Hammer (Reapers Rejects MC Book 18) by Elizabeth Knox (books to read romance .txt) 📗

Epilogue

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.

~ The Good Vibe

Hammer

Ten Years Later . . .

“Naomi, now I swear if you don’t listen to your momma, you’re gonna get that phone of yours taken away.” I stand, sternly staring down at the eight-year-old terrorist that I call my daughter. She’s a riot, and I often ask Oakleigh if she was this much of a sassy one when she was Naomi’s age. Oakleigh tells me she was worse, but I doubt she could’ve been. I swear to God, this girl of mine is gonna grow up to be a CEO of a major corporation, make men get on their knees for her. Shit, now I’m thinkin’ she’s gonna be into that dominatrix shit. Fuck, I could throw up right here and now.

With as much sass as her momma, she crosses her arms over her chest and looks at me like I’m bluffin’, “But, daddy, what would happen if I got snatched one day after school? You and Uncle Armor are always telling me there are big, bad people out there. My phone is supposed to protect me, isn’t it?”

Motherfucking kids.

“Shiloh, come get this daughter of yours!” I snarl, stomping away. I head up the stairwell to our rooftop and once I’m up on the roof, I spot Armor smokin’ a cigarette across the bridge. Our building is right beside the Satan’s Raiders MC clubhouse. A lot of the guys and their families live in the building we do. It keeps us close enough to the club but far enough away in case the young ones are havin’ a party that gets a lil’ too wild.

“Naomi makin’ you lose your head again?” Armor cackles loudly, knowin’ all too well how my little girl does this crap.

“I pray when you find out what the baby is, it’s a girl. I need someone else to suffer like I do.”

“Fuck, man. Why you gotta go and say that shit? I’m good with two boys. Shit’s easy.”

“Damn right it is, Ty is a piece of fuckin’ cake, but Naomi . . . fuck. She lives to see me lose my head. I fuckin’ swear, and Shi gets a damn kick out of it too. Sometimes I think the two of them tag team me.”

“They probably are,” Armor smirks, not tryin’ to hide it in the least bit.

I grunt and roll my eyes, headin’ a bit closer to the bridge. A few moments of silence pass by before he clears his throat, “Oakleigh will be here this week, yeah?”

My eyes lock with Armor’s. He already knows the answer to the question he asked me.

“You can’t still be pissed at him. It’s been years, man.” Armor comes to his defense, which only makes me wanna throttle the bastard.

“It was one thing when you went after my sister, but he’s another story. You did right by Jada. You made her life better . . . but he didn’t do shit for Oakleigh.”

Armor raises his brows, “You’re joking. He helped her create an empire. Look, Hammer, I know you don’t like ‘em, but he’s made her life pretty damn good. He’s the VP of the largest MC charter in Mexico. Razor wouldn’t let anyone put a hand on her. He protects her with his life, the same way I keep Jada safe.”

Armor doesn’t have daughters. He won’t ever understand no one is good enough for their little girls. “I wanted better for her, especially after the shit she went through as a kid.”

“She got club royalty, didn’t she?” Armor coming to Razor’s defense only aggravates me more.

“He shouldn’t have ever gone for her. When he saw her at that fuckin’ stripper club downtown, he should’ve fuckin’ told me and—”

“And what, man!? She was an adult!”

“I would’ve made her stop! She didn’t need to be strippin’, showin’ her goods to anyone who tipped her. She didn’t need to—”

“You ever think she wanted to do it? It gave her some of that female empowerment?”

“Bullshit,” I grumble.

“Dude, it doesn’t even fuckin’ matter anymore. It was what, nine years ago, ten? What does it matter, like why’re you still caught up on this shit?”

“She was just brought into my life and then she was taken away, like that,” I snap my fingers, showing him how quickly Oakleigh was taken from me.

Armor blinks at me a couple of times, “Ah, so you’re pissed. You’re angry you didn’t have more time with your kid.”

“It’s more than that,” I tell him, leaning against the side of the bridge. I dig in my pocket for my medical marijuana grade vape pen, needin’ a hit so damn bad right now.

“Tell me what I’m missing.”

“He knew she was my kid when he saw her. He could’ve told me what she was doin’, there’s so much he could’ve done and he didn’t. Instead, he stayed, kept fuckin’ visitin’ her at that damn club. Shit could’ve been different.”

Armor nods, “Yeah, I’m sure it could’ve, but Oak is happy. That’s what matters here, man, nothing else.”

“I can’t fuckin’ stand him. He saw her in trouble and didn’t think to tell me.”

“Oh, fuck. I see what this is about now.” Oakleigh got mixed up with the wrong crowd after we moved to Los Angeles, and so much happened, so much I should’ve been there for, but Shi was pregnant with Naomi and I was distracted.

“You don’t know shit.”

“No, I do. You forget I was here, privy to it all. Shi was pregnant when Oakleigh was workin’ at the club, right?”

I nod.

“You think you should’ve seen the signs.”

I look right at him and don’t say a fuckin’ thing. I lived every father’s worst nightmare. I wasn’t there for my child when she needed me, and I hadn’t been there enough for her, that’s for damn sure.

“No one does, man. Not one person. We . . . people in general, we’re not perfect. We miss shit. We think when people say they’re