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A little while later, Becky and Patriot joined the others in the main room.
As soon as they did, everyone went silent and just stared at the couple.
Becky looked around the room and found everyone staring back. She stepped behind Patriot and peeked out from behind him.
“What’s going on here?” Patriot wanted to know.
“We got some news last night and we’re trying to run it down to verify it,” Gunner told him.
“And?” Patriot asked. He could feel Becky trembling behind him.
“We’re trying to run it down,” Gunner repeated with a shrug.
Patriot stared at his president. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Gunner shook his head then looked back over at Annie and Harry.
Then Annie stood up and walked over to her sister. Taking her hands, she pulled Becky out from behind Patriot. “Honey, it might have something to do with you. I don’t want to scare you but you need to know something.”
Becky stared at her sister then whispered, “What is it?”
“Annie, maybe we shouldn’t tell her until we know for sure?” Harry called out gently.
Annie snapped her head over to him and firmly stated, “No, I have never lied or hidden anything from my sister my whole life and I refuse to start now.” She turned back and gazed steadily into her sister’s eyes. “The news isn’t something I can hide from her. She needs to know.”
Becky tried to pull her hands free but Annie refused to let her go. “Becky, I think dad did something really bad the day you were born. Harry and I found something in the newspaper archives that might relate to you.”
“What?” she barely whispered. She felt Patriot come up behind her and wrap his arms around her. She was thankful to him for that because she didn’t think she could stand up much longer.
“Player was one of the men at the warehouse the other night and he told us that when the Warriors came for Boomer and Blacky, one of them had a question for Blacky. He asked, ‘where is the girl?’ “ She paused then looked at her sister. “We think he was asking about you.”
Becky paled. “Why would you think that?”
“Because Blacky told him you were with us,” Gunner told her.
Becky turned her head slowly to stare at Gunner. “Do you know who he is or why he asked about me?” There was a cold spot inside her that was growing and she didn’t know how to stop it from taking over her entire body.
“Not yet, but he won’t get to you,” Gunner assured her. “We won’t let him.”
Becky looked over at her sister. “What else is there?”
“We think this guy is Damen Cole but we can’t find out where he’s from or who he works for.”
Becky paled. “D-Damen Cole? That’s his name?”
Annie nodded. “We could only find his DMV photo and it isn’t a very good one. He has a Texas driver’s license and a Kansas driver’s license that we’ve been able to recover under that name but we’re still looking.” She paused briefly then added, “But I have a feeling there could be more under other names. We just haven’t found them yet.”
“Who is this guy?” Cobra wanted to know.
“I put the photo we have into a special facial recognition program and it's running now,” Harry explained.
“Why would someone like him be looking for me? I mean I’m no one special,” Becky spoke softly. She looked over at Annie and then at Harry. “So what you are saying is this is something connected to a deal that dad did back in the day?”
Annie tightened her grip on Becky’s hands as she took a deep breath and looked at her carefully. “Well sweetie, that’s just it. We think Dad did something really, really bad, years ago. We’re still trying to run it down but if you want, I’ll tell you what we think happened. Like I said, we think we know what happened but we can’t prove it yet, so it may all be speculation for now.”
“Just tell me.” Becky leaned into Patriot’s arms as he held her close while Annie was still gripping her hands.
Annie let out a heavy sigh then she explained it, “When I was five, I think we were living in Wichita Falls. It was usually just me and mom at the house, Dad hadn’t been home for two or three days. When he came home, he had a baby with him. Mom was fussing at him but he handed the baby off to her and I thought he was covered in red paint at the time. But now, I think he was covered in blood. He and mom had a really bad fight after that. I was holding you and you were crying and it was just nuts around the house that night. Dad changed and left the house and mom was there alone with us. After he left, she told me you were my baby sister now.” Annie shook her head. “I looked after you the best I could being five years old.”
Becky felt so lost suddenly. Everything she ever knew was gone. It was all a lie. What she had believed for her whole life was a lie. The only one who knew the truth was gone and she and Annie were left behind, but that had been their whole life. Randy Sheen always left them behind. The cold she felt earlier was spreading through her entire body now.
Patriot pulled her closer, trying to console her.
She looked over at Annie. “We aren’t sisters?” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Annie smiled at her as she tried to comfort her. “We will always be sisters. No matter what, you and me will always be family. I’ve loved you since the day you came to us. Nothing and no one can ever change that.”
“But who am I if I’m not Becky Sheen?” she asked with a soul wrenching whisper.
Annie let go of her hands and carefully tucked a strand of Becky’s hair behind her ear. “You will always be Becky Sheen. You will always be my little sister. I will always love you no matter what.”
“Oh god...” Becky cried out as she threw herself into Annie’s arms. “I can’t lose you sis, you’ve always been there for me and I can’t lose that.”
“And you never will,” Annie vowed.
Harry came over and folded them both into his embrace. “You aren’t going to lose anyone kiddo,” he told her.
“You got all of us Becky,” Patriot whispered in her ear.
After a moment, they separated but Becky wouldn’t let Annie go far. She stared at her sister. “What do we do now?”
“We find out the truth,” Annie replied simply. “We track his movement backwards and we find the truth. It won’t be easy because Randy had a lot of secrets but we’re going to find them all and expose them for what they are. Acts of a desperate man to fucking cheat the devil.”
