Page 68 of Wait For Me

“What?” Kip yelled, startled by my response.

“It’s not you, Kip.”

“Well, that’s fucking good news, but what’s the rest of this bullshit?”

“It’s not you, but you’re related to the baby.”

“No way Mack ever stepped out on Viv,” Breakneck spoke up.

“Dad,” I said at the same time Jared whispered, “Tripp.”

“No. No fucking way!” Kip jumped up and yelled. “There’s no fucking way that our dad has a baby that is less than a month older than my son.”

“And she’s sick,” I reminded him as I pulled the results out that the lab had given me. I looked at it and the term Haploidentical stood out. “Haploidentical?” I asked out loud as I read. I’m a half match for her. They prefer something stronger, but I don’t know if either of us can be that for her since we’re only half siblings.”

“What does that even mean?”

I shrugged. “The lab guy tried to explain it all to me, the possibilities, I mean. I don’t think this is good enough, but I’m going to call and check.” I turned to my brother and hugged him. “Kip, call Dad and get him here. You might want to call Uncle Mack too.” I turned to Jared. “Do you think we should wait to tell Davina?”

“She was sent copies of the test too, Sis.” Kip patted me on the shoulder as he held his phone up to his ear. “Yeah, need you at Jared and Star’s place. It’s a fucking emergency, get here yesterday.”

Dad showed up about fifteen minutes later, worried as fuck, and with a woman on the back of his bike. “Oh shit!” Kip stated what we were all thinking. As soon as the woman took her helmet off, it was obvious that it was June, the woman from the bank who our father had been not-so-secretly dating for months. Who knew how long they’d been together, since it had been a secret, but I just kept my fingers crossed that this wouldn’t mess anything up between them if they were getting serious about things.

“What the hell is going on?” Dad asked the minute his helmet was off and he saw us all standing there gaping at him.

“You better come in and take a seat before we answer that,” I offered as I held the door ajar.

“You pregnant or something?”

“No, she isn’t but your daughter is sick,” Kip told him cryptically.

I elbowed him in the stomach and moved out of the way so that Dad and June could pass. She gripped my elbow on the way by and said, “I’m sorry to hear that honey. Let me know if there is anything I can do, okay?”

Her sweet smile made my stomach turn because I wasn’t the daughter that was sick, and I didn’t know how she would feel about the one that was.

“Do you remember Vina?” Kip asked our father.

“Yeah, used to work for the club,” he said quickly without looking at June. It made me wonder just how much she knew about the club life that he seemed nervous to admit that.

“She had a daughter, just a month younger than Knox,” Kip went on to say.

“Fuck! Did you knock her up?” Dad asked.

“No, apparently you did,” Kip shot back at him.

“I – what?” Dad shook his head. “What the fuck did you just say?”

June gasped and moved a little bit away from our father until he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close without ever losing eye contact with Kip. My brother pulled out the DNA results and handed them over.

“I took a test when Bagger told me that she was claiming the kid might be his.”

“What on Earth would you take a test for?” June asked Kip.

“All of us were potential baby daddies since Vina was a club girl.”

“A club girl?” She asked, her face growing paler as the implication finally started to set in.

“That test says I’m not the father, but that I am related to her. That puts you on the hook,” Kip told our father who stared at the paper with a blank expression on his face.

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