“So was my father’s sin.”
“That’s not the same.”
“Why? Because yours hurts?”
My jaw tightens.
She sees it and laughs again, bitter this time.
“God, you arrogant man.”
Becki starts crying then. Not pretty crying. Not quiet tears. She folds into Royal’s side, one hand still over her belly, the other covering her mouth like she can shove the confession back in. Royal wraps around her with terrifying gentleness, his eyes on me like he would gladly kill me if Becki asked and maybe even if she did not.
Sophie looks at Royal. Her anger flickers toward him for half a breath, not because he caused the wound, but because he stands beside the woman holding it.
“Did you know?” she asks him.
Royal’s face doesn’t move. “Not the truth. Not until now.”
Becki sobs before he can say more. “He knew I was scared. He knew there was something old and ugly. He didn’t know what.” She looks at Sophie, wrecked and trembling. “I thought if I kept it secret, I could keep this one. I know that sounds crazy. I know it does. But I was scared, and I couldn’t keep carrying it. Not with you standing there getting punished for doing the same thing we all do around here. Hide the ugly until it grows teeth.”
No one moves.
Because she is right.
That is the worst part.
Sophie turns to Becki, and for a second, the fury leaves her face. “You are not going to lose your baby because Legend lied.”
Becki shakes her head, crying harder. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” Sophie says, voice breaking now. “I don’t. But I know secrets don’t protect babies. They only poison the rooms they’re born into.”
That lands in me like a bullet.
Then Sophie turns back to me.
And the softness is gone.
“How is what you did different from what I did?”
I stare at her.
The honest answer is that it ain’t.
The selfish answer is that mine was mine and hers threatened the club.
The cruel answer is that I trusted my own silence more than hers.
I pick the worst answer because pride is a stupid thing and mine has survived too long.
“It doesn’t matter.”
The room seems to suck in a breath.
Sophie blinks.
Once.