But before the door shuts, I lock eyes once again with Karter. And I swear I see longing in his.
A pure reflectionof my own.
Chapter 2 - Karter
“Anything else I can get you?”
I have a million and one things to ask for, but instead I shake my head. She’s too young for me. Too innocent. I might not know everything, but I know what I feel for her isn’t rational. Not when you factor in the length of time I’ve known her.
Sure, she was the first face I saw when I woke up. The one that smiled at me the second I opened my eyes and I felt a part of my soul getting pieced back together. I had no idea why it was broken till my brothers told me I’d been married. Had a kid. A life that I don’t remember.
And I hate it. Fucking despise it. I have so many memories in my head, but how can I forget people? People who apparently meant the world to me.
I don’t remember everything, not when the brothers press me. I know bits and pieces. The club, my position there, and how I got my patch. I even recall the brothers and some of the old ladies. But my blood? The ones I’m meant to know? They’re what’s gone. My wife, the elusive Special K, and Ruby, my daughter? I have no clue who they are. No one has shown me a picture of Katrina, my deceased wife, and I haven’t asked. Why? I don’t know.
Maybe I don’t want to see her—standing with me or with Ruby—and feel nothing.
But when her name is brought up, the only image that comes to my mind is Nurse Zimmer. Something I doubt is the right thing to think, but it is what it is.
She’s been nothing but polite. Kind even. Mad Max told me she was one of the main ones watching over me, for which I’m grateful. She also treats me as more than a man in a hospital bed. The other nurses and doctors, even General to an extent, act like I can’t do shit. She knows I can, and she lets me do a few things that the others won’t allow. But I also give her the least amount of shit when we have to appear in the nurse-patient realm with eyes on us. I don’t do that with the others.
What can I say? I’m a biker with memory loss. They can all go fuck themselves.
With a warm smile, she leaves, but she doesn’t shut the door completely. It winks closed, but there’s still enough of a gap to hear the world outside this room. I don’t think she meant to keep it open, just too focused on the other person on the other side of it to remember to close it fully.
“I’m not trying to replace your mom,” Nurse Zimmer says.
I couldn’t see who was outside the room before, but I do now.
Ruby.
My daughter, they tell me.
She’s come by often since I woke. At first I thought she was just another club girl till the boys told me. Then I felt physically ill. Thank God I don’t find her attractive—that would make me want to kill myself even if I don’t remember who I was.
She’s hotheaded and stubborn. If she really is my daughter, I know where she got both traits from.
When I see her, it just makes me mad. At myself, for not remembering. Whoever this Special K person is, I can overlook knowing her for now. I don’t remember her, and she’d gone. Tragic, but true. Hopefully, with time, I’ll remember everything, even her. I might be pissed at myself for the thoughts I have now, but how can I miss someone I don’t remember?
But with Ruby, she’s here. In my face. I see a resemblance. General even showed me the DNA match, not that I asked. She’s definitely mine, but I have zero clue about her. I know many of the brothers. Some are in that black hole of memory loss, but most aren’t. I might not remember everything about them, but they’re a familiar face to me.
But Ruby? Nothing. Blank. Not even a glimmer. And I hate that, because I see the pain I cause her. My heart aches for her—hard enough that it feels as if itshouldremember, even if my head doesn’t.
Still, I resent how she treats Nurse Zimmer. A kind woman who has done nothing but make me feel like a man who isn’t a science experiment being poked and prodded on a medical bed every day.
“How can you? He doesn’t even recall who she is. If there’s no Mom, there’s no me.” Ruby’s words are harsh and jabbing.
I look at Mad Max, who’s staring at the door. His jaw is clenched tight, and I know he’s pissed. At me. The situation. Ruby. All of it.
Mad Max is my personal protection. He’s been by my side for years, even before taking on the position officiallywhen I became president of the Hounds. Even when he got locked up, I still felt a connection to him. More times than I can count, since I woke up and realized I forgot my own daughter, I question why it couldn’t have been Mad Max who I forgot. Why could I remember him, someone I once thought of as a son to me, but not my actual blood?
“And there sure ain’t any him. Not in there. No Dad. Only Law. Because if that was the man I knew, my dad, he would never, ever, look at another woman. He loved Mom so much that even in death, she was his whole world. You aren’t her. And him? He isn’t him either. He died, just like I did since I never existed for him.”
My chest squeezes, pinched from all sides at her words. Hard and sharp, put I push it down, not wanting to focus on feelings I don’t understand anyway.
The despair in her voice is clear, but so is the vile tone she’s directing at my nurse. Ruby isn’t mad. She’s at a breaking point. It’s clear in her words and the way she’s acting. And I don’t know how I feel about it.
Mad Max rises and pulls the door open. He must have been over her tantrum as well.
