Chapter Fifty-Eight
Grace
I walked out of church numb. Running down the hall, I heard people calling out to me, but their voices were too far away. It was as if I were in a tunnel and they were all at one end. I couldn’t stop moving. If I stopped moving, I would have to think, and I didn’t want to think.
Pregnant!
I made my way outside and just walked. Brothers patrolled the grounds, but no one bothered me. There were acres of land, and I walked in circles. How could he ask me to wait?
What if the baby wasn’t his? Even just a few weeks of knowing I might have that monster’s baby inside me. Or worse, one of the others.
I bent over and grabbed my knees. I couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down my face. What was I going to do? How would I ever get past this? Knowing my body betrayed me.
“Grace.” I felt her hand on my back as I sobbed. “I think it’s time we talked about what happened.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then listen.”
I stood up and glared at Karlyn. “I know you hate me. I get it. After what I told you, and then dragging you out of the clubhouse, and then...”
I turned away. I couldn’t even look her in the eye without feeling guilty. It was my fault. And now I was paying for it.
“I was sixteen the first time I was gang-raped.”
Her confession made me spin around so fast I almost lost my balance. I struggled to stay upright as I thought about what she must have gone through.
“I was coming out of dance class when they grabbed me. I didn’t know who they were at first. My parents sheltered me as a child, used me as a pawn for my father’s political career.
When I was kidnapped, I thought it was one of my father’s rivals, maybe another candidate who wanted leverage.
Politicians are just gangsters in suits.
But it wasn’t one of them. It was far worse.
What I didn’t know was my mother was sleeping with the president of the Satan’s Angels. ”
I gasped. That was the club my father said he could take his place in.
The club that bought Banshee’s sister and nieces.
The club that killed her and sold off her daughter.
How much more would Karlyn and Jackson hate me if they knew I was related to the man who started her torment? I stayed quiet as Karlyn continued.
“I was gone for two days when Momma entered the room I was being held in. I’d never been so happy to see her in my life.
She was my lifeline, the one person I thought would truly fight for me.
But I was wrong. Afterward,” she whispered, “Momma told me I did my Christian duty. That, if God willed it, I would get pregnant. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”
My knees gave out beneath me, and I sank to the ground. I still couldn’t speak. What could I possibly say to her?
“What did you do?” I asked, my voice cutting out on a hiccup.
“I had the baby.”
I looked up at her. “How?”
Karlyn shrugged. “I wasn’t given a choice. My parents wouldn’t let me have an abortion. I was only sixteen, so they made the choice for me. They sent me away until I gave birth.”
“Where is the baby?”
Karlyn took a deep breath and looked out over the landscape. It was like she disappeared somewhere. Her voice was calm; there was no emotion as she spoke of the child she gave birth to.
“My brother and his wife are raising her.”
“You gave her up,” I said. There was no judgment in my voice. In fact, there was respect. I admired Karlyn for what she did. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t carry the child of someone who so brutally assaulted me. Who took so much from me and left me with a daily reminder.
Taking a deep breath, she muttered, “I tried to kill her.”
I blinked up at Karlyn.
“Before she was born. I tried to kill her. She disappeared when she was born. I assumed my parents had done something with her. Adopted her out themselves. Then, Steele found me again. That was the second time; only, he’d planned for it to be the last. They beat me and left me for dead, but Jackson found me and brought me home.
I was in a coma for almost a year. When I woke up, my brother had her.
I don’t know exactly how he found her; I didn’t ask.
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want her. I can’t even look at her. I hate her.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered, afraid to say it out loud. “Kytten found out when she did my bloodwork.”
“I’ll help you,” she said. “If you want to get an abortion, I’ll go with you. I’ll hold your hand and do for you what no one did for me. You don’t have to have this baby, Grace.”
“King wants me to wait a few weeks before I decide.”
“Why?”
I looked up at Karlyn, tears in my eyes, and said, “There’s a chance it might be his. We were together the night before.”
Karlyn sat down next to me. She put her arm around my shoulders and let me cry. We sat there for what felt like hours, neither of us speaking. The only sound between us were my sobs.
“Do you want to have his child?” she asked.
I sniffed and nodded my head. “More than anything.”
“How long would you have to wait?”
“Kytten said paternity can be proven at seven weeks.”
“So, a little over a month. You would still be early enough to have an abortion. Though it will be hard emotionally.”
“You think I should wait?”
Karlyn shook her head. “I don’t think anything.
It’s not my decision or even something I can give an opinion on.
But ask yourself if you can live with not knowing.
