“It’s ten years today.”
“Your point?” I fought to remain calm as the rage built in me. I wasn’t sure if this current rage came from the ten years or the last two.
“I thought you might be one of those sentimental bastards who marked these kinds of things.” His shoulders were tense as if he were ready for an argument.
“Sentimental and me don’t go in the same sentence. You should know that by now.”
“The Michael I knew is long gone; I’m not sure of anything about you anymore.”
“You’re the one who walked and chose not to know anything about me anymore so don’t come here and give me that bullshit.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re the one who chose Storm and they’re the ones who changed you.”
Pain shot through my head as a headache began to take shape. The tightrope of control I walked threatened to snap, and I clenched and unclenched my fists in an attempt not to use them. “Storm were the only ones who accepted me for who the fuck I was, Danny. And as much as you never wanted to acknowledge it, the great and fucking almighty Rod McAllister made me into the man I am. Don’t put that shit on my club.”
He scowled. “Your father was a good man. So he believed in punishing his kids when they did something wrong…that didn’t make him a bad man.”
The ghosts of my past collided with the self-control I dedicated hours to daily. I stepped closer to him, and snarled. “Taking to a child with a belt over and over is not punishment for being naughty. Locking a child in a dark cupboard for hours isn’t either. And tying them up and ridiculing them sure as fuck isn’t written in the Good Parenting manual.” My head felt like it would e
xplode off my shoulders as I got to the family history that fucked me up more than my own experiences. “Having to watch as your father did the same to your brother, but worse because he believed your brother was a little ‘cock-loving shit’ – as my father called him – was like a living hell. My father may have been respected by his cop buddies and adored by those higher, but in my house, there was no respect and no adoration for that man. And if you think Storm has made me into who I am today, you wouldn’t be far off the mark. My brothers have shown me what it’s like to have a family who give a shit about me and they’re teaching me to give a shit again.”
My cousin was an asshole. Growing up, we’d been close and he’d had my back, but I’d figured out a couple of years ago just how much the badge can change a man. I’d seen it at the academy in my time there, and my decision to leave was the best damn decision I’d ever made in my life. Danny stood in front of me now, listening to everything I’d said, but I knew the truth still wouldn’t alter his perception of my father. And I was right. “Why did you avenge his death then? If you hated him so much, surely you would have been celebrating his murder.”
“For a smart man, you can be dumb some times. I did that for my mother and brother.” Images of their tortured bodies flooded my mind, and I sucked in a deep breath as the rage swam behind my eyes. I could have cared less that my father had been tortured – he deserved every second of pain he went through. But my mother and brother should never have been subjected to any of it.
He cocked his head. “Why did you stay in Storm once you figured out they weren’t the ones to blame? I never could wrap my head around that.”
Trying to explain my reasoning for something I even struggled to understand at the time was like trying to explain the blind faith I used to put in God. Faith is trust in action. It’s something believed in, not from proof, but from feel and a deeply held belief. I may have ended up in Storm for all the wrong reasons, but it was my faith in them that kept me there. “They cared about me.” I may have given him only four words, but those four words packed a punch. Sometimes you didn’t need a lot of words to explain yourself.
He scrunched his face. “What the fuck? I cared about you. My family cared about you. You can’t fucking say we didn’t.”
“There are many ways to care, but needing the person you supposedly care about to change themselves for you…that’s not the kind of care that’s good for a person, Danny. I always had to prove myself to you and your family; always had to tow a fucking line and fit in with who you thought I should be. Storm might have expectations, but they never once tried to change who I am.”
He looked at me in disgust and I knew we were done here. Probably done for life. “I will never understand you or your choices. I’ve tried to help you over the years but you’ve made your decision and now you have to accept whatever consequences that decision brings you. Don’t come crawling back to me when the shit hits the fan.”
“I don’t ever come crawling to anyone, asshole, and I’m not about to start now. I rely on one person, and one person only – me. Less chance of getting screwed over that way.” I took a step away from him and said, “Now, if you’ve said all you came here to say, I suggest you fuck off and leave me to get on with my night.”
He sneered at my words as he made a move to leave. “You always were a bastard, Michael. You’ve managed to take it to a whole new level.”
“It works well in my life,” I muttered and turned to walk inside.
I didn’t glance back at him – I had no intention of looking back anymore.
Danny and I were done.
* * *
A couple of hours later, I was a few drinks in, watching mindless television in my lounge room, and trying unsuccessfully to shift thoughts of Sophia from my mind. It astounded me that on the day I usually couldn’t delete shitty family memories, I was this year, instead, being bombarded by a woman.
I’d treated her exactly the way she’d told me she didn’t want to be treated. Used and discarded. I hadn’t intended for that to happen – fuck, I hadn’t intended to have sex with her, but I couldn’t have said no to her even if I’d wanted to. She had no idea how beautiful she was, and no idea how much I’d wanted her from that very first time we’d met in the car park at the bar. Hell, that was half her allure. The beauty of a woman who was unaffected by it was, by far, one of my biggest turn-ons. And, Christ, the way she lived in her vulnerability and let her mask fall – that sealed the deal for me.
Fuck.
I want her.
Again.
I couldn’t do it, though. We’d had our night, and now I needed to move on and find a woman who could take what I needed to give. Sophia was not the woman for me.