We rode back to the clubhouse together. I didn’t know where he was staying, but he didn’t come in. I walked up the porch steps as a bike pulled into the lot.
Ghost turned off his bike and climbed off. His face was grim. “What are you doing here? I thought you stayed to protect Mellie and Roxy?”
“It was either I came back, or Sinclair did. He sent me back to protect his son.”
“FUCK!”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Grace
I walked out of church numb. Running down the hall, I heard people calling out to me, but their voices were too far away. It was as if I were in a tunnel and they were all at one end. I couldn’t stop moving. If I stopped moving, I would have to think, and I didn’t want to think.
Pregnant!
I made my way outside and just walked. Brothers patrolled the grounds, but no one bothered me. There were acres of land, and I walked in circles.How could he ask me to wait?
What if the baby wasn’t his? Even just a few weeks of knowing I might have that monster’s baby inside me. Or worse, one of the others.
I bent over and grabbed my knees. I couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down my face. What was I going to do? How would I ever get past this? Knowing my body betrayed me.
“Grace.” I felt her hand on my back as I sobbed. “I think it’s time we talked about what happened.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then listen.”
I stood up and glared at Karlyn. “I know you hate me. I get it. After what I told you, and then dragging you out of the clubhouse, and then...”
I turned away. I couldn’t even look her in the eye without feeling guilty. It was my fault. And now I was paying for it.
“I was sixteen the first time I was gang-raped.”
Her confession made me spin around so fast I almost lost my balance. I struggled to stay upright as I thought about what she must have gone through.
“I was coming out of dance class when they grabbed me. I didn’t know who they were at first. My parents sheltered me as a child, used me as a pawn for my father’s political career. When I was kidnapped, I thought it was one of my father’s rivals, maybe another candidate who wanted leverage. Politicians are just gangsters in suits. But it wasn’t one of them. It was far worse. What I didn’t know was my mother was sleeping with the president of the Satan’s Angels.”
I gasped. That was the club my father said he could take his place in. The club that bought Banshee’s sister and nieces. The club that killed her and sold off her daughter. How much more would Karlyn and Jackson hate me if they knew I was related to the man who started her torment? I stayed quiet as Karlyn continued.
“I was gone for two days when Momma entered the room I was being held in. I’d never been so happy to see her in my life. She was my lifeline, the one person I thought would truly fight for me. But I was wrong. Afterward,” she whispered, “Momma told me I did my Christian duty. That, if God willed it, I would get pregnant. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”
My knees gave out beneath me, and I sank to the ground. I still couldn’t speak. What could I possibly say to her?
“What did you do?” I asked, my voice cutting out on a hiccup.
“I had the baby.”
I looked up at her. “How?”
Karlyn shrugged. “I wasn’t given a choice. My parents wouldn’t let me have an abortion. I was only sixteen, so they made the choice for me. They sent me away until I gave birth.”
“Where is the baby?”
Karlyn took a deep breath and looked out over the landscape. It was like she disappeared somewhere. Her voice was calm; there was no emotion as she spoke of the child she gave birth to.
“My brother and his wife are raising her.”
“You gave her up,” I said. There was no judgment in my voice. In fact, there was respect. I admired Karlyn for what she did. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t carry the child of someone who so brutally assaulted me. Who took so much from me and left me with a daily reminder.
