Page 5 of Single Mom's Biker Brigade
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CALLIE
Seven years ago…
I resisted the flinch hunching my shoulders and squared them instead. “Mom? Mom, you need to do something.”
Mom curled into herself and shook her head. “Just let it go, Callie. He’ll stop in a bit. Just let him wear himself out.”
“And let him keep beating the shit out of you?” I scoffed and locked my arms around my middle to keep from dropping into the floor next to her.
Wade Harlan, the man Mom had married and demanded I callDaddowned another gulp of liquor.
He stormed around the narrow trailer, sweeping his arm across every available surface and sending everything crashing to the floor.
We didn’t have much, and nothing of value, but the fact he destroyed because he could and knew he’d get away with it sent hot acid burning down the back of my throat.
Call the police on his drunk ass.What would they do?
I eyed the trashed living room and Wade stumbling around in a stupor.
My gaze swung down and around to Mom, huddled on the floor and covered in various bruises.
Would she tell the police the truth? Probably not.
“Hey, Callllllie.” Wade swaggered toward me, his red face bloated from too much drink and body saggy from too little exercise. He swished the empty bottle back and forth. “Get me another drink.”
To obey or not to obey was the question of the day.
I’d given in more times than not to try and keep the peace, but I’d seen this side of him before.
Too often not to understand what happened next. It was the same thing that he’d been working toward for years.
It started with breaking Mom down day by day until she reached this point where she no longer had the will to protect me.
I shook my head and eased toward the door. “Get it yourself. The bar’s down the street.” If he’d just leave, I could get Mom up and maybe convince her to go to the hospital.
I was pretty sure that last hit had broken a rib.
If she wouldn’t tell the doctors the truth, maybe I could.
Maybesomeonewould listen to a twenty-one year old trying her best to hold her shit together and protect her mother.
Wade tsked, his tongue clicking against his teeth as his eyes narrowed. “That’s not the right answer, baby girl, and you know it.”
“Don’t call me that.” I’d never talked back to Wade. Instead, I swallowed my words until they rotted in my throat, hence the acid that burned with every breath.
Wade took a swipe at me, his thick fingers grasping my arm and dragging me to his chest. “Sounds like it’s about time I taught you about the real world.” He pressed a sloppy kiss to my neck and ground his hips into me.
“Fuck you.” I shoved him, both hands against his chest and every ounce of my disgust behind the motion. Hours working in the shop fixing cars and bikes didn’t give me a hell of a lot of a cardio workout but it sure as shit had helped my upper body strength.
Wade stumbled, the backs of his knees catching on a table and sending him sprawling.
Curses flowed hot and thick, and he swung blindly in my direction.
I didn’t hesitate this time as I leaped for the phone and dialed those blessed three numbers.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
