“You know I always complain that I never see you a lot, but I wish this didn’t have to happen for you to see your mom more.”
I rolled my eyes. “We talk every day on the phone, Mom.” I had learned a while ago it was just better to call her every day rather than not call and then get bitched at when I did.
“Seeing you is much better than just talking on the phone, Marco.”
“Do we really have to go into this right now, Mom?” I was forty-two-years-old, but I always felt like I was a teenager when I came back home to Rockton. Here I was, working under the biggest crime boss in the northern hemisphere, and my mom always seemed to be able to knock me back to reality.
“Fayth,” Slider called from the end of the hallway.
“I’m talking to my son, Slider,” she called.
Slider cleared his throat. “Yeah, I can see that, but we really need to talk to him more right now. Kind of got some shit going on with the club.”
Mom turned her head and glared at Slider. “You better not even say club business, or I will kick you in the nuts.”
Slider covered his crotch with his hand. “We just need
to talk to Marco, babe. Promise you can have him back when we’re done with him.”
“You better not touch one hair on his head, Slider,” she warned.
Slider held up his hands. “He’s a Banachi, babe. You’re a damn Banachi. We want to talk, that’s it.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been a Banachi for years, Slider. I’m more ol’ lady now.”
“You’ll always have that Banachi blood in you and with Leo being your brother, well, you know the Knights don’t mess with Leo.”
Mom laughed and shook her head. “You’re the reason why Leo’s head is so big.” She pointed her finger at me. “Go fix this, Marco, and then, come find me.” She turned on her heel and headed in the same direction as Meg.
Fix this?
As if it was going to be so easy that it was going to take five minutes and everything was going to back to normal.
“Let’s go, Marco. We’re all waiting for you,” Slider called.
I sighed and dropped my chin to my chest.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to sit across from the guys I had pretty much grown up with and called my family to tell them I had fucked up royally.
Not my idea of how I wanted to spend my day.
None of this was going to get better until I walked into that room and tried to figure out how I was going to make shit right again.
Or, at least, better.
I wasn’t going to be able to bring Grit back, but I was damn sure going to figure out how to make sure no one else died because of me.
King sat at the head of the table, like always, with Rigid on one side. An empty chair sat on the other side. Apollo stood behind the empty chair. I wasn’t completely outnumbered in here.
Slider nodded to the empty chair and then took his seat next to Demon.
King reclined back in his chair and watched me. I sat down in the empty chair and rested my elbows on the table.
“Never thought we would be sitting here like this,” King murmured.
“Same,” Slider grunted.
Slider may not have been my biological father, but he was still my dad. Mom had married him when I was sixteen, and from that day on, he had been my dad. I hated that I had fucked up, and he was going to know all about it. Every fucking detail, he was going to know.