Final Ride: Hellions Motorcycle Club (Hellions Ride Book 9) by Chelsea Camaron Page B

the worst kind of violation,” Amy starts as my pulse quickens, the darkness of my own emotions creeping in again, “I know a mother’s love for her child.” The tears run down her face, mixing with the dark liquid she never bothered to wipe off from Shannon’s outburst. “As we are still learning your past, I will share with you tonight a piece of mine.”
    “Amy, please,” I beg softly. “I know what this will do to you.”
    She shakes her head at me and smiles softly, fighting her own emotions.
    “I wasn’t much older than you when a few bad decisions landed me at the hands of a monster.”
    Shannon huffs disrespectfully, “Vic was a monster. I know what he did to my mother, Amy. Don’t make up some story just because you think I will suddenly bond with you.”
    “It’s not some made up story!” I snap. “It was a hell you can only imagine, at the hands of a sick son of a bitch,” I growl at my offspring as the anger hits me like it was yesterday.
    “Frisco, breathe, honey,” Amy tries to calm me, and then turns her attention back to my daughter. “Shannon, I’m sharing because you said I don’t know what it is to be a mother. To some degree, you are right.”
    Shannon smiles proudly like a cat who caught the canary.
    “You are also very wrong.”
    Her smile fades quickly as Amy locks eyes with her.
    “I was taken by a man, Felix Delatorre. This was a power-hungry man looking to take over his father’s business. He also wanted nothing more than to hurt the Hellions MC in a way that would bring them to heel.”
    Shannon raises an eyebrow in question; otherwise, she remains stoic in her posture, like Amy has no idea what she is thinking or feeling.
    “He wanted to control the club. He not only wanted his father’s business, but he wanted to have power over the Hellions as a whole,” I explain while Amy exhales loudly.
    “Felix was a bad man. He was also a cruel man. He did things to me—deplorable things. I was nothing more than a toy he would play roughly with, and then lock back in a dark box.”
    When Shannon smirks like a brat, I want to take her over my knee like a father would a child and get her to come to heel as she tramples all over something Amy fought years to overcome.
    “What does you being taken have to do with being a mother?”
    Eye-to-eye, Amy never backs down from the teen challenging her. “I was raped.” She pauses, and when Shannon’s mouth sits gaping wide open, Amy adds, “Repeatedly.”
    Closing her jaw, Shannon sits back silently as Amy tries to keep her own emotions at bay.
    “When the Hellions came to the warehouse, they could have killed me. Honestly, in that moment, part of me wanted them to. Only, I had recently realized my body was changing. There wasn’t simply my life to live for anymore.”
    “God, no,” Shannon whispers.
    “I was pregnant, Shannon.” Amy blows out a breath as the tears continue, and she wipe her face with a napkin. “In all the chaos at the warehouse, I wasn’t completely sure, but I knew something was off inside my body.”
    I want to comfort her, but I don’t know how. Everything inside me roars to shut this down. However, the look in my woman’s eyes tells me to let her pursue this, even if it breaks her.
    I want to slap Shannon for provoking Amy into feeling like she has to tell her story. It’s her past, her pain, and she’s pouring it out for my child. I can’t help loving her more for it. I may not have found the right time to say it, but I damn sure feel it.
    “When Frisco brought me here, the Hellions had me checked out. I was nervous. What if Delatorre or one of his men, who also had multiple opportunities to get at me, had given me something more than the internal scars I’ll never get away from?” Amy blows out a breath and looks up at the ceiling. “The doctor came in and very clinically did the necessary examination. The nurses took my blood. I also had to pee in a cup. It was all very typical.”
    Taking