Black Dagger (Mad Jackals Brotherhood MC Book 1) Read Free Page A

not just of the dead, but of what she and Ray had – or at least what she thought they’d had. It took a long time for her to make peace with the fact that Ray’s pledge to return, to come back to her, had been nothing more than a childhood promise, one that she should never have expected him to keep.
     
    “You’re thinking too much, Mia. Time to go to work.” She gives herself a quick once over in the rear-view mirror, her waterproof mascara is still in place and, apart from a little redness around her eyes, she looks much as she had when she left the house this morning. As she marches up to the entrance of the shelter her cell rings and she is about to let it ring out when she reasons with herself that it could be an emergency.
     
    “Dad, is everything all right?” She wedges the cell between her shoulder and her ear so she can type in the code for the door. The shelter had recently improved its security – it had to, the women that come here wouldn’t have stayed if it were any other way. They were all running away from something – an abusive boyfriend, father, husband, an addiction, a life of prostitution. Whatever it was, they were here because they’d decided to get their life back together and the first step was for them to feel protected from the outside world, from whatever they were escaping from.
     
    “Everything’s fine, mi niña. Can’t a father call his daughter without something being the matter?” His voice settles Mia’s nerves in a way that nothing else can.
     
    “Sorry, Pops, I’m just late for work.” She bites her cheek in punishment for rushing her dad off of the phone. He’d only been out of hospital for a couple of months after his last health scare – that’s what a lifetime of smoking like a chimney got you.
     
    “I won’t keep you, Mia. I just thought I’d see how you were doing. I know today is usually hard for you.” He coughed loudly and Mia wondered if it was to cover the sadness that had crept into his voice.
     
    Of course he would have been worried about her, Mia thinks to herself. Today was the anniversary of her mother’s death – well, her suicide. She’d been gone for twelve years today. Eli had forgotten and instead picked a fight with her. It wasn’t his fault, she reasons to herself – he has a lot going on, he can’t expect to keep track of every little thing in her life. He’s the one that always remembers their anniversaries, the one that gets her expensive gifts for her birthday; she can’t fault him for one little mistake.
     
    “Mia?” Her father’s voice reminds her that she’s been off in her own world and hasn’t responded to his question.
     
    “I’m fine, Pops, honestly; estoy bien. Don’t worry. To be honest, I hadn’t even really been thinking about it.” As the words are out of her mouth she realizes that they are true. Her thoughts had been carried away with Eli and memories of Ray; it was only when she’d first woken up that morning and the image of her mother the day she found her in the bathroom filled her mind. There had been so much blood.
     
    “Mia?” Her father’s voice is concerned and she realizes she’s missed whatever it was he’d just asked her.
     
    “Sorry, Pops, the reception here is really bad.” She bites her lip hard, in punishment for lying to him.
     
    “All right, you’re busy, I’ll let you go.” He sighs heavily as if he knows there’s something wrong.
     
    “Love you, Pops. I’ll come by the house soon.” No matter how close she and her father are, Mia knows spending time with him is always a pleasure/pain experience. She looks so much like her mother with her dark curly hair and big, dark eyes that, sometimes, it’s hard for him to look at her without seeing the woman he loved and lost.
     
    Mia heads towards Reception as she ends the call, plastering a smile on her face as best she can before Cassie pops her blonde head up from behind the desk.
     
    “You’ve been crying.”