it. You could eat your dinner off the floor in my parlor, that was how spotless it was.
Some people might think that because Black Ink was managed by the MC, that we cut corners. But that definitely was not the case. Not only because we had to be law-abiding citizens where it was concerned, but I actually gave a fuck about my work, about my clients, and about the ship I ran.
“Just had a weird call from Keys,” Ama mumbled, her frown puckering her brow with a severity that had me wanting to rub it away.
“What kind of weird call? He’s on a run, isn’t he?”
She nodded. “Kenzie’s at the Knights’ clubhouse.”
My eyes widened. “That’s his sister, right?”
“Yeah. She’s one of the brothers’ old ladies. He’s beating her.”
“Jesus.” I had a particular hatred for wife beaters. My own father had beat on my ma when I was a kid, and the first time I was big enough to defend her without him beating me blue, I’d knocked him out and taken great pleasure in doing so.
Fuck, I’d wanted to do more. I’d have stabbed him if the sight of her old man on the ground hadn’t had my mother screaming at me like I was the one in the wrong.
A battered wife’s relationship with her abuser was beyond complicated. But in an MC? Especially when that shit went into another club? It was more than that.
I hated saying it, hated it with a passion because I knew what it was like to be reared in that environment, but I had to say it anyway. As a councilor, my hands were tied. “You need to leave it alone.”
Her eyes widened. “No!”
Rubbing my chin, I rasped, “Either that or you get your dad involved.”
She shook her head from side to side. “No. I can handle this. I just need to speak with granddaddy.”
Releasing a heavy sigh, I told her, “You know how it works.”
“I do, and it sucks,” she growled. “No way is it right that a brother can do whatever the fuck he wants to his old lady with no repercussions.”
I raised my hands. “You’re preaching to the converted here, Ama. My dad beat my mom, so you’re not going to hear me defending the fuckers who use their fists against a woman.”
“Your mom was beaten by your dad?” she breathed, her distress evident.
“Yeah. She was. I was beaten for a while too. Until I got big enough to stop him.” I cleared my throat, wishing it was that easy to rob myself of the memories. “I don’t think your granddaddy will be able to do much, Ama.”
“He has to. She’s pregnant.”
I shook my head. “He’s seen that. Will have seen the bruises. And he hasn’t done anything yet, has he?”
I hated to disillusion her, but what I was saying was the truth. It was a shitty truth, but it was a truth, nonetheless.
Her hand was shaking as she raised her fingers to her lips. When she covered her mouth, I knew she did that so I couldn’t see the tremor there.
Reaching over, I patted her knee. “Call him,” I urged, even though I knew it was futile. “See what he has to say. I could be wrong.”
Starkness puddled in her eyes. “We both know you’re not,” she mumbled from behind her hand. “I just—I can’t believe he’d turn a blind eye to something like that.”
Sadly, it wasn’t all that uncommon. Not that I rubbed salt in her wounds.
Kicking my feet apart, I slipped off my bed where I’d been laid out, reading a magazine with an article on the late, great Lyle Tuttle—a tattoo artist who’d been beyond epic. Getting to my feet, I crossed the room and sank into the sofa where she’d been sitting, her calves propped up on the armrest as she chilled with me.
These moments where we just hung out were some of the most restful of my life. They’d started when she was seventeen, and they’d always been innocent. I’d never have broken her or her fathers’ trust by doing anything so fucking vile as coming onto her like that. But I knew she found a strange sense of peace when she was with me.
This had all begun when Lucie had taken her to a shrink, and the shrink had suggested I come along. We’d been doing sessions together for a few years now, me only heading in with her a couple of times a year, but ever since, I’d seen, with my own eyes,