End of story.
There wasn't any part of the situation that followed, which allowed me to be a normal teenager, or grow up the way all my friends were allowed to from my former life. I felt older than my years because I wasn't granted a reprieve to forget how the way I spent my teenage years was anything but atypical. Those formative years never belonged to me, and the person I was during that time seemed like someone else's life I was forced to live but never my own.
It was too late to change the past, and all I truly had was the future but that didn't mean I couldn't cling to the one and only relationship that kept me going through the years I'd become a legal adult.
I'd met Edward Gillespie by accident almost eight years ago.
He had an old lady who was pregnant and he belonged to a rival MC. Lucifer's Saints was a club to be reckoned with and no one fucked with them, not if they wanted to continue to keep breathing. He'd shown up at the club in Vegas with a few of his brothers from the local Saints chapter and Cillian "Killer" Cox, the oldest son of parent chapter President Dizzy Cox.
It wasn't a friendly meeting by any stretch of the imagination but that didn't keep Edward from eyeing me warily while they spoke. I'd been serving drinks at the bar and had to keep the liquor flowing while the group of men spoke with Brad, his VP and Sergeant at Arms. Afterwards, Edward had slipped me a piece of paper with his cell phone number and told me to call him if I was ever in Northern Nevada.
A year later, the time came for me to earn my keep and I had to drive to Black Oak to help Jake Decker, Nel's oldest son, with a job the White Knights had to handle up north in Idaho. Jake and I got along and he didn't exactly keep tabs on me while I was there in town. I'd called Edward, we'd met in Reno at a swanky hotel and things had gotten pretty hot and heavy.
It just became another part of my life I compartmentalized. I knew there would never be anything serious between the two of us, not when he had an old lady and he couldn't trust me given the club I was affiliated with whether I happened to be a member or not. However, he was a great lover and eventually, like the stupid, foolish girl I was, I fell in love with him.
I'd never admit it to anyone-I could barely acknowledge it myself-but when I became pregnant with his child, I knew I couldn't abort the baby. I loved his father, and even if I couldn't keep our son, I would make sure he ended up in a decent home.
Jake and I were also sexually involved at the time so it was easy to blame him for the pregnancy and his old lady was more than happy to take the kid off my hands. She couldn't have children and loved having a beautiful body more than how she acquired a kid. All that mattered was she would now have a child to dote on and call her own.
Edward and Jake weren't exactly the spit-image of one another; hell, the only thing they had in common was dark hair and blue eyes but it was never questioned when my son was born with my sable hair color, his father's gorgeous blue-green eyes and a peaches and cream complexion. Jake's old lady, Sadie, was in love with Jacob Jackson Decker the moment she laid eyes on him.
It was the best for everyone involved.
I wasn't a home wrecker, Edward never found out the truth though I knew he'd suspected and I continued to do what I did best while Jake Junior was the apple of his mother's eye and his father's too.
Even if every day he lived, he began to look more and more like Edward. I hoped Sadie and Jake never noticed this but even if Jake had, he would never stop loving his son.
Of course that didn't mean I couldn't finally tell Edward the truth and clear my own selfish conscience. If I really cared about him, I would have continued to live the lie I had so carefully built around our progeny but I couldn't. The truth killed me each and every day. I had enough crap on my plate and now I'd decided to murder one of my own relatives, it was time to clean out my own closet, metaphorically speaking.
Love hurt. That was the honest and God-awful truth. But nothing hurt worst than a love unreturned, unrequited and unreciprocated. I didn't know what Edward felt for me-pity, perhaps?-but it wasn't love. I had to make sure that no matter where I was staying or what happened, he would never seek me out again.
This was my goodbye to our sordid story and it had to happen today so I could move on with the rest of my life.
I drove up to the fortified compound with the Saints logo of a skeleton driving a motorcycle on the metal gates. A prospect by the name of O'Neil glared at me before he set down a nine-millimeter Glock in plain sight. I'd met him a couple of times while handling jobs for the Saints but he wasn't someone I knew personally. He stepped out of the little booth and walked over to the Mini Cooper. His stare was suspicious; dead silver-gray eyes observed me with cold indifference as he bent down next to the driver's window I'd rolled down.
"What are you doing here Mags? I know about everythin' goin' down and with the trial comin' up for one of our own, ain't nothin' happenin' that would require an outsider to show up unannounced," he explained cryptically.
The trial would be the one Cillian had going on at the moment for the murder of a Federal agent. It wasn't my business but the entire underworld knew what was happening. It was hardly a secret the club was being extra careful about everything now they were on the Feds' radar.
"I'm not here to talk about business," I replied in a soft voice. "Is Kink around?"
He shook his head as the cold look from his eyes disappeared and was immediately replaced by bitter resignation. "Shit, woman, you got it bad, dontcha? Yeah, he's here. I'll let ya in but if his old lady shows up, you gotta split. You know the drill."
I nodded my head. "Yep. I was just here to see you. Another nameless, faceless Saint Slapper Miranda wouldn't recognize if we walked past each other on the street. Got it."
O'Neil stepped away from my car and walked back to his little booth before he pressed a button and the gates opened. I drove through slowly before parking my car in the designated area and killed the engine.
All of the sudden, my heart thundered fiercely in my chest and it was hard for me to breathe. What the hell was I doing here? What would Max think if he knew I was meeting with the "enemy?"
Wait . . . what? When the fuck did I start to care about what Max thought about me? He was my partner on an assignment. Yes, we would be playing house and pretend we were a happy fucking couple but damn, when did that start, exactly? Now? I couldn't just tell Kink it was all a charade and we were really trying to murder Angelo Abandonato. Apparently, the "game" I was playing began now because there truly was no other way for the situation to work.
Wasn't that the reason I came here to tell Kink the truth in the first place?
I didn't have much time to think anything over before the driver's door to my Mini Cooper swung open and the man I'd come to see stood there. His face appeared to be a blank slate, unreadable and as unnerving as that was, I would have personally preferred he'd been angry or at least agitated I had the gall to show up at his clubhouse.
"Hey," he began in a deep, husky voice. "O'Neil told me you were here. I'm workin' but . . . I haven't seen you in a while. What are you doing this far up north?"
I got out of the car and closed the door behind me. I didn't bother to grab my keys or my handbag. "How don't you know I'm not on a job?"
Kink shrugged though he looked toward the empty playground situated on the compound. "You know how our world is and news gets around. Word around the campfire is Decker let you go. If you're workin', is it freelance shit? Please don't tell me that's why you're here-my old lady put a hit out on me or somethin'?"
I shook my head as he smirked before we began to walk side-by-side. "No, it's nothin' like that. I mean, I am working freelance but it has nothing to do with the Saints."
I tried to force myself to calm down and feel at ease as we both sat on a picnic bench facing one another. He grabbed a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros left behind and lit one before dragging heavily. "You're not really one to do surprise visits, Mags. I also liked you because you knew when to stay away. Are you in trouble?"
My heart slammed against my chest and it wasn't the first time that day I wished I had a bit more control over my emotions. "What makes you ask that?"
"Well, you're working with Max Cartier and if that's happenin', you're into some heavy shit." Kink finally met my eyes and his were gorgeous, aquamarine and bright as the fucking sun. "He's got a rep, babe. You're playin' with the big boys now. I just don't want anything to happen to you."
"Really?" I tried to keep the sarcastic bite out of my voice to no avail. "Why do you give a fuck about what I do? You're married to this absolutely perfect woman who makes you feel like a piece of fucking gold and I was nothing but a side bitch. Might as well have a been a club whore-"