Chapter Eight –Christopher
Killing his engine bright and early the next morning, Christopher dismounted and headed to the front door of Donovan Tabitha pouted.
The opening door hit his back, and he realized he hadn’t moved very far away from it. He rectified that immediately and smiled at Kendall as she walked in, carrying coffee in a to-go cup in one hand and gripping the handles of her handbag in the other.
Hand on her heart, Beams sighed dreamily, and Kendall rolled her eyes.
“Hey,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”
“Wasn’t about to wait ‘til Friday,” Christopher responded, especially after last night. “I need to know exactly what the fuck happened at the meeting ASAFP.”
“What meeting?” Tabitha asked.
“None of your fuckin’ business,” Christopher said, looking at her long enough to impart that.
“I’m part of the family, too.”
“Unfortunately,” Kendall sniped, taking the words out of Christopher’s mouth. She looked at him and nodded toward the hallway. “Let’s go to my office.”
“Do you need anything, Mr. Caldwell?” Beams called.
Not answering, Christopher followed Kendall.
In her office, he took a seat in front of her desk while she flipped on the light, dropped her purse into one of the desk drawers and locked it, and turned on her computer.
She picked up the receiver of her office phone, then looked at him. “Do you mind if I make a call?”
“I know you ain’t expected me, but, yeah, I fuckin’ mind.
I’ve been sittin’ here for ten goddamn minutes already.
Stop with the fuckin’ stallin’, Kendall.
If you ain’t wantin’ to talk about how much of a motherfucker Johnnie is, I ain’t bringin’ it up.
But I want details on Sunday’s fuckin’ meetin’.
” Christopher snapped his brows together.
Fuck. On second thought… “What the fuck Bash said that you ain’t wantin’ me to know?
What the fuck you needed to talk to him about that you ain’t wanted me to hear? ”
Returning the receiver to its cradle, she cleared her throat and sat in her executive’s chair. “I didn’t want you to arbitrarily drop into the fucking meeting and fuck up everything. That’s the only reason I went to the conference room.”
“Okay, baby,” he said mildly, not believing her one fucking bit.
The lack of creativity she put in her lie disappointed him.
“Ain’t able to dispute that since I ain’t in your motherfuckin’ head.
Just know I know you fuckin’ lyin’. Why the fuck would I fuck up the fuckin’ meetin’ when me and you went over what the fuck needed to be done? ”
She glowered at him.
“I gave you the fuckin’ excuse you needed to hide the real reason you went the fuck off script.”
It made him wish he’d shut the fuck up and hadn’t dropped in. The way Johnnie’s bullshit annoyed the fuck out of him left him no fucking choice.
“What do you think I’d want to talk to him about that you couldn’t hear?” she demanded.
“Ma, so shut the fuck up, and stop playin’ me.”
Kendall’s lips tightened and she gave the smallest wince, but he let it go.
She was a master of deviousness, able to look a motherfucker in the eye and lie with a straight fucking face.
Even if he pressed her, she probably wouldn’t cave.
She’d just continue to lie badly. Whatever she’d discovered about his mother must’ve been bad as a motherfucker.
He’d discover the truth in time. Or, maybe, he wouldn’t.
Patricia had been dead for almost eighteen years.
He couldn’t demand answers from her and any other revelation would just haunt him.
Smiling thinly, Christopher eyed Kendall. “After seein’ that fuckin’ video and hearin’ what the fuck Sharper and Logan said, I know whatever you found out ain’t good,” he baited.
“Why do you say that?” Unable to meet his gaze, Kendall swallowed and cleared her throat. “And in what way do you mean?”
“For most of my life, Ma was a tragic figure to me. A woman forced to accept her lot in life. Too afraid to do anything else and too gentle to defend herself.” Adjusting his position in the chair, Christopher sighed.
“If you found out other heartbreakin’ shit about her, you wouldn’t care if I heard.
But Sharper said Ma tried to stab Rack and poison Cee Cee. That don’t sound like a gentle woman.”