“But he’s your dad,” Becky stated.
Annie shook her head. “He was never my dad. A dad protects his family, he cares about them and he never puts them in danger or abandons them when he has to run for his life. Randy did that too many times. He broke mom and he may have been the sperm donor but he was never my dad. I hope he burns forever in the fires of hell.” She gathered Becky in her arms again and whispered in her ear, “You are my family, always have been, always will be. You won’t ever be alone again. I’ll find you every time, I promise you that.” Annie then made sure she looked into Becky’s eyes again before she stepped back.
Patriot gently wrapped his big arms around Becky again. “I claimed you last night and I will claim you today in front of your family and my brothers,” he said the words loud enough for everyone to hear. “You belong to me just as much as I belong to you.”
“And that makes you a part of this club too,” Gunner added. “We protect our own. Always have, always will.”
Harry nodded. “You have Lost Sons protection as well.”
“Soldiers of Hades as well.” Cobra nodded.
Becky swiped her tears away as she looked around at all of them. “Thank you for that. Thank you.” Then she turned to Annie again. “How do you even start looking for his secrets?”
Annie smiled slightly. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a flash drive. “We start with this. When I found Randy a couple of months ago, I took this. Harry and I been looking at it and trying to track down the information on it. The whole time I was looking for you, this has been running in the background.” She shrugged. “Well, I found you so now, we can concentrate on this. Randy Sheen was a bastard this world won’t miss one iota.”
“How can some men be so bad?” Becky wanted to know.
Gunner spoke up now, “Every single one of us follows a path. We follow what we’ve been taught to follow. If there is no one around to teach us, then we take the easy way. It may get us what we want in a hurry but there’s something to the old saying, ‘some things are worth the struggle.’ Men like Blacky and Randy Sheen never got that. They just took what wasn’t theirs to take, and in the end, they paid the ultimate price for that.”
Annie shook her head in disgust. “Neither man paid the full price for his betrayal. Death came too easy for them and now it’s up to us to clean up their mess.” Turning toward Becky, she added, “But you, my baby sister, will not ever pay for their acts.”
“No, Annie you are right on that, she won’t.” Patriot growled. “I, for one will make sure of that.”
“We all will.” Gunner nodded as a rare smile curved across his lips. “She’s one of us now. We all will protect her.”
Becky just looked at them all with tears in her eyes. She knew in her heart at that moment she had at long last found her forever family. No matter what Annie and Harry found out about where she’d really come from... she was home now.
Damen dialed a number on his cell phone and waited until he answered it.
“Hello,” a gravelly voice barked across the airways.
“I found her,” Damen told the other man.
“Her? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. She looks just like her mother. She is Tessi’s daughter for sure.”
“So I have a daughter then?” the other man asked. “Where did you find her?”
“Jared Racer sold her to a peddler. I followed her to Jasper, Texas. I found her under Blacky’s care.”
The man on the other end of the call growled under his breath. “Blacky? Blacky Wilder had her? For how long?”
“Three months.”
After a moment of silence. the other man asked. “Did he know who she was?”
“I would say yes to that,” Damen replied. “He must have recognized her somehow. He didn’t sell her but he made her life hell.”
“You took care of him didn’t you?”
“Oh yeah, I took care of him. I let the Satan’s Warriors take his head.” Damen smiled slightly.
“Then you have her safely?”
“Not quite,” Damen admitted reluctantly. “The local MC has her. Sheen fucked up badly.”
“So it was Randy then? All this time it was him who stabbed me in the back?”
“Yeah, it was Randy. He knew how to avoid me but I tracked him down finally. Every time I thought I found him over the years, he moved on just as I got close enough. This time he was being hunted by his own daughter. The MC found him and dragged him back to face judgement day.”
“And did they kill him?”
“No but they did make sure he would die. They turned him over to the Russians and if I know them, he’s already in hell’s fire.”
“Do what you do so well and bring my daughter back to me,” the other man ordered.
“That may not be as easy as you think,” Damen warned. “This MC isn’t going to just hand her over. They aren’t your typical MC. They run a bounty hunting service.”
“Then you have your work cut out for you, don’t you? Whatever you do, don’t lead them back to me. Just do it. I don’t need the details. You have a week.”
When the call went dead, Damen stared down at his phone and swore.
He wanted to hurl his phone against the wall and bust it to smithereens but he knew he couldn’t. He would have to purchase another one and transfer the data first. Too much trouble. Placing his cell phone on the table, he ran his finger through his hair and growled. There were days when he hated this job. Some days, he just didn’t want to do it and some days, he regretted ever getting hooked up with a man like his boss.
The money was good but so not worth it in cases like this. He’d been risking his life every day for almost twenty-five years now. He’d been cocky the first few years, taken more chances than absolutely necessary but he mellowed out after the first rush of the jobs settled down. Since then, he’d become a lethal weapon for the organization but there were still days he hated what he did. The men he worked for often took him for granted and he felt they didn’t respect him at all.
To them, he was nothing more than a tool and that had been pissing him off a great deal for the last ten years at least.
“One day they will all pay,” Damen vowed. “One day.”