“Fucking A,” Teller grumbles behind me.
Chuck scowls even harder at Teller. “Christ, you’ve always been a self-righteous prick. Just like your prez.”
Teller sneers. “Thank you.”
“Leave Teller out of it. He’s a decent guy. I understand that’s confusing for you.”
Chuck snorts. “Bikers can’t afford to let women make them soft.”
“Stop fucking around and tell her what she needs to know,” Teller snaps. “Before I beat it out of you.”
“Jesus Christ, he reminds me a lot of Dean,” Chuck mumbles, shaking his head.
My jaw drops. “What are you talking about? You told me he was nothing like Dad.”
Chuck glares at Teller. “I don’t suppose you’ll wait outside, so I can have this conversation with my niece in private.”
No. No. No.
“One,” Tellers says. “If you’re not talking—two—by the time I get to five—I’m going to—three—break—every finger in your—”
“All right. Jesus. Fuck.” Chuck drops his gaze again. “Did you know I met your mother first?”
Now that we wore him down and it seems like he’s finally ready to tell me the truth, ice settles in my stomach. Maybe he was right, and this is a truth I should leave buried. “No,” I finally answer.
He takes a deep breath and sits back, staring straight ahead, but I don’t think he’s looking at Teller. It’s more like he’s trying to capture a glimpse into the past.
“She was a grade below me in high school. Dean was a year behind her.”
“I knew they met in high school.”
“I saw her first.” He meets my eyes and a hint of a smile curves his lips. “She was beautiful. You really do look so much like her when she was younger.”
Instead of glowing from the compliment, icy fear shoots through my veins.
“Anyway, we dated through my senior year.”
Holy shit. That’s news to me. I always assumed whatever their strange relationship was, it started after my father died.
“After graduation, I start hanging around here more. I don’t have to tell you what goes on in the club. Or out on the road.” He smirks at Teller. “What happens on the road stays on the road, right, son?”
“Maybe for you,” Teller fires back.
“So, you cheated on Mom?” I ask.
“Even when she was a teenager, she had a vicious little temper. She got even with me in the most perverse way.”
Trying not to seem too hopeful, I ask, “Did she cut off your balls?”
One corner of his mouth twists up. “That might’ve hurt less.”
What he’s hinting at becomes clear. “She hooked up with Dad? To get even with you for cheating on her? Is that what you’re saying?”
“She didn’t know a single one of those girls.” He presses his free hand against his chest. Not in a dramatic way. An unconscious gesture as he searches for the right words. “But she knew how close Dean and I were.”
“So you’re saying their whole marriage was based on getting even with you. Christ, your ego has no bounds.”
He snorts out a laugh. “I wish it was that simple. But no, she loved him. And he was crazy about her. I loved both of them and wanted them to be happy, so I stayed out of their way.”
“Well, aren’t you a martyr.”
“Not really. I brought him into the club. Figured he’d fuck up the same way I did and teach her a lesson.”
“So much for staying out of their way,” I mumble.
“It didn’t work. They had you. Went on about their happy life. He never strayed once that I know of.”
After that he’s quiet and something awful occurs to me. “Did you kill him? To get her back?”
“What kind of question is that?” I think I actually hurt his feelings, if he has any. “No, Charlotte. I should’ve died in that accident. It should’ve been me. I didn’t have a wife and kids depending on me. No one would’ve given a shit if I’d been the one to slam into that semi.”
“Mom would’ve cared. Dad would’ve cared.”
“After Dean died, she lost it. I did all I could do to keep her out of trouble. She was constantly running up debts with dealers and fucking around with shady characters.”
I want to scream when he stops talking to take in a deep breath.
“I tried reasoning with her. I tried being with her.” He glances down. “But she hated me for being alive when he was dead and she never let me forget it.”
Tears burn my eyes. I remember a lot of their back and forth. The times Chuck tried to stay at our house and inject some normalcy into our daily lives. Not that he was perfect. Or could ever replace my dad. But as much as I hate him, I have to admit I remember times when he tried.
“Go on.”
“That last time I was inside, was the worst. She was a mess when I got out.”
“I remember.”
“I was really proud of you when you went to college. And when you said you wanted to go to law school. Your dad would’ve loved that. I wasn’t lying that day.” He pauses to glare at Teller. “He didn’t want this life for you.”
A lot of little things Mom said to me when I graduated from college come back. Things I probably pushed to the edges of my memory. “Mom wasn’t happy about it though, was she?”
“No,” he admits. “She wasn’t. She got pregnant with you and had to drop out of college.”
She never let me forget it either.
“Christmas was the worst time for her,” he continues. “I think Dean’s death always hit her hardest during the holidays. That particular year, she was into her dealer for a lot of money. No matter how hard I tried to keep these fuckers away from her, she always found a way. I beat and ran off more dealers, other clubs, gangs, you name it. When that woman wanted something, she was relentless.”
“I’m sure having a woman in your life who you couldn’t control, made club life awkward for you.” He doesn’t so much as flinch at the venom in my voice.
