Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Popeye
The window table at Trudy’s bakery had become my spot over the past six months. The same table where Grace and Karlyn sat before the Death Dogs took them eight months ago. The same table where Trudy’s world had shattered.
Now it was where mine was shattering.
I stared down at Christina’s journal, at the words that had just destroyed everything I thought I knew.
My hands shook as I read the passage again, trying to make sense of it. Trying to reconcile the woman I’d loved with the woman who’d written these words.
A son.
Christina had given birth to a son that wasn’t mine.
Grace had a brother.
A brother she didn’t know existed.
The coffee Pati had brought me an hour ago sat untouched, cold. The bear claw she’d placed in front of me without asking remained on the plate, uneaten. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. Could barely breathe past the rage and grief and guilt clawing its way up my throat.
I closed the journal with shaking hands and stood, my chair scraping loudly against the floor. The few customers in the bakery glanced up, but I didn’t care. Couldn’t care about anything except getting to Grace.
I grabbed the journal and headed for the door without looking back.
The drive from the bakery to the Silver Shadows’ clubhouse took ten minutes.
Ten minutes of my mind racing, trying to figure out how to tell Grace that her mother had given birth to a son and given him away.
That her aunt—an aunt she didn’t even know existed—had kidnapped him and held him captive for years.
Ten minutes of wondering exactly what Grace already knew.
I pulled into the clubhouse parking lot and killed the engine, sitting on my bike for a moment to steady myself. The journal felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in my jacket pocket. I climbed off the bike and headed inside.
The clubhouse was quiet mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, most of the brothers working their day jobs. A few prospects were cleaning up the bar area. Tank was restocking beer in the cooler behind the bar.
He looked up when I walked in, his expression shifting when he saw my face.
“You good, old man?” he asked.
“Grace here?” I asked instead of answering.
“Office with King.” Tank jerked his chin toward the hallway. “You sure you’re good?”
“No.” I headed down the hall without another word, Christina’s journal burning a hole in my pocket.
I stopped outside King’s office door, my hand raised to knock. For a moment, I hesitated. Once I told Grace what I’d discovered, there was no taking it back. No undoing the damage it would undoubtedly cause.
But I couldn’t ask her what she knew without telling her what I’d learned.
I knocked once, then pushed the door open when King called out.
Grace looked up from where she sat in one of the leather chairs, her hand resting on her swollen belly.
Eight months pregnant and she still looked like she could take on the world.
King stood behind his desk, arms crossed, that protective look he always wore around her sharpening when he saw my face.
“Dad?” Grace’s smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
I closed the door behind me and locked it. The click echoed in the small room.
“Need to talk to you,” I said, unable to disguise the sharpness in my voice. “Both of you.”
King’s eyes narrowed. “About?”
I pulled the journal from my jacket and held it up. “About this. About the things she wrote.”
Grace’s hand stilled on her belly. “What things?”
I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down heavily, suddenly feeling every one of my seventy-two years. The heavy weight of the journal echoed as I set it on King’s desk.
“Baby girl, I need you to tell me everything.”
Grace looked up at King and then back to me. “About what?”
“About your mother, Grace. About the club. Titan. Everything I missed after she hid you away from me.”
“Popeye, now is not the time,” King said.
I kept my eyes on my daughter as I responded, “Now is exactly the time.”
Grace’s eyes moved to the journal. “What does it say?”
“I need to know how much you know before I tell you that.”
“Why?”
“I loved your mother, Grace. So fucking much.” I laid my hand on the journal. “But the woman who wrote this journal—she isn’t the woman I knew. I don’t want you to experience that. Don’t want you to lose the memories you have of your mom.”
The color drained from Grace’s face.
My chest tightened. “How much do you know?”
Grace took a deep breath. “When we moved the first time, she stopped letting me go to the clubhouse. I would stay with the neighbor while she went without me. But after a while...”
“What, baby?” King asked.
“Eventually she stopped going, but the brothers came to the house.”
I looked up at King but couldn’t read the expression on his face. “Did you know Grace’s mother?”
“I don’t remember a Christina,” he said as he moved around the desk in front of Grace. I reached for my wallet and pulled out an old picture I kept hidden behind my ID.
“Her name was Scarlett then,” I offered, and handed him the image.
“Fucking hell,” he cursed.
My daughter’s eyes filled with tears. “King, you didn’t...” Her hand covered her mouth as if she couldn’t say the words.
“No, baby,” King rushed out as he squatted in front of her, dropping the picture on his desk. “I never slept with your mother, Grace. She hung around the club for a couple of years after I joined, then one day she just disappeared.”
