Page 71 of The Echo of Violence

“If I tell you, you have to keep it between us.”

Scope shakes his head. “I can’t not bring it to the table. As a club, I can’t hide this shit from my men. But I can order them to keep their mouths shut. Tell me why they would need to.”

“Because most people think I’m dead. I’m not saying there’s a target on my back or that I’m hiding, but being linked to Chaos puts me back out in the open again.”

“Why would you be a target?”

“Because ten years ago, every member of my family was killed except for me, Rex, and Nico.”

It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Kaz cocks his head. “What’s your name?”

“Ophelia McCree. My father was Lynch. President of the Savage Hearts MC.”

Scope lets out a loud whistle.

“Shit.” Kaz looks at me in shock as Wizz starts typing on his laptop.

“I heard about that. Nobody really knew what went down. No one stepped up to claim responsibility, though there were rumors that it was the cartel,” Wizz mutters, not looking up from his screen.

I shrug my shoulders. “I was a kid. I sure as fuck didn’t know the ins and outs of what went on in my dad’s one-percenter motorcycle club.”

“No death certificate for Ophelia,” he mumbles before spinning the laptop around and showing me a photo that makes my heart ache. It’s a picture of my dad with one arm around my mother and the other thrown around my shoulders. I’m sticking my tongue out at the camera. My mom is staring at my dad with stars in her eyes, and my dad, well, he looks like he has the whole world in his arms.

It was taken the week before I lost them. I look down at the denim cutoffs I always wore and stare at the legs that I always thought were too skinny, and I swallow.

Yeah, I lost a lot.

I lift my head and focus on Wizz. “Is there a reason you’re showing me this? I’m aware of everything I lost.”

“That picture was dated a week before the explosion that tore through the clubhouse.”

I nod. “I know.”

“How’d you lose your legs, Jinx?” he asks me quietly.

“In the explosions that tore through the clubhouse. I was pinned in place when the ceiling caved in. Ironically, it was the ceiling that kept me mostly safe from everything else. Rex dug me out. He saved my life.”

“You were fifteen?” Kaz chokes out.

“Yeah, and honestly, I don’t want to go down memory lane with you right now. We all have tragedies that shape us.”

“Tell me more about Rex and Nico.”

I sit up sharply. “They’re mine, and they are off limits.”

“I’m not interested in hurting them. I just want to make sure they are not a threat to us. They were in a one-percenter MC, as you pointed out.”

“Was being the operative word. Both are bounty hunters now, like me. Nico took me in even though the state thought I’d be better off in a group home.”

Scope scowls at that.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine how hard it is to live in one of those places, let alone doing it in a wheelchair. I would have been easy pickings. Nico fought hard for me. He never gave up.”

“And Rex?”

“He was only nineteen. There wasn’t a court in the country that would have given me to him. He…”

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