Page 82 of Always Yours

“What’s your?”

“M-my mom’s name is Trish Fisher, wha… who…holy shit…” Ella stumbles out her words and starts digging through her purse. You can see her hands shaking as she does this.

She takes out a picture that looks like it has been through a-fucking-lot. With a shaky hand she flips it over, and I freeze in place as I look at a younger picture of my man. Back to when we first met.

Derek grabs the picture from her, and the colour drains from his face. Torch and Steal come up to see what the fuck is going on.

“Why the fuck do you have a picture of our dad?” Torch asks.

“I-it was in my mom’s stuff when she died. I had gone through everything with her when she was alive, but she would never let me look in that box. When she passed away, I packed it with my stuff and opened it as soon as I was put in the group home,” she says looking down. Her story is just confirming everything that I already know. This is who we have been looking for.

“That picture was in there with my birth certificate and my baby picture. There was also a letter addressed to a guy named Derek Knight, but I never opened it. I just carry the picture around because it must have been important to her.”

She looks at Damien, but he just shrugs. Many of us know what this means. Especially those of us who have been around the club for decades.

I look at Derek and he swallows hard. Everyone is looking at Ella with wide eyes; we are all having the same thoughts. This is his daughter. The child he had been missing all these years.

Derek clears his throat a couple times. “Do you still have the letter?” he asks. I know he’s looking at Ella, searching her face for answers.

“Yeah, I keep it on me in case I ever ran into him, I guess,” Ella says, digging back into her bag.

“You did,” he whispers. I don’t think she heard him since she is focused on finding the letter in her purse, but I’m standing right beside him and hear him perfectly.

Ella hands him an envelope that has seen better days. Hopefully, the letter will have the answers he needs.

“Here’s everything that was in the box. I mean everything except this key chain that has the initials D.K. on it, but I have always kept it on my keys. I can give it to you too if you’d like,” she suggests. She looks at him with confusion because he hasn’t said much. I know that he won’t say much until he reads the letter. Ella looks so lost, innocent, and confused right now.

He looks at the key chain, and I see a ghost of a smile on his face. “No, that’s okay. You keep it. I’m just going to read this letter. Can you give me a minute?” he asks.

He looks over at Damien before he leaves to read the letter alone. I stand there and wait as he reads a letter that will definitely change his life.

I don’t take my eyes off Ella as she takes a plate from Cook and eats like she didn’t just rock everyone’s world.

Derek looks pissed when he comes back and, after the conversation he had with her asking about her life and father, it’s easy to say that everyone is pissed.

Once she’s put to bed and everyone voices their opinions on the matter, I take Derek to our house since he put her in his room at the club. I know he’s hanging on by a thread.

When we get inside, the storm he was holding in lets loose and he drops to his knees as he breaks down.

I fall to my knees in front of him and wrap my arms around him as the sobs that leave him break me.

It hurts so much to see this strong man fall apart.

“I looked for my baby for so long. I missed so fucking much of her life. I hate Bianca and what she did to me. To us,” he says as his voice cracks.

“She’s here now, honey. You finally have your baby,” I say with a break in my voice.

We sit there and hold each other as we cry for the unfairness of it all.

We probably spend hours there and, when Derek finally makes a move to get up, I follow him to the room we had made especially for his baby.

I know he goes into that room often because it still gives him hope. This time, he walks in and sees everything we had prepared for years covered in a thin layer of dust. I try to come in here and clean up once in a while, but I hadn’t gotten around to it lately. Neither of us talked about what to do with the room because we both knew that it had to remain the way it was. Otherwise, it would seem like we had given up on finding her, and we were never going to give up looking for her. We refused to lose faith that we would one day find her.

He sits on the rocking chair in the corner and pulls me onto his lap, releasing a shuddering breath.

“I had always hoped that I could use this room if I ever found her. I knew that she had become and adult, but my mind always refused to believe that,” he says.

I nod my head in understanding.

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