Page 49 of Devil's Queen

“And is he mine?”

I nod, bracing myself for the explosion that I know is coming.

“Were you ever going to tell him about me?” Rex’s voice is laced with hurt and disbelief, a dangerous combination.

We both fall silent, a heavy pause hanging between us like a suffocating fog.

“I… I don’t know.”

Rex’s eyes pierce through me, searching for any trace of truth within my words. His anger simmers, but a flicker of vulnerability is dancing in his gaze. It’s a side of him I’ve rarely seen, masked by the walls he built around himself. He takes a few steps toward me like the predator that he is, sizing me up with every step.

“Why, Rem? Why the fuck would you keep this from me?”

“Rex, I thought I was doing what was best for everyone.”

“What’s best for everyone? How is keeping my son away from me best for everyone when I didn’t even fucking know about him?” he roars. “What about me, huh? What about what I wanted? Did you ever consider that, Rem?”

“Why would I have considered it? You stayed. You watched as that club ripped away everything that I knew, and you fucking stayed. Why would I want to raise my son with someone whose loyalty isn’t to their fucking family?”

“You want to talk about loyalty, Remington? I stayed to protect you. I did what I had to do,” he roars.

“So did I!” I swallow hard. “My son deserved a chance to be happy.”

“You didn’t give me a fucking chance to be a father to him.” Rex’s eyes harden, and he takes another step back, away from me. “If I’d have known about him, I would have stepped away from that club without a second thought. Did you even think about that?”

I take another deep breath, trying to find the right words to say. “Rex, I understand if you’re hurt and angry, but I did what I thought was best for my family. I didn’t want Beaux to be caught in the crossfire of your life and the club. I wanted to protect him from the life that fucking ruined mine.”

“That’s rich.” He scoffs. “You wanted to protect him? You started a fucking club of your own, Rem. You brought him into this life all on your own.” Rex looks at me, his eyes full of pain and betrayal.

“I know I did, but the Voodoo City Queens are not the same as the Zulu Kings. We help people. We aren’t like the ZKs. I chose to protect him instead of dragging him into that world with you. To put him in danger every second of the goddamn day because his dad is a Zulu King.”

“My club has nothing to do with what you did. You let your fear rob me of raising my son.Ourson.”

“Your fucking club tried to take everything away from me. The roof over my head, the shop that has kept my mom and me barely afloat, and the chance of making this business a success.” I reach into my pocket and retrieve the piece of cut, tossing it at him. Rex catches it with one hand. “I found the bike this morning, and with it this.”

Rex analyzes the scrap of leather.

“Tell me again that your club isn’t involved in ruining my life. Tell me that I should trust you with my life and my son’s when you can’t even tell me the fucking truth.”

He holds the scrap of leather up at me. The tremble of his hands is apparent. “This has nothing to do with the fact that you hid my son from me, Rem.”

“It has everything to do with it,” I snarl back. “Do you want to know the real reason why I kept my son a secret from you? Because I knew you’d break his heart just like you did mine.”

REX

Unable to lookat Rem any longer, I storm out of her office and somehow find myself in my clubhouse meeting room without much recollection of how I got here. The blind anger I’m feeling blocked out the middle part of the ride. The need to put distance between Rem and me is more important than conscious presence.

This is the place where it all started and crashed down around me.

When Pike first approached me about joining the Zulu Kings, I brushed him off. Being a part of a motorcycle club wasn’t in my future. Trade school was. I had applied to several technical colleges to study to be a diesel mechanic. I wanted that blue-collar life until I had to make my first impossible choice, thanks to my deadbeat dad forcing my mom to kick me out of the house on my eighteenth birthday. With nowhere to go, I put all those childish dreams of a picket fence and a nine-to-five job out of my mind and called the one person I knew could give me shelter and purpose. Pike.

Had I known I was signing up for the most grueling two years of my life, I may have taken my chances on the street.

I became the club’s servant day and night—washing bikes until they gleamed, serving beer at gatherings, and doing literal shitty work cleaning bathrooms destroyed by my club, who ate nothing but greasy truck-stop food.

I stifle a shudder. I still have nightmares about the bathrooms. Now, the culprits had either moved on, retired, or passed away, so at least our prospects would be spared that displeasure.

But cleaning shit and serving beer didn’t prepare me to take up the mantle as the Zulu Kings’ president. Truthfully, nothing could. I didn’t want it until the vote was down to me or Wolff’s former prospect and clone, Monte, which left me little choice. Monte would have only continued it. I had to step up.

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