Five weeks isn’t a long time if you have a lifetime with a child you want.
But it might feel like an eternity of wasted time if you don’t get the result you’re hoping for. ”
“You’re not really helping me figure this out, you know.” I huffed out a chuckle as I wiped the tears from my cheeks.
“I know. I would have immediately had an abortion if I could. But I didn’t have a boyfriend who could have been the father. So, while I understand where you are regarding what happened in that shack. I don’t have any experience with the decision you have to make.”
“But you and Jackson are together now, and...” I let my words trail off. I didn’t know for sure if she’d experienced what I did. She didn’t seem as though she was affected the same way I was.
“I’m on birth control. I have been since I woke up.
It might seem like I’m tougher than you, Grace, but I’m not.
Not really. This wasn’t the first time; hell, it wasn’t even the second.
There comes a point when you just shut down to trauma.
When your mind and body have dealt with more than they should, everything shuts down to protect you. ”
The volume of her words lowered as she finished speaking, letting me know she wasn’t as unaffected as I thought she was.
“It feels so far away,” I whispered as I tore at the grass beneath me.
“My advice.” I looked over at her, desperate for her to tell me what to do.
For someone to take the decision out of my hands so I could plead ignorance.
“Talk it out with King. Hear his reasons for wanting you to wait and tell him about your concerns with waiting. The world talks about the decision being the woman’s and hers alone, and in most cases, I agree.
But you and King love each other. You’re committed to each other.
If there is a chance this baby is wanted, wouldn’t five weeks be worth the wait? ”
“Thank you, Karlyn. I know after what I told you—”
“I talked to King.” She chuckled when my eyes went wide. She’d been so quiet since she'd gotten here. At least around the men. Now I understood why. “He told me he forgave you.”
That was what he told me too, but I still had trouble believing it. I wasn’t as strong as everyone believed. I was loud, and brash, and the men thought of me as a ballbuster, but it was all fake. A defense mechanism to protect myself from being hurt.
“And Jackson?” I asked, knowing that it would kill me to come between King and his brother. I’d leave Diamond Creek before I allowed myself to be the reason his brother rejected him.
“It’s none of Jackson’s business. It was none of mine either, but without knowing my history, you wanted me to trust Jackson’s family. That said more to me about who you are as a person.”
“I almost ruined his life, and Steele wasn’t even my father.”
I wanted to blame my mother. I wanted to put the responsibility on her secrets and her lies. But I was the one who made the decision. King told me he understood why I wanted to do it. That only made me feel worse. He said he’d forgiven me and urged me to forgive myself.
That was the hardest thing for me to do. Forgive myself when I fucked up. Taking responsibility was easy. Begging others to forgive me was simple. But letting myself off the hook wasn’t something I could do.
“What about the man who is your father? How do you feel about him?”
I smiled big as I thought about Uncle Stephen. “I’ve always loved him. And wished he were my father. I don’t know why my mother lied, and I can’t ever ask her. But at least I have him now.”
Getting to my feet and helping her up, I said, “Come on, Jackson’s going to send out a search party if we don’t get back.”
“He’s been watching us since I came out here,” she whispered.
I looked around us, there were no trees to hide behind, but I couldn’t see him. “Where?”
“You’ll never find him unless he wants to be found,” she explained.
We made our way back inside, and I went up to our room. I took a shower, changed into one of King’s T-shirts, and waited for him. Cash told me he rode off but had word he was on his way back.
I fell asleep waiting but knew it was him as soon as I felt the bed dip and his arms reach around me.
“I love you, Grace. I’ll accept whatever you decide.”
“I want to wait.”
“You do?” The surprise in his voice broke my heart, and I realized how much he would be affected by my decision. I turned around in his arms and touched his face.
“I am choosing to believe that this baby is ours until we know for sure. If it’s not, then...”
“If it’s not, and you wanted to keep him, he would still be ours, Grace. I would love that baby the same as if he had my DNA.”
“I can’t have a baby that isn’t yours, King. This might make me a bad person, but I’m not strong enough to look at a child every day and be reminded of the worst day of my life.”
“That doesn’t make you a bad person, Grace.
It makes you human. But let me ask you, will looking at our baby be the same reminder?
Will you always see him or her and remember the hell you went through?
Because I don’t want that for you, baby.
I’d rather let our child go than have you live a lifetime of pain. ”
“Our baby would be a reminder that our love was stronger than anything else I went through. I would look at them every day and remember that we made them, no one else. That they were the very best parts of you and me.”
“I fucking love you, Grace.”
“I love you too, King. Forever.”