sure I am not being followed, I pull into the trailer park where Mia Smith currently resides with my son. I recognize her car from the other two times I was here, and I also notice another car parked next to it. Wisconsin license plates. Interesting.
I knock on her door so forcefully, it seems to want to pop off its hinges.
“What the fuck…” A disheveled Mia stands in the doorway, ready to rip me a new one until she realizes that it’s me. “Wreck…” I loathe her shortening my name like that. But I’m gonna put up with it until my kid is out of her clutches.
“Where’s the boy?” I growl at her. She takes two steps back, as if she’s scared, her eyes flying back to whoever is sitting in her living room, most likely with his pants around his ankles.
“At a f-friend’s,” she stutters.
“That my brother’s cell phone?” I ask when I see a too expensive of a phone to be hers sitting on the counter by the door.
“Yes, I tried telling him he left it at the bar, but he wouldn’t…”
She shuts up when I just snatch it out of her hand and stick it in the inside pocket of my leather jacket.
“Why is he at a friend’s if you knew I was coming to pick him up?” I jerk my chin at her, and she starts shivering in fear, but pulls herself together pretty quick.
“You said tomorrow, and that you’d just stop by tonight on your way into town. I was not expecting you to want to see him. You can join us…” She gives me a come hither smile, licking her lips suggestively.
“Fuck that,” I grit out and turn on my heels. “Make sure he’s ready to go tomorrow when I’m back.”
As if I wasn’t already convinced that Mia didn’t give a shit about her own kid after basically selling him to me and relinquishing all her parental rights, now she’s not even spending what would’ve been her last night with him together. This kid really got a shitty hand in life with parents like me and her.
All these thoughts running through my mind distract me from paying attention to the road. I am about forty-five minutes, give or take, away from Wyatt’s when I hear a car revving its engine behind me. Under normal circumstances, I could beat it, however, I’ve lost my momentum.
I look back and see a gun pointed right at me, so I press on the gas and start zigzagging on the deserted road, grateful that at least it’s a paved one.
