Yield (20 page)

He needed to know his girls were safe. That there was nothing like this happening to them. That in ten years he wouldn’t find another box like this. “You know I love you, right?”

“I know. I love you too.”

“You know you can come to me if someone was hurting your or scaring you? No matter where I was in the world?”

His oldest was quiet. “Yes. Daddy, are you okay? You sound mad.”

“I am but not at you. It’s why I needed to hear your voice. I love you, Willy.”

“Love you back.”

“Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Night.”

“Night. Give the phone to Oz.” He heard her say that she was worried about him and Oz said he’d take care of it.

He wanted to burn everything. Every envelope that called her no one. Every little letter that made her feel small and scared. He flipped the jersey over and stared at the logo. Pretty specific. Pretty fucking specific. Throw in the tickets to hockey games and it didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.

Oz woke up Dani and he had the same conversation with her, reassuring himself. “What happened, Doyle?” His friend’s voice was low and had a hard edge to it that didn’t come out very often. “Don’t bullshit me. You’re freaking out; you’ve worried the girls. What’s going down?”

Instead of answering, Doyle hung up and tossed the phone aside.

What could he possible say? Dragging his hands through his hair, he fisted the strands as he glared at what had hurt her. Gathering everything up, he tossed them back in the box and put the collection of evil in the garage so the girls wouldn’t get nosy. His fist slammed on the light switch, plunging the kitchen into darkness and he went up to Kate. That’s where he needed to be.
 

Not downstairs gazing at a past he couldn’t fix or change.

 
****

A smart man would probably hole up for a few days. Doyle wasn’t feeling smart. He was feeling violent.
 

With one foot braced on the table, he slouched on the leather couch as he typed on his phone. Today the band was meeting at the penthouse to hash out the latest album. They were pretty much sequestered in the studio room. Probably not the wisest place for him to be: in an enclosed area with Jace-fucking-Jennings looking hung over. “Hey,” without looking up from his phone, he spoke to the lead singer, “what was that douche bag hockey player’s name?”

Opening a message window, he hesitated before he typed in Jasmine Lane’s name.
What’s the expiration date on sexual assault?
Unlike with Kate’s box, he very much felt like he was trespassing. Jasmine wasn’t just a domme at Edge, she was a lawyer. He and Kate hadn’t mentioned the contents of the box after she had pointed it out. This morning she had dropped him off at the penthouse while she had gone to class as if nothing monumental had happened.

What?! How are the girls? I’m phoning you. Right. Now.

In studio. Girls are fine, more than. Think hypothetical.
He closed the conversation and turned off the ringer.

“Hockey dou…ooooh Berger.” A chortle came from Jace and Doyle glanced up before turning his attention to the phone. “Funny guy.”

His thumbs moved over the screen keyboard as he texted Kate.
FYI I’m going to beat the fuck out of Jace.
His screen lit up with Jasmine’s call as it vibrated in his hands. He hit ignore call because he wasn’t about to discuss this with someone who had the ability to fix things without talking to Kate. He just needed to do something.

Even if it was smashing his fist into Jace’s face.

“Berger?” He asked as carefully as he could. The name didn’t twig his memory but he wasn’t exactly buddy buddy with all of Jace’s douche friends.

“Josef Henzberger.”

“Ketchup,” Max muttered as he glared, tuning his guitar. “Who fucked with this?”

His phone gave a shudder to tell him he had a voicemail and a text. He opened up the conversation with Kate.
Don’t hurt your hand.

Her response was so surprising, a grunt of amusement escaped. Funny girl. His screen lit up with a text from Jasmine.
God damn it, answer your phone!

In studio. Answer.
He switched to the browser and put in the asshole’s name.

“Berger was a machine,” Jace said. “Always scored amazing pussy.”

Doyle went still. As those words pinged around his brain, seeing Kate crying on his deck played back. He didn’t remember moving but suddenly he was using the massive coffee table as a stepping stone. Without hesitating, both of his hands fisted on the front of Jace’s shirt and he dragged him over the back of the chair. Surprised shouts came from the guys, but he didn’t care as he slammed the singer into the wall with enough force to make the man grunt.

