Page 5 of Diamond

Slumped low in my seat, I’m shocked at what I see.

Nash hollers into the house and heads to his truck. A few seconds later, a little girl runs out, a backpack in her hands. She couldn’t be more than six or seven, and she’s the spitting image of him.

I don’t stare because I’ve never seen a single dad before, clearly taking his little girl to school. I stare because she reminds me of my own daughter, Annalise, when she was that age. My beautiful baby, who was taken from me.

A lump forms in my throat as I watch them. My eyes glaze over, and my mind switches to a very dark time…

“Don’t take her! I’m begging you, she’s all I have!” I cry helplessly.

But Neil doesn’t care about me. He just wants to hurt me. The lies he’s told. That I’m unfit to be a mother, that I take drugs, that my child would be better off without me. It ripped me in two, but this? Full custody?

“You should’ve thought about that, Diamond, before you tried to leave.”

Annalise reaches for me, crying, but it’s no use. Several people hold me back as I drop to my knees, screaming, “Please! She’s my daughter!”

“This won’t look good for you, D,” he sneers. “Look at you, groveling on the ground like a peasant. Take a long, hard look because you’ll never see her again.”

If I’d had a gun close by, I would’ve shot the motherfucker, but all I wanted was my baby. She’s the only thing I got right…

I wipe a tear from my cheek. Six years. That’s how long it took to get my daughter back.

My friend, Bane—the Prez of the Ridgehaven Hellions in Mississippi—helped me. We go way back and had a brief fling, but we were always better off as friends. I wasn’t going to leave my club—and he sure as shit wasn’t going to leave his—but I owe him a debt that he waves off every time I bring it up. He saved me in a lot of ways. My daughter was a teenager by the time the custody arrangements were overturned. Bane dug up everything on that son of a bitch, shit even I didn’t know about, and the courts turned her over to me. We had a lot of making up to do. Annalise and I are good now, but the memories still sting. They’ll haunt me until my dying day, but with therapy and the love of my daughter, I slowly forgave myself.

After that moment, I vowed to never, ever let anyone dictate what I could or couldn’t do. I would never let a man have power over me. Those are hurdles I’m still crossing. While I might love a dominant male in the bedroom, I struggle with men of authority. Men like Neil, who was a lawyer. He abused that power with lies and friends in high places. It’s why I’m so untrusting of people I don’t know. You can count my real friends on one hand.

My club is all I have. My girls never let me down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a man-hater. I have some amazing men in my life, my pops for one, who lives not far from here. But after Neil? Something died inside me. A part of my heart broke that I fear will never grow back.

I trusted him. I fucking loved him. And that got me nowhere.

Nash folds his hand into the little girl’s, takes her backpack from her, and helps her into the truck. She says something, and he laughs. I stare, my eyes almost bugging out of my head. His smile? It’s not forced or sarcastic like it was toward me. And why would it? I was horrible to him.

He says something back and then ruffles her hair, her curls bouncing before he buckles the seatbelt and then closes the door. He stops for a second, his back stiffening, and I slide farther down in my seat, not wanting to be seen. His head turns, scanning the area around him. Surely Nash can’t be this fucking good. He has cop instincts, I get that.

Maybe I have underestimated him.

Maybe there’s more to Nash Calloway than meets the eye.

CHAPTER 4

NASH

“You’re shittin’ me?” I say to Duncan, doing a double take at the news. “Diamond’s place?”

This must mean she just got the news about her not-so-friendly neighbors buying up more land and now they want hers.

“Yep,” he says, a slight wince in his tone. “That’s sure to go down a treat.”

Bad news travels fast.

I run a hand over my face. “I’m gonna go see her before she commits bloody murder.”

“Probably a good idea.”

I stand, taking my coffee to-go. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Oh, Chief?” He insists on calling me that, even though I’ve corrected him several times.

I turn, grabbing my keys off the hook. “What is it?”