Page 45 of Banshee
“But Kaylah did,” she whispered.
“Kaylah did,” I repeated, the words hollow and void. My baby sister had been forced to take my mother’s place in my father’s bed. The son of a bitch had been raping her for years, and I never knew. Never even suspected. I’d thought she was just a moody teenager—that with time she would work through it and be herself again.
I’d failed her. Failed my mother. And I’d failed Aspen. The three most important women in my life and I’d failed them all.
“Do you know what happened to her?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been looking for her ever since. I don’t know whether she is alive or dead.”
“What happened to your father?”
I looked into her eyes. I wanted her to see the real me. The me that would do whatever was needed to protect her, to avenge her.
“I killed the son of a bitch.”
Chapter Fifteen
Aspen
A few days had passed since Banshee told me he’d killed his father. It didn’t change the way I saw him. If anything, it only solidified him as the man I knew him to be.
He was a protector, an avenger.
I’d spent so much time angry at him for rejecting me all those years ago. But after he told me about his sister, and what she’d been through, I had to concede and be understanding as to why he’d done it.
I still didn’t like it, but I understood it. He did it for me. There was no way he could have known what my father would do. No way he could have known who I would end up with.
He’d told me he’d known I was his from the first time he saw me. I tried to remember when that could have been. The Silver Shadows were always making runs to our clubhouse. Who showed up varied. I didn’t remember the first time Banshee saw me, but I would never forget the first time I saw him.
“Banshee, come with me.”
I looked up from my book when my father called out a name I didn’t recognize. This was always the case when the Silver Shadows showed up for a pickup.
My father didn’t want me to know what the club did, but my mother insisted that if I was going to live in the clubhouse, then I needed to know what was going on.
I’d move into the clubhouse when I turned nineteen. My father wouldn’t let me go to university, not after what happened to my sister when she left home, but I didn’t want to live with my parents anymore. I needed a little privacy, and a little freedom.
This was his compromise.
His men weren’t allowed near me, so I had all the privacy I needed. Just none of the freedom. I had more rules living here than I’d had at home.
My father tried to shield me from what the guys got up to with the club whores. And whores were what they were. Hey, I was all about sexual liberation and a woman’s right to choose what to do with their body. But no self-respecting woman allowed men to run a train while they lay spread out over a pool table.
I shuddered just thinking about it.
My father didn’t need to worry, though. Once you’d seen a skanky whore sucking your brother’s dick, you left the room and stayed away—after you finished puking.
But it was daytime, and my mother had strict rules. She raised my siblings and me in this very clubhouse and swore it would be family-friendly between the hours of breakfast and dinner. So, it was safe for me to hang out and study. I enjoyed being around the club; they were family.
I had finished my classes for the day. I had two more years after this semester before I graduated college with a business and accounting degree. My hope was that my father would allow me to help Pontus with the club books.
It was most likely a fantasy, but hey, every girl had to have a dream.
The moment I saw him walk across the room headed to my dad’s office, all hope of studying was lost. He looked directly at me and winked as he walked by.
Banshee was gorgeous. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His dark brown hair hung over his eyes, giving him a youthful look. I didn’t know how old he was, but he was definitely older than me. My guess would be five to seven years, maybe more.
I let my eyes devour him as he walked away. He looked better from the back with the way those jeans hugged his ass.
