Chapter Eight
Ace and Deuce wanderedinto the kitchen and found only Charli there, fixing breakfast.
Ace studied her then noticed her worried expression.“What’s wrong, babe?”he asked as he moved in closer and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Charli leaned back against him as she sighed.“Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”she whispered.
Ace stiffened as he glanced at his brother then back at her.“Well damn, there’s more bad news?”
Charli nodded then turned around and looked at him.“Not even I expected this but I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.”She glanced at Deuce then back at Ace.“Britney...She is someone that...Well, she isn’t Britney.”
Ace stared at her.“What the hell do you mean?”
Charli sighed and explained, “When I told Luna this morning about what happened during the night, she insisted on seeing this woman.I told her that Britney had just gone to bed and she insisted I take her to her.”Shaking her head she admitted.“I didn’t know what she thought to find but the moment she saw her, she knew.She checked for a scar on Britney's arm.”She looked up at Ace.“Britney is Luna’s sister!I mean how can that be?Braaken Ridge sounded familiar to her because she was raised here.She’s Luna’s missing sister that everyone thought was dead all these years.”
Ace raised his brows as he looked over at Deuce then he broke his hold on Charli.He moved over to the table and sat down heavily, staring at the floor.Then after a long moment, he raised his gaze to Charli.“She’s Annabelle’s mother?Damn, Jade became her mother after her sister died at Gauntlet’s hands.Jack is practically her father.What a fucking mess.”
Charli walked over to where he was sitting and knelt in front of him.Reaching out, she took his hand.“I know the timing is bad and right now things are up in the air as far as things can be, but Luna just found her sister.A sister she thought had been dead for four years.How do you think that makes her feel?”
Deuce stepped over and he shook his head as he shared his disgust, “That family was so fucked up from the beginning.Whittaker did those girls wrong in so many ways.”
Ace nodded.“That’s true and this is one of the results too.But you know as well as I do that Jade and Jack aren’t going to let anyone take that little girl away from them.”He released a long breath and ran his fingers through his hair.“But that’s not the only thing we have to worry about.We got a gunrunner coming here to shut us down, so he can keep his business and a crazy group coming in to take Charli away and marry her off to some guy.This is all kinds of fucked up.”
Charli growled and stood.Looking down at him she snarled, “No one is gonna marry me off to some guy.What do you think I’m gonna do?Give in?Fuck that!I will not be dictated to or told what to do nor will I listen to anyone telling me what protocol I need to live by.And you should know that by now.Whatever Jullian tells me is my birth duty he can stick it up his ass.They left me behind.I didn’t leave them.Ben raised me because they didn’t want to.They do not get to come back now after I’m all grown up and tell me what they say goes.They left me behind when most of them went back to Italy after the feud was over.I haven’t seen any of them in fifteen years and for all I care now they can stay the fuck away.”
Ace shook his head.“Baby, it might not be that easy.”
Charli crossed her arms over her chest and seethed.“It is to me.When they left I only had Ben and my grandmother as family. When my mom and dad left me here to visit them, they protected me from harm.That they never made it back to me says a lot.I didn’t hear from my dad’s family for five years, then Mario wanted to meet me again.Ben took me to meet him back then Mario and Jullian came to see me.But they left me with Ben after that.This is the first time I’ve heard from them and their demands don’t even register with me.They didn’t raise me.And the money they sent for me went to someone else who used it to become a criminal.My Uncle Ray is just that...a fucking criminal.Now when he’s been exposed for the thief and liar he is, he wants to come here and kill me?Well, I have a few weapons that will argue with that.”
Ace and his brother shook their heads.
Ace chuckled at her usual brazen attitude.“Baby, you have at least five loaded weapons.They are called theWarlords.”
Deuce nodded at her in agreement of the obvious.
She huffed and said, “I’d better have that, but I was adding in my knives and my favorite shotgun and maybe that old pistol I like so much.Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do and people to see.”She tuned and stalked down the hallway.She went to the room Luna and Britney were in and as soon as she opened the door she found the two girls talking.
Luna looked up and smiled even as tears rolled down her face.“Charli, I want you to meet my sister.”
Charli smiled at her.She looked over at Britney and asked, “Do you remember now?”
Colette/Britney slowly nodded at her.“I’m beginning to.When we were young, we made up a safe word that only we knew.As soon as I opened my eyes and saw her sitting there, I remembered the word and the both of us burst into tears.It opened a door in my mind and I’m remembering lots of things now.”She wiped a tear away and added, “Luna told me what happened to my baby, what Gauntlet did.”Looking at Charli, she whispered, “I just woke up at the hospital in Chicago up from a three-week coma because when they found me I was almost dead from being sliced open.They kept me in a coma while they tried to save my life.When that cold hearted bastard sliced my belly open to get the baby, I damn near bled to death but a neighbor found me and he got me to a hospital.I still don’t know how the hell I got to Chicago but that’s where I finally woke up.So honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about having a daughter.I mean I hated and feared her father.I’m not sure I felt anything for the baby I carried for eight and half months.”
Charli frowned at her and asked, “Don’t you mean nine months?”
Collette shook her head.“Something happened and he couldn’t wait any longer.He needed to get the baby out of me and escape before someone caught him.He took the baby early.I remember screaming and it hurt horribly.I believed that I was going to die.I passed out thinking that, in fact.The doctors told me he cut me open and took the baby without worrying if I would even survive.I think he was hoping I wouldn’t.I know he sure as hell never had any feelings for me.All he needed was an heir, not me.I’m not sure I felt anything at all the whole time I was there.I never loved him.How could I?He was intentionally cruel to me.I was more afraid of him than I ever was of our father.”
Luna snorted.“It turns out that Whittaker wasn’t our real father anyway.Our mother’s name was Lucy Jean and he supposedly loved her but she didn’t love him.She ran off with our real dad, a man called Keller London, but he found them shortly after we were born.He slit dad’s throat and took us from our mom and our big brother Traven.Our brother was only six at the time, so there was nothing he could do.Later on, Traven went to work for Whittaker in a twist of fate somehow, but he told us there was nothing he could do at that time because Whittaker had a standing order that if he were dead then his men were supposed to kill us all.Traven came to see me not too long ago and he said he couldn’t save you but he could take out both Gauntlet and Whittaker.”
Colette listened as another tear fell from her eye.
Luna wiped her own tears from her cheeks and went on, “He even knew who Annabelle was.That was a year ago.He also told us that Whittaker had a tracker put into us when we were young and he found out too late where you were.”
Collette’s expression had gone blank, as if she were getting too much information in too little time and she was overwhelmed.“Oh, my god,” she finally whispered, “So what happened to Whittaker?He isn’t still alive, is he?”She looked very afraid as she asked this.
