“Steele is your father?” Beck asked.
“No, apparently not. He said he didn’t sleep with my mother until after she was pregnant. But he knew who my father was, but now...” I let my words trail off. I didn’t know how much the women knew, but looking at Beck and Sam, if they didn’t have the facts already, they’d figured it out.
“Now that Steele is no longer president, he thinks we can be together”—I snapped my fingers—“just like that.”
“That fucking idiot,” Maureen cursed. Karlyn’s eyes widened, and she smiled. “He learned that shit from Declan. He did the same shit with me.”
She struggled to stand up, and when she walked to the door, she opened it and said, “I’ll set him straight.”
“Maureen, no! He has to figure it out on his own.”
She placed a hand on her belly and looked at me with sympathy. “Grace, honey, he’ll never figure that shit out on his own. I had to beat it into Declan’s head.”
She left the office, and I slumped down into my seat. Eros stuck his head through the door and said, “Karlyn, Ravage is back.” Then he looked over at Aspen. “Kyllian is here.”
I sat forward. “Who’s Kyllian?” Sam asked.
“Banshee’s niece,” Aspen answered.
She looked at me, and I added, “And Steele’s actual daughter.”
We all stood and left King’s office. We walked down the hallway into the main room, and I saw her. She was all grown up now, but she looked just like her mom.
I walked Karlyn over to the table Ravage and King were sitting at, but my eyes never left Kyllian. She was at the bar talking with Banshee and Angel. I knew she wouldn’t remember me; she was only a toddler when they stopped coming to the clubhouse, and I wondered if my mother had something to do with that.
Did she know Steele was her father? Did she know he was dead? Would she mourn him? Would she miss him? Or did she know her father was a bastard and an asshole? Did she know what he had done to her grandparents? Did she know he cheated on her mother, and that my mother was the other woman?
I hadn’t remembered that until recently. I had forgotten that Steele had a wife and a family. My mother had more secrets than I’d realized, and I wondered what other secrets she took to her grave. Secrets I would never know.
“Grace.”
I turned at the sound of his voice. I’d been so caught up in looking at Kyllian, I hadn’t heard him approach.
“We need to talk this shit out,” he growled.
I could smell the whiskey on his breath. “Are you drunk?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Come upstairs with me,” he slurred, reaching for my hand.
“No!” I pulled my hand back, and he growled. I tried not to react. With everything inside me, I didn’t want to be aroused by this man, but everything he did, even when he was an asshole, even when he broke my heart over and over, he caused the butterflies to swarm inside me.
“Fuck this,” he growled, and before I knew it, I was off the ground and over his shoulder as he carried me out of the room to a chorus of shouts and whistles.
Chapter Twenty-One
Banshee
Angel and I sat at the bar talking while Aspen was in King’s office. Grace had taken Ravage’s woman back there and kicked King out. Now King was sitting at a table with Ravage and a few others, as they ribbed him about how much he had fucked up when it came to Grace.
Angel told me all about my sister and nieces. Things I never would have known. Like, how she was when she was pregnant. What kind of mom she was. How much she loved her girls. Listening to him talk, I could hear how much he loved her.
It mended a small piece of the crack in my heart to know that she had a little bit of happiness in her life. She’d had a man who loved her, even if she couldn’t be with him.
I’d never forgive myself for what she went through. I’d never forgive myself for how she’d died. If only I’d seen what was going on at home. If only I hadn’t waited three motherfucking days when she didn’t answer. Maybe I could have saved her from being sold the first goddamn time.
“Did Steele know she was pregnant?” I asked, my eyes straight ahead. I couldn’t look at Angel as I asked the question. I wasn’t even sure I wanted the answer. It was a good thing the motherfucker was dead, but in my anger, I’d let him die too quickly. I should have made it more painful, more drawn out. He should have been tortured for days before dying a gruesome death, the way my sister had.
“I don’t know,” he said, taking a sip of the whiskey Joey had put in front of him. “It was early still. We’d only found out about a week before she disappeared.”
