Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Popeye
Trudy nodded slowly, deliberately, like she’d expected that answer all along.
Like she’d been waiting for me to arrive at this exact conclusion.
“Maybe she didn’t know either,” she said, her voice measured and careful.
“Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell you. Maybe she was just as lost as you are now, trying to make sense of something that didn’t make sense. ”
The words settled over me, heavy and uncomfortable, like a wet blanket I couldn’t shake off.
I looked down at the journal in my hand, at the worn leather cover that had hidden so many secrets for so long. “She said she was already broken by then. That the woman I loved had died long before Titan did.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth, like poison I’d been forced to swallow.
“Do you believe that?” Trudy asked gently.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” I met Trudy’s eyes, saw the sympathy there, the understanding.
“I thought I knew her. I thought I understood who she was, what she’d been through, why she made the choices she made.
But every page of this goddamn journal tears that apart.
Every entry shows me someone I didn’t know.
Someone I never knew.” My throat tightened.
“Someone I’m not sure I would have loved if I’d known the truth from the beginning. ”
Trudy was quiet for a moment, letting my words hang in the air between us.
Then she said, voice soft but firm, “Maybe you didn’t know all of her.
But that doesn’t mean the parts you knew weren’t real.
People are complicated, Stephen. We all have pieces of ourselves we hide, even from the people we love most.”
I wanted to believe that. God, I wanted to think the woman who’d smiled at me in Purgatory, who’d laughed at my jokes even when they weren’t funny, who’d held our daughter with tears streaming down her face and looked at me like I was something worth keeping, had been real. That those moments had meant something.
But how could I know? How could I trust any of it when the foundation was built on lies? When everything I thought I understood had been constructed on half-truths and omissions?
“King needs to know,” I said suddenly, the realization hitting me like a freight train.
Trudy blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. “What?”
“King,” I repeated, the journal still clutched tight in my hand.
“This isn’t just about Christina or me or even Grace anymore.
This is club business. Titan was his president, his mentor, practically a father to him.
The lie about his death shaped club politics for a decade.
Even once everyone believed Steele and Stone had done it, that belief changed the club, changed how they operated, changed the alliances and the feuds.
I don’t know how things will change knowing they didn’t actually kill their father, but I still have to tell him.
He deserves to know the truth, no matter how ugly it is. ”
Trudy’s expression shifted, understanding dawning in her eyes. “You’re right. He does,” Trudy agreed without hesitation. She stepped closer, her hand finding my arm, warm and grounding. “But, Stephen, you need to breathe first. You’re still processing this yourself. You’re still bleeding from it.”
“I don’t have time to process.” My voice came out rougher than I intended, raw and scraped.
“This is bigger than my feelings. King needs to know what really happened. He needs to understand the history he’s inherited, the foundation the club was built on.
He’s making decisions every day based on what he thinks is true, and it’s not. None of it is.”
Trudy’s grip tightened on my arm, her fingers digging in just enough to keep me anchored.
“Then go tell him. But, Stephen, don’t lose yourself in this.
You’re allowed to be angry and confused and hurt.
Don’t bury that just because there’s club business to handle.
Don’t do what Christina did; don’t hide your pain behind duty. ”
I looked at her, really looked at her, this woman who’d somehow become my anchor in all this chaos. This woman who saw me clearly and didn’t flinch.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” she said softly, her eyes never leaving mine. “And we’ll figure out the rest together. Whatever comes next, you don’t have to face it alone.”
I pulled her against me, hard and fast, needing the contact more than my next breath.
I buried my face in her hair for just a moment, breathing her in.
She smelled like flour and vanilla and something clean and simple that cut through the ugliness in my head, reminding me there was still good in the world.
“Thank you,” I said against her temple, my voice muffled and thick.
“Go.” She pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, her hands framing my face. Her eyes were steady on mine, unwavering. “Tell King. Then come back to me. Promise me you’ll come back.”
I nodded, grabbed the journal tight enough that my knuckles went white, and headed for the door. I had to do this before I lost my nerve. Before I talked myself out of it. Before the weight of it all crushed me completely.
The Silver Shadows’ clubhouse was quiet when I arrived. Mid-afternoon, most of the brothers were out or working. I found King in his office, paperwork spread across his desk.
He looked up when I knocked. “Popeye. Everything okay?”
“No.” I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. “We need to talk. About Titan.”
King’s expression shifted immediately, going from casual to alert. “What about him?”
I set the journal on his desk. “Christina’s diary. There’s something you need to know about how Titan really died.”
King leaned back in his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. “I’m listening.”
“Christina killed him.” The words came out flat.
King’s face went blank. “What?”
“She walked into that room, and she killed him and Kimberly. Steele and Stone set it up, but Christina pulled the trigger.”
“Grace’s mother.” King said it like he was testing the words, like they didn’t fit together. “Grace’s mother killed Titan.”
“Yes.”
