Chapter 3
Chapter three
Camryn
When I discovered Syd missing and all of the information on the Black Roses she’s obviously been keeping for me, I saw red. I knew she was heading for Shine.
Jesus, Sam, could you have picked a worse father for Sydney?
I know she showed up here sometime late last night or early this morning. God, I can only imagine what she walked in on. He better not have done or said anything to hurt her.
And don’t even get me started on how goddamned pissed I am at that sneaky little thirteen-year-old. I would have helped her find him, but instead, she somehow snuck out of my parents’ house and made her way to Massachusetts.
The entire car ride, I was going over what to say to her.
Her mom just passed in a car accident, and her grandparents want custody of her.
Why the hell would she run to the one person who has never wanted her?
Barrett never tried to reach out to my sister after my father told him she was pregnant and paid him to leave town.
Years have gone by since Sam found out she was pregnant.
He could have called, texted, or emailed her—hell, he could’ve sent a fucking carrier pigeon. Anything. But he didn’t.
After my conversation with my father last night, I’d thought long and hard about reaching out to Barrett myself. If there was a way to get custody of Syd, I was damn sure going to overturn every stone possible.
Since Barrett has never wanted her, I figured he’d have no problem signing custody over to me. I knew it would probably involve lawyers and paternity testing, which costs money, but I have savings. I’ll spend every last dime on whatever I have to so that Syd doesn’t grow up the way Sam and I did.
I was set. I had a plan. I was going to walk into the clubhouse and calmly talk to Barrett about why handing custody of Syd over to me was for the best. Why interrupt her school year?
She’s thriving in New York. She’s so smart she actually skipped a grade and started high school a year early.
Surely having a thirteen-year-old daughter living with him would be a huge upheaval that he couldn’t possibly want.
All I need is a little DNA sample and a signature, and we’ll be out of his hair for good.
My heart was pounding when I first pulled up to the gate.
I took several deep breaths in and out to calm myself.
The last thing I wanted to do today was face off with the man who abandoned my sister and his daughter.
Fourteen years may have passed, but I’m good at holding a grudge, and I’ll probably keep holding on to it until the day I die.
When a man in a vest with a prospect patch called me honey and insinuated I was some sort of one-night stand back for seconds with Barrett, I was done.
I fucking lost it.
All the calming exercises I’d practiced on the drive flew right out the window. The only thing I wanted was Sydney in this car and to leave Shine in the rearview.
Since the prospect wasn’t going to help me, I took matters into my own hands. Honking the car horn and yelling at the kid manning the gate may not have been my finest moment, but I’m so far past caring at this point.
When the man himself finally emerges from the building’s front door on the other side of this damned wrought-iron fence, I’m stunned for a moment.
Seeing Barrett for the first time in over a decade throws me for a loop I didn’t anticipate.
He looks nearly the same as the first time we met at Lake Titan.
Maybe a little broader in the shoulders, and his hair is a little shorter now, but he’s still handsome as hell.
And he wears that infuriatingly cocky grin that seems to be permanently plastered on his face.
Even through my bug-splattered windshield, I can tell that shameless grin is aimed at me as he casually strolls toward the gate.
That doesn’t work on me, asshole.
I get out of my car and slam the door shut. “Barrett O’Neil, you’d better bring my niece out here this second, or I’m ramming through that clubhouse of yours and finding her my damn self.” My threat isn’t empty, and I’m fully insured.
He nods toward the prospect, who presses something on the keypad, and the gate begins to slide open.
“Hey, pup. Been a long time,” he says as he approaches me, that fucking smile still on his punchable face.
I stalk toward him, anger radiating from me. That calm I managed on the drive to Shine is long since forgotten and won’t be making a reappearance anytime soon.
“Not long enough, asshole. And my name is Camryn.” My gaze travels to the prospect who dared to call me honey when he assumed I was just one of Barrett’s girls.
“Not sweetie or honey.” My icy stare returns to the man whose mere existence seems to enrage me.
“Definitely not pup. Camryn. Now, where the hell is Sydney?”
“Still think you call the shots, huh?” Barrett asks. Though his lips are tilted upward, his tone has a bite to it.
“When it comes to my niece, you bet your ass I do.” I place my hand on my hips and stare into his hazel eyes, completely unfazed by the gun he has in his hand. “Where is she, Barrett?”
