Page 31 of A Twist of Fate

She shook her head, no. “The doctor says it should be soon though. I might be able to see the sex at my next appointment, but I don’t think I want to know. I kind of want that to be a surprise, you know?”

I offered her a warm and genuine smile. “I do know. I felt the same way.”

“I’m,” she started to say, and I could see in her eyes what was coming. I couldn’t bear to listen to an apology or see pity there, so I stopped her.

“It’s okay. I’ve been in therapy, honey. I’m strong enough to talk about it now, I promise. It still hurts, every day. Between Toby and the baby, I lost a lot that day. It’s going to hurt for a good long while, but I know how to deal with that now. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to be there for you after. Toby’s probably upset with me that I wasn’t.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Still, maybe if I’d been there with you this wouldn’t be happening to you.”

Anna shrugged. “I don’t want to wish this away.”

“No, you don’t. And I hope you don’t mind me being around more. I promise, I’ll be the best surrogate auntie you and your baby could ask for. I know you have Ever, but I’d like to think we would have been sisters if…” Anna moved quickly, wrapping me in a hug. She held on while I pulled myself back together.

“You are a sister of my heart, Gretchen. No matter what.” Instead of pulling myself back together, I fell apart in her arms and we both cried for a few minutes. “Hasn’t Ever told you the same?”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t talk to her that much anymore. At first, I felt like I was betraying her when I started dating your brother. Then, after everything, I couldn’t look at her without breaking down. She started giving me space after about the fourth time, and told me when I was ready she would be there.” I didn’t bother telling Anna about how Kane had intervened and forced Ever to keep her distance. Some things weren’t worth repeating and, for some reason, I thought she might lose some respect for me, and I couldn’t handle more guilt. I already felt bad enough that I hadn’t been there for her with everything she had going on.

“You haven’t been ready?” She asked me.

“No, I have been for a while now, it’s just that now I feel like a bit of a brat for behaving the way I did towards her.” Christ! Now, I was lying to a girl I thought of as my little sister. How the hell was I supposed to tell her I was a goddamn coward though? Because that was what it boiled down to. I was a coward and here was a girl, barely 18, about to have a baby, and doing everything she could to make the best of her life while not intruding on anyone else’s lives. She was a far better person than I was.

Anna just took in what I had to say and then she made me feel worse without meaning to. “She understands. I promise you, if anyone understands needing to get over hurts in your own way, and your own time, it’s my sister.”

“What’s going on?” Beth called out, having finally emerged from the back room. My sister managed to go all protective bulldog on Anna for a few minutes, thinking she was pushing into my space, uninvited. I appreciated that, but quickly calmed the situation. Finally, when everything sunk in and it dawned on my sister why Anna had come in, she glanced at me for my answer. Did I want to give up the job I’d just asked her for. It would mean facing my own fears and finally confronting Ever, not to mention dealing with whatever fallout happened as a result. I nodded my head to her and watched the glow that sprung across Anna’s cheeks as she was offered a job. Well, the glow spread after she initially thought she had been turned down. Anna was still cute as a damn button, but Toby would have been so proud of the way she was handling herself. Even if he wouldn’t have wanted her life to be so hard.

Chapter 9

Prospecting

Kane

Zeke looked at me and clapped a hand down tight on my shoulder. “How’s prospecting treating you?”

I thought about everything that had taken place over the past year. The way Ever was stolen away by Deck, then Gretchen was swooped away by Toby, and once more she was taken from all of us by the clubhouse cunt, Seneca. The Gretchen we once knew was no longer ours. She was long buried with her old man and their kid. We all knew it too. The only thing left to ensure our shop family stayed safe, and no more harm came to them, was to put someone on the inside with the Aces High Motorcycle Club. That someone was me. I had nothing to lose and friends to protect.

Besides, I didn’t think the clubhouse cunt acted alone. There was just no way. I had followed her, seen her with someone from an MC, and she had to be getting some sort of inside information about where he was heading all the time, because she managed to find them without having to follow closely enough behind them that they might notice her. I started hanging around the club after T-Bone’s death. At first, it was to be there for Ever once Gretchen made it clear she needed space from everyone. Then I used that time spent there as my way in. Before long, I found myself prospecting to be a member. It was a shame that T-Bone’s death was my foot in the door, but I couldn’t pass up that opportunity no matter how foul a taste it left behind in my mouth to admit it myself.

“I have this,” I told Zeke as I stood to my full height, forcing his hand to fall from my shoulder.

“You’re a good man, Kane.”

“If I was a good man, we wouldn’t have had to watch one of our girls lose everything and fall apart the way she did. That bitch should have been stopped before it got that far, and I just sat back watching her and taking notes.”

“None of us could have known how that shit was going to play out.”

“I fucking know that. I just had this feeling in my gut, and if I had gone with it instead of waiting…”

“Kane, we can’t look back. Get your ass on the inside of that club and figure out who the fuck was feeding her the information so we can make sure this shit never happens again. Deck is still there, and Ever is with him. We need to make sure she’s safe. We don’t know who was helping that cunt, or how fucked that club is. Seems to me they’ve been rotting from the inside out here in Charleston for some time now. I know some guys from the mother chapter, and this shit going on here ain’t the norm, man. I want you to be careful, be vigilant as fuck, and don’t be afraid to call me if you need backup or a way out.”

I scoffed at that. “You really think it goes that deep? I haven’t seen anything yet.”

“That’s what you’re going in to find out, because eventually someone’s going to slip up.”

“Kane!” Merc called to me the minute I stepped foot inside the clubhouse walls. I was here to work my shift, hopefully behind the bar. I turned to him and tipped my chin up, a sign of hello and respect. “Just the man I needed to see,” he ambled over to me, threw his arm around my shoulders, and then tapped the name tape on my chest that simply said PROSPECT. “Let’s go to my office.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and it had my nerves on edge. I still hadn’t said anything to this point and didn’t see a reason to change that until after the office door shut tight. Then he indicated I should take a seat on the couch in front of his desk.

“Been meaning to touch base with you for a while.”

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