Around and around, like she was trying to think, trying to clear her mind to come up with her next plan of action.
The look on her face?
One of desperation.
She knew she’d been cornered.
She knew it and she kept flickering her gaze over to Ama who, for all intents and purposes, was entirely disinterested in what my sister was doing. Her focus was on her sketchpad, and call me stupid, but I could see Kenzie trying to figure out the odds.
Odds about what, I wasn’t entirely sure, because if she hurt Ama, she’d have two MCs riding her ass from here to Canada if she thought she could go on the run after that.
“Ama?”
I stiffened, waiting on my sister’s next words.
“Yeah?”
“Will you help me?”
Ama switched focus, and pinning Kenzie with her stare, asked, “Help you do what?”
“Get out of here.”
“And why would you want to do that when you’re home and a ‘girl needs to be home when she’s about to give birth?’” Ama mocked, her eyes harder than I’d ever seen.
“Because I’m in danger. L-Look, I know we’ve never gotten on well. But I’m Keys’ sister. You know it will hurt him if anything happens to me. And my daddy. I know you love him as well,” she wheedled. “It would kill them both if anything happened to me.”
“And exactly why would anything happen to you if you’ve done nothing wrong?” I inserted, striding into the room, unable to take this bullshit any longer. I wasn’t about to let Ama be manipulated. Not when there was so much at stake here.
Kenzie, upon seeing me, froze. She raised her hands into the air like I was a cop, and whispered, “Please, Keys. Just let me go.”
“Like Ama said, you worked so hard to get here, Kenz. Why the fuck do you feel the need to leave now?”
Her words were strangled when she whispered, “I had no choice.”
Everything inside me froze. “No choice to do what?”
“Help them. They needed an in.”
“Who did?”
She released a shaky breath. “W-When I left here, things didn’t go so well. I hung around at the Knights’ compound for a while, but shit didn’t work out there. I’m not made out to be a clubwhore.”
“Fuck no, you’re not. You’re a councilor’s daughter,” I growled, my hands balling into fists at my sides.
She gulped. “Well, it didn’t take me long to pick myself up and get the hell out of there. But in El Paso, things were harder.”
“Why? Because you actually had to work?” Ama sneered, but the pad was still resting on her knees, her pencil moving as she worked.
“Like you’re one to talk. You’re away with the fucking fairies most of the time, Ama,” Kenzie snarled back.
“Until this summer, I’ve been at school, you idiot. I only just fucking graduated. With a 3.9 GPA. I’m not a lazy bitch like some people. I don’t need to pay my bills on my back.”
Kenzie flinched at that but snapped, “I tried to make a go of it in El Paso, I really did. But I ended up with some bad people. Got myself into some shit, and ended up in jail with a possession charge.”
“You were dealing drugs?” I choked out.
“Yeah.” She raised her hands and covered her face. “I’m not proud of it, and I’m not proud of what I did next.”
“What?”
“They were going to throw me behind bars for eight years, Jamie. Eight. I couldn’t—” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I agreed to help them.”
“You cut a deal,” I snarled.
“They wanted me to go back to the Knights, so I did. And when I told them what they were running, and with whom, then they got interested in the Rebels’ operation.”
“So you brought them here? Ain’t you heard of never shitting in your own backyard?”
She flinched at my yell. “I didn’t have a choice!”
“We always have a choice.” I scrubbed a hand over my face before I turned away from her, trying to process what the fuck was happening. “This is bad shit, Kenzie. I don’t think we can help you. If you weren’t pregnant, you’d be in The Pit for this shit.”
Kenzie gulped. “I know. That’s why I have to get out of here.”
“We can’t help you,” Ama said softly. “Not without implicating ourselves in your BS. We can’t even let you get away, not without getting blamed too. I’m not about to take any heat for the mess you’ve fallen into, Kenzie. Don’t care if you’re Jamie’s sister or Rodeo’s kid. You’re not worth it. You don’t deserve either of them. And you sure as fuck don’t deserve any help from us—”
“Well said, Ama.”
Kenzie hissed and her eyes rounded in fear as Lucie strode into the room. It felt like the space around her throbbed with chaotic energy. I knew her well enough to recognize that look—that bitter, gnarly look was what had overcome her when they’d dragged Jodie-May, kicking and screaming, into the clubhouse for her punishment.
A punishment that Lucie had no problem meting out.
Kenzie backed off, but there was nowhere to go. She flattened herself to the wall and rasped, “Please, Lucie. Please. Just let me go. I won’t be no more bother.”
“No, you sure as shit won’t,” Lucie growled, as she strode toward my sister, but Ama wasn’t wrong—she wasn’t worthy of us. Didn’t deserve us as family.
She was no fucking sister of mine.
When Lucie stepped toward her, Kenzie looked like she was going to piss herself, then, Lucie froze and bit off, “What the fuck have you done?”
Unsure what she meant, I stared where she looked, Ama, finally getting to her feet, did too.
“Oh my God,” Ama whispered at the surge of cop cars that rammed the road to the compound. “What the fuck did you tell them?”
Kenzie released a shaky breath, one that was loaded with a sense of relief that made me hate her even more. With a cockiness that made me wish she was a man so I could beat the shit out of her, she murmured, “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Lucie surged forward at that and with all her force, raised her hand and slapped Kenzie. “Be grateful you’re pregnant. If you weren’t, I’d have done more.” She spat at Kenzie who was holding her cheek, then spat again. The globule of spit landed on my sister’s forehead. “If you do anything to hurt my family again, I will find you and I’ll make you pay.”
“I never wanted to hurt you in the first place.”
Lucie sneered. “Scurry along to your pig friends, bitch. Oink, oink.” She grabbed her arm and hurled her away. Kenzie caught herself but did as bid, scurried off like the rat she was.
“Ama, you’re about to hear some stuff and see some stuff that might frighten you. But please, baby,” Lucie urged her, grabbing hold of her hands and squeezing them tightly. “Don’t worry. Just keep your mouth shut. Say you don’t know anything, and keep it on repeat. This will all be over by tomorrow.”
Ama gulped, but kissed her momma’s cheek. “Will everyone be safe?”
Lucie stared her in the eye and nodded, and I released a relieved breath because that meant, no matter how hard they tried, the cops were about to have a wasted journey.