Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cash
“Ghost, could you please ask Melissa to join us?” Sam had her arm around Rose as tears streamed down her face. Her face told me everything she was feeling.
Scared.
Overwhelmed.
Excited.
Her eyes darted between me and Mimic. When I saw her walk across the room and stop in front of him, I was confused. But when she reached up and touched his face, rage overtook me.
I’d be damned if I let another fucking brother have a relationship with my woman.
Then she told me who he was.
All the fight drained from me. He was her brother. Her twin brother.
We knew when Mimic joined the club, he wasn’t who he said he was. But we let it go. King said he saw something in the kid and wanted to give him a chance.
“We don’t need Dr. Jefferson,” Rose insisted. The fear on her face was killing me. I walked over, and Sam shook her head.
“No, Cash, sit over there.” She pointed to my seat. “And Mimic will sit there,” she declared, pointing to a chair on the other side of the table.
Rosie scratched at her leg and looked at me with panic in her eyes, and I remembered what she said to me.
‘Everything is quiet when you’re around.’
“No, Sam. Rose is sitting with me.” I pulled her against me and I felt her body melt into mine. Her shaky inhale pulled at my heart. Sitting in the nearest chair, I pulled her down on my lap. “I’ve got you, baby.” I kissed the side of her head.
Her sniffles would fucking break me. I rubbed her back. Mimic sat in the chair next to me and glared. His eyes were hard and menacing. His hands fisted on the table, but when he cut his eyes to his sister, they softened.
“Mimic, honey. Can you sit over there?” Sam asked.
“No, Momma.”
Rosie’s head snapped up as she looked at Sam, then her brother. The question clear. “You call her Momma?” The hurt in her voice was unmistakable, and I held her tighter.
Mimic nodded, and then his eyes went to the table. Sam sat next to him as the others filtered into the room. Mellie sat next to Ghost and watched us without a word.
“Someone tell me what the fuck is going on.” King glared at Sam. Jack stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
“I met Kytten last Sunday at the brunch. When we invited her to the party and said it was Mimic’s birthday, her eyes got wide and bright and she asked how old he was. When I said he was twenty-three, I could see her heart sink. And that was when I knew.”
“Knew what, Sammy?” Jack asked, leaning over to look at his old lady.
She reached over and took Mimic’s hand. “That Kytten was the twin sister he had been searching for. They have the same eyes,” she said with a smile as she looked at Rose.
“Kytten, how old are you?” King asked.
She looked at her brother and then bit her lip. She was smart. And I knew she had figured out he lied to us when she lied to King and said, “Twenty-three.”
I shook my head at her. “Baby don’t lie to my president. She’s twenty-one, King. Or are you twenty-two? Since your birthday is also today?”
“Twenty-one,” she said as a tear slipped down her cheek. I respected her desire to protect her brother.
“So, Mimic lied,” King said, leaning back, his gaze focused on our youngest brother. Mimic didn’t say a word. He was stubborn as fuck and his attitude most days sucked. But he was loyal to a fault.
“King—”
“Absolutely not, Sam. You cannot protect him from this.”
“We knew he lied, King,” I argued.
Mimic’s head snapped up and he looked at me. “You did?”
“Cash, son of a bitch,” King cursed and slammed his hand on the table.
“Yea, kid.” Rosie stiffened in my arms at the phrase that I used without thinking. I leaned closer to her ear and muttered, “Knock that shit off,” then I kissed her cheek.
“What are your real names?” King asked.
When Mimic stayed quiet, I nudged Rosie. “Thorne and Rosebud Peterson.”
“Rosebud,” Mimic hissed.
“I can’t lie to him, Thorne,” she clipped back.
“Where are your parents?” King asked.
The rest of us waited, and no one made a sound when Mimic finally answered, “No fucking clue. Our dad was never around and our mother took off and left us.”
“She had to,” Rosie argued. “She was protecting us.”
“Bullshit.”
“Mimic,” Sam barked. “We talked about this.”
“Fuck!” Nav groaned.
“What?” I asked carefully. What I saw on Nav’s face had me dreading the answer.
“Mimic, do you know who your father is?” When Mimic shook his head, Nav asked, “Do you know his name?”
“No. Our mother never told us.”
Rosie reached for her brother’s hand and he scooted closer to her.
“King, we have a problem,” Nav said, closing his laptop.
“Of course we fucking do. Who is their father?”
Nav was silent as he looked between Mimic and King. He shook his head, letting us know he wouldn’t tell us with them in the room.
“Zach, don’t do that,” Mellie chimed in. “Do not keep information from them.”
Mellie was Ghost’s old lady and Gunner’s baby sister. She went to college and was a board-certified child psychologist. I wondered why Sam asked her to come in and not Haizley. Then I remembered what Rose had told me about Valhalla finding her behind a dumpster when she was eleven.
Sam knew Mimic’s story. She must have known they were on their own as children.
“This has repercussions. There are things we have to discuss before we can tell them.”
Mimic looked at Nav. “I don’t care who he was. He was no better than her.”
“Thorne, stop,” Rosie cried. “She was protecting us.”
“She wasn’t!” He slammed his hands on the table and stood.
