“Are you crazy?” she asked, sounding like she thought he wasn’t crazy, he was straight-up certifiable.
He checked out another car through the binoculars (not their guy) as he replied, “Babe, seriously, this is not a—”
“You know, if you can’t tell them, I will. I’ll be happy to do it, D. I’ll take that hit for you and, unlike you, I’ll enjoy it. And straight up, since we’re finally here, talking about this, you’ll lose Dad. You’ll lose Gunner. And neither are big losses. Especially Gunner. He’s a bully. He’s been a bully since we were little kids. He’ll be a bully until the day he dies, which will be alone, unloved, and wondering where he went wrong, not understanding you can’t be a total dick to every being who crosses your path and have a single one of them give a damn about you. Mom, she’ll freak and she’ll listen to Dad’s shit, but after a while, she’ll get over it. And when she does, she’ll go against Dad. She can be weak but she has her times of being strong. And those times have always been about her kids. So she’ll get there. She will, Diesel. You’ll just have to give her space and wait it out, and in the end, you’ll have the only one worth something. That is, not including me. You’ll always have me.”
“You’re not talkin’ to them,” he growled.
“Because you’re doing it yourself?” she asked.
“No,” he bit.
“And what? What, D? You’re gonna leave Maddox and Molly because your father and brother are bigots?”
“Like I’ve been sayin’, right now, I can’t talk about—”
“You can’t do that. You can’t leave them.”
“They got each other and if they want, they can find someone else who they don’t have to deal with his bullshit.”
He said it and it only made him feel sicker.
Her tone had changed entirely, gone gentle, soft, when she said, “Honey, they don’t want anybody else.”
“It’s more than just Dad and Gunner,” he told her.
“Tell me the more,” she urged.
“I don’t got time and I don’t got the headspace right now. I’m in the middle of something.”
“This is important, Diesel.”
And that was when he lost it.
Yup.
On his baby sister.
“You think I don’t know that?” he barked.
She was silent.
He drew in a big breath.
Another one.
He scanned everything with his eyes.
He blew out one last breath into the silence Rebel let fall before he said soft, “That was outta line.”
“I need to come down and have some quality time with my big brother,” she replied.
He shook his head even if she couldn’t see. “I gotta sort out my head on my own.”
“Why?”
“It’s just how I gotta do it, Reb.”
“I know.” That was a whisper.
A whisper even over the phone line he could hear was full of sadness.
Even anguish.
And D felt even sicker.
But Rebel?
Rebel didn’t keep him guessing what was behind it.
“Because you are who you are. You’ve always been who you are. And they’ve always been who they are. So you felt like you had to hide. You felt like you had to go it alone, even surrounded by people, people who love you or who are meant to love you. You never felt safe to reach out. And I want you to feel safe to reach out but you’re conditioned to go it alone for fear of what might happen if you open up and let the truth out. You have Maddox and Molly and me and we all love you. We want you to feel loved. Feel safe. Feel able to share anything with us. But I get it, D. I hate it. But I get it.”
Diesel was suddenly breathing heavily, like he was bench pressing above his weight, but instead he was putting everything he had into listening to every word his sister said and watching everything around him so he didn’t let Sixx down.
He shouldn’t have taken the call.
Too late now.
“And you care what they think of you,” she carried on. “I get that too. That’s what sons do. That’s what little brothers do. You look up to them. Whether they deserve it or not, it’s the way it is. And you want them to respect you. And you know they won’t when they learn and you haven’t gotten to that place where you realize they don’t matter and that’s precisely the reason why they don’t. They don’t deserve your respect for precisely the reason they’ll retract theirs.”
“Baby doll,” he whispered.
“But listen to me,” she said fiercely. “Please, God, Diesel, listen to me. When you find that one, that one who’s the one, it means everything. Everything, Diesel. But you didn’t find the one. You found the ones. That means you’re in the unique position to have more than everything. More. Than. Everything. There isn’t more than everything. But you . . . Diesel, you have that. Don’t let that go, big brother. It’s so precious, it’s unspeakably precious. It’s so rare, it’s nonexistent, except for lucky people. People who deserve it. People like you. So, please, God, do not let that go.”
She barely finished her last word when his phone binged with a text.
He looked at it.
Maddox.
All good?
“Mad is texting, Reb. I gotta go,” he said to his sister.
“Right,” she replied quietly.
“Love you, babe.”
“Growing up in that house, it was only you, Diesel.”
He shut his eyes.
“We were so out of place,” she kept at him, “it felt there wasn’t a place on this earth for us. Until I found my place, until you found your place, I only had you.”
And he’d only had her.
And Tommy.
He opened his eyes and scanned, murmuring, “Baby doll.”
“I want you to have everything, D. So it goes without saying, if you can lay your hands on even more, I want you to have that too.”
Diesel didn’t reply.
Rebel didn’t remain silent.
“Love you, big brother.”
“Thanks for warning me about Mom’s call.”
“Always.”
That was all there was and that was Rebel. When she was done, she was done.
And she was done.
He heard her disconnect.
Then he ran his thumb over the phone.
Transmitters. Earbuds. Cameras. Sixx is the shit. So you aren’t getting a turn, he texted to Maddox, putting the conversation with his sister in the back of his head.
It felt like seconds before he got back, Right, bud. Have fun. Stay safe. Tell Sixx hey. We’re hitting the sack in a few.
They’d probably fuck. They didn’t do it before he left. He didn’t do it with either of them before either. And a day never went by when at least some of that action didn’t happen.
He also hadn’t made good on his promise to do Maddox the night before.
And Maddox hadn’t pushed it.
Christ.
Will do. Later, Diesel replied then threw the phone on the seat by the laptop, swallowed the sick feeling still in his gut, did a scan, and engaged the transmitter.
“Still good?” he asked Sixx.
“No Japanese sex anime,” Sixx replied.
He read that as her not finding what she was looking for.
“So, not good,” he surmised.
“I’m taking a deep dive. Can you give me another half an hour?”