Page 34 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
“He kills people for a living,” I say, even though I know what she means. Beast doesn’t hurt women or children. He kills people who fuck with the club, people who threaten him and his. Maybe he’s not a good man by societal standards, but by club standards he’s basically a saint. A very, very scary saint.
“He’s strong enough for you,” she continues, her gaze on her food and not on me. “He won’t try to hold you down or keep you back.”
“Keep me back from what?” I ask dryly. “The club life hasn’t been kind to you, Nellie. You know as well as I do that there’s nowhere to go in here. It’s a void where good things go to die.”
She throws her spoon into her bowl, splattering liquid everywhere.
“The life is what I made of it,” she says proudly, lifting her chin and reminding me that she does command a certain level of respect amongst the men. “Did I make bad choices? I did. I should’ve …” Here her voice wavers and breaks, and I know she’s thinking about my sisters. “I should’ve spent more time with you kids when you were young. I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. But you know that my mother was a prostitute, right? She worked day and night, fucking awful men for pennies. There were years in my life where we were homeless, when we starved.”
I just keep staring at her because I have never heard this story before.
Nellie sniffles and reaches up to gather her blond hair into a ponytail. I forget sometimes that she’s only in her forties. Right now, she looks simultaneously so much older and so much younger, all at once.
“The day I met your father, I was considering selling myself to help pay the bills.” Nellie drops her hands back into her lap. “I was sixteen; he was thirty-one. But you know what? He treated me with respect. He paid my mother’s bills, and he bought my younger siblings food, and he took care of me. Maybe it ain’t right to some people, but I loved him. And he loved me. Still does.” She smiles in a way that makes me shudder. This is Cat we’re talking about. Leroy. The president of the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club. He put a gun to my head, shot my dog’s leg off, tried to make me kill a kid. I just … I can’t reconcile my mother’s expression with my father’s evil.
“The drugs and the partying …” I start, and Nellie gives me a sharp look, like I’m smart enough to know better.
“Your father has never made me do a damn thing I didn’t want to do. Did we both fuck up as parents? We did. So many times I don’t care to count. But it’s the life that I chose to live. I had that at least, choice.” She looks away, out the window toward the garden area. I haven’t even been outside yet. The thought of going out into the sun makes me feel queasy. “What I’m trying to say is, I know this life isn’t perfect. But you think other people’s daughters don’t die? You think upstanding citizens with money in the bank and nice cars and respectable jobs don’t lose people to violence?” She looks back at me. “Maybe it’s my fault for not telling you any of this sooner, but you need to stop being so damn angry all the time.”
I set my spoon down and sit up.
“You are aware that I was trapped in the mafia’s palace for three months, right?” I query, but Nellie’s hard look doesn’t soften at all. In fact, I hardly recognize the person who’s staring back at me.
“You’re right: the club does some fucked-up shit, but I like my place in it. I benefit from it without doing any of the dirty work. I never wanted to.” She hesitates briefly before lifting her bowl and draining the last of the soup from it. She sets it down hard and then adds, almost as an afterthought: “yeah, Beast will be good for you. Everyone in the club is afraid of him, you know?”
I do know.
Everyone is afraid of him … except for me. Never have been.
If a woman were interested in doing some of the dirty work, of sidestepping the club’s bullshit, Beast would be the hammer you’d bring down on their traditions.
“Finish your damn soup.” Nellie pushes the bowl closer to me and then stands up from her chair. “I’ll get you some water to wash it down. When you’re done, get your ass back in bed and I’ll bring you some tea.”
My mother takes off without waiting for me to reply.
Frankly, I’m so stunned by her words that I don’t quite know what to do.
