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“Thanks, Doc.” I winked at her with my good eye and strolled off, looking for Bane.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Melissa

“Mellie,” King called out.

Inhaling a deep breath, the scent of Dani’s shampoo filled my olfactory senses, calming my racing heart. She didn’t have that baby smell mother’s talk about. The pheromones released from the top of a baby’s head that not only aids in breastfeeding but calms the mother’s hormones after birth. But just having her here in my arms and smelling her shampoo was like taking a valium.

“Can you tell us what you know?”

“At the beginning of December, Zach called and asked me to take Dani on as a patient. He explained...” I stopped and looked around, biting my lip. I couldn’t share Dani’s history with these men.

“We know about the Trick Pony.” I looked over at Cash. I knew Cash more than I knew King. Cash had prospected the same time as Gunner, so they were often together when Gunner stopped by the house for dinner each night.

“I started working with Dani, and less than two weeks into her sessions, Danny left. Dante said there was a problem in New York and he had to get back. A few weeks after that, Dante showed up at my office late at night asking me to keep Danika.”

“When was that?” King asked.

“The 29thof December. A few days before New Year’s. He said Danny was in trouble and he had to go. He explained he couldn’t take Dani with him because it wasn’t safe. That no one could know where she was.”

“How did you know to come here?” another man asked.

“I didn’t,” I scoffed. “I went to Arkansas.”

“To find Gunner?” King asked.

“To find Ellie.”

The six men still in the room all looked confused. Now they knew how I felt.

“Why would you go to Arkansas to look for Ellie?”

“Dante told me he would contact me every night to let me know he was alive. He said if forty-eight hours passed and I hadn’t heard from him, to bring Dani to Ellie Thomas. He said she was an old lady in the Silver Shadows MC. Well, of course I was very familiar with that club, or so I thought. So, I went to Little Rock.”

I knew I could clear everything up if I just gave them the entire story at once, but I was angry. I was angry with my brother. I was angry with Zach. I wasn’t angry with Travis; he hadn’t done anything wrong. But I was angry he was part of my brother’s club. He was guilty by association.

I know I’m being irrational, bitch.

“Mellie, if you knew she was part of Gunner’s club, why didn’t you come here?”

I glared at Cash. It wasn’t his fault my brother was an asshole. But still, he was also guilty by association.

“Because Gunner never told me he fucking moved!”

“Oh shit.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Goddamn asshole.”

The men around me cursed. My eyes were still on Cash. He looked haunted. His eyes were red rimmed, and his cheeks were hollow. He was as handsome as he was when I met him when he was nineteen, but I guess life had taken its toll.

“Mellie. When did Dante stop contact?”

Turning back to King, I answered, “January 24th.”

I watched the club president as he lifted an eyebrow in a silent question. King and Gunner were close. I knew that. King had eaten dinner with us many times over the years until Gunner shipped me off to school and abandoned me. I knew how to read him. It was the same expression he gave me when Gunner asked me about school and I lied, telling him everything was great. There were a lot of things I never told Gunner.