“It wasn’t easy keeping the two things separate when she’d drop my name as a way to get out of paying her debts. She did that more than once.” He stops and stares at me. “I think that’s enough.”
“Don’t you dare stop now. You haven’t told me anything useful.”
“I’ve said enough.”
There’s a scrape of the chair next to me being pulled over the concrete floor. Marcel sits and takes my hand. “Who are you protecting, Merlin? Charlotte or her mother?” he asks quietly. No hint of anger or judgment in his tone.
Chuck meets my eyes. “Both.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
Chuck blows out a long breath. “Your mother was into some gangbanger for a lot of money. Without warning me, she invited him to come to the party with the promise he’d get paid.”
A memory fuzzes at the edge of my brain. The parking lot behind the clubhouse. A bedroom. A black T-shirt. The harder I try to focus on it, the fuzzier it becomes, and then it’s gone.
“Charlotte?” Teller squeezes my hand. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I meet Chuck’s curious eyes. “Go on.”
“At this point, Cindy had been bleeding me dry for months. I didn’t have enough on me to cover the whole amount.” He takes a long deep breath, letting it out maddeningly slow. “When I left to get the cash, she worked out a different deal.”
“What?”
Marcel squeezes my hand tighter. “He’s right. That’s enough, Sunshine.”
I seem to be the only one missing a giant piece of the puzzle.
A puzzle that’s right in front of me.
Or my mind just can’t bend around the dark truth.
“I don’t understand. What different deal?”
Chuck can’t meet my eyes. “When I returned to the clubhouse, he was gone—or so your mother said. Made up some bullshit story about how he decided to wait for the money. She claimed you’d gotten into an argument with her and went b
ack to your apartment.”
“I don’t remember fighting with her that night.”
He hesitates, and I almost scream in frustration.
“She asked me to take her home.” He drops his head and in a lower voice adds, “Then she asked me to stay.”
“So you were busy reconciling with her mom, while Charlotte was getting raped?” Teller spits out.
Chuck doesn’t respond to the accusation. “I didn’t know what she’d done.”
“Wait.” Shards of awareness slice into me. “Mom set me up? My own mother? To pay off a drug debt?”
I shoot out of my chair so fast it tips over, clattering to the floor. The agony of betrayal burns through my veins. Blinding pain steals my vision and breath. Blood roars through my ears, drowning out everything else.
My mother?
Marcel’s at my side, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me against his warm solid body. My fingers curl into his shirt as my tears soak the fabric. He continues stroking my back.
“It’s okay, Sunshine. It’s okay.” He holds me, whispering soothing words in my ear, rocking us from side to side until I can breathe again.
I sniffle and wipe the dampness from my cheeks.
Marcel hugs my face with his hands, staring into my eyes. “You don’t have to keep doing this.”
“Yes, I do.”
When I face my uncle again, he’s watching us with an unreadable expression.
Marcel picks up my chair and guides me into it. I take a breath, composing myself before addressing Chuck. “Finish. Please.”
He sighs, his gaze darting around the tiny room as if he’s trying to search for the right words. “When you came to me days later, I put it together right away.” His eyes find mine and he reaches across the table with his free hand and grasps my fingers. “It fuckin’ gutted me that she was capable of something so malicious. Of hurting her own daughter.”
“Way to rewrite history, Uncle Chuck. You remember what you said to me? Do you remember blaming me for being raped?”
He flinches and averts his gaze. “I handled it badly.”
Chuck admitting he made a mistake. That’s new.
His helpless blue eyes meet mine again. “I didn’t know what to do. I put your story together with your mother’s, but I couldn’t tell you my suspicion. I wanted to be wrong.” He shakes his head and stares down at the table. “After you left, I had it out with Cindy. First, she claimed she didn’t remember. Then she cried and said she was high and didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Bullshit,” I snort.
“She begged me not to tell you. I promised to keep her secret in exchange for something else.”
“What?” I can’t keep the exasperation out of my voice. “Please don’t tell me you blackmailed her for sex.”
I’m tired. So tired of trying to pull this information out of him. Sick from learning how disturbed my mother truly was. Embarrassed Marcel’s sitting here listening to the twisted tale of my family tree. Humiliated to have the man I love discover what kind of evil runs through my blood.
To his credit, Chuck doesn’t try to defend himself. “I made her call the guy to the house. Then forced her into rehab.”
I snort. “Well, that didn’t work.”
This conversation seems to have aged him twenty years. He lets out a heavy sigh. “It did for a while. It got her off the hard drugs at least. After that, she only drank to forget.”
“Don’t you dare try to make me feel sorry for her.”
“Who was the guy?” Teller asks.
“Some mid-level dealer, who ran with the 18th Street Boyz back then,” Chuck answers. “I made him suffer, Char. I promise you. But I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
“Why?”
He tilts his head, dropping the tough-biker mask he usually wears. Probably the saddest expression I’ve ever seen settles over his face.
Marcel squeezes my hand under the table. “He still loved her,” he says in a low voice.
“I did.” Chuck dips his chin. “But I never looked at her the same after that and she knew it.”