An arm hooked around his neck as someone tried to peel him off while they shouted in his ear to let Jace go.

“Did you know, you piece of shit?” Doyle eased Jace forward then slammed him hard into the wall again. “Did you know?” The words were shouted in Jace’s face as he ignored the frantic tugs. “You heartless motherfucker, did you know what he was doing? Stalking her like prey, breaking her down. Stop touching me,” he snarled at whomever was on his back, tugging frantically. “When she came to you scared and terrified, needing you to step up, did you just shrug her off? She is your fucking daughter!” He slammed Jace into the wall again. “Did you know? Answer me!”

“Fuck, D. What is your–”

He pressed his forearm over Jace’s throat, cutting off his air and words. “You think carefully, you son of a bitch, about what is going to come out of your mouth.”

“Jesus, D, you’re going to choke him. Knock it off.”

“You left her alone. She was a kid.
Your
kid. Bad enough you left her with Beli, but did you leave her with that molesting motherfucker?” The grip on him went slack and a heavy silence hit the room. “She came to you. Even knowing you wouldn’t do a god damn thing, she came to you. I’ve forgiven you for a lot of your bullshit, asshole, including fucking my wife, but I cannot forgive you for Kate. You broke her. You broke her heart, you broke her childhood. I want to kill you for that.” He eased his arm off and Jace gasped for breath, his face red, sweat sliding down his temple, while his pulse jumped and pounded in his neck. “I could kill you for that, but I’ll be fucking damned if I leave her alone because my ass winds up in jail. You did this to her, Jace, just as much as your buddy Berger.” He pushed his face close so he could smell the man’s fear. Jace’s head pushed back as if to get away from him.
 

“Jesus, D. What the fuck?”

Doyle ignored Max’s whispered words as he stared at Jace. The eyes the same color as his daughter’s shifted away. This man…this asshole who had hurt his Katey. Left her alone with her junky mother and a molester. He grabbed the other man’s jaw and made Jace look at him. “He stalked her in your house. Had access to her room in your house. He terrorized her in your house. He raped her in your house. And you, you fucker, sit here and have the balls to say the man is a pussy god? She is your daughter and you just gave her to him. You, Jace. This is on you. Fuck you. I’m done.” He pushed Jace’s head into the wall because there was all this rage in him about thinking of Kate in that room, that box of shit in his garage. Doyle slammed his fist in the mouth that had made them all wealthy. He felt a tooth cut into a knuckle as blood splattered. He let Jace fall to the floor, bleeding and still trying to get his breath back.
 

Calmly, Doyle walked over to where his phone had been dropped and with the others looking from him to Jace then at each other in an awkward silence, he walked out.

He didn’t look back.

****

“You’re fucking him.”

The statement was as unexpected as the voice. Looking up from the collection of sketches and photos spread over her bed of her final school project, which centered around the violin necklace, Kate stared blankly at the man standing in her doorway. If asked out of all the people she knew, who she least expected to show up at her small, over-crowded apartment, Jace wouldn’t even be on the shortlist.

There was faint bruising under his eyes and his lip was swollen from Doyle’s fist. Eyes like hers glared at her.

It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer. Mostly because shock had robbed her of her voice. Shock because he knew where she lived.

He stood before her as if he had any right to judge her. She loved him. The little girl inside her would always love him, would always crave his love and approval, even though, as an adult, she knew that was never going to happen. She also hated him. With the same intensity of that scared and needy little girl, she hated him. For constantly letting her down and for breaking her heart.
 

He would never win father of the year, would never even be nominated. So by what right did he have to come into her home, such that it was, and say anything to her?

Kate let all her thoughts swirl around and settle as she looked at Jace. In the ten years she had lived in his home, he had changed. A lifetime of drinking and drugs was starting to take their toll and the good looks that had been there in his thirties were starting to look brittle, making him appear older than he was. Time and life were making their presence known. She knew that she would always see that golden bad boy Mom had loved so much, that face in the photos that had lined the walls of her safe spots. Not that he had never done anything to make her feel safe. Jace Jennings was a mirage. A shimmery image in the distance that a lonely and scared child clung to, and when she got closer, Kate realized there was nothing there.

