Saving Dallas 2 Making the Cut (13 page)

“She’s not my ex, Dallas,” Luke snapped. He
sat on the bed and let out a deep breath. What was so fucking hard
about this?

“Dammit, Luke! Just tell-”

“She’s your sister, Dallas.” I looked at Luke
dubiously. What?

“What did you say?” I whispered. I must have
heard him wrong.

“She is your sister,” he said softer this
time. My blood ran cold as his words sank in. My legs buckled
beneath me and I dropped to my knees. This wasn’t happening.

“You’re lying,” I said, rocking back and
forth. I placed my fingers on the pressure points at my temples and
began to rub. There was no way. I didn’t have a sister. I was an
only child. My parents had been together for years. They were so in
love. Neither one of them would have done this. I was older than
Maddie. I had to be. “How old is she?” I asked, staring at the wood
floor below me-concentrating on the dark lines in it.

“She is twenty-four. Your father had an
affair with another woman on a business trip here. Maddie’s mother,
her name was Rebecca.”

I felt the saliva building in my mouth and my
stomach turned as bile started to rise. Sweat beads formed above my
lip and on my head. I wiped at my face and my skin felt clammy and
cold.

“You okay, babe?” Luke asked, sliding to the
floor to sit in front of me.

“Tell me. Tell me everything.”

“Are you sure? We can wait.”

“Dammit, just tell me!” I snapped raising my
head to look at him. The concern on his face was now familiar to
me. Great. Another reason for Luke to feel sorry for me. “I want to
know,” I begged. My eyes bore into his deep blue ones. I needed
this from him.

“Ok, baby. I’ll tell you everything.”

I nodded my head and waited. This was going
to be life-altering. I knew the information he was going to share
was going to change me. Red altered my life yesterday, Luke was
going to do it today, and tomorrow I would probably find out that I
was born a man. Nothing would surprise me after this.

“Your father came to Mississippi to invest in
some property. While he was down, he frequented a club called
Vera’s Lounge. Rebecca was a cocktail waitress there. Over the next
several months, him and her became close. From what I was told, it
was only a one-time thing and they both admitted after that, it was
a mistake. Rebecca got pregnant and told your father. He knew it
would ruin his relationship with your mom, so he offered to pay for
an abortion. Rebecca refused and said she would raise the baby on
her own. He tried to give her money, but she had too much pride. A
trust was set up in Maddie’s name and your father invested a
generous amount in it. She found out when she was sixteen who her
father was. Rebecca never wanted her to know; she didn’t want her
to get hurt, but when Maddie found a box of old letters and
pictures of him, she went looking. She took a bus to Atlanta, but
by the time she found him, he was dead.”

Tears flowed down my face as I listened to
the nightmare Luke shared with me. How terrible it must have been
for her to grow up without a father. I lost mine at a young age,
but he was there through all of my childhood years. I was
practically an adult when he died. I didn’t want to believe my
father was capable of such a thing, but I always knew deep down, he
was not a very good man. He was crooked, and ruthless, and money
hungry. I could now add adulterer and sperm donor to that list.

“There’s more, Dallas.” My head snapped up to
see Luke getting a little uncomfortable. Of course there was more.
There was no ending to the madness in my life.

“Rebecca married when Maddie was five,” Luke
paused and I looked at him expectantly.

“So?” I said, wondering what the big deal
was.

“She married Frankie, Dallas.”

My heart stopped beating. The air in the room
seemed to turn arctic and I shivered. The hair on the back of my
neck stood up on end and goosebumps protruded out of my skin, all
over my body.

“Where is Rebecca now?” I asked, although I
had the feeling I already knew the answer.

“She died,” Luke confirmed.

“How old was Maddie when she died?” I asked,
praying she had not grown up without a mother too.

“She was seven.” I closed my eyes at Luke’s
words.

“Did he kill her?” I asked, staring at the
blackness behind my eyelids, chasing the dots to try to keep from
losing it.

