Ink snorted. “Some are good, some ain’t so much.”
“That’s a very cynical way of looking at it.”
“Your granddaddy’s been bribing a ton of them up in Fort Hancock, baby girl. They sound like good guys? That’s the trouble. Knowing who to trust.”
Because he wasn’t shutting the conversation down, and had, in fact, leaned back into the counter like he was settling in for a chat, I asked, “What’s Kenzie got to do with it?”
He cut Saint a look behind me and sighed. “Neither of you are supposed to know this. We haven’t held full church in days because of this shit.”
I shrugged. “We’re family.”
“Exactly why you shouldn’t know. Plausible deniability.”
Sniffing, I told him, “I’m Lucifer’s daughter and granddaughter. I think I can tell some white lies when I need to.”
“Hardly white ones,” Saint answered. “More like great big, dirty gray ones.”
I shrugged. “Don’t care. I want to know. I can handle it, Ink. Trust me, I can. I wouldn’t say it if I couldn’t.”
He released a breath. “Your granddaddy thinks she’s a plant.”
Well, I was assuming he wasn’t talking a houseplant…
“Rodeo didn’t raise a snitch,” was all I could think to say to that.
Saint curved his arm around my waist. “Stop thinking the best of people. Especially bitches like that one. Jesus. All Kenzie is is mean to you.”
I shrugged. “She’s Keys’ sister. I have to be nice to her. She’s family.”
Saint laughed slightly. “You little minx. You’ve been planning this for years, ain’tcha? In your mind, she’s been your sister-in-law for a while, am I right?”
I shot him a smirk over my shoulder. “Of course. But, I’m not being nice for the sake of it. I know she’s a bitch, but I’m not defending her—I’m defending Rodeo.”
Ink shook his head. “You didn’t know Rodeo, babe. Not like me or your daddies.”
I scowled at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He ran a hand over his face. “Keys doesn’t know any of this because his momma and daddy made sure of it. But the cancer that took her, it had already hit her twice. Each time, Rodeo went off the rails. Did shit I know he regrets, but regretting don’t take back the crap he did.”
“Like what?” I queried gruffly. I had fond memories of Rodeo, and really should have gone to visit him but he was in an out-of-state prison and me and out-of-town didn’t work in the same sentence, never mind state.
“Cheating, too much drink. Even started on some drugs.”
Saint tensed. “Drugs? Where the hell did he get them from? We don’t allow that shit.”
My daddy’s sister had died of an OD, so he was real strict about having drugs on the premises. We didn’t even sell them anymore or distribute them for cartels because he was against them so much.
I truly believed I could star in a porn film and he’d prefer that to me scarfing down a pot brownie.
“He got it from the Knights on a run, of course.” He grimaced. “All I’m trying to say is that Keys was too young to really notice him going off the rails. Mostly because his mama made sure of that and, to be honest, so did your mommas. That last year, Dorie and Lucie closed ranks around Keys, but it was too late for Kenzie. She’d already seen the shit her daddy was doing.”
“So, that’s why she’s a bitch?” Saint argued, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. She’s always been that way. Whether her daddy pulled shit he shouldn’t or not. And he sure as fuck didn’t raise no snitch.”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I agree.”
Ink just shrugged. “I’m only telling you how it was. She took a nosedive around about that time too. Nothing any of us could do. I wasn’t surprised when she ran off. Too many bad memories in this place for her. Which begs the question, why she’d plot to come back, don’t you think?”
My heart stuttered in my chest. “She wants to hurt her daddy?”
Ink pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think so, but she hasn’t done anything to indicate she’s helping out any LEOs. But that shit with the bruises was just plain weird.”
“If you’d seen her at the clubhouse, you’d think it was even weirder. She was scared, man. Petrified.”
“Of who, though?”
Saint sighed. “I don’t know. We thought Hex, but if something else is at play?”
Ink’s expression turned pensive, and I squeezed Saint’s hand again before I got to my feet and murmured, “We need to get on the road. The parlor opens up soon.”
