“You want to tell me what you’re doing here? And how the hell you found me?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I want to tell you everything I can, but can I first introduce you to your son. Isaac . . .”
“Venom,” I snap. Hearing my name on her lips does something to me, and I don’t like the way it feels. It’s as if my heart is trying to crack through the cement wall that’s around it.
“Pardon?” she asks in question. Her eyebrows are drawn together in confusion.
“You don’t call me Isaac, my name’s Venom.” There’s no way in hell I can handle this woman speaking my name when I never, not once, heard her say it but a handful of times when Emilia had been around.
Nodding, Amaya licks her lips and why the fuck my eyes zero in on those kissable lips I don’t know. “Venom, this is Lincoln Isaac Dawson. He’s the son I wrote to you about after you deployed, and he needs you to be his dad.”
Well, shit.
Chapter Eight
Amaya
If looks could kill, I would be dead on the floor right now. I don’t know what I expected but I never thought Venom would be hostile toward me.
This isn’t the same man I knew four years ago. No, this man is full-blown mean.
“What did you just say?” Venom sneers, his lip curling at the side. God, I hate the thought of not calling him Isaac, but I have no right to.
“I . . . um . . . Lincoln is your son,” I mutter.
“The part after that about you writing,” he demands.
“I wrote you letters every week. I didn’t know if . . . Emilia let you know about him. I didn’t think it fair of her when she told me she had no intention of calling you. I figured when you never responded to the letters you didn’t want anything to do with him. After you didn’t respond to the last letter I sent you with his picture, I stopped. Gave up on the idea you would want to know your son. I’m sorry I’m here now. But I’m his guardian and I felt it only right that you were given the chance to see him. He needs you more than he needs me,” I ramble, the last sentence near kills me to say as I fight back the tears. I refuse to cry in front of this man.
“You wrote those letters? Why not email me? Or I don’t know, call my commanding officer?’’ he growls. I mean he literally growls out the words like they were rumbling right from his chest.
Venom’s voice seems to have this power to make my body react. My stomach feels as if it has butterflies fluttering within it ready to bust through the skin. That or I need to throw up. My nerves are a wreck right now.
“Why don’t we move this to the living room? Have y’all eaten yet?” Whip asks kindly. I knew I couldn’t eat even if I wanted to. But Lincoln still needed dinner.
“Lincoln hasn’t had dinner yet. If you have lunch meat, he’ll enjoy a sandwich,” I offer.
“Fuck that, we’re ordering pizza,” Whip announces. I want to correct him on his language, but at this point, I’m scared out of my mind on what these two men are gonna do. “Let’s sit in the living room, I’ll order pizza while you answer questions.”
Great.
How in the world did I not think it would be as simple as showing up and saying, hey this is Isaac’s son will you please help me protect him?
But what am I protecting him from? I mean yes, his mother tried to drown him, and I took him to keep him safe. Then there’s the fact she pretty much threatened me. Yeah, I guess you could say I’m protecting him from his mother.
Nodding, I silently follow Whip into the living room. I don’t sense Venom’s sharp gaze on me as I walk in front of him. Soon as we’re in the living room, Lincoln releases my hand and climbs up on the big couch.
“Dino?” he asks, pointing at the TV.
“No, buddy, not right now,” I murmur with a slight shake of my head.
“What is it he wants to watch?” Venom asks, taking a spot near his son.
“Um, Dino Dan,” I whisper, casting my gaze to the floor.
“Sit down, Amaya, and start talking. Whip, see if you can find this show on TV for my kid,” Venom says. By the tone of his voice, he’s beyond pissed and trying to control it. I know this because I grew up in a home where my father sounded this way a majority of my life. I have the scars to prove you don’t not listen to a man when he’s in this type of mood.
I’d been nine years old when it happened. I went to do something for my mama and when I came back, he’d been ranting about a man being in the house. There wasn’t a man when I left. My dad turned on me and I ended up with bruises to last for days. My mama didn’t do anything but watch as this happened to me. Why? Because it took the mark off her back. She’d been cheating on my father and after that day she decided to continue doing so instead of leaving her husband.
This meant my beatings turned from a whipping with the belt to lashes with a switch. You won’t ever catch me in a tank top without my hair down to cover my back. And you definitely won’t ever catch me in shorts. My legs are where I took a lot of the switch lashes.
I never had a good life growing up. The role models I had were a cheating wife who left the abuse of the husband to her
