“Cheating, too much drink. Even started on some drugs.”
Saint tensed. “Drugs? Where the hell did he get them from? We don’t allow that shit.”
My daddy’s sister had died of an OD, so he was real strict about having drugs on the premises. We didn’t even sell them anymore or distribute them for cartels because he was against them so much.
I truly believed I could star in a porn film and he’d prefer that to me scarfing down a pot brownie.
“He got it from the Knights on a run, of course.” He grimaced. “All I’m trying to say is that Keys was too young to really notice him going off the rails. Mostly because his mama made sure of that and, to be honest, so did your mommas. That last year, Dorie and Lucie closed ranks around Keys, but it was too late for Kenzie. She’d already seen the shit her daddy was doing.”
“So, that’s why she’s a bitch?” Saint argued, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. She’s always been that way. Whether her daddy pulled shit he shouldn’t or not. And he sure as fuck didn’t raise no snitch.”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I agree.”
Ink just shrugged. “I’m only telling you how it was. She took a nosedive around about that time too. Nothing any of us could do. I wasn’t surprised when she ran off. Too many bad memories in this place for her. Which begs the question, why she’d plot to come back, don’t you think?”
My heart stuttered in my chest. “She wants to hurt her daddy?”
Ink pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think so, but she hasn’t done anything to indicate she’s helping out any LEOs. But that shit with the bruises was just plain weird.”
“If you’d seen her at the clubhouse, you’d think it was even weirder. She was scared, man. Petrified.”
“Of who, though?”
Saint sighed. “I don’t know. We thought Hex, but if something else is at play?”
Ink’s expression turned pensive, and I squeezed Saint’s hand again before I got to my feet and murmured, “We need to get on the road. The parlor opens up soon.”
As we trudged on out, and I climbed onto the back of Saint’s hog, I pressed my cheek to that spot between his shoulders that was made for me, and looked out onto the side of the road as we drove over to Jonsson.
My mind was awhirl. Not because I was frightened, like my guys seemed to think I’d be, but because I was tense.
Revenge.
I’d already been burned by it once. My family had been paying the price of someone else’s vengeance for a long ass time.
I wasn’t going to let that happen again. By hook or by goddamn crook, I wasn’t about to let Kenzie burn my family, my MC family, just because her daddy had gone off the rails before her momma had died.
❖
Keys
As I listened to the conversation going down in the next room, I had to admit, it was hard.
Fucking hard.
In fact, no, that sounded too easy. This made me feel like I was going nuts. Listening to Kenzie being a bitch to Ama? Yeah, it made me want to ram my fist into her throat, and I wasn’t the kind of guy who was okay with violence against women, but sometimes, I wished to fuck that Ama would stand up for herself so I didn’t have to feel this goddamn way.
I rested my elbows on my knees and bowed my head as I tried to calm myself down.
It was a shitty time when a man had to sneak around so that his sister and girl could talk without his kin thinking he was eavesdropping. But that was exactly what I was doing. Listening in and making sure I heard every piece of shit my sister uttered with that filthy mouth of hers.
“I can’t believe you got accepted.”
“To every school I applied for,” Ama replied, and from her tone of voice, I could tell she wasn’t stressed at all. It boggled my mind how she acted unaffected around bullies, and there was no denying the fact that my sister was one.
A hundred percent.
From the scratching sounds, I knew she was drawing, and I knew Kenzie had agreed to it for some reason that wasn’t known to me. Ever since the council had taken to believing that she was a lying snake in the grass, her movements had been monitored, her phone taken away from her, and she had someone with her—even at night.
Did it piss me off that the person pulling the night duty was Long John? Didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out what they were doing.
But LJ was loyal to the MC. To his core. No pussy was about to sway him away from that, even one as devious as my sister.
“What I don’t understand is why you bothered applying if you had no intention of going,” Kenzie mused.
“Because I have no need to go,” Ama responded, absentmindedly.
“So, my question still stands. Why even bother? Why waste money on the applications?”
“Just because I didn’t need validation doesn’t mean others don’t.”
Kenzie snorted. “Manipulator. You’re just like me.”
Ama’s laugh was short, but it dripped with genuine amusement. “I’m nothing like you, Kenzie. Nothing at all. Except for the fact we both have great tits and an ass made for a bikini, nope, we’ve got nothing in common.”
“You always did think you were so high and mighty. Just because you were kidnapped. Wah, wah, wah,” Kenzie mocked, her teasing making me grit my teeth. But I’d promised. I’d fucking promised Ama that I wouldn’t interfere.
I wasn’t sure what was going down with her, but this morning, she’d told me that she wanted to not only sit with Kenzie for a while, but also, she’d wanted me there to listen in.
It was good timing, all told. I was supposed to watch Kenzie, so this meant we could kill two birds with one stone without telling anyone what we were doing.
“Nope, wrong again. If I’m high and mighty, Kenzie, it’s because of who my dads are. You really don’t get the political hierarchy of a motorcycle club, do you?”
Kenzie grunted, accepting the blow I knew Ama would have delivered with a sweet smile. How did I know that? Because she sounded cheerful. Cheerful as she burned my bitch of a sister.
I had to admit, it made me laugh to myself.
Kenzie, who wielded her razor tongue like a knife, had often been cruel to Ama, spoke shit about her behind her back, but Ama? Took it all in her stride.
I wished I could.
Wished I had the ability to keep my ducks in a row, but whenever Kenzie bitched about Ama, it just sent me off the fucking rails.
And it wasn’t always about Ama. Sometimes, it was about other people in my life.
What the fuck was I supposed to say to my dad when he called? What the hell was I supposed to tell him about the BS Kenzie had pulled? That was before this other shit where she might be a snitch… sweet Jesus, that was gonna break his fucking heart if it was the truth.
My dad was already on the edge. Had been ever since my momma had died. When Kenzie had run off a few months after he’d been jailed? It had killed him. And I knew he had to have pulled a shit ton of favors to learn of her whereabouts from the inside. Losing her again was going to mess with his head when he needed to keep things clean so he didn’t fuck his parole board meeting up.
Just thinking about him having to serve out his full term made my head feel light and my eyes start to spot at the edges.