Where the hell had meek little Iris gone?
"The fuck?" the woman spat, frowning.
Classy. "The man in there with you needs to come talk to his daughter."
"Daughter?" Baloney. This woman was absolutely baloney.
There was a noise coming from the recesses of the hotel room, a voice talking so low I'm surprised the person in front of me could hear. My ears were ringing so loud with adrenaline and frankly anger that I couldn't hear anything clearly.
I had my eyes locked on the lady in front of me, taking in her dark hair, olive skin, light eyes. She was a poor replica of my mother, I thought, as mean as I would have normally assumed the thought was. But I didn't care then. I sized her up. I watched her take a step back and turn around to talk to the man in there.
I had to swallow hard to keep from making some awful noise. If it wouldn't have been for the warm heat on my back that radiated from Dex's chest, I'm not sure what I would have done as I waited for my father to come to the door.
My father. The thought was so immediately detached it should have alarmed me, but I'm surprised by how freeing it was. Not my dad. My father. My sperm donor in Sonny's words.
"Iris."
He was there.
Shorter than what I remembered, or maybe the careful balloon I'd inflated with his memory had been too exaggerated. Or maybe I'd just been around Dex's long bones for too long.
Curt Taylor stood there. With his heavily tattooed forearms void of any past Widowmaker insignia. A salt and pepper mustache curling his upper lip. Hair still short. And so much older than I remembered.
My heart churned in recognition—in need. But only for a split second. For a millisecond I allowed myself to miss him. To miss the times he'd made me feel like I was the most important person in the world to him.
But that time had been decades ago. A faded photograph. It was broken and corrupted.
And most specifically and fortunately for me, I'd been patched up along the way.
I let my hand reach backward until I grasped Dex's thigh, using it to center me as I stared at the man I'd denied myself loving for so long.
But the love I knew, the form of love I remember as a child was completely different than the version I recognized as an adult. There’s no chemistry to it. You can’t break apart love’s properties and make it something it’s not. I knew that now.
A small, stupid part of me might always feel something my father, but that didn't mean that I respected him. That I truly valued him. Not when it had suddenly occurred to me how obvious it was that he didn't feel the same toward me. And love without respect and appreciation isn’t actually anything. It’s worthless.
I knew what it was like to be valued. To be cared for. To be a priority. And I wasn't going to settle for less from the man that should have shown me all of those things throughout my life.
Fuck. That.
I wasn't a little girl anymore. I wouldn't fall for his tricks or his foolish, meaningless words.
If I had a baby, a little tiny boy or girl that had grown up in my arms, there was no way I could ever leave them willingly. There was no way I couldn't think about him or her daily and wonder if they were fine, when I did that for my own little brother. Hell, I even worried about Slim and Blake all the time. What did that say?
It said I wasn't my father, and I never would be.
"We need to talk."
"Iris?" His voice cracked.
I'm not sure what it said about me that I was able to look at his face steadily without feeling a thing besides resentment. "We really do need to talk."
He blinked those hazel eyes. The Taylor eyes he'd given Sonny and me. "Rissy," he said my nickname slowly, "I haven't seen you—"
Dex's growl cut him off. "I don't wanna hear it. She don't wanna hear it. Get your shit, 'cuz we're goin'."
My father, Curt, blinked rapidly. His eyes widened like he had barely seen Dex standing behind me, well, more like towering behind me. My own personal eclipse of ink and ego.
The angry frown that curled over his mouth was the predecessor for those hazel eyes flicking back and forth between me and Dex. Slowly, his eyes moved over the multicolored bruises on my cheek that still hadn't exactly faded. "You son of a bitch," my father boomed. "Did you do that to her?"
My bruise?
Dex? Dex who'd been ready to tear apart the universe because of what those morons had done?
"Old man," Dex hissed, bringing his body so close to mine that I could feel him settle himself around the curves of my back and bottom. "You should shut the fuck up before you say somethin' I'll make you regret."
Oh hell. Diffuse the situation, Iris!
I had to take a calming breath. This wasn't just about me. This was about Dex, Sonny, Slim, Blake, and the little boy in Colorado that shared my bloodline. As much as my subconscious would love seeing Dex stand up to this man, my brain said that this wasn't the right time.
This visit was about preventing something terrible from happening to all of them.
I could do this for them. I could keep it together.
"This is because of the Croatians. Because of you," I stated evenly, watching the color drain from his face. "And I don't care what you have to do, but you're paying them back."
"The...they...found you?" he blabbered.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The wicked laugh that snaked its way out of Dex let me know he thought my dad was just as full of shit as I did. "You wanna play stupid? I'll play stupid with you. What'd you think? You'd take their money and nothin' would happen?"
My father's eyes slashed over in Dex's direction, his mouth pulled tight in aggression. "Shut your trap, kid."
"Kid?" He was outraged.
Kid? Dex? Did he need glasses?
"Yeah, kid. I been bustin' people up longer than you been alive, don't come up to me, trying to be a bad ass. I'll beat it out of you," Curt snapped.
Dex barked out a laugh. "Old man, you might have been doin' it for longer than me but that don't mean I won't wipe the floor with you. At least I fight my battles with my own two hands instead of lettin' my blood get it beat out of 'em for me."
"You piece of trash—"
And... I was done.
Done.
What did it say about me that I was willing to throw away the thread-like connection with my father for a man I loved? Nothing. Because ultimately, it didn't matter. I'd throw away more.
My stretched out palm met with my father's chest as I pushed him back with more force than was necessary.
His hazel eyes flared, more in response to the moment and the conversation with Dex than with me. At least that's what I could assume. I pointed a finger at my father and shook my head, watching as his eyes drifted the length of my arm until they came in contact with the silver-white scarring my sleeveless racerback left open for everyone to see. See it, he did, and it only reinforced my words and my mood.
"Don't say a word to him. Not a single friggin' word. In the last month, Sonny's gotten the crap beat out of him. I got assaulted at my job, and I've been asked to become some douche bag's mistress. All because of you. You owe me, and trust me, you don't want me to start with the million and one things I've dealt with because of you before this year."
He opened his mouth to argue with me. His eyes going from my arm to Dex's face above mine.
"Don't," I insisted. "Just don't."
"He's a Widow, Rissy!" my dad yelled, completely oblivious to the fact we were standing outside of a cheap motel with dozens of other people.
That's where he was going with this?