Chapter Thirty-Three
Derek
The words hit me like a physical blow.
My chest tightened. My lungs forgot how to work. The world narrowed to just her face—those beautiful eyes filling with tears, her expression shifting from confusion to devastating clarity.
She knew.
“You’re Frankie’s biological father.” Her voice was rising now, each word a knife twisting deeper. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Hot, angry tears that I’d put there. “You’re her father.”
Every instinct screamed at me to reach for her, to pull her close, to make this better somehow. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Could only watch as everything I’d feared came crashing down around me.
“Yes.” The word scraped out of my throat, quiet and final.
She shook her head as if she were trying to clear the confusion my words had created. “But her mother’s name—”
“You’re her mother, Kat.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “The woman who gave birth to my daughter wasn’t named Carrie.”
“No, her name was Marsha. Marsha Wade.”
She stood up fast, her hands shaking. Her whole body was vibrating now. “How long have you known?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The moment I’d been dreading since the day I walked into her house and saw Frankie’s face. “Since the day I came here to fix the sink. I recognized her immediately.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Her voice cracked, and the sound of it nearly broke me. “You didn’t think I had a right to know?”
Guilt crashed over me in waves. She was right. She was absolutely fucking right, and I had no defense. “I was afraid. There was never the right time—”
“The right time?” She laughed, bitter and harsh, and I flinched at the sound. “When would that have been, Derek? Before or after you fucked me in Jack’s office?”
Each accusation landed like a punch. My hands clenched at my sides. The shame was suffocating, crushing my chest until I could barely draw breath. I stood slowly, carefully, keeping my movements controlled even as my pulse roared in my ears. “I know I should have told you sooner.”
“You think?” She was yelling now, and I deserved every word. Deserved her rage, her pain, her fury. “You let me believe... you let me think...”
She couldn’t finish, and watching her struggle with the betrayal was worse than any physical pain I’d ever endured. This was my fault. All of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, the words pathetically inadequate.
“Sorry?” She stepped closer, her hands clenched into fists. My body tensed instinctively, but not in defense, in preparation to take whatever she needed to give. “You’re sorry? You lied to me. You manipulated me. You—”
“I never lied to you.” The words came out before I could stop them, and I immediately regretted it. Technically true meant nothing when the damage was this deep.
“You didn’t tell me the truth!” She was in my face now, close enough that I could see the tears clinging to her lashes, the fury and hurt blazing in her eyes. “That’s the same fucking thing!”
She was right. God, she was right. My jaw clenched as I fought to keep my voice steady, to stay calm when everything inside me was screaming. “You’re right.”
“Don’t do that,” she snapped. “Don’t just agree with me. Fight back. Yell at me. Show me who you really are.”
The challenge in her voice cut deep. She wanted me to lose control. Wanted proof that I was the monster she feared. And fuck, part of me wanted to give it to her, wanted to rage and break things and let all this pain and guilt explode outward instead of crushing me from the inside.
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“I am showing you who I am,” I said, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat. “I’m showing you that I can take your anger without losing control. That I can stand here and let you rage at me without hitting back.”
“I don’t believe you.” She shoved my chest, hard.
The impact barely moved me, but the contact sent electricity through my body. Not desire, something raw. The desperate need to hold her, to fix this, to make her understand. But I kept my hands at my sides, kept my breathing steady even as my heart threatened to break through my ribs.
“You want me to believe you?” Her voice rose, sharp and cutting. “You want me to trust you when you’ve been lying to me from the moment you walked into my house? When you looked at my daughter, your daughter, and said nothing?”
The words hit like physical blows—harder than any I’d ever landed.
I’d beaten Richard until his face was unrecognizable, felt bones break beneath my fists.
Watched Zero’s blood splatter across the clubhouse floor.
I knew violence. Knew the satisfying crack of knuckles against flesh, the way a body crumpled under enough force.
But this, her words, her pain, her fury, cut deeper than any punch I’d ever thrown.
Each accusation landed with precision, finding every vulnerable place inside me and tearing it open.
I’d take a hundred beatings, let every man I’d ever fought have their revenge on my body, if it meant not feeling this.
The physical damage I could handle. I’d been handling it my whole life.
But this devastation, this emotional annihilation from the woman I loved, this was the kind of pain that didn’t heal.
I forced myself to stay still, to keep my breathing even, even as everything inside me shattered.
“Every single day,” she continued, her voice breaking with fury and pain. “Every single conversation. Every time you looked at her, touched her, talked to her. You knew. You knew and said nothing.”
“I was trying to find the right—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand, her whole body shaking. “Don’t you dare tell me you were waiting for the right time. There is no right time to tell a mother that you’re her child’s biological father. You tell her immediately. You tell her the second you realize it.”
My throat tightened. She was right. Completely, devastatingly right.
“Does everybody know?”
“Haizley’s the only person I told because she’s my therapist. She’s been helping me work through everything.”
“And she didn’t suggest you tell me?”
