Page 6 of Riding the Edge
Keeping my fingers wrapped around her wrist, I swallow the lump lodged in my throat and force the dreaded words no parent wants to speak.
“My boy took a bullet to his chest,” I ground out, releasing her. “In there fighting for his life and ain’t a goddamn thing I can do to help him.”
She turns back to me and her brown eyes soften as she brings her hand to her chest.
“Oh God, Al,” she says.
The fact that she refers to me by God-given name and not my road name isn’t lost upon me. Maria knows me for my leather which means she knows me as Wolf, the self-proclaimed beast who ain’t afraid to hunt alone. Yet, in that moment, she calls to me as a parent and nothing more. Nothing less.
Her eyes dart around the empty waiting room and back to me.
“Where is everyone? Do they not know? Should I—”
“Everyone knows,” I interject, reaching into my cut for my phone. Maria’s eyes go wide as she continues to stare at me.
“Then where the hell are they?”
I don’t answer. Mainly because I know she doesn’t really want the truth. She doesn’t want to know they’re either dragging the enemy to Hell or have lost the battle altogether. That there is a good chance Nico won’t be the only one full of lead. Ignoring the question, I pull up Patty’s number. As I’m about to hit send the glass doors of the waiting room slide open and I hear my ex-wife.
“You son of a bitch!”
Pocketing my phone, I lift my eyes to Patty as she charges for me. Instinctively I widen my stance and brace for the impact of her fists.
“Where is he? Where’s my son?”
“Surgery,” I reply roughly.
Like a fucking pussy, I keep my eyes trained to her cheeks, to the streaked mascara staining her olive skin. Still to this day, I hate seeing her cry. I don’t know if it’s because she’s the first girl I ever loved and though that loved burned out, I never forgot it or simply because she’s the mother of my son. Maybe it’s knowing I failed her and been the cause of so many of her tears. Whatever the case, the sight of her crying twists me.
“You promised me, Al!” she shrieks, beating my chest. “You swore on your grandmother’s rosary you would keep Nico safe and out of this shit! You broke a lot of promises, but I never thought you’d break this one.”
“Patty—”
“Don’t you Patty, me,” she snaps, pushing her long brown hair away from her face. “All these years I thought it would be you. That, one day, I’d be washing dishes and hear it on the news that you’d been shot. I never thought I’d hear my sons name.”
“I was—”
“Shut your mouth,” she hisses, poking her finger into the center of my chest. “It should be you in that operating room,” she sneers. “Your choices, your life.”
Dropping her finger from my chest, she takes a step backward.
“I’ll never forgive you for this and if something happens to my—”
“Now, you listen here, Patty and you listen good,” I growl, cutting her off and closing the distance between us. “Got a lot of fucking respect for you. Gave me that boy and turned him into a good man. I ain’t gonna take any credit for that but, you didn’t make him by yourself. We gave him to one another and everything you’re feeling, I’m feeling too. I’d trade places with him if I could and if something happens to our son, you won’t have to say a motherfucking word.”
Another promise.
One I won’t have any trouble keeping.
‘Cause if Nico doesn’t make it, I won’t forgive myself and a world without my son, ain’t a world worth livin’ in.
“You want to blame me, go ahead. You want to start a scene, go on and do that too. But if you want to do something to help our boy, fold your hands and pray. Cause the man upstairs ain’t got nothing left for me but he might take pity on you.”
Mustering up enough fucking courage to look her in the eye, I watch her wipe away her tears.
“Bleeding too, Patty,” I add hoarsely.
The woman don’t owe me a fucking thing. Not a reply and sure as fuck, not an apology. Still, she gives me her eyes and holds out her hand.
