Painful seconds pass without further conversation. Chaos stares at me, right hand toying with a pen on his desktop. He jolts forward, tugging his laptop open abruptly. “You can go now.”
I rise on frustratingly unsteady legs and pace myself toward the door.Don’t want to seem as though you’re running, Jenna.I narrowly escaped death. Watched the consequences train barrel down the tracks toward me and felt the rise of my hair as it whooshed past.Fuck.They’re getting closer. Little steps on a game board that place the Kings of Anarchy nearer to figuring out what I already have.
That The Kid—Anna—is Mary-Beth’s sister.
That they have the daughter of a Blood Eagle under their roof.
And that her presence alone could cause a war, and Iknewthat and chose to say nothing. Not to warn them. To keep it a secret for no other reason than maintaining distance between what I did to her sister and the inevitable fallout of that choice.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Circus shadows me into the parlor where I set the book down on a side table, too scatter-brained to read anymore. Nobody else is in the front room except a couple of guys with prospect patches on their backs, and an older woman cleaning around the mantle.Must be Dolly.Darla’s further through, in the dining room, seated at the table with The Kid and Fang’s daughter.
Fang’s daughter.Damn it. He’s obviously back if Molly is here.
“Hey.”
Darla lifts her head when I enter and then pulls out the chair to her right. “Take a seat. We’re coloring.”
I slide onto the timber and survey the array of simple images printed on loose pages, pencils strewn across the table.Am I even allowed near sharp things if I’m such a threat?
“We have princesses, animals, mandalas, and flowers,” Darla details. “Take your pick.”
The Kid—Anna—adds details to a picture of a horse in a flowery field. Molly colors the skirts of a princess with long, sweeping strokes. I glance at Darla’s mandala, colored like a rainbow starting with violet on the outermost edge and changing color as she works in.
“I think I’ll do flowers,” I say—although nobody probably gives a shit what I choose—and pick an image with a vase of lilies.
“Where have you been?” Darla asks without looking up from her project. “I thought you’d come back to our game after you talked with Chaos this morning. I’ve barely seen you since then.”
Right.Shit.“Sorry. I took a moment after what he said, and then things kind of snowballed since then.”The earth failed to swallow me as I’d hoped.
She pauses. “What did he have to say?”
I roll an orange pencil beneath my fingers.How the hell can so much happen in a day?No matter what I say, it’ll inevitably lead us toward the truth. I can’t avoid Darla forever.
I respect her too much to keep up the bullshit.
“He asked for a favor,” I confess. “Chaos wants me to invite my dad here.”
She sets her pencil down, sparing a glance at the girls on the opposite side of the table before turning slightly toward me.“Why would he ask that?” She lowers her tone to make it harder for the girls to overhear.
I fill the center of a flower. “Because he belongs to a motorcycle club, too.”
She’s silent, staring at me in my periphery.
“Used to, anyway.” My hand shakes as I pick up the yellow for the highlights.
Darla leans close, lowering her voice further when she asks, “What club?”
Don’t make me say it.“One that can help the Kings of Anarchy stop what happened to us from happening again.”
She continues to watch me, her scrutiny burning before she resettles in her seat with a gentle sigh. “Are you going to do it?”
“I don’t have a choice if I want to make meaningful change.” It’s too late for me, but maybe I can save someone else from having to make a decision that’ll haunt them the rest of their life.
We color in silence for a while until Molly lifts her page and shows us her princess. The background is incomplete, and the colors don’t make sense, but she’s proud of it, and that’s all that matters. “Beautiful,” I say. “What are you going to color next?”
The Kid passes her a picture of a rabbit. “Do this one.”