“No, she had cancer. Frankie found the
letters from your dad. All of them. The ones about the money, the
abortion, everything. The land he sold out from under the club was
just an excuse. He killed your mother, Dallas, and he done it for
Maddie.” The tears that ran down my cheeks at the mention of my
mother’s death blurred my vision. I couldn’t see Luke’s face, but
the emotion in his voice let me know that this was hard for him
too.

“Why would he do that? She was innocent in
all of this,” I asked, my voice breaking with sobs.

“He didn’t see it like that, babe. He went to
kill your father, but Frankie is crazy. He thought you all deserved
to die. He thought your mother was to blame for Maddie not having a
father. If she would not have been in the picture then he would
have married Rebecca and Maddie would have grown up with the life
you had.” Luke reached out and pulled me onto his lap. “I’m so
sorry, baby,” he whispered, kissing my head repeatedly.

“So what happened to Maddie when her mother
died?” I asked through my sniffles. The thought of her alone at
such a young age made my heart cry for her. No one deserved that.
She was just a child.

“Frankie had custody of her. When he went to
jail, she became club property. She mostly lived at the clubhouse
and we all took turns making sure she had everything she needed.
She is like a little sister to us all. We don’t talk about Frankie
or Rebecca much. Frankie was never really around when Maddie was
growing up. He was usually with the club or in and out of jail, so
he wasn’t much of a father figure. He was all she had though, which
complicates things now. She is the only reason that he is still
breathing. I just don’t have the heart to kill him. She has already
lost so much, ya know?” I did know. I had a sister and despite the
unusual and unfortunate circumstances, a small flicker of hope
bloomed in my chest.

“I want to talk to her,” I said, playing with
the buttons on my shirt. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea right
now, but I had so many questions to ask.

“Let’s just enjoy tonight. Tomorrow the guys
are going hunting and you will have all the time in the world. She
needs some space right now and you need time to process all of
this.”

Luke was right, as always. Now was not the
best time to try and start a relationship with a potential enemy
who just so happened to be my sister. His advice to me was to clean
myself up and re-join the party. He promised that the events from
earlier would not be brought up again and the club was very
understanding of the situation. That didn’t surprise me,
considering they had known this for some time.

I washed my face and re-applied my makeup. I
decided to try and put the situation from earlier in the back of my
mind with the help of some booze, loud music, and hopefully the
strip show Linda would be giving tonight. It didn’t take much
persuasion from Luke to let me go. I figured right now I could get
just about anything out of him. Who would have thought that the
problems I had anticipated were not problems at all. I actually
enjoyed all the ladies at the clubhouse and was anxious to get back
out there to them. My real problems consisted of a sister I didn’t
know I had, who just so happened to hate me.

I walked into the living room in search of
Luke, but instead I found something sweeter-and I didn’t think that
was possible. The sweetest, most precious little boy was flipping
over the large leather sectional in an attempt to land on his feet
on the other side, and failing.

“Hey man,” I said to him, walking up and
taking a seat on the arm.

“Hey woman,” he replied, making me laugh. His
blonde hair was long and fell over his forehead and into his eyes.
He looked to be about five or six.

“What are ya doin’?” I asked, as I watched
him make another loop around the couch and try the somersault
again.

“I’m gonna be a ninja when I grow up, but
first I have to learn how to flip over furniture.” He stopped and
stared at me once he was in the starting position, a serious look
crossing his face. “Don’t tell Uncle Luke though.”

“I won’t,” I promised, trying to contain my
smile.

“Pinky promise?” he asked, sticking his
little finger out to me. I place my pinky in his and leaned closer
to him.

“Pinky promise,” I whispered.

“Logan!” yelled a voice from the kitchen. The
little boy, that I presumed was Logan, quickly slid from the back
of the couch and sat down next to me in an upright position.

“What were you doing?” Maddie asked, coming
through the door. She shot a glance at me, then narrowed her eyes
at Logan. “Were you flipping over the furniture again?” she asked,
while picking up toys that littered the floor in the living room. I
tried to find resemblances between us, but she kept her back to
me.

“No ma’am,” Logan answered.

“She was,” he said, pointing a finger at me.
That little shit.

