Page 59 of Keys

I continued to shake my head. “My father never even muttered my name once when he was around me. Until today, I’d never heard him say it out loud.”

“That can’t be right,” Aubrey attempted to contradict me. “He messed up sometimes when I was little and called me Sarah. When my mom chastised him for it, he would just laugh and tell her that he liked my middle name more.”

I shrugged my shoulders at her. I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe those were times when my mom harped on him about spending time with me. Maybe, he was just a cruel son of a bitch and getting his digs in every way he knew how, even if you guys didn’t understand yet. I couldn’t tell you, but he never once called me by name that I could remember.” I moved a step closer to the door. “Listen, we can have this talk when everything is done, and my mom is safe again.”

“Wait!” Aubrey called out causing my annoyance levels to spike. “I went there to get you back for keeping him from us,” she admitted.

“I figured.”

“I didn’t even realize you were his biological child at first. You have a different last name.”

I pointed to the paperwork the lawyer had just shown her. “I had it changed when I was fifteen.”

“I get that now. I just need you to know I’m sorry. I purposely went after him,” she pointed to Quickshot, “because I had seen you with him before. I wanted to screw things up for you, or at least rub it in your face that he was mine and not yours.”

“We weren’t together anymore when you two got together, so it didn’t matter anyway.”

“That look on his face says it did matter. I screwed things up for you guys,” my sister told me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “He made his own choices,” I reminded her. “No offense, but if a man doesn’t want to do a thing, I find that they have no problem stopping themselves. Unless you drugged him each time you interacted, I think its safe to say, that no matter your intentions or reasons, he acted on his own accord.” I refused to look at Quickshot as I told my sister that. Though, I wasn’t entirely sure why I felt the need to help alleviate her guilt when she purposely set out to harm me.

“What you need to decide now, is if you want to stay where you are, change your name again, find a new life, or whatever because I’m not going to stop until I bring down Brian Cassidy for what he’s done.” I pointed to MiMi. “That woman over there was a victim of the trafficking ring he is involved with, and I’ll be damned if I allow him to get away with what he's done.”

“I understand.” She turned her back on me then and started dialing her – our – brother. “Blaine,” I heard her say, but that was it. I tipped my head to the side, indicating to the guys that we were headed out.

Chapter 22

While we sat there planning and waiting for Paul to show up with Aubrey, I managed to slip out and make a few phone calls. As a result, just as we were about to head down to the lobby of the building the law firm was in, we heard heavy footsteps barreling down the hall.

“Who is that?” Keys asked.

“Backup, just in case we need to search multiple properties, or your dad has extra security measures in place.” I told her. She nodded her head, no doubt expecting it to be some of the guys from our Sierra High Chapter. Instead, Crusher, Court, Trick, and Diamond all muscled their way through the door one-by-one.

Keys’ eyebrows quirked as she tried to hide the grin that threatened to crop up at the sight of all the muscle before her. That’s all she was grinning for. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. There was no way she was interested in any of those ugly fuckers.

“Holy shit! It’s like a sexy biker calendar came to life and walked through the door,” Aubrey blurted out. I narrowed my eyes on her as well. Not because she thought any of them were sexy, but because it meant the assholes weren’t ugly either, and that the reason Keys was staring at them might be something more than professional interest.

Crusher held out his hand to Keys immediately. “Crusher. We met briefly once before when the Sierra High Chapter opened its doors.”

“I remember. Good to see you again.” Keys was professional and courteous with him. Good. Then Court stepped in closer. “I don’t remember you though,” she purred as she extended her hand to the man. His beard looked as though it had been tamed professionally, but that was probably only because I was used to seeing it after being windblown and beat to shit from riding. The guys had come up from our Tallahassee Chapter on a fucking charter plane so that they could get here in time to be useful.

“I would definitely have remembered you as well. I’m Court,” he told her.

“Keys,” she countered. When Court glanced sideways to see my reaction, he immediately took a step back and introduce Keys to Diamond and Trick.

I had to hand it to him, since I hadn’t publicly claimed or patched her, he didn’t have to do that. Then again, we had talked a bit at the various stops along the route we had taken recently when we moved a shipment from Georgia to South Dakota together. He knew as soon as she said her name that she belonged to me – if I could ever win her ass back and not keep fucking it up.

The truth was, I had gone over Sweet’s head and went straight through our National President in order to set this up. The local boys didn’t need to be given an up-close-and-personal glimpse into Keys’ life or her troubles. Granted, it would come out anyway, but I figured I would spare her if things got emotional for any reason. She would probably only rarely, if ever, see the guys from Tallahassee. Even if she never knew why they were here instead of the boys from Sierra High, I was okay with that as long as she stayed protected.

“Van’s back home holding down the fort and taking care of his woman, but he wanted to let you know that if you manage to cut the head off this fucking monster once and for all, he will be forever in your debt.”

“You guys know about what’s going on?” Dane asked.

Crusher glanced from Keys to Dane, and then back to me again. “Shit, I forgot.” I cursed myself for it too because it would be one more thing I didn’t fully disclose to Keys. “The Tallahassee Chapter had to put down some pretty powerful men in the area, including local politicians, judges, and business owners. Crusher’s old lady testified in a case down there about her friend who was raped. They put a price on her head for it. Then Van’s woman was kidnapped, and she didn’t make it out unscathed.”

Keys listened intently as I recapped what we’d only recently learned about her father. “We learned a while back that Senator Cassidy was related to the family that was in power down there and we know they were into running guns, drugs, and women before the club shut them down.”

“Did you find that out before or after you found out that he was my father?”

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