“My brother will come for me!”
“Is that the younger one? The bastard? Or would that be the oldest of the legitimate children?” Christina asked. Sasha refused to answer and simply narrowed her eyes at the three of us. “Allow me to clue you in. The oldest two, that includes the bastard, hate you and the youngest is dead.”
“No, he’s not!” She screamed. “He’s not dead! I just saw him before I was…” she shut her mouth quickly and thought about it.
“Mmm, not so sure now, are you, sweetie?” MiMi asked in a syrupy-sweet southern twang. “The boys took him out before any of y’all ever left Canada.”
Sasha doubled over in pain before she could form a rebuttal, and then the best thing that could have happened, did. Her water broke. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the phone, and dialed my sister.
“Ever, I promise, everything is fine,” Anna told me as soon as she answered.
“That’s great, because I might need you to keep my babies overnight.”
“What? Really? Did Deck finally come to his senses?” She sounded so excited that I almost wanted to lie to her.
“No, he didn’t. I just need a day, maybe the whole night away, to get myself together.” My eyes drifted between MiMi and Christina.”
“Aww, Ever, you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“I promise, I’m fine. Actually, Christina is with me so if you wouldn’t mind keeping Pike too? Maybe you could call Gretchen and Sarah in as reinforcements?”
Anna laughed. “I’ll see what I can do, sister dear. And Ever, no matter what happens, don’t stop believing in him. Deck loves you. He’s just a bit of mess right now.”
“I know it, and thank you, Anna. Love you too.”
“Well, what do you know? Suddenly, we’re all free to deliver a baby.”
It took nine hours to deliver the baby. Several hours of that were just an attempt to get the lazy twat to push her own kid out. I guess she thought if she refused to do what nature intended, then we couldn’t off her. She finally started cooperating when MiMi pulled her 9mm out and put it up to her head. “I can kill you now and cut the baby out. You’re still useful to us at the moment, but if you’re noncooperative we don’t have to keep you around.
Once the baby was free of the bitch, I made a decision to allow MiMi to take her. Not for keeps, yet, but I didn’t want to get attached if it turned out that it wasn’t Deck’s baby. I knew MiMi would take good care of the child and I even pumped up some breast milk for her to use. There was no way I could feed the baby at my breast and not become attached, so that wasn’t even an option.
I already made contact with a DNA testing facility and had the kit on hand, at the house, to send in. Durbin did the honors for me and got the sample I needed from Deck. Luckily for me, the women of S.H.E. were on my side and they called in a favor to get us a rush on the results. I kept my distance from the clubhouse for the week, while we waited. My father knew where Sasha was being held and convinced the men it was best to keep it a secret, he also told them that MiMi and I were acting on his orders as he had received a credible threat about possible infiltration of the club. He knew what I suspected about there being another rat in the Aces High, and he didn’t seem at all surprised by the fact.
Either way, the suspicion worked in our favor and when the results finally came in, I put them in my bag and headed out to go make my husband finally talk to me. I also didn’t go alone. I took our son with me, because it was about time he got to meet his father.
Kane was once again standing guard outside of the door when I walked up. Archer squealed in delight when he saw Kane and my surrogate brother behaved the same damn way! “What’s happening, little man?” He called out dramatically, in a higher pitch voice than he would normally use when speaking to adults. Archer thrust his little grabby fingers forward toward Kane, signaling that he wanted the man to pick him up.
“Are you going in alone, or taking little man with you?” Kane asked.
“I’m allowed to go in?” I countered, shocked by the fact that I was getting no resistance.
Kane made sure to lower his voice as he spoke. “He’s been fucking devastated. Durbin read him the riot act about pushing you away. The day that you came and took the cunt away,” he added to give me a timeframe. “He flat out asked your man what he would do, how he would feel, if you just stopped showing up.” Kane raised his eyebrows for dramatic effect as it sank in what he was saying.
“Oh shit! Then I didn’t show up all week,” I finished for him. He just grinned.
“Yup, but I think it did him some good to know that you wouldn’t always be there waiting and taking his shit. It forced him to really come to terms with what happened to him and what he wants out of life. You probably did him a favor.”
“Well, it was unintentional. I just didn’t want to come and not have answers.”
“You got the results back?”
“I did.”
“What are they?”
“I think he deserves to know that before anyone else,” I explained, and Kane smiled.
“You know you’re the best old lady a man could ask for, right?”
“Of course, I do. Now, step aside and keep an eye on my boy for a minute while we go take care of this part. Keep him close though because he wants to meet his daddy today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kane teased.
I opened the door and finally, finally was able to see my man again after a year. I didn’t count the few minutes I saw him when he was first brought to the clubhouse because that didn’t seem real to me any longer. Every time he turned me away and wouldn’t let me get near the room he was staying in, I just kept thinking that it wasn’t real. He must not be back, otherwise why wouldn’t I be allowed to see him?
“You’re here,” I heard him whisper from where he was perched on the side of the bed.
