I sat in the chair next to his bed and leaned my arms on my thighs, letting my hands hang between my legs. I dropped my head down and shook it.
“Yeah, my niece called him when Maureen went into labor.”
“Your niece?”
Confused, I looked up, then remembered he was still learning how many gnarled branches this family had.
“Beck, Blade’s old lady, is Declan’s daughter. He never knew. Her mom went to college in Arkansas and they had a fling; she lied and told him she had an abortion. We met her last year when she moved back home. Her and Blade grew up togetherhere in Diamond Creek. Oh, and Blade is my cousin. His father and Sal were half-brothers.”
“He and Beck...?”
I shook my head and grinned. “Nah, Sal is Beck’s uncle and Blade’s uncle, but two separate sides of the family and no blood relation thank fuck, because we didn’t know who she was until after he fucked her.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ravage said, rolling his head back and looking at the ceiling. “Your family might be more fucked up than Reaper’s.”
“Honestly, I’m surprised Sypher hasn’t found a way to connect me to Reaper yet.”
I looked around the room, stalling. Nav had told me about what had happened in Lincoln, between James and Ravage. I wasn’t sure how he would react knowing he was coming here.
“I got a phone call today.” Ravage looked my way, his eyes hard. And I wondered who he might hate more than his father. “James Doherty.”
“Fuck.”
“Says he has information. Reaper and Montana will be here in three days.”
Ravage began to move. “Baby, wake up; we need to go.”
“What?” Karlyn asked, her eyes barely even open.
“You aren’t leaving this clubhouse,” I stated firmly. “You almost fucking died. Patch has you hooked up to an IV for the antibiotics so you don’t die from a fucking infection. And Morpheus already tried to take you to the Brotherhood once. You don’t have enough strength to fight him off, and I’d really rather not die for shooting the fucker in the head. I’ve got enough to deal with already.”
“What?”
I grinned at Karlyn. “Your girl here walked right up to the big motherfucker and put him in his place.”
Ravage looked down at Karlyn, and she blushed. “I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, and King was right behind me.” She shrugged.
“He didn’t know,” I said softly.
“About what?”
“Me. And you. About us having the same mom. I guess she didn’t tell him she’d had a baby a few months before she met him.”
“There are so many questions,” he whispered.
“Questions we’ll never get answers to,” I agreed. “There’s something else I need to tell you before I go upstairs and talk to my men.” I looked at Karlyn.
“I need to use the restroom; you two can talk.” She leaned up and kissed Ravage, and I looked away. I didn’t know if she’d suffered the same fate as Grace. But I was jealous that she hadn’t pulled away from him.
She stood up, but before she walked out, she asked, “How is Grace?”
I took a deep breath and shook my head. “She’s not doing great. She let me share a bed with her for a while, but I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to fucking move. I’m so afraid to fucking touch her, but all I want to do is hold her in my arms and promise it’ll never happen again.”
Karlyn put her hand on my shoulder. “That’s not something you can promise, King.” Looking into Karlyn’s eyes, I immediately knew Grace wasn’t the only one who had suffered at the hands of the Death Dogs.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Karlyn.”
“She told me what she’d tried to do.” Her voice was quiet. “While we were sitting at Trudy’s, she told me everything.”