Sam stood with him, only slower. “Mimic, honey. Why don’t we go somewhere and talk? Kytten can come with us. And Melissa. If you don’t want to know, you don’t have to. But your sister is here and you’ve been looking for her for a long time.”
Mimic looked at Rosie, then back at Sam. He nodded and held out his hand to Rose. She turned to look at me with fear. “I can’t do this without you,” she whispered.
“You can. I have to stay here and find out what’s going on. This is your brother. Don’t you want to know what happened?”
“I do.” She clutched her hands on my cut. “But I want you to come with me.” I looked around the room and when my eyes landed on King, he shook his head.
“Baby, I have to stay.” I kissed her forehead and told her, “You’ve got this. I’ll come find you as soon as we’re done.”
“I can stay here. This is about us. Dr. Jefferson is right. We should know.” She was talking fast, and I didn’t understand what she was afraid of. “Tell me what’s going on.” She looked at her brother. “I-I’m scared.”
I cradled her face in my hands and kissed her mouth. Deepening the kiss with my tongue, I didn’t give a shit who was watching. When I pulled back, I said, “Pull those claws out, Kytten. You can do this.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I can do this.” She took her brother’s hand, and he pulled her in for a hug.
“I’m here now, Rosebud. No one will ever cut the thorns away again.” Mimic glared at me as he ushered her out of the room. Punk ass kid might just get a beatdown after all.
When Mellie and Sam followed, and the door closed behind them, I turned to Nav. “Who the fuck is their father?”
Nav blew out a breath. “Justin Peterson, aka Shame.”
“SON OF A GODDAMN BITCH!” King shouted. “That’s it! No more old ladies! I’m fucking done.”
“In our defense, Prez, we seem to have more of a problem with long-lost relatives.” Jack snickered.
He was right. In the past year, since Beck moved back to town, there was her, who turned out to be Declan’s daughter he believed had never been born.
Then we had Charlie, the daughter Jack never knew about, not to mention his brother, Derek.
Then there was Ellie, Jingles’ sister he hadn’t had contact with since he left home.
King’s father, Braesal O’Malley, was the head of the Irish Mob in Boston.
And Mellie, Gunner’s sister, who he walked away from a decade ago.
And now Rose, Mimic’s sister we didn’t know he had. Well, Sam knew. But she hadn’t told anyone. Not even Jack. The only one who didn’t have any relatives showing up was Haizley. But she turned out to be Mellie’s best friend from college.
“That’s not all,” Nav said quietly, clearly afraid to set off King again.
“What else could there possibly be?” Colt asked.
“Justin Peterson is the grandson of Andrew Peterson.”
“Who the fuck is he?”
“He was one of the original seven founding members of the—”
“If you value your life, don’t fucking say it!” King ordered.
Nav shut his mouth. But Ghost wasn’t so quick on the draw sometimes. “Founding members of what?”
“The Golden Skulls,” I answered and sat back in my chair.
My woman was Golden.
We all knew how Reaper felt about his family.
“This does not leave this fucking room!” King ordered. “You do not tell Sypher. Not until I’ve had time to figure this shit out.”
“Montana will have to be notified,” Jingles pointed out. “When Shame died, the club absorbed his company. It should have gone to Mimic and Kytten.”
“Right now, that’s the least of our worries,” King whined.
“Rosie will want to know. Mimic might say he doesn’t, but something happened to their mother.”
“What do you know?” Gunner asked.
“Not much. She told me Valhalla found her on the street when she was eleven. Found her screaming behind a dumpster and killed the fucker trying to get to her.”
“Where was Mimic?” Blade asked.
“No idea.” I shrugged.
“Does Val know who she is?” Jack asked. I could only shrug again.
“I don’t think Sypher knows they exist,” Nav interjected.
“At least not both of them. He has a file on Shame; there’s a footnote with the mother’s name and that she was pregnant.
But no information on the baby. No information about what happened to the mother or why Shame wasn’t in their lives, either.
But there is no connection to Kytten, so either he left it out, Val didn’t tell him, or they don’t know Kytten is Rose. ”
“He knows her name is Rose. But that’s all I know.”
“This is a goddamn clusterfuck,” King mumbled. “As if we don’t have enough shit going on.” He turned his glare on me.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled.
“I should have fucking listened to Steele. I didn’t know what the fuck I was asking for when I demanded my own club.” He rubbed his hands over his face. His frustration was felt by all of us.
“Were in this together, Prez.” King looked over at Blade. He rarely called King Prez now that they knew they were related. But Blade for the most part was good at reading the room. The tension in King’s shoulders relaxed a smidge.
“I don’t know what the fucking call is here,” he admitted. “I know what the damn rules are, and if I call Reaper and Montana, I bring a ton of shit down on our club. If I don’t and they find out, I bring a ton of shit down on our club.”
He stood from his chair and paced. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
“We protect our people first and foremost. Mimic and Kytten belong to us,” Colt said.
“Mimic belongs to us,” Blade said. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Kytten belongs to the Nyght Nymphs.”
“Fuck you! She belongs to me.”
“Does she know that?” Gunner asked.
“More than Haizley did when you claimed her,” I snarked.
“Are you claiming her, brother?” King asked, folding his arms over his chest.