Man Of Steel (6 page)

After making the rounds at my other
places it was time to focus on my woman. Pulling my phone I called the house
and got her on the third ring.

“You ready short stuff?” She
sounded excited as fuck on the other end and I wondered why the hell I’d taken
so long?

As a man, this sort of shit was really
par for the course. You find a woman that fits you, you put a ring on her
finger for convention sake; it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. The hearts and
flowers shit was for the woman right? But her excitement was making me feel all
giddy and shit, like I wanted it to be more than just a party. “I’ve been
waiting for you hurry up.”

“I’m almost to the door, you riding or you want to take the
car?”

“I’m wearing a short skirt.”

“We’ll take the truck.”

I hung up on
her bark of laughter at my expense. The only time she was allowed on the back
of my bike is when she’s wearing jeans. No skirts no dresses, nothing that can
fly up with the wind and show off what’s mine. The other sisters might get away
with that shit, but that was between them and their men.

 
She came through the door as soon as I
revved the engine outside. I had a sweet dodge ram that was perfect for hauling
shit. It would’ve been a man’s truck if not for the fire engine red color that
the women in my life had picked out.

Holly and Lily, they pretty much
owned my ass and they knew it. On their own they ran circles around me,
together they were a force to be reckoned with. “I was thinking we should get
lil bit in on this.” I told her as I put the truck in gear and headed down the
driveway.

“No question, she’s going to be
so excited. We’ve been picking out dresses and everything for a while.”

“Say what
now?” this was news to me. How could they have been picking out shit when I’d
only just asked her this morning? I reached across the console for her hand and
lifted it for a kiss hello. “Yeah, we’ve been planning the wedding for a few
months now.” She hid a smirk as she turned her head out the window.

“I didn’t ask months ago.” Was I
missing something here?

“Hayden, if I waited around for
you to ask we might never have got here. I’m surprised you even thought if it.
Holly and I had the talk, I had to square it away with her first after all, and
we decided that the best course of action was to do things ourselves and just
tell you about it when the time was right. I’m glad you came to the same
conclusion on your own though, it feels better this way.”

“Babe, if you
wanted to get married why didn’t you just say so?” She looked at me like I was
the village dunce, touchy ass woman. “Hold that thought let me call Deanna and
let her know we’re coming.” Deanna can be a real pain where Lily is concerned.

 
This morning’s theatrics wasn’t the first
time she’d spewed off at the mouth about Lily and Holly having contact, but we
both know that the condition of our custody deal leaned more heavily in my
favor than hers and that I was the one giving her a chance to be the mother she
claimed she wanted to be.

 
Every once in a while she forgot that
shit and spouted off like she’d lost her damn mind. I’m sure she knew I’d never
do anything to harm my kid and that’s why she thought she could get away with
shit, but I have the paperwork back home in a safe that could overturn her
apple cart any day.

For the second time that day I
found myself having to deal with my ex, a situation that was known to put me in
a fucked up mood.

“Deanna is Holly awake?”

“Yes, why?”

“Tell her I’m coming to get her…”

“”Why what’s going on?
it’s
not
your weekend.”

“Don’t be stupid, just have her dressed and ready when I get
there.”

“Why?
tell
me what’s going on.”

There was
really no point in hiding the shit, she’d find out sooner or later anyway. “I’m
taking her to help me pick out a ring for her stepmother.” The silence on the
other end was answer enough. Even with all the shit she’d done I never wanted
to hurt her, she was still the mother of my kid, but her hurt feelings weren’t
going to stop me from going on with my life.

She hung up on
me, which meant she was going to try to make me jump through hoops to get my
kid out of the house. We pulled up and I left Lily in the truck while I went to
the door. The two women weren’t exactly friendly towards each other and it was
never a good idea to let them have too much exposure to one another. For all
her catholic schoolgirl upbringing Lily was a scrapper, she didn’t take shit
and she hated Deanna’s guts. Not least of all because of the shit she’d done to
me. To say Lily was protective of her man would be an understatement.

I could see
from her expression that she’d pretty much gaged the gist of the conversation
from Deanna’s end and she wasn’t looking too pleased. It was my job to smooth
out the rough edges and hope that my ex had enough sense not to start shit in
front of my kid. I also was not about to let her spoil Lily’s day. I had enough
sense left to know that that is some shit that I’d never hear the end of for
the next fifty fucking years. Women can hold a grudge like nobody’s business.

She took her sweet time answering
the door and when she finally did she tried blocking my way. “We’re not doing
this Deanna where’s Holly?”

“She’s not going anywhere and
just so you know she has one mother and that bitch will never be her mother
step or otherwise.”

“You sure you want to play this
game? Because we both know you’ll never win. Now I’ve always tried to be human
when dealing with you even though you don’t deserve that shit, but this right
here is not about to happen. You can either let me take my kid to the fucking
store and bring her back after I’ve fed her, or I can take her and all her shit
right now as is my right. What’s it gonna be?”

She puffed up
like a game hen but all the rage in the world wasn’t going to alter my course.
She made the choice a long time ago to part ways, unless she thought I was dumb
enough to fuck her after I found out she was cheating on me. I’m sure there’re
some men who forgive and forget that shit but I wasn’t one of them and she
should’ve known that shit.

 
She’d tried many times to convince me
that she’d only done it to get a rise out of me, to get me to love her like I
had in the beginning. How the fuck that shit played out in her head was a
mystery. Since the divorce she’s been making fucked up decision after fucked up
decision, but nothing yet that constituted me taking her child away from her.
But we both knew if she pushed me too far that shit was a done deal.