“Me? I was not,” I said, surprised he could
accuse me so convincingly. I had forgotten that I was a twenty-six
year old grown woman and was ready to plead my case to Maddie and
convince her it wasn’t me.

“Logan, don’t lie,” Maddie said scolding
him.

“I’m not, mama!” If he said anything else, I
missed it. Mama. Logan was Maddie’s son and that made Logan, my
nephew. I looked at him with new eyes. He was perfect. From his
fine, blonde hair to his golden tanned skin. I looked up to see
Maddie staring at me.

“Don’t,” she mouthed at me with a quick shake
of her head. My face, along with my heart fell and I nodded in
understanding.

“It’s getting late, we need to go.” she
announced to Logan, throwing a bag over her shoulder.

“I don’t want to go!” he whined. He scooted
his little body closer to me and this seemed to punch Maddie in the
gut. She closed her eyes in defeat and let out a breath. “Mommy’s
tired, Logan, and she wants to go home.” The thought of Maddie
leaving and possibly getting hurt caused me to tense.

“You’re not staying?” I blurted. “I mean, I
thought everyone was staying here,” I clarified.

“Frankie is not going to hurt me. It’s you he
has a problem with,” she said, staring daggers into me. Oh. Of
course Frankie didn’t want to hurt her. She was his daughter, in a
sense.

“Mama, please let me stay. All the other kids
are staying. Uncle Luke said I could stay,” Logan said, oblivious
to our conversation. He got up and walked to Maddie, wrapping his
little arms around her waist. “You won’t have to fix me breakfast.
You can sleep late and I won’t be there to wake you up.” Man, this
kid was a genius.

“Fine, but you do as they tell you and I mean
it,” she said sternly. Not giving her time to change her mind,
Logan darted out of the room. Maddie stood in front of me,
shuffling her feet while I played with my hands, neither of us
knowing really what to say. Luke saved us from the awkward
situation when he came in.

“Ya’ll good?” he asked, eyeing us both
suspiciously.

“I’m gone. Logan says he wants to stay. Is
that cool?” Maddie asked Luke.

“Of course. You really leaving?”

“Yeah, I got some shit to do. I’ll be back in
the morning before ya’ll leave.”

“Be careful, Maddie. I mean it,” Luke said
sternly. It would have bothered me before if he would have shown
that much interest in her safety, now I expected it. She walked out
without another word and left us alone. When she left, it felt like
a part of me was walking out with her. I wanted to get to know
Maddie and maybe mend this broken relationship. Luke, aware of my
intense thinking, decided to intervene.

“Babe, there is a party going on outside,” he
said, pulling me from the couch.

“Does it involve the stripper?” I asked
smiling at him and wrapping my arms around his waist. Luke shook
his head and smiled, “Yes, babe. There will be strippers.”

Strippers were not the only thing in the
clubhouse. When the sun went down, the clubhouse turned into the
penthouse. Most of the ol’ ladies were not here. I only saw a few
patch members who had their women with them. Red was with Brooklyn
and Ronnie, but Regg was nowhere in sight. The lights had dimmed
and the music had more of a modern R&B vibe compared to the
rock music that was playing earlier. I guessed it was much easier
to strip to R&B than it was to rock. Couches and chairs were
set up around the pool tables. A pole was mounted between the
tables and I wondered if it had always been there. The seats were
already full, awaiting the arrival of Linda, but there were two
seats reserved towards the front for me and Luke.

“I don’t have any money,” I told Luke, hoping
he would produce a wad of ones from his pocket.

“Trust me. She is making plenty of money. We
paid her for her entertainment. This is a private party and we
don’t have to tip.” Luke ushered us to the loveseat directly in
front of the stage, and we were immediately greeted by a girl who
could have easily been on the cover of Vogue. She was tall and thin
with jet black hair and pale skin. Her eyes were emerald green. I
think. I didn’t get a good look at them, because the sight of her
perfect breasts took my breath. She was completely naked, other
than a little thong and a pair of high heels.

“Babe, you okay?” Luke asked from beside
me.

“She is naked!” I said in disbelief. “And
she’s not even a stripper!” Luke brought his face close to mine and
his expression was serious when he said,