“You mean my daughter, Camryn? She’s still sleeping. Looks like she had a long night of traveling to Massachusetts. How did she get here, by the way? Doesn’t seem like you’re taking very good care of her if you show up nearly eight hours after she strolled into my clubhouse.”
He slides the gun into the waist of his jeans behind his back and matches my cold glare.
“Oh, I’m the one who isn’t taking care of her? That’s fucking rich, coming from you,” I bite out. “Show me to her room, and I’ll be more than happy to get out of your hair.”
Movement at the front door catches my attention, and I see Sydney standing there with a sheepish look on her face. I march past Barrett and the other people standing around, straight up to Sydney. My arms wrap around her, and I hug her tightly to my body.
“You’re in so much trouble, but I’m so fucking happy you’re safe.” I pull away but keep a hold of her arms as I look her up and down. “You okay?”
Sydney nods and bites her bottom lip. “I’m really sorry, Aunt Camryn. I shouldn’t have run away.”
“What happened, Syd? I knew you wanted to find your father, but I would have helped you. We could have done it together. We should have done it together.”
“I snuck downstairs when you were in your dad’s office and heard what he said about keeping me in Connecticut.
I don’t know…I freaked out. I don’t want to stay with them.
” Tears well in her eyes, and my heart breaks for this poor girl who doesn’t think she has any say in what happens to her right after she lost her mom.
I pull her against my chest again and rub her back. “I’m figuring that out, Syd.” Though I’ll admit, my plan isn’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped. “Have you had breakfast?”
A throat clears behind Syd, and I look up to find a woman with long blonde hair and light-blue eyes standing just inside the clubhouse.
“Hi,” she says, offering me a smile and a small wave. “I’m Cece. I made some fresh turnovers and some sausage and eggs. I was just finishing up when…you got here.”
She means when I essentially stormed the gate.
“Sound good?” I ask Syd, and she nods against my chest. I look back at Cece. “Thank you.”
Cece tilts her head toward the interior of the clubhouse.
This is my first time ever walking inside a place where outlaw bikers live.
I have to say, it’s not as bad as I was imagining on my drive over here.
The place is clean and smells like a breakfast buffet.
Not the stinky, stale alcohol and cigarettes I was expecting.
The floors are swept, and the only thing on the bar top straight ahead is a couple of mugs.
There aren’t any half-naked women running around, and there’s no blaring music coming from the speakers.
To my right are tables filled with food, and to my left are a couple of large couches in front of a TV hanging on the wall.
Beyond that is a pool table, with a couple of tall cocktail tables around the perimeter and some stools. All in all, it isn’t what I expected.
A woman who looks to be a few months pregnant walks past me and around to the other side of the bar. “Coffee?” she asks, holding up a pot.
“Please,” I tell her, and she pours some in a mug, setting it on the bar. “I’m Lucy. Jude’s old lady.” Lucy scrunches her nose. “I actually don’t like that term.”
“What would you prefer to be called, Lucifer?” The man—who I’m assuming is Jude—leans down and kisses her cheek. “The bane of my existence?”
Lucy smiles sweetly, but there’s an edge in her eyes. “It would be more accurate. I’m not old.”
“And you’re not a lady,” he quips and plants a kiss on her mouth before she can respond, then bends and kisses her protruding stomach.
“How’s the spawn today?”
“Ready for cinnamon rolls,” Lucy says.
“They’re about to come out of the oven,” Cece tells her sister from under the arm of a tall man. “This is Cash, and that’s Charlie and Linc,” Cece introduces, pointing to the couple emerging from the hallway.
“Good morning, Sydney,” Charlie says, offering my niece a smile.
“About time you two rolled out of bed. You missed all the excitement. This one”—Lucy nods toward me—”drove up here like a bat out of hell and threatened to bust down the gate if Barrett didn’t open up and bring Sydney out.
” She looks over to Sydney. “I take it you weren’t exactly on the up-and-up when you told us your aunt knew you were here. ”
“You believed her?” I ask Lucy.
Pretty sure I’d be suspicious if a kid showed up somewhere in the middle of the night and told the adults that the person in charge of her knew about it.
Lucy laughs and shakes her head. “Hell no. I can spot a runaway from a mile away, and she screamed snuck out in the dead of night. Not that I was going to tell her that and chance that she was going to take off on us, too.”