Page 38 of Dane

I moved her off my lap so I could pull my shirt over my head, turning to show her my left side.

“Mághnus?” she whispered in confusion.

“Áine,” I said, pronouncing it Ahnyuh. “My mother. She moved back to Cork.”

“Ireland?”

I smiled at her as I put my shirt back on and pulled her back onto my lap. “Yeah. We don’t speak.”

“I’m so sorry. That must be hard.”

“She’s a good Catholic woman. Having her son rob a bank wasn’t something she deemed a good Catholic boy would do. After I was arrested, she came to see me. To ask if I did it. I told her what happened and she listened to every word. When I finished, she said, ‘So you did do it. You robbed a bank.’ I mean, what could I say? I haven’t seen or heard from my mother since.”

“Oh, no.”

“Here’s the really funny thing. You have to understand, I love my mother dearly. It broke my heart for her to cut me out of her life, but I broke her heart just as hard. But, for twelve years I believed she was the one putting money in my commissary account. I told myself she was doing the only thing she could to be true to her convictions while still remembering I was her son.”

I didn’t mean to break Brielle, but I think I did. She made a gut-wrenching sound and her face crumpled. Holding her while she cried, I had to fight back my own tears. If one escaped, I’d never admit it.

We sat there for a long time, both of us emotionally and physically exhausted. She cried, and I took as much comfort holding her as she did being held. The contents of the box lay at her feet, scattered across the couch cushion. Brielle clung to the letter, though. She held it to her chest and sobbed like her heart was breaking.

When her crying lessened and her breathing steady, Brielle looked up at me with red-rimmed, puffy eyes. She looked so lost my heart broke all over again.

“Mághnus? Was my gran right? Did we make peace with everything that happened? With each other?”

“Baby,” I leaned in and kissed her gently, pressing my lips to hers for long, long moments. “I think we’ve more than made our peace with each other. At least, I have. You’re my world, now, Brielle. I didn’t want it. Didn’t want you anywhere near me. And it was the stupidest thought I’ve ever had. You’re worth everything I went through and more, Brielle. I’d do it again if it would have spared you all of this.”

“Thank you,” she said so softly I almost didn’t hear her. “For not making me leave. For not hating me so much you didn’t care what happened to me. I never want to be without you, Dane. Never.”

“I’m just sorry I was too stubborn to admit it sooner. And if me or my club has anything to say about it, you will never have to be without me, Brielle. Not until the day I die.”

We sat there in silence, each grieving our own losses while welcoming our gains. Morning would come. Questions would come. For now, I held her, and she let me, and it was more than enough.

Sometime later, Brielle finally drifted off, and I carried her to our bed and tucked her in. She didn’t so much as whimper, so I figured she would be out for a while. Morning finally broke, and I hoped she’d sleep in for a good long while.

I collected the items her grandmother had given her and took them to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. While it brewed, I took a minute to review everything. I didn’t unseal the envelopes, but each one was labeled clearly what it held. There was no question I’d take the envelopes and the notebook to Ethan and Lana. Not for myself. I could give a good Goddamn if the whole world knew what I’d done. I did it. Did my time. I’d live with the consequences. But I wanted Brielle free of Sutton once and for all.

When I left, I left Brielle a note on the nightstand. I went straight to the clubhouse. Knight was already in his office, screens glowing, and maybe the same shirt as yesterday. He looked up when I entered, glacial eyes catching the overhead light.

“How’s your girl? She good?” he asked.

“She’s sleeping. This is from her grandmother.” I set everything I’d brought with me on his desk. “Contemporaneous notes. Phone calls with Sutton she overheard, going back years. Dates, times, what he said, what he offered. I haven’t looked at the contents of the envelopes because they’re sealed, but they don’t try to hide what’s in them.”

Knight picked up one of them and raised an eyebrow. “Affidavits?”

I pointed to the notebook. “Just take a look.”

Knight flipped through, and stopped at a page mid-way. “Fuck,” he said soft. “I mean, Ethan would know how much weight it would hold with a judge but this wasn’t on my bingo card. And it might be what starts to upend this whole Goddamned mess.”

The door opened behind me. Ethan entered first. He’d already ditched his suit jacket and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to his elbow, showing tattoos creeping up his forearms. Lana followed, her red hair gleaming as it caught the light. She looked at the stuff on Knight’s desk, then at us.

“What’s this?” she asked. The woman really did miss nothing.

By the time I’d finished explaining, both Ethan and Lana were flipping through everything. The envelopes were addressed to Brielle so we didn’t open them, but taking their contents at face value, it seemed like it might be a gift.

“This documents everything, including first-hand accounts of conversations in the nursing home she heard before she was moved. That, more than anything, is pretty damning.”

“Two of those accounts have witnesses,” Lana said. “I’ll know more once I look at the documents inside the envelopes, but it looks like she had Mr. Norris get sworn statements from three different witnesses to two different events. One of them witnessed both conversations. That would be enough to open an investigation into the nursing home incident, which might be what we need to nail this son of a bitch.”