King stood abruptly, pacing to the window. His hands flexed at his sides. “Jesus Christ.” He turned back to me. “How the hell is that possible?” King ran a hand over his face, processing. “Does Grace know?”
“Not yet.”
“Fuck.” He sat back down heavily. “She’s weeks away from having a baby, Popeye. How the hell do we tell her this?”
“I don’t know.” I met his eyes. “But she deserves the truth. And you deserved to know what really happened. This is your club now. You can’t lead based on lies.”
King stood and resumed pacing. “Jesus Christ. Do you know what this means?”
“It means the entire narrative about Titan’s death is a lie,” I said. “It means Steele and Stone have been covering for Christina all these years. It means the power structure in Arkansas was built on protecting that secret.”
“It means,” King said slowly, turning back to me, “that Grace’s mother was capable of killing a man to protect her daughter. And everyone who knew—Steele, Stone, whoever else was involved—they let the club believe it was outside retaliation.”
“They used it,” I said. “Used the lie to consolidate power. To justify their moves. And the whole time, Christina was the one who actually pulled the trigger.”
King ran a hand over his face. “Fuck.” He sat back down heavily.
King was quiet for a long moment, then he said, “What else is in that journal?”
“Enough to tear apart everything I thought I knew about Christina.” I picked up the journal again. “There’s one more entry. I haven’t read it yet.”
“Are you going to?”
“Eventually.” I looked at the closed book in my hands. “But right now, I needed you to know this. The club deserves the truth about its own history, even if it’s ugly.”
King nodded slowly. “Thank you for telling me. I know this can’t be easy.”
“Nothing about this has been easy.” I stood. “But it’s the right thing to do. Christina made her choices. She lived with them. And now we have to figure out what to do with the truths she left behind.”
“Don’t tell Grace,” King stated.
“She deserves the truth,” I said. “She deserves to know?—”
“No.” King’s voice cut through the air like a blade. “Absolutely fucking not.”
I stared at him. “King?—”
“No,” he repeated, standing now, his jaw set. “Grace doesn’t get to know this. Not now. Not ever.”
“She might find out some other way,” I argued, even as something in my gut twisted. “Someone else might?—”
“Who?” King’s eyes flashed. “Who the fuck else knows, Popeye? You and me. That’s it. Steele and Stone are dead. Christina’s dead. Titan’s dead. There’s no one left to tell her.”
He was right. Christ, he was right, and I hated it.
“This dies with us,” King said, his voice hard.
“Right here. Right now. Grace has been through enough. She watched her mother die. She was kidnapped. She was raped. She spent weeks not knowing if the baby she’s carrying belonged to the man she loves or the men who hurt her.
And then she learned her mother had been through something similar, and she has a brother out there she never knew.
” His hands clenched into fists. “I will not, I will not, let her find out her mother was a murderer on top of everything else.”
My chest tightened. Every word he said was true. Every goddamn word.
But keeping secrets from Grace felt wrong. Felt like another betrayal.
“She’s stronger than you think,” I said quietly.
“I know how strong she is.” King’s voice softened, but only slightly. “I know exactly how strong she is. That’s why I’m not going to break her with this. She doesn’t need to know, Popeye. It won’t help her. It won’t change anything. It’ll just hurt her.”
I looked down at the journal in my hands. Thought about Grace’s face when she’d learned about Samuel. The way she’d crumbled. The way she’d grieved for a mother she thought she knew.
How much more could she take?
“This isn’t about the truth,” King said, reading my hesitation. “This is about protecting her. And sometimes protecting the people we love means carrying the weight, so they don’t have to.”
Fuck.
He was right. I knew he was right.
But it still felt like lying.
“You sure about this?” I asked.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” King’s eyes met mine, steady and certain. “Grace gets to remember her mother as someone who survived. Someone who protected her. Someone who loved her enough to sacrifice everything. She doesn’t need to know the rest.”
I nodded slowly. “Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Yeah.” I exhaled. “This stays between us.”
King extended his hand. I shook it, feeling the weight of the pact settle between us.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
I didn’t answer. Just nodded and headed for the door.
“Popeye?”
I stopped and looked back.
“Take care of yourself,” King said. “You’re carrying this now too. Don’t let it eat you alive.”
“Yeah.”
I left.
The journal felt heavier in my hand as I walked back to my bike. One more entry. One more truth I’d have to carry alone.
Because King was right. Grace didn’t need to know. She’d been through enough.
But that didn’t make it easier.
I’d spent years searching for the truth about Christina. Years wanting answers. And now that I had them, I couldn’t share them with the one person who deserved them most.
Another secret. Another lie by omission.
But this time, it wasn’t about me. It was about Grace. About protecting her from a truth that would only hurt her.
I could live with that.
I had to.
I climbed onto my bike, the journal tucked inside my jacket, and headed back toward Trudy’s place.
Tomorrow I’d read that final entry. Tomorrow I’d face whatever else Christina had left for me.
But today, today I’d made a choice. To protect my daughter. To carry the weight so she didn’t have to.
And maybe that was enough.