Page 254 of Romeo

I’d patched into the Silver Shadows in Arkansas with Titan at the head of the table and Steele sitting beside him. When Titan was killed Steele took over and Stone became VP. I’d listened when Stone spoke. Followed his orders. Trusted the patch on his chest because that was what brothers did.

Finding out later what kind of man he really was had poisoned plenty of those memories. Knowing he was dead didn’t clean them up.

King didn’t linger on his death because the story behind it mattered more.

“Brandy’s father is Hex.”

For a second, the two names refused to fit together.

Hex belonged to the Mother Chapter’s history, one of those names that survived long after the man disappeared. Brandy belonged to this clubhouse. She’d spent years feeding us, cleaning up after us, insulting us, and quietly taking care of every asshole under this roof while pretending she wasn’t doing any such thing.

Ace frowned beside me. “Brandy’s father is Dominic Griffin.”

King nodded. “That’s who Brandy thought he was. She didn’t know her father had ever been in a club. She didn’t know Griffin wasn’t the name he was born with.”

Something cold shifted in my stomach.

“Hex was Dominic Ward.”

Fuck.

King gave us the history the officers had already heard, and with every piece, the Silver Shadows I remembered from Arkansas looked a little different.

Dominic Ward Senior had been president before Titan. Titan was his younger brother, and apparently being second hadn’t sat well with him. With the Society helping from the shadows, Titan had Dominic murdered, blamed a rival club, then stepped into his brother’s chair.

I knew that story.

Not that version of it, but the shape.

“Steele and Stone,” I muttered.

King’s eyes found mine.

The same realization was already souring my stomach. Years after Titan murdered his brother and implicated a rival club, Steele and Stone arranged Titan’s murder, blamed another club, and Steele took the presidency.

Same family. Same lie. Same fucking chair.

We had all believed them. Titan was Steele and Stone’s father. When they told us who killed one of ours, we didn’t question whether they were using our loyalty to aim us at an innocent target. He was their fucking father.

Apparently, Hex hadn’t questioned Titan either.

He’d been young when his father died, with no idea his uncle was responsible. Steele was still too young for the VP position, so Titan put Hex beside him instead, letting his dead brother’s son believe he was being groomed to someday inherit the presidency that had been his father’s.

Then Stone got old enough to want Hex out of the way.

An arms deal, a dead federal agent, and a setup that depended on Hex doing exactly what a loyal vice president would do when the law came down on his club.

He took the fall.

Five years later, the truth came out. Hex went back to Arkansas, nearly beat Stone to death, then burned his cut, covered his ink, and disappeared. Dominic Ward eventually became Dominic Griffin and raised a family who knew nothing about the Silver Shadows.

Including Brandy.

That was the part that stayed lodged in my head while King summarized what happened after Stone discovered exactly who she was. Brandy had spent five years living under a Silver Shadows roof without knowing her father once sat in the VP chair, without knowing her grandfather had been president, without even knowing the Ward name belonged anywhere in her family.

Then Stone dragged her into it anyway.

King didn’t need to give us every detail. Stone took Brandy to force Hex out of hiding. Death Dogs were waiting. Brandy was pregnant, caught in the middle of a war that had started before she was born, and for a few ugly minutes, all I could see was the woman who used to shove food at me when she noticed I hadn’t eaten, rolling her eyes while she told me my flirting needed work.