Heart-On: Turf Wars #2, Bella Jewel [ebook reader screen txt] 📗

resting against my cheek. A tear bursts forth and rolls down, slipping over his fingers. I can’t stop the tears. I have wondered about this moment since he left.

But that’s the thing.

He left.

Mom told me he didn’t want a single thing to do with me.

He never proved otherwise.

He never came looking for me, even after I turned eighteen.

He could have found me, if he truly wanted to.

He didn’t.

I turn my face away. My hurt too strong.

“Ramona,” he says, his voice as gruff as he is. “Sweetheart ...”

God.

His voice.

The way he used to call me sweetheart when I was little.

He was always my hero. So strong.

But he left me.

“I can’t ...” I croak. “You left me. You never came for me. I can’t.”

Adan walks over and is by my side in a second.

“Take me out of here, Adan. Please.”

He does as I ask—he wraps an arm around my waist and turns me away.

“Ramona, please,” Dad says.

“Let her be.”

That’s Riggs’ voice.

“You know where she is now. Let her process this.”

“Tell her I’ll come for her. I will come for her.”

I don’t hear anything after that.

I let Adan lead me to the car, and I slide into the driver’s seat. I pull away, and as I do, I catch sight of my dad, just staring at me, his face a mix of shock and confusion, and a whole lot of pain. A tear runs down my cheek as I drive out, speeding off down the dirt road.

Adan doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t tell me to slow down.

When I make a hiccupping sound as I sob, he doesn’t say anything.

When I scream out in frustration, he doesn’t say anything.

He sits with me, letting me feel what I’ve got to feel.

Then, he does the best possible thing he could do for me, he reaches forward and presses the voice command on his car stereo and calls out, “Dial Eve.”

It begins to call my best friend.

She answers.

“Adan, is that you?”

“Two hours, be at my place. Ramona needs you.”

“What? Is she okay? Is everything okay?”

“She’s okay, but she needs you. Be there, Eve.”

Then he hangs up.

I swallow the rest of my tears and drive in silence for a good hour until I calm down. It takes me that long to stop fighting the tears with everything I’ve got. Only then does Adan speak to me and his question isn’t prying, he just carefully says, “That was your dad.”

“Yeah,” I croak.

“Guessin’ you haven’t seen him in a real long time?”

“You’d guess right.”

“He hurt you?”

“Only my heart,” I whisper.

“Sorry.”

I bite my lip to stop the tears again.

“You know him?” I ask, my voice croaky.

“Yeah, we’ve worked with him for a long time now. He’s a good man, bad as fuck, but good. He helps us, we help him.”

Bad as fuck.

I have no doubt.

No doubt in my mind.

“Does he run that place?”

Adan nods. “Yeah.”

“Is he ... is he a really bad person?”

“No.”

“But he does illegal shit?”

“So do we, honey.”

Honey.

My heart feels like it’s going to explode.

I keep driving, hands on the wheel, unable to say anything else about it. There is no hiding from him now, not since he is aware I’m hanging around the club. He can find me at any point, and I’m not honestly sure if I want him to. Yet, at the same time, seeing him again made things in my heart come alive, things I thought were long dead. I miss him. I have missed him for so long.

But he hurt me.

God, he hurt me.

Do I even give him the chance to tell his side of the story?

Or do I just cut him out for the rest of my life?

I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

“OH, HONEY.”

Eve’s words make my lip quiver the second I climb out of the truck. She’s waiting at Adan’s front door, just standing there, anticipating the moment we drive in. The second she sees me, my best friend knows that I’m in pain. There’s no hiding it. She steps forward and throws her arms around me. Adan tells us he’ll be inside and disappears. I respect the hell out of him for how he’s handled this, not once did he demand answers or do anything but stand by my side.

I couldn’t ask for better than that.

“What happened?” Eve asks, pulling back and looking at me, her eyes scanning my face. “I’ve never seen you cry like this.”

“I saw my dad.”

Eve blinks. Then shakes her head a little. “Your dad? Your real dad?”

“He’s the only one I have, Eve.”

She shakes her head again. “Sorry, of course. I don’t understand, you haven’t seen him since you were a kid, right? How did you run into him now?”

I tell her everything that happened and who my father is now, and the little details I did get from Adan about him.

“Oh, wow. So he knows the club?”

“Yeah.”

“And he saw you?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. That must have been such a shock.”

“I just ran out of there, I couldn’t face him. I did a runner.”

“You have every right to run, because you don’t know why he left you the way he did or why he hasn’t come back. You were in shock and it was all thrown on you at once.”

“I think mostly, I’m terrified of his answer. What if he wasn’t near me because he just didn’t want to be, and then I have to live with the hurt that will bring?”

“The only way you’ll find out is to ask him, and you don’t have to do that right now. You’re hurting, you’re allowed to hurt. Give it some time.”

I nod. “We should go inside.”

“Yes, I brought some wine over. We’re going to drink these feelings away.”

I don’t argue with her.

We go inside and she pours us some wine. We sit out on the back deck and watch the sun slowly beginning to set.

I hear the bikes roll in a few hours later, and within minutes, the guys are all outside with Adan following them out. He has left us out here to