“Of course, I am.”
“But you didn’t come all week.”
“I was a little busy,” I told him.
He nodded his head. “Too busy to be told you couldn’t see me, again, huh?”
I laughed. “It wasn’t like that, but if we’re being honest…” I let the thought just hang there between the two of us.
“It would have happened even if you weren’t busy, right?”
“Eventually,” I told him and then pulled the envelope out of my bag and held it out for him to take.
“What’s this?” I could see the fear register in his eyes and wondered if he thought, like I did the day Avalyn’s attorney showed up at my door, that I was serving him with divorce papers.
“The results to see if you fathered her baby.”
“Results? The baby’s been born?”
“That’s what I’ve been busy with all week.”
“You were taking care of the baby I had with another woman?” He looked horrified at the thought.
I sat beside him on the bed and made him take the envelope fully. “I helped deliver the baby, offered some of my pumped breast milk for the little guy, and then I handed him off to MiMi from the S.H.E MC to care for him until we knew for sure. I didn’t want to get attached if he wasn’t yours.”
“You didn’t want to get attached?” His question held a bewildered edge to it. “Ever, I don’t know…” Then it seemed to dawn on him what else I’d been saying. “It’s a boy?”
I nodded my head. “How about, before you panic over anything else, open the damn results and see if he’s yours or not?”
“You already know, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t. I thought you should be the first person to know.”
“What the hell did I ever do to deserve your love?”
“You saved me,” I answered simply.
“And now you’re saving me right back,” he responded in a whisper as he removed the test results from the package. I watched as his eyes skimmed the page, saw how his hands shook, his eyes flared and widened drastically when he got about halfway down and then he glance
d up at me and grinned. “He’s not mine,” was the first thing out of his mouth. “But there’s something interesting about his DNA that the club might be able to use.”
I leaned over to take a peek, but he slipped the papers behind his back and leaned in too so that we ended up meeting in the middle. “I’m sorry,” he said into my lips, his warm breath was a caress there that I had been sorely missing all these months. “I missed you,” he finally said before kissing me again. “Even when I couldn’t remember things, I dreamed of you and the girls almost every night,” he admitted. “It was so bittersweet because they were the best thing about my life, those dreams, but I couldn’t remember. I thought you guys were just made up in my head at times.”
“That’s really hard to hear,” I told him honestly.
“I know it is, but I want to be honest with you about everything. You’ve been so strong and taken care of our family. Durbin told me about Lucy,” he finally said.
“Durbin did? What about everyone else?”
“You weren’t the only person I was avoiding, sweetheart.”
“Aw, Deck, that makes me incredibly sad. You’ve been here three weeks now and the only person you were talking to that whole time was Durbin?”
“Pretty much,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to process everything, how to handle it all. I know it wasn’t fair to you or anyone else.”
“It’s fine. What’s done is done, can we not spend time dwelling on it? I feel like we lost enough and that’s not something I’m willing to compromise on.” He tipped his head in agreement as I stood up and started to walk to the door.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“There’s someone here who wants to meet you,” I told him as I cracked open the door and took our son from Kane’s hands. My big brother placed a kiss on my forehead and then walked away.
“Yell if you need me, I’m going to give you guys some privacy,” he called back over his shoulder. Then I walked back to the bed and stood in front of Deck while he took in the fact that I was holding our son. The tears were quick to shimmer in his eyes as he cataloged every little detail about our son.
“He’s so big,” Deck cried. “I missed it all.”
“No, you missed a small chunk, babe. That’s why we need you to fight and come back to us. So, you don’t miss any more.”
He was quiet for a moment, just staring at us and then when he spoke again, I thought my heart would physically break for him. “I thought I was dead a few times,” he admitted.
“The drugs?” I asked for clarification because I knew he had also suffered some abuse. The pictures I’d been sent showed that clearly enough.
“No. I don’t know. Maybe it was the drugs, but I don’t think so. Toby used to visit me sometimes. When he’d come, I figured they finally managed to off me, but that stubborn, bastard brother of yours kept telling me that I had too much to live for and it wasn’t my time yet.”
“I believe you,” I admitted as I put our son in his arms for the first time. Archer didn’t shy away or act as he did with other adults he met for the first time. Instead, he leaned in and laid his head right down on his father’s shoulder. Deck smiled so sweetly as a result that I wished I could have captured the moment forever and saved it to watch over and over again. He didn’t understand how special that moment was because it just felt natural for my boys to be together.
“You really do believe me, about Toby, don’t you?”
“One day, when you’re up for it, I’m going to tell you the real story about how I found you. I think you’ll believe me too.” He simply nodded and then turned his head so that he could plant a sweet kiss on our boy.
“I named him Archer,” I finally told him.
“Archer,” he said the name as if he was weighing it’s worth. Then he crooked his finger at me so I would bend down to where he sat with our son falling asleep on his shoulder. Once I was close enough, he leaned forward, making sure not to disturb Archer, and he kissed me. “I love it.”