“How long, Grace?” I asked, my voice rough.
“How long?” she asked, confused as to what I was asking. I didn’t want to elaborate, but I needed to know.
“How long were the brothers coming to the house?”
Grace glanced at King, and I saw the apology in her eyes as her bottom lip trembled. “Until we left Arkansas.”
King closed his eyes and dropped his head to Grace’s stomach. His arms went around her, and her fingers ran through his hair.
“Do you know who they were?” I asked.
King’s head snapped up, and he turned a glare on me. “What the fuck, Popeye? Christina is dead. I’m sorry she fucking ran and hid Grace from you. But my old lady is not going to sit here and relive that shit, giving you a play-by-play of her mother’s fucks.”
“What the fuck are you afraid of?” I asked.
King stood up and towered over me, thinking he could intimidate me. I’d spent my life under George Stone’s thumb; it took a shit ton more than this kid to fucking scare me. I stood up slowly and looked him in the eye.
“Who are you trying to protect?”
“My old lady,” he growled. “She has a few fucking weeks left; she doesn’t need this shit right now.”
“King,” Grace said, reaching up to take his hand. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. You’ve been through enough, Grace.” The two of them stared at each other, having a silent conversation that didn’t include me. It was an uncomfortable moment knowing I’d missed so much of her life that I’d never been the one she ran to, and I never would be.
King rubbed his hands over his face and moved behind Grace, placing his hands on her shoulders. Giving her his strength. I looked up at him and nodded. I didn’t want to do this, but I needed a place to start.
“Mostly it was Steele and Stone. Titan sometimes.” Her eyes dropped to her lap, and I reached out and squeezed her hand.
“Take your time, baby girl.”
“There were a few others over the years—Ballistic, Ridge, Grinder, Glacier, Flash, and...” Grace closed her eyes and reached up, placing her hand over King’s on her shoulder.
“And who, baby?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Freeway.”
King stepped back, removing his hands from my daughter’s shoulders. He walked across the room and slammed his fist into the wall. “Motherfucking son of a bitch.”
“What?” I asked, wondering why that last name made such a difference.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” King asked, as a tear slipped down Grace’s cheek.
“I was scared,” she answered.
“Who the fuck is Freeway?”
“Steele sent Freeway up here when he got out of prison a year ago,” King said between gritted teeth. “Said he was a liability, but he was a fucking spy.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone. He disappeared during the attack last summer.”
“How long was he in prison?” I asked, pulling my hand back. I knew I had to tell them why but wanted to stall as long as I could.
“Thirteen years,”
“He’s not the father,” I mumbled without thinking as my eyes closed.
“What?” Grace asked.
“She told me about the baby, Grace.”
Grace’s eyes filled with tears, and King moved immediately to her side, his hand on her shoulder. She took a shaky breath. “What baby?” he asked.
“I was... I think I was sixteen. Maybe seventeen. I came home late one night and found her crying in the kitchen.” Grace’s voice was barely above a whisper. “She was just... broken. I’d never seen her like that before. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me she was pregnant.”
“She say anything else?” I pressed, leaning forward. “About who the father was? About what happened?”
Grace shook her head. “No. She didn’t talk about the baby much. The pregnancy was hard on her though.” Grace rubbed a hand over her stomach, and I took a deep breath. I knew bringing this shit up would affect her deeply.
“She wouldn’t get an abortion, but she didn’t seem happy either.
For months she wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t make plans.
I bought something for the baby. A onesie with a pair of handlebars on it.
” Her breath stuttered. “She was so mad. Then I had a trip for school. I was gone for a few days. When I came home, she said she’d lost the baby.
That he was stillborn.” A tear slid down her cheek.
“She made me promise not to tell anyone. Said it was too painful to talk about.” My daughter looked up at me, and I knew what I was about to say would shatter her perception of her mother.
“I kept that promise. Even after she died, I never told anyone. Not even King.”
King’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything. Just kept his hand on Grace’s shoulder, grounding her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Grace, I’m sorry. If there was any way I could spare you this, I would.”
“Spare me from what?” Grace’s voice cracked.
“Christina lied about the baby.” I opened the journal to the page I’d marked, the one where Christina confessed the truth. “The baby didn’t die, Grace. He was born alive and healthy.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Grace stared at me like I’d just told her the sky was green. “What?”
“Your mother gave him away,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “She contacted Caroline to take him. To give him to someone who could raise him.”
“Caroline?” Grace’s face twisted in confusion. “Who the fuck is Caroline?”
“Your mother’s twin sister,” I said. “She was married to James Doherty.”
“Reaper’s mother,” she whispered as she closed her eyes.