Now she was
turning on the waterworks, it never failed. When her rages and accusations
didn’t work she resorted to the oldest female trick in the book. Too bad for
her, that shit meant nothing to me. Now the other one was losing her fucking
mind too. I looked back over my shoulder at the blaring of the car horn. Lily
was looking dead at me with her ‘I’m not in the mood’ face on. What the fuck? I
glared her ass into submission and she eased up off the horn.

Turning back
to Deanna I eased her out of the way and went in search of Holly. “Lil bit
where you at?” she came running and yelling for me from the back, where it
looked like she’d been rolling in the mud. I couldn’t hold back the grin that
broke across my face. Nothing in the world meant more than this little bundle
of energy. She started talking as soon as I picked her up and kissed her little
cheek. My heart melted when she hugged my neck and laid her head on my
shoulder. “Daddy.”

I headed for
her bathroom to clean her up while she regaled me with tales of her adventures
in the backyard with the new poodle I’d bought her. Her mother had bitched
about the extra work when I bought the dog a couple weeks ago but that shit had
gone in one ear and out the other. It was because of her that I couldn’t be
here for my kid twenty four seven so whatever I had to do to make up for that
shit she’d just have to suck it the fuck up.

Deanna
followed us around the house as I changed her clothes and showed my daughter how
to lace up her shoes like a big girl. I could feel the anger coming off of her
in waves but she knew well enough to keep that shit in check around my child. I
pretended that her ass wasn’t there because really, what was there to say?

We made it out
of the house without incident and it only took me five minutes to talk Holly
into leaving her pet home. The two girls started gabbing at each other and I
felt myself settle. Holly might be too young to understand the significance of
her father buying another woman a ring but I wanted her there. She was a part
of all the important things in my life and this was no different.

 
One of the things I loved so much about
Lily was the way she accepted that fact and seemed to appreciate it
herself
. She knew that as much as I loved her, that little
girl held a special place in my heart that no one else would ever reach.

“I have a great idea, why don’t we
get Holly a cute little ring of her own?”

Huh?

“That way she doesn’t feel left out.”

“You want me to buy my three year old daughter a diamond
ring?”

“No silly, they make rings for little girls too you know. I
just thought it would be fun and she can feel like part of what we’re doing
today.”

“That might actually be a good
idea.” This way we can undermine any sabotage Deanna might have in mind. She
has been known in the past to pull some shady shit to try to make Holly hate
Lily. I never want to go through that fucking headache again.

It wasn’t easy
trying to convince your baby daughter that daddy loved her more than anything
when someone else that she trusted had filled her head with bullshit. I’d had
to put the brakes on my relationship with Lily for a few weeks that time. It
was the first time I’d realized the lengths my ex would go to
to
get her way. After I’d convinced my little princess that
no one was going to take daddy away I had had to work on smoothing that shit
out. In the end it had backfired on her mother though, because their bond was
now stronger than ever before.

A three-year old
diamond shopping would put your ass in the poor house, just saying. She liked
the big shiny ones, typical girl, and Lily wasn’t much better. Lucky for both
their
asses
daddy came prepared with the black card or
there would’ve been some embarrassed people walking around that store.

My places are
doing well enough that I could afford to get my girl the ring she wanted. In
fact we were doing better than I expected after the stories I’d heard about how
long it takes a new business to be in the black. The money I was banking now
made my cop’s pay look like child’s play even though as a detective and then
later lieutenant that hadn’t been too shabby either.

 
But these days, the kind of money I made
could cover the four and five carat rocks my girls were mooning over. I know
this was going to be a problem for Deanna now too, and I was going to have to
deal with her shit in the coming weeks until things settled down again. Every
time she thought I was doing something for Lily that I hadn’t done for her
during our marriage she loses her shit, which makes no sense to me whatsoever.

She never
wanted for anything when she was with me, but she knows had we made it she
would be able to live way above what she was now. The only reason she could
afford to live where she did now was because of my daughter and she knows it.

 
You see we live in one of those states
that says if a man or woman is caught fucking around on their spouse, then that
spouse pretty much gets to clean their clock in the divorce, basically she’s
ass out. You’d think with that shit hanging over her head not to mention the
fact that I won sole custody of Holly that she’d straighten up and fly right,
but no. Every once in a while she shows her ass and gets slapped down.

When my girls
were through picking out their baubles and I’d fed them I ran them back home.
Holly wanted to stay a little longer so I called her mom and dealt with her
bullshit while I was on my way to a meet. Sid and Dwayne were on ice but that
didn’t mean our jobs were done. One of the things you never see on the news or
in the TV specials is the fact that these assholes have family and friends that
believe in their innocence and are sometimes willing to go to great lengths to
get them out of whatever jam they find themselves in.

With the court
date just days away the heat was on. We had a list of his nearest and dearest
and there were eyes on the few we thought might be trouble. So far no one had
done anything to raise any flags but there were whispers about jailhouse talk.
One of the best grapevines in the world could be found in prisons across the
country. I don’t know how these fucks pulled that shit off, but more than once
they’d proven to have more information than those of us on the outside. As a
cop I’d pulled on that thread plenty, now as an MC leader I had other uses for
it.

I run my crew
like PD. I have a fugitive task force,
a
S.W.A.T. team
and men and women in place who are trained to deal with victims of domestic
violence and child abuse.

Each team has
a lieutenant who reports back to me, because since we keep expanding that’s the
best way to handle shit. Every OP is run like a well-oiled machine and there’s
no room for fuck-ups. If shit goes south, which it seldom does, and I have the
need for protection for my boys, I call in Jake.