Southern Heart (Southern 5)

"Why don’t you answer the biggest question that we have for you?" Jacob says. "Who did this to you? Who would try to kill you?"

Looking each of them square in the eye, I answer them. "My father."

Chapter 7

Mayson

I watch the eyes of every single man standing in this room. Jacob, Beau, Casey, Ethan, and Quinn. Five men who stand together, regardless of their differences. Five men who at any time would die for their family. Five men who accepted me with no questions asked. "My father."

I don’t see her in the room when I talk, but the minute the words leave my lips, she gasps out in shock. My eyes fly to hers, and she can’t mask the tears that well in her eyes. She can’t even stop the tray in her hand from shaking, and it takes one step from Quinn to grab it before it falls to the floor. "Chelsea," Beau says, coming forward and whispering something in her ear.

She just looks at him and nods her head, turning to walk out of the room, but right before she does, she takes one look over her shoulder at me, and instead of looking at her dead in the eye, I do the coward thing and look down.

My heart beats in my chest, and I’m going to ignore that it's for her. Instead, I’m going to pretend it’s because, in a matter of ten minutes, these men who I look up to are going to know all my secrets. I’m going to lie bare to them and hope they still look at me with respect.

I watch Beau walk out of the room with her, and Quinn puts the tray down on the table beside the bed. "I take it you aren’t hungry." He smirks at me as I just look down, waiting for Beau to come back.

"Not now, I’m not," I answer, and I want to get up while I have this talk, but I know I can’t move. I look at the men in the room and see all the questions written on their faces. Questions I’ll have no choice but to answer. Beau walks in with his head down. "She okay?" I shouldn’t care, but I do.

"She’s just shaken up a bit," he answers honestly. "I don’t think she was expecting that answer."

"I mean, why would she?" I laugh nervously.

"Can we get the show going?" Ethan now says with his hands in his back pockets as he looks at me.

"I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in a single-wide trailer that had seen better days." I start as far back as I can remember. "My mother tried her best to make it as clean as she could, but it was a losing battle even from the beginning." The busted windows held together by a garbage bag and duct tape. That used to have to be replaced every few days because the wind would rip it apart.

"I knew how we lived was wrong, but at seven, all you know is what is presented to you." The memories start to come back as if I’ve opened a box that has been sealed. "I don’t think I ever saw my mother without a bruise on her face or her arms." I swallow now, not sure this was such a good idea. "She hid it as much as she could. Made sure she didn’t have any friends she had to explain herself to." I hear one of the men hiss, but I don’t stop. "He was always drunk. Under stress." I laugh. "That is what she used to tell me as if it was an excuse to beat your wife. Every single time, she would try to do whatever she had to do to keep him happy. Regardless of the hell that she was living. She made sure she showed me whatever love she could." I shake my head. "Every fucking Sunday, she would dress up in her only fucking dress. Pack on a pound of makeup and take us to church. I never fucking understood it. We would go to this place, and he would give us stories of hope and happiness." I shake my head. "It was the opposite of how we lived." Closing my eyes for a second, I see her smiling at me. "If I think about it now, she was probably praying for an escape." I look up now, blinking the tears away. "She got her answer when I turned fifteen and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Of course, we were in the hospital because my father had busted her head open with a frying pan." I don’t tell them he did that because she ran out of food to cook him because he had taken his last paycheck and used it to get drunk and then fuck a hooker.