Page 63 of Reconciling the Consequences

“You got a lot of fucking nerve, Candela.” Johnny growled, getting in her brother’s face.

Kara had never seen her brother so angry. “Fuck you, Taylor,” Marcos spat.

Kara took in her brother. The black, close-shaven hair that glinted in the fading sunlight. The black T-shirt and blue jeans that she saw him wear every day when they were growing up. The heavy black boots that were another staple of her brother’s wardrobe. The familiar mirrored sunglasses and the black bandanna that was tied in a one-inch band around his forehead. The heavy piercings in his ears.

What she was not familiar with was the heavy black leather cut he wore over his T-shirt. The cut that had a Devil’s Psychos patch on the right side of his chest and, below that, another that read vice president.

“What the fuck?” Kara breathed, stepping out from behind Kevin. She stepped around him so that when Marcos looked over Johnny’s large shoulder, he saw her. “Marcos?”

She couldn’t see his eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses. Couldn’t see if it was anger or disbelief that colored his eyes as he froze and shut his mouth. He went utterly still as he watched her walk around Kevin and Johnny.

She pushed Johnny’s hand out of the way when he tried to push her back behind him. He clearly didn’t want her anywhere near the Devil’s Psychos. But he didn’t know, did he? Because Kara herself hadn’t known. Her brother was a goddamn Devil’s Psycho. Her brother was in an MC.

“Kara?” Marcos asked.

“What the fuck is this?” she exclaimed, stepping in front of Johnny.

Johnny’s hands landed on her hips, his fingers digging in.

Marcos took off his sunglasses and eyed her warily. She watched him as his eyes roamed over every inch of her in her skintight dress, Johnny’s hands on her hips. Johnny pressed against her back, and Derrick and Kevin flanked them.

She watched as Marcos put together the pieces before him—as he remembered their last conversation after she got out of the hospital and the conversation before that one, when they had fought before her attack—and the dawning realization of justwhohad been railing his sister crashed down on him.

She didn’t give him a chance to speak before she laid into him. “Since when the fuck are you in a motorcycle club, big brother?”

She watched as the ripple went around the group as her words struck home. Watched the dawning horror and then anger slide over the group of Devil’s Psychos. Felt Johnny stiffen behind her as he, too, learned the truth for the first time.

Marcos swallowed but he didn’t say a word, just stared at her in shocked horror. She wondered if he had ever planned on telling her the truth or if he’d planned to keep her in the dark all this time.

She looked over his shoulder as the crowd behind him stirred and two more ghosts from her past were revealed in the crowd. Her brother’s two best friends stood behind him: Jason Langford and Nico Gage. Both men also had on black leather cuts bearing Devil’s Psychos patches.

“Hey, Jason. Nico.” She nodded at the two men.

“Hey, Kare Bear.” Jason smiled ruefully at her, his blond hair shining in the sunlight. The barbell through his eyebrow glinted above his steel-colored eyes. He had always been kind to her growing up. He was never mean to her even when she was an annoying little sister, tagging along with them everywhere.

“Hey,Manita.” Nico smiled sadly. Despite his Italian heritage, he was as blond and blue-eyed as Johnny. His skin, though, was a deep golden brown that showed both his heritage and his long hours in the sun.

Kara’s gaze turned back to her brother and she waited. She leaned back against Johnny and rested her hands over his, lacing their fingers together over her lower belly. His large hands spanned the width of her hips.

Marcos’s dark eyes rested on her face. She could see the regret and pain in his eyes over the last words they had spoken to each other. She hadn’t seen him since before her accident. He may have visited her while she was unconscious, but he hadn’t tried to see her once she’d been released. “Let’s go.” Marcos motioned to his guys. “Roll out.”

Kara didn’t move as the large group of Devil’s Psychos turned and walked away, following her brother’s order. Only Jason and Nico remained behind with her brother. “Kara.” Marcos sighed, running a hand over his head.

“You’re an asshole.” She spat the words at him once his crew was gone.

Marcos only nodded, all his anger dissipated.

“How long?” she asked. She needed to know.

Marcos shook his head. “Don’t do this, Kara.”

“How. Long,” she snapped, pushing out of Johnny’s arms and stepping toward her brother.

“Since I was eighteen,” Marcos admitted. “We needed the cash.”

Kara froze. Since he was eighteen? She would have been just eight years old then. They’d moved out of Creekton to Mourningside that summer, and Kara had started at the private school that fall.

He had done it forher. He had done it all for her.

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