Ky dropped me off at home, promising to tell me if he heard anything from AK and the rest of the brothers. When I walked through the door, I couldn’t see Mae anywhere. “Mae?” I shouted, kicking off my boots and grabbing a beer from the fridge. There was food on the stove, so I knew she was here somewhere.
I checked every room until I found her in the back room we never used. It was just full of junk, and a bunch of club shit I inherited when my old man took the trip to the boatman. A familiar-looking trunk was open, and Mae was curled up on a dusty old chair, reading some kind of leather-backed book. “Styx!” Her hand flew to her chest. “You scared me.”
Leaning down, I gripped her hair and took her mouth. As always, my bitch melted into me. She tasted of chocolate. I broke away, took a sip of my beer, and asked, “W-what’s th-this?”
Guilt flashed in her wolf eyes. “Don’t be mad.” She rubbed her stomach. It was huge now. My kid was big, if the doc Mae was seeing had it right. Mae was only small. I wasn’t sure how she was gonna get our kid out. My chest tightened. It fucking terrified me. The thought of anything happening to either of them kept me awake at night. “But I decided to clean out this room. Apparently it is called nesting. Getting ready for the baby.” She rubbed her stomach again. “Anyway, I found this trunk and started looking through it to see if it was worth keeping.” I frowned, trying to remember what was in it. There seemed to be about twenty different trunks and boxes in this room.
Mae went to get to her feet. I held out my hand and helped her up off the chair. She laughed, and the fucking sound of it was still the best thing I’d ever heard. I pulled her close and put my hand on her stomach. Just as I did, Charon moved around. I couldn’t help but smirk. “He knows his papa already.” Mae’s head fell to my chest. She looked up at me, and her lip twisted. She was nervous.
“Wh-what?”
“It—the trunk—seems to be all your mama’s possessions. What was left after . . . after she died. Her journals go up until she came back here. Including the ones written after she had run away . . .” Right up until my pop shot her in the fucking head in front of me, I wanted to say, but I held back. My stomach tightened when I looked at the trunk. I remembered it then. Recognized the old brown leather and her faded name on the front. But then my veins frosted with ice. I didn’t want to know a thing more about that slut. I’d forgotten I still had the trunk. Hadn’t thought of my mama in years. And if I ever did, I fucking rid myself of the memory straight away. Fuck that shit.
But looking at that trunk, I remembered it. Remembered how I’d hidden it after she’d been shot. Sneaked it away from my old man so he wouldn’t find it.
Then never thought of it again.
“B-burn them,” I said. Mae’s head shot up. Her mouth was parted in shock. “D-don’t want a-anything of that s-slut’s. Burn them.”
“River.” Mae shook her head disapprovingly. Her voice soft, she added, “She was your mother.”
I stepped back. Mae’s hands fell from my waist. Anger fucking ate at my stomach, and I had to breathe deeply just to calm the fuck down. “No. Sh-she wasn’t. She f-fucking left me for the D-Diablos. She didn’t give a f-fuck about me.”
Mae’s eyes filled with tears. “She did, River.” Mae picked a journal up off the top of the trunk and brought it over to me. “If you read them, I think you may understand her more.”
Mae’s huge fucking wolf eyes locked onto mine, and some of my anger faded. “B-babe,” I said, and pushed my hand through her hair. I stepped closer, but I stopped when I got to the bump. It was now so big I couldn’t get my wife as close to me as I wanted. “I d-don’t give a shit a-about that wh-whore.” I grabbed the journal from her hand and held up the tattered pages. “And y-you sh-shouldn’t either.”
I tossed it to the trunk, then kissed Mae on the mouth and backed away to go into my office.