As we trudged on out, and I climbed onto the back of Saint’s hog, I pressed my cheek to that spot between his shoulders that was made for me, and looked out onto the side of the road as we drove over to Jonsson.
My mind was awhirl. Not because I was frightened, like my guys seemed to think I’d be, but because I was tense.
Revenge.
I’d already been burned by it once. My family had been paying the price of someone else’s vengeance for a long ass time.
I wasn’t going to let that happen again. By hook or by goddamn crook, I wasn’t about to let Kenzie burn my family, my MC family, just because her daddy had gone off the rails before her momma had died.
❖
Keys
As I listened to the conversation going down in the next room, I had to admit, it was hard.
Fucking hard.
In fact, no, that sounded too easy. This made me feel like I was going nuts. Listening to Kenzie being a bitch to Ama? Yeah, it made me want to ram my fist into her throat, and I wasn’t the kind of guy who was okay with violence against women, but sometimes, I wished to fuck that Ama would stand up for herself so I didn’t have to feel this goddamn way.
I rested my elbows on my knees and bowed my head as I tried to calm myself down.
It was a shitty time when a man had to sneak around so that his sister and girl could talk without his kin thinking he was eavesdropping. But that was exactly what I was doing. Listening in and making sure I heard every piece of shit my sister uttered with that filthy mouth of hers.
“I can’t believe you got accepted.”
“To every school I applied for,” Ama replied, and from her tone of voice, I could tell she wasn’t stressed at all. It boggled my mind how she acted unaffected around bullies, and there was no denying the fact that my sister was one.
A hundred percent.
From the scratching sounds, I knew she was drawing, and I knew Kenzie had agreed to it for some reason that wasn’t known to me. Ever since the council had taken to believing that she was a lying snake in the grass, her movements had been monitored, her phone taken away from her, and she had someone with her—even at night.
Did it piss me off that the person pulling the night duty was Long John? Didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out what they were doing.
But LJ was loyal to the MC. To his core. No pussy was about to sway him away from that, even one as devious as my sister.
“What I don’t understand is why you bothered applying if you had no intention of going,” Kenzie mused.
“Because I have no need to go,” Ama responded, absentmindedly.
“So, my question still stands. Why even bother? Why waste money on the applications?”
“Just because I didn’t need validation doesn’t mean others don’t.”
Kenzie snorted. “Manipulator. You’re just like me.”
Ama’s laugh was short, but it dripped with genuine amusement. “I’m nothing like you, Kenzie. Nothing at all. Except for the fact we both have great tits and an ass made for a bikini, nope, we’ve got nothing in common.”
“You always did think you were so high and mighty. Just because you were kidnapped. Wah, wah, wah,” Kenzie mocked, her teasing making me grit my teeth. But I’d promised. I’d fucking promised Ama that I wouldn’t interfere.
I wasn’t sure what was going down with her, but this morning, she’d t
old me that she wanted to not only sit with Kenzie for a while, but also, she’d wanted me there to listen in.
It was good timing, all told. I was supposed to watch Kenzie, so this meant we could kill two birds with one stone without telling anyone what we were doing.
“Nope, wrong again. If I’m high and mighty, Kenzie, it’s because of who my dads are. You really don’t get the political hierarchy of a motorcycle club, do you?”
Kenzie grunted, accepting the blow I knew Ama would have delivered with a sweet smile. How did I know that? Because she sounded cheerful. Cheerful as she burned my bitch of a sister.
I had to admit, it made me laugh to myself.
Kenzie, who wielded her razor tongue like a knife, had often been cruel to Ama, spoke shit about her behind her back, but Ama? Took it all in her stride.
I wished I could.
Wished I had the ability to keep my ducks in a row, but whenever Kenzie bitched about Ama, it just sent me off the fucking rails.
And it wasn’t always about Ama. Sometimes, it was about other people in my life.
