Dark Guardian (Black Hoods MC #3) - Avelyn Paige Page 0,33

presses against Blair’s leg and growls. Walter was a rescue from a dog fighting ring last year, and his looks are the scariest part of him. He doesn’t trust easily, but he’ll defend who he loves to the death.

“Why is she here?” Kevin asks again.

I hold up a hand to stop him. “Relax, bud. I brought her here to talk. To talk to all of us. Thought maybe we could tell her our story.”

Kevin glares at us both. “No. I’m not telling this bitch anything. Come on, Nat.” Grabbing his sister’s hand, he goes to drag her away.

“Kevin,” I bark out, stopping him in his tracks. “I know you’re trying to protect your sister, but you gotta trust me on this. Let me protect the both of you.”

“Kevin?” Grace calls. “I promise you, whatever you tell me tonight will stay between us.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hey!” I know he’s feeling betrayed, but I don’t like the way he’s talking to Grace.

“It’s okay,” Grace says, placing her soft hand on my arm as she focuses on Kevin. “I was an orphan too,” she tells him. “I’ve been through a lot. I could tell you stories that would keep you up at night. And when I became a social worker, it was to help kids like me—kids like the both of you—and make sure none of them had to go through any of the stuff I did.”

None of us speak. All of us—even Walter—are staring at Grace. As prim and proper as she might seem, I’d never once stopped to consider how she’d gotten to be that way. I’d never thought about her past or her history, or what made her hide herself behind a pencil skirt and an old-school marm hairdo.

“If we talk to you, do you promise not to take us away from Mr. Judge?” Natalie asks, pulling her hand from her brother’s to stand beside me.

Grace turns to her, giving her a smile that melts me a little inside. “I promise, honey. I just want to know what’s going on, and to make sure you and your brother are safe.”

Natalie stares at her for a long moment, and then nods. Taking Grace’s hand, she leads her to the closest picnic table. Once they’re both seated, Kevin grumbles something under his breath before taking a seat across from them.

“What do you want to know?” Natalie asks, her enormous eyes filled with hope.

“Everything,” Grace replies, looking to Kevin. “Start from the beginning.”

Kevin’s shoulders slump in defeat, and his defiant attitude fades away. “The beginning sucks.”

Grace smiles sadly. “I’m sure it does. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

Kevin looks to me, and I nod, giving him permission to tell her.

Sighing, he digs his fingernail into a groove on the table, sliding it back and forth, making the groove a little deeper with each shallow pass. “Our momma wasn’t a very good one,” he tells her. “She drank a lot. She had men over all the time, and they would make us go in the bedroom so they could do drugs and stuff.”

“Did those men ever touch either of you?”

Kevin shakes his head. “No. A couple of them wanted to, but Momma threatened to hurt them if they tried.”

Grace nods, but says nothing.

“One day, when Nat was eight, and I was twelve, she said she had something to do. She told us she’d be back in an hour, but she never came back. We found out later that she died.”

Kevin’s knee bounces as he tells the story, and he doesn’t make eye contact with any of us. Instead, he stares off into the distance as he speaks.

“They didn’t even tell us how she died. My uncle just showed up one day and told us the police had been to see him. They told him Momma was dead, and that we had to go live with him now.”

“And how did you feel about that?” Grace asks.

Kevin’s jaw tightens. “Momma hated Uncle Randall. Said he was a pervert. We didn’t really know him at all.”

She turns her attention to Natalie. “And how did you feel while all of this was going on?”

Natalie shrugs. “I was just little. I mean, I was only eight years old. I just knew that Kevin would take care of me, so as long as we were together, I’d be okay.”

Blair looks at me from across the table. She knows as well as I do what went on at Uncle Randall’s house.

“So how was it living with your uncle?”

“He was a pervert,” Kevin bites