I closed my eyes against her question. It felt more like an accusation, because Haizley did warn me. In fact, she’d urged me to tell them both the truth.
“You’re such a coward. Who else did you tell?” she demanded. “Did Zero know?”
My eyes snapped open; anger that his name came from her mouth boiled inside me. My hands landed on my hips as I took a deep cleansing breath, the way Haizley taught me to do when I needed to calm the beast inside me.
“No, he didn’t know. I confessed to Jack, in front of Gunner, when they pulled me off Richard so I wouldn’t fucking kill him for hurting my daughter.
For hurting you,” I spat out, then blew out my anger with a harsh breath.
“But Jack already knew. He and Sam where the ones who hired Slyce to find you.”
“Slyce,” she whispered. “She refused to tell me who hired her. I thought it might be Frankie’s moth—wait, you killed her. You killed Frankie’s mother.”
I took a step closer to her, letting her hear the anger in my voice. “You are Frankie’s mother. Not Marsha. Call her the woman who gave birth to her, call her a fucking surrogate, but don’t ever call her Frankie’s mother. A mother doesn’t hurt her child.”
She stared at me, tears in her eyes, but there was something else. Something I wanted to call acceptance, bordering on love. Something I wanted to hope for. She shook her head and turned away.
“I trusted you,” she said, tears streaming down her face now. “I let you into our lives. Let Frankie get attached to you. And the whole time you were keeping this massive secret that affects everything.”
“I know—”
“No, you don’t know!” She was yelling now, and I let her.
Let every word land, let her rage wash over me without flinching.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be lied to over and over again.
To have men look you in the eye and tell you half-truths while hiding who they really are.
You don’t know what it’s like to question every single decision you make because you can’t trust your own judgment anymore. ”
I stayed silent, my hands clenched at my sides, fighting every instinct that screamed at me to defend myself, to explain, to make her understand. Because I did know what it was like to question yourself. I did know what it was like to not trust yourself.
“I have spent years” she continued, her voice raw, “years trying to protect my daughter from men who would hurt her. And I let you in. I let you get close to her. I let myself...” She broke off, shaking her head. “And you were lying the whole time.”
“I never lied to you,” I said quietly.
“Omission is lying!” She stepped closer, her eyes blazing. “Keeping the truth from me is lying. Letting me believe you were just some guy who fixed my sink when you are actually her father—that’s lying, Derek.”
My jaw clenched. “You’re right.”
“Stop saying that!” She shoved my chest again, harder this time. “Stop being so fucking calm and controlled. Stop proving you can take it. I don’t want you to take it; I want you to be honest with me!”
“I am being honest.” I kept my voice level even as my heart hammered against my ribs. “I’m telling you that you’re right. That I should have told you sooner. That I was wrong to keep it from you.”
“Why?” The question came out broken. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was terrified.” The truth ripped out of me. “Because I knew the second you found out, you’d look at me exactly the way you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m a threat. Like I’m someone you need to protect Frankie from.”
“You are someone I need to protect her from,” she said, but there was less conviction in her voice now.
“No.” I held her gaze. “I’m someone who would die before I let anything happen to her. I’m someone who’s been trying to figure out how to be worthy of being her father when I don’t even know if I deserve the chance.”
“That’s not your decision to make alone.” Her voice cracked. “You don’t get to decide when and how I find out that you’re her biological father. You don’t get to control that information.”
“I know.” The words felt like gravel in my throat. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Kat.”
She stared at me, tears still streaming down her face, her chest heaving with emotion. “Does Frankie know?”
The question hung in the air between us.
My silence was answer enough.
“Oh my God.” She stepped back, her hand flying to her mouth. “She knows. Frankie knows you’re her father.”
“Yes.”
“How long?” Her voice was barely a whisper now. “How long has she known?”
“She remembered me from when she was two,” I said quietly. “She recognized my voice when I came to fix the sink. She told me today, in the woods when I found her.”
“Today.” Kat’s laugh was hollow, broken. “So you’ve known for hours. Hours. And you still didn’t tell me.”
“I was going to—”
“When?” she demanded. “When were you going to tell me, Derek? After another week? Another month? Were you ever going to tell me, or were you just going to let me figure it out on my own?”
Each question landed sharp and devastating. Each accusation was deserved.
“I can’t do this,” she said finally. “I can’t... I can’t have you here right now.”
“Kat—”
“No.” She held up her hand. “I need you to leave.”
“Please,” I said, and I hated how desperate I sounded. “Let me explain—”
“I need you to leave,” she said again, quieter this time. “I need you out of my house.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I mean it, Derek.” Her eyes were red, swollen from crying, but her voice was steel. “I can’t look at you right now. I can’t... I can’t be in the same room with you.”
“I understand.” And I did. I understood completely.
I turned toward the door, each step feeling like I was walking through concrete. My hand reached for the doorknob, and I paused.
“For what it’s worth,” I said without turning around, “I love her. I love Frankie. And I love you. That’s the truth; if you don’t believe anything else I’ve said, believe that.”