She jumped on his back, slicing his throat from one side to the other. Lynch dropped to his knees and pulled the trigger. The shot went wide and missed King but found its mark in someone else.
Jingles dropped to the floor. Poseidon and Ben released Banshee and pulled their guns along with everyone else.Banshee took the distraction as an opportunity. He pulled his gun, rushing across the room as he shot Steele in the chest.
A member of the Arkansas Chapter, whose name I didn’t know, grabbed Demise and slit his throat. Dropping him on the ground where he had tried to maneuver himself close to Zeus.
Banshee stood over Steele, his gun pointed at him. “Any last words, asshole?”
“Wait!” I cried and ran around the bar, slipping past Johnny as he tried to grab for me.
I kneeled beside Steele. Blood poured from the gunshot wound in his chest, and I knew he didn’t have much time.
“Who is my father?” I begged.
Steele smiled a bloody grin and said cryptically, “The investigator knows.” His laugh turned into a wet cough, and I felt his blood splash onto my face.
My hands grabbed his cut, and I shook him as his eyes closed. “Tell me!”
“Grace.” King peeled my hands away from Steele and lifted me to my feet. “He’s dead, baby.”
“He knew,” I sobbed. “He knew who my father was.”
King lifted me into his arms and called out, “Clean up this fucking mess.” Then he walked out of the main room and carried me upstairs. I cried into his neck as he climbed the two flights of stairs and took me to his room.
Setting me on the bed, he went into his bathroom and came back with a warm washcloth. He gently cleaned the blood off my hands and face, then tossed the washcloth through the bathroom door.
“Lie down, baby.” He pulled the covers up over me and settled beside me, drawing me into his arms. That was when I broke down completely from the revelation that I might never know who my father was.
“I’ll never find him now. Steele was a bastard, but at least I had a father when I thought it was him. Now I have no one.”
“You have me, baby. You have Declan and Maureen. You’ve got the whole fucking club.” He held me tight while I cried until there was nothing left but an empty hole in my soul filled with pain.
For the first time in almost three years, I woke up in King’s arms. We were both fully dressed, and I breathed in his scent. The lingering smell of leather from the cut he wore daily brought tears to my eyes as I remembered the events from the day before.
Steele wasn’t my father.
He knew who my father was and took that information to the grave. Just like my mother did.
What was the big secret?
Who was he?
Who am I?
Everything I thought I knew was a lie. I was completely alone in this world. No mother, no father, no sisters. Everything gone with a single shot to the heart.
A bitter chuckle slipped from my lips, and King stirred. His arms tightened around me.
“Morning, Princess.”
I pulled away from him. “You can stop calling me that now. Turns out I’m not a princess. Just another daughter of a single mom who grew up with no father.”
“Grace.” The sound of his voice was painful. It hurt to hear the rasp of gravel he had from not talking for hours while we slept. It hurt to think that the only reason I was here, in his bed, was because the man I thought was my father was dead.
I shook my head when he reached out for me. Unable to speak over the lump in my throat and the tears that burned the back of my eyes. I rushed into the bathroom and closed the door, securing the lock.
I need a few minutes to myself. A few minutes to figure out where my life was going. For years now, my life had been about finding my father and making him pay. I’d wanted to use King to do that, but I’d fallen in love with him.
Or had I?