“She wanted to avenge Zoann.” Kendall pursed her lips and her eyes watered but she soldiered on. “A mother’s love and protection turns a woman into a mama bear.”
Christopher shook his head. “Ma wasn’t that. At least not in front of me or any of my sisters. Around Big Joe and Rack, she was docile. In front of Logan, she tried to disappear. A lot of times, I was her sacrificial lamb.”
“Yet, you loved her,” Kendall said softly.
“I did. I do,” he amended. “I always will, so keep her secrets, Kendall. It’ll be less unanswered questions for me.”
“I’m the one who’s supposed to give you the answers.”
“You could tell me that Ma was a fuckin’ special enforcer like Rebel want to be and it wouldn’t tell me why.
Why she tortured the fuck out of me and blamed me for ruinin’ her life?
Why she pretended she was so fuckin’ kind and gentle?
Upstanding. Why she fuckin’ hated club girls?
” Christopher thought for a moment. “Never fuckin’ mind. She hated club girls cuz of Cee Cee.”
Kendall snapped her brows together and asked, “Why would you say that?”
“If they were married, it ain’t stopped Cee Cee from bein’ a motherfucker. He probably fucked club girls and that pissed Ma the fuck off.” Christopher scraped his fingers through the hair on the top of his head. It would be weeks before he no longer had a fade. “I got a question.”
Wariness dropped into her face.
“Fred Sterling. Any of those documents say what happened to him?”
She averted her gaze again.
“At least tell me that, baby.
“He was killed.”
“By?”
Biting her lip, Kendall shrugged.
“Was it Ma or Logan?”
“Cee Cee.”
Christopher processed those careful words. “Fred was an American Scorpion.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fucking realization.
If Cee Cee and Ma married when Christopher was a newborn, the motherfucker would’ve known about her cheating with Fred years before he dropped out of sight.
For him to have survived at Patricia’s side for twelve years and then suddenly disappear was because of a club matter.
Big Joe and Cee Cee were still on good terms back then, if what Kendall told Christopher during some of their meeting was true.
Cee Cee wouldn’t have fucked up a Dweller and risked retaliation.
It all meant one thing: Fred was a Scorpion.
“Cee Cee was his Prez and he fucked over him somehow.”
Kendall’s eyes flared in surprise and she opened her mouth.
Shaking his head, Christopher raised his hand to stop her before she spoke.
“I know you’re gonna say some bullshit about it bein’ because Ma and Cee Cee was married and he felt disrespected.
Fred was there ‘til I was twelve. You ain’t tellin’ me in all that fuckin’ time, Cee Cee ain’t knew Ma was fuckin’ him?
Cee Cee was payin’ to keep a bunch of motherfuckers alive.
He knew what the fuck was goin’ on. My guess is he sent Fred to watch Ma. ”
“To watch you,” Kendall told him.
That shocked the fuck out of Christopher. “Me?”
“Cee Cee didn’t trust that Logan wouldn’t hurt you.”
The explanation made no fucking sense. Logan did hurt him. Regularly. “And he killed Fred for what fuckin’ reason?”
“Because he slacked on his main job. Cee Cee discovered Logan was beating you and Fred didn’t tell him.”
“Ma knew?”
“About?”
“That Cee Cee sent Fred and Fred was a Scorpion?”
“She did, but from what I gather she saw Fred as the only way to protect you from Logan.”
Kendall’s words sounded like the gospel truth but again shit just wasn’t adding up. However, he hadn’t come to dredge up shit about a bunch of dead motherfuckers. His primary concern was Megan, so he nodded and moved on. “Is Megan in danger?”
Leaning back in her chair, Kendall steepled her hands and rested her chin on her fingers.
“Not anymore. Bash swears she never was, but I don’t quite believe him.
” She stood, walked around her desk and sat in the chair next to his before detailing Sunday’s conversation with his half-brother.
“He wants to broker a peace agreement between the two clubs,” she finished.
“Because of you?” Christopher asked, to be sure.