“That’s when you came here,” Trudy said.
“Yeah. That’s when I came here.” I looked at her. “Grace is thirty years old now. Pregnant with her first baby. My grandchild. She’s built a whole fucking life without me. And I missed all of it.”
“Stephen—”
“When I first met Grace in August, she told me her mother had died. Lung cancer. Said it was about five years ago now.” I paused, remembering that conversation. “Grace took care of her until the end. Watched her mother die. And I wasn’t there. Didn’t even know Christina was sick.”
Trudy squeezed my hand.
“For weeks I barely left the clubhouse. I wanted to spend every second with my daughter, and when King had to go to Virginia and then Louisiana, Grace wouldn’t stay here without him, and I wouldn’t stay here without Grace. So I went with them.”
I ran my other hand over my face. “I fucking hate New Orleans. That was where Christina went when she left Arkansas, probably ’cause she knew I’d never look for her there.” I turned to look at her. There were tears in her eyes as she waited for me to continue. “While I was there, Gator, the president of the Bourbon Kings MC, gave me a journal. Said Christina had left it with him before she died. She’d told him to give it to me if I ever came looking for Grace.”
“Grace didn’t know about the journal?” she asked.
“No. Christina specifically said Grace wasn’t ready for what was in it. With everything going on between the clubs, I’d forgotten about the journal until last week. Hell, Trudy, I wasn’t ready for what was in that fucking book.”
Trudy was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What’s in the journal?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Trudy
I watched Stephen’s face as he told me everything he’d learned from Christina’s journal, every painful detail spilling out in a torrent he could no longer contain. My chest tightened with each word, each revelation more devastating than the last. I’d spent months watching this man walk into my bakery with that cocky grin and absurd flirting, flashing his money around like he owned the world. I thought I had him figured out; thought I’d seen through his act completely.
A charming old biker with too much confidence and not enough sense. A man playing at being dangerous while living a comfortable, uncomplicated life. But sitting here now, watching the pain etched into every line of his weathered face, seeing the way his broad shoulders curved inward as if trying to protect himself from his own words, I realized I hadn’t known him at all. I’d been looking at a mask, just like everyone else.
He took a breath, deep and shuddering, and I saw his hands tremble slightly as he began to speak. His voice was rough, like he was pulling the words up from somewhere deep inside him—somewhere that hurt. Somewhere he’d locked away and tried to forget.
I watched Stephen’s face as he explained how Christina had spent years not knowing where her son was, not knowing if hewas alive or dead, not knowing what horrors he was enduring. The guilt in his expression was palpable, as if he somehow should have known, should have been there, should have stopped it all before it started. As if loving someone meant you were responsible for every terrible thing that happened to them.
I felt sick. The cruelty of it, using an innocent child as a tool for manipulation and control, was beyond comprehension. What kind of monster held a child hostage? What kind of person weaponized a mother’s love like that?
I listened as he told me about Christina finding out about the rescue. About her knowing that if they went in and failed, Caroline would kill Grace in retaliation. About the impossible choice she’d faced: save one child or protect the other. Watch her son suffer or risk her daughter’s life. There was no right answer. There was no winning.
I felt tears streaming down my face now, unable to hold them back any longer. The violence of it, the tragedy, the sheer weight of what Christina had endured—it was too much. No one should have to make that choice. No mother should have to choose between her children.
“His name is Samuel.”
The way he said it, so carefully, as if the name itself was fragile and precious and might shatter if he spoke it wrong—it broke something inside me. This wasn’t just a story anymore. This wasn’t some distant tragedy that had happened to people I’d never met. This was real.
“She was protecting Grace,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I know.” The anger rose in his voice, hot and bitter, like something boiling over that he couldn’t contain anymore. “But she was also protecting herself. From having to tell me the truth. From having to admit what she’d done. What she’d become.From having to see the disgust or pity or horror in my eyes. And I’m so fucking angry at her for that.”
“Stephen—”
“Twenty years, Trudy.” He pulled his hand away from mine and ran it over his face roughly, like he was trying to scrub away the emotion. “Twenty fucking years I could have been there for Grace. Could have been her father. Could have watched her grow up. And Christina took that away from me.”
I watched him struggle with it, the simultaneous understanding and rage, the grief and the fury. He was trying to hold contradictory truths in his hands while, at the same time, trying to reconcile the woman he’d loved with the woman who’d stolen his daughter from him, and it was tearing him apart. Piece by piece.
“She was scared,” I said gently, reaching for him even though he’d pulled away earlier.
“I know.”
“She was alone.”
“I know.”
