Bones: Broken Bones MC by Leah Wilde Read Free Book Online

most of the time, but I still didn’t want him to end up in a dumpster like that man.
     
    I disappeared into the kitchen just as the door to Daddy’s office swung open. The click of footsteps retreated down the hall towards the front. A jingle of bells indicated that the man had left.
     
    On my way back upstairs with a plate of food, I saw that the light in Daddy’s office was still on. As I passed by, I snuck in a glance. His head was buried in his hands. He looked like the saddest man on earth.
     
    # # #
     
    I was on high alert for the next few weeks, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. No more bodies in the dumpster and no more late-night appearances from the Capparellis. The only change was that Daddy didn’t let me go outside anymore. It was like the body had never existed. I wanted to ask him about it, but if Daddy knew I was snooping on his private conversations, he’d throw a fit. It was better just to keep silent and mind my own business.
     
    It was late Friday night. The dinner rush had long since subsided, and I’d finally gotten permission to flip the sign on the front door to Closed. Normally, Daddy would have calmed down a notch, but he’d been on edge ever since the dumpster incident. I didn’t know it was possible for him to be any angrier, but he managed to find a way. Every tiny slip-up drew a reprimand from him. A dropped dish meant a full fifteen minutes spent with his furnace on full blast, screaming in my face, telling me what a waste I was and that I was killing him all by myself. I was more careful than ever.
     
    I wiped down the tables, flipped the chairs on top, and started mopping the floor to soak up all the spilled food from the evening. I was lost in my own world, humming quietly, when I pirouetted and swung the mop around to move to the next section of floor.
     
    On my spin, I let the mop head drift just a few inches too high. I saw what was coming, but I couldn’t react quick enough to stop it. The mop struck an upturned chair where it hung from one of the tables. The force of my spin sent it clattering into the one next to it. Together, their combined weight tipped over the table, which struck the next one over, and on and on again, until a dozen tables knocked into each other and went tumbling to the ground like dominos.
     
    The sound of wood breaking erupted throughout the quiet restaurant. I stood frozen in fear, mop in hand and splintered furniture around me on all sides, when Daddy stormed in. One look at the scene and his face went taut with fury.
     
    “Daddy, it was an accident—” The slap of his hand across my face cut me off mid-sentence. Blistering pain shot through my jaw. I dropped the mop and ran to the kitchen.
     
    He’d never hit me before. In all these years, he’d thrown every curse word in the book at me; he’d ranted and raved and belittled me; but he’d never hit me. It felt like a huge, thick line had been crossed, like we’d gathered up a crucial bit of momentum that would send us tumbling down into an even worse life faster than we’d ever gone before. Rock bottom had never looked closer.
     
    My skin was on fire where he had struck me and a deep ache was starting to settle into my jaw. The lights were blurry and dizzy through my teary eyes, but I didn’t stop moving until I had run all the way through the kitchen and onto the back stoop. Only then did I fall to a seat and let the tears flow freely.
     
    He hit me. Daddy had hit me. That was all I could think about, all I could feel as I sobbed on the back steps.
     
    After a while, though, the tears just stopped. There was nothing left in me to feel sad. I’d cried out the last bit of me that felt anything, or at least that was what it seemed like. All that was left was a numbness that looked like it stretched forever. Maybe even the rest of my life.
     
    “Why are you crying?” came a sudden voice.
     
    I jerked my head up from where it lay in my arms. A boy stood in front of me.