Page 17 of The Other Princess

“What chance are you talking about? I still don’t understand why they’re even here.”

“Your boyfriend out there has a plan to make sure your big old family gets put back together all happy and tied in a pretty bow and whatnot.”

“What?” I questioned, not understanding a bit of that. “I don’t have a boyfriend, never have.” I slapped my hand over my mouth as the words popped out, and I watched Kane’s eyes flare.

“You’ve never had a boyfriend?”

“Um, no. You know with all the shit that went down in high school, I…” I stopped talking is what I did, because Kane moved until he stood in front of me and lifted my chin with the tip of his index finger. “If that fucker screws this up, just know I’ll make sure you never get to say you’ve never had a boyfriend before, you hear me?”

“Kane!” Zeke called out from somewhere over Kane’s shoulder. It took him a moment to disengage his finger from where my jaw now rested on it, but when he did Kane huffed in a big breath before turning and moving out of the room, leaving me with Zeke. Zeke watched Kane as he went, a curious look on his face as he did.

“Seems you enchant all the men in your life easily.” Zeke’s words were no more than a thoughtful musing, but one I scoffed at.

“Clearly, I do not. I guess I better get out there and see what it is they came to torment me with this time,” I managed to get out before the lengthy sigh of dread that followed.

Zeke chuckled at me. “So dramatic, Ever. No one is hear to hurt you, in any way, I promise.”

“Fine, but if I so much as chip a nail, I’m holding you responsible, big guy.”

“I’ll take it. Come on, let’s get you through this shit.”

“It seems like I’m living in a dream right now. Maybe you should pinch me or something?”

“Pinch yourself, sweetheart. I reserve that kind of shit for the hoards of women who want to…”

“No!” I huffed out on a laugh. “No, no, no! How many time do I have to tell you I don’t want to hear what you do with your hoards of women?” I had never actually seen Zeke with a woman, so either he was discrete as hell or he over exaggerated a lot. Looking at the mountain of a man, I had a hard time believing it was the latter.

“Let’s go, dream girl. You’re closure awaits.”

“Right, closure.” I resigned myself to this being the last time I’d see any of these men unless in passing. Maybe this wasn’t a dream so much as a nightmare, because as much as I wanted to be free of all the heartache they’d caused me, I had always wanted their acceptance of me more.

Chapter 9

~ Declan ~

The moment Ever was out of sight Double-D slumped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook, and I knew he was losing his shit, and trying desperately to not show it to everyone. His words were nothing more than echoed heartache. “What the hell have I done?”

“I told you to prepare yourself, because it was bad,” T-Bone explained quietly. My own father shook his head back and forth in disbelief as T-Bone spoke, because he honestly hadn’t let himself believe that his men – his brothers, his son, he himself – had been the cause of one little girl’s complete and total breakdown. When we sat the men down to discuss my plan, I hadn’t planned on telling them how bad things had gotten for Ever, but T-Bone didn’t want them spared the guilt he now carried on his own shoulders.

Everyone had been on the fence about following through, and Crow and PeeWee had flat out refused to take part in it at first until T-Bone described the scene only his mother had been witness to. When he confronted Lucy about it after Ever mentioned it to me, she broke down and told him everything. She didn’t spare the details either about how she had walked in after hearing Ever scream like death itself was chasing her, and then what she saw once she burst through the door. Pills scattered everywhere, Ever sitting in cold water, lips taking on a bluish tint, and screaming at some unknown enemy she was trying to fight. Only the unknown enemy hadn’t been unknown. It was us. It was our club. It was what these men had done to her, encouraged others to do. It was what wasn’t done, the failures that took place, the absolute lack of faith in her and failure to protect her that had become her enemies. We, Aces High MC, had all had our part in helping to destroy this beautiful, remarkable, angel of a girl. The girl who can’t even see our kutte without preparing for battle now, the girl who should have been comforted by the sight, was so broken by the men in our club that she feared it instead.

Once T-Bone told the men about how Lucy had found Ever that day, and got her into therapy, they all agreed to my plan. I don’t think PeeWee or Crow were going to be given much choice in the matter though, once Double-D heard the story he blew up. The man destroyed the room we used for our meetings. There were holes now adorning the walls where chairs were thrown into them, and he refused to allow them to be patched. Double-D made a firm stance that every one of the men in the club should have to look upon the scars on the walls of our most sacred area and remember that they were nothing compared to what they had all done to his baby girl.

“Hearing it second hand, and seeing that look on her face when she asked why we all hated her so much,” he started to say as he pulled his tear-stained face back out of his hands. “Jesus, what the hell kind of a father have I been all this time to not see how much she was hurting, or that we were the ones doing it? Fucking Lucy tried to tell me, and I didn’t want to…” he cut himself off, seeming to get lost in a memory as my dad sat beside him and clamped a hand down on his shoulder in support.

“We’ll make it right, brother.” My father’s promise was clear and concise. I only hoped he actually meant the words, because somewhere along the line he had been just as complacent, and had even been part of the problem. He never should have taken his son’s word, based on the word of some high school slut, and definitely never should have allowed his men to destroy a girl over it. Even if she had been guilty, she was still family, and she had been a fucking child in the big scheme of things.

I wasn’t certain how much time we should give Ever before she came back out here. Something inside me itched to go check on her, especially after seeing her break down in the arms of Kane Youngblood. I’d gone to school with that bastard and knew what kind of a ladies man he was. Besides, I had eyes, and I knew women found him very attractive. I also noted that he had started seeing Ever for the woman she had become as opposed to his little sister’s best friend. It probably didn’t hurt his attraction that she was a gifted fucking artist working right beside him day in and day out. The more I thought about their proximity, the angrier I became.

My own feelings for Ever were something I’d tucked away and hidden over the years. At first it was because she was definitely too young for me. There’s a point in life where that age gap means bad things. Then, there was my brother, and the fact that she was always googly-eyed around him. After that I was gone in the Army, but her letters, the way she opened up to me made me want to come home so many times and just wrap her up in my arms and keep her there. Hell, the couple pictures of herself that she sent didn’t go unnoticed by my buddies either. They didn’t ask about the kid sending me letters either. They asked who the hot chick was that I was hiding back home.

When I first came back to town and saw Ever I swear my heart twisted inside my chest, the ache was so real. She truly was a gorgeous creature, inside and out. It was also apparent that she had grown into herself, very well too. Her curves didn’t seem to stop, and I overheard more than one of the brothers talking about her phenomenal tits since I’d been back. They might have hated on her for their own personal reasons, but they still appreciated the way she looked. The bastards.

“She’s not going to come back out here,” Double-D stated solemnly. “Maybe we should just go. I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.”

“So, what? You leave and never speak to her again?”

“I think that’s what she wants at this point,” he explained in an emotion-roughened voice.

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