In light of his story, all the anger and dysfunction in their relationship makes more sense.
“I thought I found the best solution, Char. Even though it drove you farther away. I figured that was for the best. That it would keep you from getting hurt again.”
“Did anyone else in the club know?” Teller asks.
“No one until you told Whisper.” He faces me. “I wouldn’t expose you. I made sure no one else knew.”
I snort. “Don’t act like you were protecting my honor. You just didn’t want your bros finding out that you lost control of a situation.”
He doesn’t bother with a denial.
“Who was the other guy?” Teller asks.
Chuck’s forehead wrinkles. “What other guy?”
“Chuck, at the hospital,” I whisper. Red-hot shame washes over me as I explain it to him. “They ran tests. When the report came back. More than one person…” I’m so mortified, I can’t finish.
He slams his fist into the table and tries to stand, but his cuffed hand holds him in place. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Jesus Christ, this is so much worse than I ever anticipated.
Merlin looks like he’s been sucker-punched in the gut, but I refuse to feel sorry for him. I don’t give two fucks that the reason he lied to Charlotte was out of some twisted love for her mother. The result’s the same. Charlotte’s innocent in all of this, yet she’s the one who got hurt back then and the one who’s hurting now.
My love for my own mother died when I realized she wasn’t capable of returning affection and didn’t care about my sister’s safety. Protecting Heidi became the most important thing to me. Not my mother. Some things are unforgiveable in my book. Always have been.
So, no, I’m not in the mood to empathize with Merlin today.
Maybe Charlotte can’t process everything or maybe she senses our time here is limited and has other questions she needs answers to before Whisper kicks us out. She ignores Merlin’s outburst and sits forward. Her calm, professional mask slides into place. “Why’d you take my money then?”
He shrugs. “You were adamant. So angry. I didn’t know what else to do. I was dealing with your mother at the time too. Trying to keep her straight. I put it away for you. Figured I’d give it to you eventually. Or just leave it to you when I die.”
It’s a shit answer, considering how much Charlotte’s been struggling these last few years. It also makes me love her even more for being so determined and resilient.
“Why are you so awful to my brother?” she asks in a small voice.
Merlin’s jaw tightens and he glances away.
My body twitches, anticipating his answer.
“He’s your half-brother.” The words fire out of his mouth like bullets, ricocheting around the room.
“What?!” Charlotte explodes. “You claimed they were so happy together.”
He works his jaw for a few seconds before turning his cold eyes my way. “You know as well as I do how sometimes our women end up victims of our club disputes.”
Considering I helped Rock take out the Viper who planned to hurt Hope a few years ago, as well as murdered the man responsible for Mariella’s death, I’d say I know a little about it.
“Yes.”
He nods. “That’s one thing neither of our clubs ever engaged in. Only the lowest harm innocents.”
“Agreed.”
“But you also know not everyone in our world sees it that way. You remember what happened to Ulfric’s sister-in-law?”
“Not really.”
He lifts his chin at the door. “Rock probably knows then.”
“Stick to Charlotte’s mother.” I don’t know how much more of this Charlotte can take. We can’t afford for him to veer off-topic now.
“Right. That wasn’t the first time the Vipers went after one of our women. That’s one of the reasons our clubs al
ways worked together.”
“Yeah, by the time I started hanging around the club, Wolf Knights were considered friends of the club.”
Merlin snorts. “Shit, you were a scrawny piss-ant back then.”
Charlotte’s head swivels between us as if it just occurred to her that Merlin and I have moved in the same circles for years.
“We kept most of our affairs to ourselves.” He gives me a pointed look. “No matter how tight two clubs are, they’re never gonna share everything. But we always knew we could count on Kings to back us up.”
“Same.”
“Even if we don’t trust each other one-hundred percent.”
“Kings first.”
“Right.
“Um, can you guys wax on about the joys of brotherhood some other time, please?” Charlotte says. “We were discussing my mother.”
Merlin huffs out a laugh. “God help you, Teller.”
Charlotte growls in frustration, and Merlin turns serious again. I get the feeling it’s a painful story he’s worked hard to forget. Unfortunately, my sympathy for Merlin is in short supply.
“Cindy got caught in the middle.” Merlin’s non-explanation doesn’t satisfy Charlotte.
“How?” The word slides out of her mouth as an impatient growl and I squeeze her hand to keep her from lunging across the table.
Chuck glares at her in a way I don’t care for. “She didn’t know her damn place.”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” she mutters.
“She didn’t listen when her man told her to stay out of Viper territory,” Merlin says with a dose of bitterness.
“Did Dad know?”
“Of course Dean knew. They’d been trying for years to have another kid. Your father didn’t care she was carrying some rapist, bastard’s baby.”
Charlotte gasps and falls back against her chair. “Jesus Christ. Did he…did he make her…?”
“She didn’t realize it until it was too late. Dean didn’t care. He wanted a son and he made damn sure no one ever knew the truth.”
Charlotte nods. “He never treated Carter differently. But Mom—”
“He was a constant, painful reminder to Cindy.”
“That’s not his fault,” Charlotte whispers.