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Chapter Forty-Four

Diana

Sinclair’s words hung between us, heavy and suffocating. August gripped my shoulders, his hands trembling—not with rage this time, but with the hollow ache of his family’s revelation. I wanted to say something, anything, yet all I could do was stand in the cavernous silence that Sinclair had left behind.

The room felt colder, and the shadows deeper.

I tried to catch August’s gaze, to give him something—some piece of comfort amid the ruins. But he was lost, swimming in new, cruel memories. Sinclair’s confession had carved fresh wounds, and I could do nothing to mend them.

The trip back to the clubhouse was a quiet one as August grappled with what Sinclair had told him. There was still much more I needed to say myself, but like August, I wasn’t in the mood for more revelations. What I needed to say could wait, because when I told him the rest, I was going to need all my strength.

The second we entered the clubhouse, Montana bombarded August with questions. “Well? What did he say? Did he give anything away? Does he know where they went? Come on, man, give me something.”

Instead, August just looked at Montana, then turned and walked toward the bar, leaving me standing there with the person who shared the face of the man who made my life a living hell. Taking a deep breath, I clenched my fist tightly, my nails digging into my skin, and whispered, “Leave him alone.”

Club brothers that escorted us to and from the hospital stopped dead in their tracks as Largo rushed to my side and quickly said, “Now is not a good time, Montana.”

“It’s never a good time, Largo. The club is at war, and I need to know what Sinclair said,” the angry man clipped before walking over to where August was sitting. “What the hell happened? What did the motherfucker say?”

“Not now, Montana,” August muttered, shoulders slumped, dejected, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. And I guessed in a way he did. There was so much more to the man I loved. In a way, he was like Sinclair. The keeper of secrets. Only those secrets were of his family, and he guarded them with his life.

Montana’s frustration simmered in the air, but August barely reacted. He poured himself a whiskey, his hands steady now, as if the act itself anchored him to something solid. I approached carefully, feeling the eyes of the room turn away in uneasy respect, and slipped onto the stool beside him. “August,” I murmured, my voice soft, “you don’t have to—”

He cut me off with a look threaded with exhaustion and old pain. “If not now, then when, Diana?” His words weren’t unkind, just final, the kind that closed doors for the night. Twirling the glass in his hands, he admitted, “Sinclair knows the truth about my family.”

Taking the seat next to him, Montana looked confused but said nothing as he waited for August to continue.

“You’ve always been curious about my family, wondered why your father always backed down, as if afraid of them. Well, it’s because of my mother. Not Julia. Though her being a Craven made him think twice about things. But it’s because of Barb.”

“The woman who lived with you?” Montana asked.

“Lived with us?” August smirked as he brought the small glass to his lips and took a drink. “Everything happens for areason. That’s what Barb told me growing up. For the longest time, I didn’t understand. Now I do. You see, my dad came from money. Old money. The kind of money that came with responsibilities and power. A power your father craved. My dad wasn’t given a choice of whom to marry. Neither was Julia, for that matter. But when you throw Barb into the mix and well, not even the Devil himself could win against them.”

“Make sense, August,” Montana groaned, shaking his head.

“Leave him alone,” I snapped. “You don’t know what this is doing to him.”

“And you do?” Montana challenged.

“More so than you, apparently. Let him speak in his own way.”

Montana closed his mouth, and silence reigned around the gathering room as August took a sip of his drink. Placing it back on the bar, he slowly turned and faced Montana and said, “I now know why your father went after me. Why he put Meredith in my path, blackmailed me and forced me into this club. Why he didn’t stop me from having a relationship with Diana.”

“Why?” Montana whispered.

“Because he knew if I could get her pregnant, it would solidify his standing within theSociety. He would have the power to take over the Golden Skulls, control the table and the Biker Federation, and run theSociety. He would control it all.”

“There’s no way, Bane,” Mercy said, walking over. “To do that, George would have to have blood ties to each organization.”

August smirked. “Yes, he would.”

“I’m confused,” Storm muttered. “What does that have to do with Bane?”

I gasped, my eyes widening as August looked at me. The truth slammed into me hard. Shaking my head, I whispered, “No.” Slowly getting up from my seat, I backed away from the bar as all eyes turned toward me. “Not my babies.”

“Babies?” August stiffened as he turned to look at me. “What babies?”

“There were two,” I rambled, my mind swirling with the realization of exactly who our children were in the grand scheme of things. “A boy and a girl,” I muttered as I tried to assimilate everything.