What the fuck was I supposed to say to my dad when he called? What the hell was I supposed to tell him about the BS Kenzie had pulled? That was before this other shit where she might be a snitch… sweet Jesus, that was gonna break his fucking heart if it was the truth.
My dad was already on the edge. Had been ever since my momma had died. When Kenzie had run off a few months after he’d been jailed? It had killed him. And I knew he had to have pulled a shit ton of favors to learn of her whereabouts from the inside. Losing her again was going to mess with his head when he needed to keep things clean so he didn’t fuck his parole board meeting up.
Just thinking about him having to serve out his full term made my head feel light and my eyes start to spot at the edges.
Call me a pussy, but losing my dad for another two years on top of the one he still had to serve before he got the chance at coming home? Yeah, I wasn’t going to let my bitch sister do that to him. To us.
With all that in mind, that was why I was letting Ama at her. Ama was an odd duck, had a strange way of getting things out of people. I just had to be patient. Just had to let her do her thing.
Kenzie sighed. “God, all you do is draw.”
“Is that a statement or is there a question buried within it?” Ama replied.
“It’s a statement of boredom. You always were a freak.”
“Amazing how being abducted does that to a person.”
“You always did think you were so fucking cool for that,” Kenzie grumbled, and I had to shake my head at the crap she was spewing.
The worst thing of all was that she seemed to believe it.
“Fucking cool? Nah, I wouldn’t go that far, Kenzie. I’m sorry you weren’t kidnapped in my stead, but then, you were only the Sergeant-At-Arms’ daughter. Not high enough up the ranking to serve Aaron’s needs.”
My lips twitched at that, then I was hard-pressed not to laugh when Ama decided to bury the hatchet between my sister’s shoulders.
“Unless you still don’t get that my dads are more important than yours?”
“I get it,” Kenzie hissed. “All because your mother was a slut, you—”
“What? Got more of the attention?” Ama snorted. “Some attention. I really wish you’d had to piss yourself for days on end, were blindfolded by a crazy kid, and had to listen to him rattle on about how he was going to kill you all while he starved you and didn’t give you a drop to drink. It really was like staying at Club Med, honey. I think you’d have liked it. Really, I do. Better than a spa treatment.”
Kenzie scoffed, but she did change the subject. “How long are they going to keep me up here anyway?”
“Until they learn what your motives are.”
“Motives? What motives?” Kenzie sniffed, and I could easily imagine her tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I wanted to come home. What’s so devious about that?”
“How about the fact you pretended that your old man, who isn’t your old man, beat you up to get your brother to agree to get me to call my grandfather to persuade him to help you leave…” She sucked in a breath. “Wow, talk about a mouthful. Oh, the webs we weave when we practice to deceive.”
Kenzie snarled, “What do you know about my life? You think you can sum it up in a few words? Hex did beat me. Just not that night. Why would he let me leave with his baby? I needed help. Dammit, Ama, can’t you see that?”
“I’m sure some of that’s true,” Ama replied pleasantly.
“All of it’s true,” Kenzie groused, sounding so miserable that damn, if I didn’t believe her.
“I doubt that. You always were a lying bitch, Kenzie. Two words in ten were always a lie. I just don’t understand why you’d want to come home when home was somewhere you ran from all those years ago.”
“I knew you guys would help me with the baby,” she said on a huff.
“So, you wanted free daycare?” Ama snorted. “Sounds about right.”
“It was more than that. I wanted help knowing what to do with the baby. I’ve never looked after a kid before, and I thought Dorie or your ma would help me out.”
“How did you even get involved with the Knights anyway?” Ama questioned, her pencil making scratching sounds as she spoke.
“I was in El Paso for a little while. They drive up there some weeks. Cause a bit of mayhem. I got caught along with them and returned to their clubhouse… I just never left.”
“You were their sweetbutt?” Ama mocked.
“No,” Kenzie snarled. “I thought Hex loved me.”
