Page 115 of Broken Warrior
I couldn’t justify the expense, couldn’t justify a relatively extravagant purchase, and at first I had no idea where the fucker was going to go.
Then my girl reminded me.
My new office.
Shortly after Doc had to open up my chest and play around with my insides, I was told about a pretty crucial piece of information that no one knew about for quite some time. A piece of information I’m sure the subject wanted to remain hidden right along with his identity, but nothing stays secret forever.
And when Pope came to see me at Marbles’s place, to make sure I was still doing ok with nothing but Tylenol and Motrin fighting the pain, he told me that our new friend had stumbled upon a rather interesting note amongst Rosco Shapiro’s belongings that he was burning.
Trent Dyscher was the one feeding information about Tate to Shapiro.
That first night he went to the strip club, he cornered Trent leaving his office and pumped him for everything he knew about her, and at first the owner didn’t budge. He stayed vague, used her stage name, and he avoided giving Rosco access to her file. The second time, however, that slimy fuck went into The Dollhouse with a briefcase full of cash and a gun in his pocket, and Trent folded like a shit hand in poker. He told Shapiro everything, right down to Tate’s connections to us—which he knew thanks to my jealous ass—that she had a son, and they were the only two living in their apartment. Thankfully that was the same night Tate ran into Shapiro and got the hell out of dodge, but that bastard already had what he wanted and, well, we all know how that went.
So, my first order of business after I got the green light from not only Berk, but Harlow and Sofie as well because my girl is almost as overprotective as I am, was to have a little chat with Trent.
Funny enough, no one has seen that asswipe since.
And The Dollhouse now belongs to me.
I even have a signed transfer of deed and notarized letter written by Dyscher himself stating he gave me the business of his own free will, and all the paperwork that transferred the LLC to me.
Crazy what a stern talking to will do for a person.
After that was handled, we moved in with Blondie and Cy for a bit, mainly because none of us wanted to go back to the apartment James was kidnapped from, and soon after Theo put it on the market.
Not all of the memories there were bad.
It’s where Cy and Theo realized they were meant to be, where Tate and James found refuge, and it was where I fell even more in love with my dark angel and my little buddy. But he was the reason we decided not to go back.
Finding out that James was having nightmares again, that he was dreaming about watching me get shot and having Valetti take him from his bedroom fucking crushed me, but I understood all of it more than my boy will ever know. I still have nightmares about holding my dad while he died in my arms, nightmares about Conner and Hamish, about all the demons that lurk in the recesses of my mind, so I understand why he didn’t want to go back there. And I agreed with it wholeheartedly.
So, off to Blondie’s we went for little while, more than a little while if I’m being honest because we stayed until a few weeks ago after Miles Elliot Finlay Wyatt was born.
Tate helped her sister through the home stretch of her pregnancy, and I could tell she wanted to stay and help Theo get situated after she gave birth, so Cy and I sat down and made a plan.
Or,Imade a plan while Zak Wyatt had a mini heart attack over the realization that he was about to be a father, practically begging me to let Tate stay and helpboth of thembecause he wasn’t sure what he was doing.
Which was total horseshit.
Just like Prez, Cy fell right into fatherhood like he was made for the role, and it wasn’t long before I realized the three of us stayed with them because my girl had a small case of baby fever. And even though Miles is one adorable little baby, I knew that was the time for us to split.
I want kids, siblings for James, babies that all three of us are linked to, but I sure as fuck am not ready for that yet, especially since we weren’t entirely sure where we were going to live yet.
Stupidly, I assumed we’d find a new place, an apartment or a house we could rent that wasn’t far from the club, but Tatecorrected me, explaining anything that far from her sister would be torture and we needed to find a house closer to them as well asher girls.
Which led to a conversation about the farmhouse I wasn’t ready to have.
Tate didn’t understand why I didn’t want to stay there, why I didn’t want to even consider it, then I explained and as I said the words out loud—my mother lived there, my father lived there, I died the first time there—well, that’s when I realized how stupid it was.
My mother is gone from that place, her room gutted, her shit removed. She’s sitting in a top class nursing home across town, rotting away in her pink robe filled with a bitter shell of a human. Nadine isn’t a ghost haunting the halls of my childhood home, she’s a living demon that I can visit if I choose to, or pretend doesn’t exist if I’m so inclined.
As for dying there?
That shouldn’t be a reason to stay away. Not when I also lived there, lived in those few and far between moments I had with my dad, with Jackal and his parents, on the farm or in my room. Again, the house isn’t full of bad memories only, and that was what really sold me on the idea.
My dad would have loved to see me raising my son with my fucking soulmate in the house where he raised me. He would have loved seeing James run all over the backyard with the animals, playing on the stairs or in the living room until he fell asleep, or working with me on my bike in the garage the same way I did so many times when I was his age. Tavish MacAllister would have loved every second of his house—the one he bought with the same dreams I have—being used and lived in, full of love and happiness the way he wanted and never could.
And the three of us moving in there for a while—a long while based on the blueprints of the dream house Tate wants to have built—feels like a fucking solid way of honoring the man who raised me.
