It was a pussy move, but fuck, I had to do something, and this was the only way.
Reaching into my jeans pocket, I grabbed my cell. Leaning against the door, I kept an ear cocked for any movement in the hall as I sought Ama’s number.
“Keys? What’s wrong?”
The panic in her voice the second she answered had my jaw clenching. I knew she had to think something bad had happened to me or Saint or a brother, but it was nothing like that.
“Babe, it’s okay. We’re all good. I need a favor.”
“A favor?” That she sounded perplexed was a given.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “Kenzie’s at your granddaddy’s clubhouse.”
A sharp, indrawn hiss was her initial response. “What on earth? Why? I thought she ran away.”
“She did,” I said gruffly. “With a Satan’s Knight.”
“What?” she squeaked. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Only found out recently,” I admitted. “When I went and saw my pop.”
Her silence told me she was upset, and that was like a knife to my heart. Saint and I did our best to stop anything from hurting Ama, and here I was, hurting her by being secretive.
“I’m sorry, Ama, but my dad insisted it stay private.”
“Why?”
“Because he knew shit could hit the fan if your dads were involved.”
“I don’t understand.”
I couldn’t blame her, but I didn’t have any explanations that would appease her, not when I’d kept things quiet for one of my usual reasons—to keep her free from worries—and I was dealing with a time sensitive issue so now wasn’t the best moment for an argument on my inability to share shit I thought would cause her concern.
“Kenzie’s pregnant, babe.” I sucked down a breath. “And he’s beating her. He’s beating her bad, Ama. She’s got bruises on top of bruises and she’s, what?” I turned to my sister. “Six months gone?” I’d been around enough pregnant females to know the signs.
Kenzie bit her lip before she nodded and bowed her head like she was ashamed.
Christ, she had nothing to be ashamed about.
She was young, we all were. We made mistakes, but hers had put her in danger at the hands of someone who should have protected her.
If anyone should feel shame, it was her fucker of an old man.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Six months gone.”
“Oh, my,” Ama breathed. “How could he? I mean, how could he anyway, but still…”
“I know. Trust me. Same thought process. I’d want to ram a knife in his throat whether she was pregnant or not. But now? I want to ram it in, twist it, then make him eat it.” My nostrils flared with irritation, and when Kenzie began to weep behind me, I seriously felt like bashing my head into the door. Instead, I rubbed my eyes and mumbled, “I need you to help me, Ama.”
“Sure.”
Her lack of hesitation, the immediacy of her answer, had something inside me sighing. God, this woman…
“What can I do? Keys?” she prompted, when I remained silent.
“I need you to call your granddaddy and explain that I’ll be taking her home with me.”
She fell silent a second. “Is she an old lady?”
“Yeah.”
We both knew the ramifications of what I was asking, but she still murmured, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Ama.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Keys. If it were down to me, I’d just tell you to haul her out of that damn place, but—”
“It isn’t. I know. Just try to work your wiles on your grandfather, yeah?”
“I’ll do my best.”
And because it was Ama, I knew some people’s best were her ‘worst.’ For me, she’d go above and beyond thanks to a loyalty that had been forged when we were both kids.
“Thanks, babe,” I rasped into the receiver, and cut the call before I started to get fucking teary-eyed. But Jesus, Kenzie’s tears? They were loaded with her desperation.
She needed my help, and it killed me that I might not be able to give it to her.
I wanted to ask myself what my dad would do, but I had a feeling I knew. There was a reason this wasn’t his first time in jail. He had a habit of getting charged for aggravated assault, but I didn’t intend to spend my first year as an adult in jail. Call me a pussy, but I just didn’t.
There had to be a rational way around this, and I was just praying that Ama would help me find it.
❖
Ink
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Ama peered at me from over the book she was reading. It was a health and safety docket that she’d have to study up on before she could even think about doing anything other than admin at the tattoo parlor.
There were certain legalities we always abided by, and health and good practices were it. You could eat your dinner off the floor in my parlor, that was how spotless it was.
Some people might think that because Black Ink was managed by the MC, that we cut corners. But that definitely was not the case. Not only because we had to be law-abiding citizens where it was concerned, but I actually gave a fuck about my work, about my clients, and about the ship I ran.
“Just had a weird call from Keys,” Ama mumbled, her frown puckering her brow with a severity that had me wanting to rub it away.
“What kind of weird call? He’s on a run, isn’t he?”
She nodded. “Kenzie’s at the Knights’ clubhouse.”
My eyes widened. “That’s his sister, right?”
“Yeah. She’s one of the brothers’ old ladies. He’s beating her.”
“Jesus.” I had a particular hatred for wife beaters. My own father had beat on my ma when I was a kid, and the first time I was big enough to defend her without him beating me blue, I’d knocked him out and taken great pleasure in doing so.
Fuck, I’d wanted to do more. I’d have stabbed him if the sight of her old man on the ground hadn’t had my mother screaming at me like I was the one in the wrong.
A battered wife’s relationship with her abuser was beyond complicated. But in an MC? Especially when that shit went into another club? It was more than that.
I hated saying it, hated it with a passion because I knew what it was like to be reared in that environment, but I had to say it anyway. As a councilor, my hands were tied. “You need to leave it alone.”
Her eyes widened. “No!”
Rubbing my chin, I rasped, “Either that or you get your dad involved.”
She shook her head from side to side. “No. I can handle this. I just need to speak with granddaddy.”
Releasing a heavy sigh, I told her, “You know how it works.”
“I do, and it sucks,” she growled. “No way is it right that a brother can do whatever the fuck he wants to his old lady with no repercussions.”
I raised my hands. “You’re preaching to the converted here, Ama. My dad beat my mom, so you’re not going to hear me defending the fuckers who use their fists against a woman.”
“Your mom was beaten by your dad?” she breathed, her distress evident.