“Apparently if you had sex without protection. You’re lucky you’re just having a baby and not an STD.”
“Like you can talk about someone being a slut. How many guys do you have panting around you? Three?”
“Yep, aren’t I lucky?” was the bright and breezy reply.
“I wouldn’t call it lucky. Tied to three men?” Kenzie scoffed. “Being with one is trouble enough.”
“Then you’ve never met the right men,” Ama retorted.
“Listen to you. Jesus. Selling the next American dream, huh? Happily ever after. They’ll do what Hex did to me. Start fucking around when you get too sore. Or God help you if you get morning sickness, then you won’t see them for dust.”
“You know he got arrested, right?”
I couldn’t stop myself from getting to my feet and peering in through the sliver of the open door. Kenzie was tense but settled back into the sofa, while Ama was on an armchair, her feet curled up underneath her with her notepad on her knees. She didn’t look like she was involved in a verbal war on words, but Kenzie’s tension told me she was in full on defensive mode.
“When?” my sister asked, her tone sullen.
“When do you think? On the run that he left on.” Ama peered over her sketchpad. “My granddaddy wasn’t happy to lose so many good men.”
Kenzie gulped.
She fucking gulped.
“Oh?” she said warily.
“Yeah. Oh. He was pissed. Thinks there’s a rat in his nest. Gone back to scour the MC out for the dirty snitch.”
Kenzie’s face morphed from bright pink to white at Ama’s declaration, but when she thought Lucifer had returned to find the rat at the club there? She looked relieved.
A gulp and a few facial expressions weren’t exactly a signed confession, but I knew my fucking sister. Maybe not well, not like some people, but well enough to register fear—I’d seen it on her face when Mama had died.
She cleared her throat when Ama’s attention averted to her pad once more. “Is that what they think I’ve done? That I was the snitch?”
“Don’t think you’d still be sitting here if that were the case, do you?” Ama replied sweetly.
“Even if I was the rat,” she hedged. “They’d never hurt me because I’m pregnant!”
“Momma said she saw your belly so I guess you must be.”
Kenzie’s mouth gaped wide ope
n and pulsed a few times like a goldfish’s. “That’s what that was about? She was checking to see if I was pregnant?”
“Could have just been a mountain of foundation on your belly… you know, like it was on your face.”
Kenzie’s teeth ground down. “I can’t fucking believe this. I came home to—”
“To, what? Seems like you don’t really want to be here. Seems to me like you’ve never wanted to be here, so what’s your game?”
“I haven’t exactly been extended a welcoming hand, have I? Pretty much soon after I arrived I was on house arrest!”
“And now you know why. Especially after we were raided the same day you arrived. Two busts on one day and with you transferring from one clubhouse to the other?” Ama snorted. “You have to admit, it looks suspicious.”
Kenzie surged upright in an explosive movement. I tensed, waiting for her to attack Ama, but she didn’t. They were in a seating area—a sofa with two armchairs, a coffee table, and two end tables on either side of the sofa with a lamp. She headed out of that seating area and began to pace around it.
Around and around, like she was trying to think, trying to clear her mind to come up with her next plan of action.
The look on her face?
One of desperation.
She knew she’d been cornered.
She knew it and she kept flickering her gaze over to Ama who, for all intents and purposes, was entirely disinterested in what my sister was doing. Her focus was on her sketchpad, and call me stupid, but I could see Kenzie trying to figure out the odds.
Odds about what, I wasn’t entirely sure, because if she hurt Ama, she’d have two MCs riding her ass from here to Canada if she thought she could go on the run after that.
“Ama?”
I stiffened, waiting on my sister’s next words.
“Yeah?”
“Will you help me?”
Ama switched focus, and pinning Kenzie with her stare, asked, “Help you do what?”
“Get out of here.”
“And why would you want to do that when you’re home and a ‘girl needs to be home when she’s about to give birth?’” Ama mocked, her eyes harder than I’d ever seen.
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