“How old am I?” Her question made him blink. “When’s my birthday? What’s my middle name?” He simply stood there.

“What does that matter? You’re fucking Doyle and I want you to stop before you ruin everything even more.”

The words hurt in a way that they shouldn’t. That’s how he saw her? As something that had ruined his life. Well, he had ruined hers too. “It matters a lot and your answers will determine the outcome of this conversation.” They were having a conversation. Probably their first one ever. He glared at her, like a sulky teenager who was giving the silent treatment because he didn’t have the answers.

“I’m twenty-four. January third. My middle name is Jace. The last name on my birth certificate is Jennings, for the record. That was the name she gave me: Kate Jace Jennings. You know nothing about me.” She looked down at her sketches, embracing the hurt that statement left her with. She heard Doyle’s voice in her head, telling her to take it in, hold it, because that’s what he made her do when something hurt or felt really good. Take the hurt, feel it, learn it.

Now let it go.

Lifting her lashes, she looked at her father. She never called him that. She would never call him that. He was and always would be Jace. He was just a guy, one wearing bruises Doyle had put on him. Because of her, because Jace had failed her. Jace had hurt her. Just a guy. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. You don’t get to storm into my home and tell me who I can or cannot be involved with because he got tired of your bullshit. That’s all you are — bullshit.” She sat up a little straighter, feeling like something heavy just fell off her back. “Do you really think if I’m not involved with Doyle he’ll come back? That he’ll forgive you for being a shitty co-worker and even less of a friend? You slept with his wife. Not because you loved her or even because you liked her. You fucked her because you could. You didn’t want me. You never wanted me. I bet it was Charles who said you had to step up after the social worker contacted you, because it was like that Christmas spread right? Good PR. Legally you’re my father. Genetically you’re my father. But that’s it. You’re not my dad so you don’t get to come in here and suddenly tell me what to do. I’m twenty-four, that makes me an adult, and I can fuck whomever I want. This isn’t even about me and Doyle. This is about you. That’s the problem. It’s always been about you.”

Kate’s heart felt like it was being squeezed as she looked at Jace. Damn, but she wanted him to still be a dad to her. To just once be the father of her childhood dreams.
 

Take the hurt, hold it. Let it go.
 

“But it’s not. It should also be about me.” She flattened her hand over the spot that hurt, that felt tight and empty. It would always feel tight and hollow because that’s the spot that he should’ve been in, he should’ve filled. It was a small spot though. She could live with a tiny, hollow piece because those bruises on his face let her know she wasn’t alone. He wasn’t everything. She didn’t need him.

Just his name. She already had that. She let go.

“You need to go.” Dismissing him, she turned her attention back down to her bed, to her dream. It wasn’t even a dream, was it? A dream was something intangible. The shimmery image in the distance. Only when she was close, this was real. Not like the oasis that was Jace. This wasn’t the pot at the end of the rainbow. This
was
the rainbow.

She heard his voice in the hallway but she didn’t listen. Probably talking to one of her roommates that he was going to go fuck, because that’s what he did. Grasped at whoever loved him for a moment, because that was easier than Kate. Being wanted he could handle, being needed he couldn’t. And...

She didn’t need him anymore.

Her vision blurred for a minute as that realization hit.

Not because she needed Doyle. She didn’t need him either, because she had Kate.

“Huh,” she said softly in the solitude of her bedroom. Reaching for her cell, she sent a quick text to Doyle:
I may or may not have told Jace off.

A soft chime followed and she looked up with the same sense of surprise as when she had found Jace standing there. Unlike that moment, he was utterly welcome. She smiled as Doyle leaned one tattooed shoulder against the doorframe, the relaxed pose of a bad ass. He typed onto his phone and the response showed up on hers.
You did.

“So, I don’t get to hit him again?”
 

Kate grinned at his question because he looked like he wanted to take another swing at Jace. “You can if you want, but no, you don’t need to hit him again.”