“I love you.”
We spent some time with Deck getting to hold onto our son and me filling him in on some of the things he’d missed. I also told him that when the girls were home, I’d bring them over to see him. It wasn’t until I was about to leave to go pick them up that I remembered something he had said earlier when he looked over the DNA testing.
“What was it you thought the club could use?”
“Huh?”
I tipped my chin up indicating the papers that were lying on the bed behind him. “You said there was something in the results that the club would be able to use.”
“Oh, yeah. Did you send Sasha’s DNA in too?”
My face turned red. “Sorry, I asked them to do a workup of her DNA in case you ended up being the father, so we’d know if the baby had any potential health issues based on whatever her genes are. You know, since obviously she was off her rocker crazy.”
“That makes sense then because there’s a notation in there that the paternal DNA for the baby also happens to be a close match for the paternal DNA for his mother.”
“What? How is that possible?” I asked, completely confused.
“The baby belongs to her own father?” I questioned.
“No, but it looks like the baby might just belong to one of his uncles.” I shuttered as I thought back to her reaction when I told her that the younger brother had been killed.
“That’s gross!” I finally managed to get out. “How will that help the club though?”
“They’re not going to want that information to get out. I’m certain there was a reason the bastard son wasn’t accepted. Durbin spoke with me about rumors he heard about the oldest son before. Some people claimed that the son was a product of a relationship between the father and his sister.”
“What the fuck is wrong with that family?” I asked.
“Who the fuck knows? Still, I think they’d hate that there was proof out there that the rumors may be true, you know?”
“Well, if the club uses the proof, I want you to spin a tale that the baby was stillborn. The DNA test was just done to confirm whether it had been yours or someone else’s.”
“Why?”
“MiMi and Dane are going to keep him. She offered to take him, no matter what the results of the test were, but I told her they could only do it if the baby wasn’t yours.”
“You seriously would have raised that baby with me?”
“I love all of you, Deck. When are you going to realize that? Nothing that happened while you were away was your fault. If that baby had been yours, I wouldn’t have punished you or him by sending either of you away. We’ve all been through enough.
“I love you so goddamn much, Ever Donavon!
Chapter 29
Normal
Deck
My return home, after Durbin cleared me to go, was more than I expected. To be honest, I just wanted to walk in my house, snuggle up with my wife and kids on the couch, and just enjoy being in the same place with all of them for a while. Missing an entire year, and still not having all of my memories intact, or trustworthy, was something I was still coming to terms with.
There was a party waiting for me when I walked through the doors instead. It had been two months since the men found me in Canada and brought me home. Two very eventful months in which the remaining brothers of The Trinity Group sent an apology for what their younger siblings had done, and their father before them. Their apology consisted of eight figures being dumped in the Aces High MC coffers, to be split evenly among the chapters. I was asked if I was okay with that outcome. I didn’t really think it had fuck all to do with me though. The people who worked so hard to hide me away and destroy the person I was were both dead and buried now. I was tired of fighting the ghosts of that year and the itch I had to make myself feel better the easy way.
We also lost Trunk to retirement. His announcement had come just two days earlier as I was getting ready for my home coming. It had been th
e reason that he had been acting a little shady around everyone. His woman had been pressuring about a move to be near her family out west and he felt she had sacrificed enough for his lifestyle. It was time he sacrificed a little for her too. The problem had been the fact that Trunk was thrust in the top spot while I was away and stepping down then would have left the club in the lurch. Trunk had been stuck fighting an internal battle about who he should be most loyal to, his club or his woman. He chose right. He gave the men time to find me and then he hauled ass to catch up to his woman who had left two weeks after I was brought back to Charleston.
Ghost was the first to greet me after the initial shouts of “Surprise!” and “Welcome Home!”. “Did you decide what you want the club to do with that money? I think you’re entitled to a healthy portion of it, yourself.”
“I don’t want their money to touch my life. If it helps the club, fine. Personally, I don’t want that shit.” It hit me then that no one had discussed Sasha with me. I hadn’t even thought to ask about her after we found out the baby wasn’t mine. “What about the bitch and the rat in the club?”
“The rat wasn’t in your house. She was infiltrating the S.H.E. MC through some new, young buck they had training with Redemption Inc. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time to overhear when intel came in. Then, like the dumb, cocksure, young bucks tend to do… He fucked and talked into his pillow post orgasm.” I laughed at the description. It was true enough though. Too many men were brought low when they spilled secrets after sex.
“Sasha?” I asked the question again because Ghost seemed disinclined to tell me about what happened with her.
“She’s cooling her heels at your woman’s house, whenever you’re ready.”
“My woman’s house?” I glanced around at the home I’d bought all those years ago, the one Ever and I had shared since the very beginning.
Ghost seemed shocked that I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Maybe, I should let Ever tell you all about it.” He called out to my wife and then bugged the hell out of the area like his life depended on it.
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