17. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Tripp - Three days later

"Tripp Martin?"

I turned to see a woman standing there that looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place her. She obviously knew me since she called me by my full name.

"Yeah," I answered and stood waiting for her to catch up to me.

She huffed and puffed as she finally made the final step to close the distance between us. "Sorry, I tried to catch you before you left the floor where your daughter is, but the elevator door closed too quickly."

"Is something wrong with Coral?" I asked. My heart ticked up a few beats as I wondered what could have changed in the time I'd walked downstairs to go grab a drink for Vina and myself.

"You don't remember who I am, do you?"

"Can't say as I do."

"Right. Well, I'm June's cousin. Anna."

"That's why you seemed a little familiar." I nodded at her. "So, this isn't about Coral then?"

"No. I mean yes. Look, I don't know. There's something I needed to tell you, and Jesus there's no easy way to do this."

"I find just spitting things out helps the situation and relieves the tension."

The woman nodded and swallowed hard, like it almost hurt to do so. "June came to me a couple days ago wanting information." I nodded while waiting for her to say more. "She wanted to know about your daughter, what she was in the hospital for, what type of treatments she was receiving, and a whole slew of other questions. She claimed it was simply because she was concerned as the two of you are dating again."

"We were until the day I found out I had a daughter and that she was in the hospital. June said a few horrible things to me and my other kids. I haven't spoken to her since that day. I'm not sure why she would want information about a child I just found out about."

"That's the thing that worries me. She wanted me to give her all that information." She stumbled over her words quickly to assure me that it never happened. "I didn't tell her anything and when I refused, she demanded that I help her gain access to Coral's room."

"She did what?" I yelled angrily.

"I didn't do that either, but I thought you should know because it's not okay for her to do that. I won't help her, but I'm worried because she seemed really determined and one of the other nurses has been showing a picture around to everyone on that floor. I'm fairly certain it was my cousin, and she was on the floor where your daughter is. That was a few days before she came to me asking questions."

"I need to get back up there. I just left Vina and my daughter alone." Panic hit and I started running as I pulled my phone out and dialed the clubhouse. "Get Scout on the line, I need her." The demand was past my lips before the prospect who answered could even offer up the usual greeting.

It took me no time to get back upstairs to check on my girls. When I found Davina nodding off in a chair next to our daughter's crib, I quietly made my way back to the nurse's station and gave them a picture of June.

"This woman should not be allowed on the floor at all, but definitely not near my daughter. If you see her, I want a phone call immediately and security better handle business before I get here."

"That's the woman I saw lurking around a few days ago," one of them said. I turned to her, and she pulled her phone out to show me a picture of June in an oversized coat, a floppy hat, and large sunglasses dangling from her fingers.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know who she was trying to get to. I asked who she was here to see, but she tried some fake crying stunt, like she needed to pull herself together before she went in to see whoever she was supposedly here to visit. When I questioned her again, she took off for the bathroom or something, but I called out to her and was able to snap this picture. I circulated it with the nurses because she seemed suspicious, but I didn't think to show our patients or their families." The nurse seems lost in thought for a minute before speaking again. "Come to think of it, she showed up not long after you and Coral's mother did that day."

"Thanks for letting me know."

I walked away because I knew the nurse didn't mean anything by forgetting to let us know. She had simply been overwhelmed with work and then forgot. That was life and there was no reason to point out to her that her inaction could have gotten someone killed. Especially since I didn't think June had it in her to do that. She was probably just curious about the woman and child who would make it impossible for us to be together again like she wanted.

Part of me felt a little bad about it, since she had finally divorced her husband. The other part thought I was setting her free to go find true happiness elsewhere. It wasn't something she could find with me. That much had become evident before we even found out about my daughter.

At that point, June hadn't met my kids yet because she kept claiming she wasn't ready. But considering the low-level of anger that seemed to radiate from her and the pure fire in her eyes if I even mentioned my late wife, it was clear it would always be a problem. She could claim that she'd put our history behind us, but she lost me to Kim when my late wife got pregnant with Kip. The resentment over what Kim and I did obviously rubbed off on Kip in her eyes and was pushed onto my daughter when Star came along as well.

Instead of heading back to the hospital room where my baby girl and her mom were resting, I called the clubhouse again. They hadn't been able to find Scout and for some fucking reason or other I didn't have her cell phone number. That was something that needed fixing, especially since she was our Tech Officer now. It was a new position we created for her – like a Sgt. At Arms but on the digital side of things.

"Did you find her?" I barked into the phone when the prospect picked up.

"Yeah, she thought it sounded urgent and is headed to you along with Kip, Star, and Bagger."

"Fuck, whole family reunion, huh?" I grumbled as I hung up. It was probably a good thing. This way, Davina would know that she was family, and we all had her back. We would always have Coral's back, no matter what, as well.

Just as I moved from the waiting room back out to the hall, I heard the nurses trying to stop my family from coming down to see us. "It's okay. Those are my children," I called out to them.

"Ballsy fucking nurses," Bagger complained.

I shook my head. "They did their job. When I tell you why, you'll understand and thank them for being ballsy enough to go up against bikers wearing their cuts."

"What the fuck is going on?" Kip asked.

"Come with me back to the waiting room. Don't want Vina overhearing this and worrying."

Kip grinned at me like the little shit he still was, even though he was a full-grown man now. "Vina, huh?"

"Shut it," Star demanded as she slapped the back of her brother's head while Scout and Bagger looked on in amusement.

"Why were you trying to get a hold of me?" Scout asked as we all finally made our way into the room and closed the door.

"June, my ex-girlfriend from high school," I told her. "Need all the information you can get on her and what she's been up to all this time, and I need a tail on her. She showed up a few days ago on the floor, apparently followed me here and then followed Vina and me upstairs."

"I'm sure she was just curious, considering this is the second time you having a surprise kid ruined things between the two of you," Star groused. She wasn't happy with me for the way I carried myself when I was still a kid, or for the way I had kept June hidden for so long this time. She felt that if I had just forced June to interact with her and Kip, that the woman would have gotten over her hesitancy about them.

Maybe she was right, but something wasn't sitting well with me now that I knew she'd been following me around. Who was to say it was a one-time thing?

"Her cousin came to see me today. She wanted to warn me that June asked for her help to get up on this floor and into Coral's room. She also asked for all her medical information."

"What the fuck?" Bagger and Kip both said at once as Scout scrunched her nose up while tapping away on her phone.

"Dad," Star called to me hesitantly. "You don't think she'd hurt my sister, do you?" My stomach clenched with the fear that she might just.

"I have no way of knowing, baby, but this is the second time a woman with a surprise kid of mine has caused a rift - in June's eyes. There's no telling how a woman would take that."

"I'm having Breakneck go through security feeds for the past couple weeks. Bagger, he needs your access to check the ones outside your house," Scout insisted.

"You good here?" Bagger asked Star.

"Yeah, go help him. Let me know what you find. I'm going to stay here with my sister and Davina." My eldest daughter turned to look at me then. "If you need to leave to try to go confront June, I'll stick close to the girls."

"Thanks baby girl, I appreciate it." I kissed her forehead, same as her man did before he took off.

"I'm going to stick around, too. Make sure someone from the club is always here watching out for them."

I nodded to my son, proud as fuck that my kids embraced my daughter and her mother rather than causing problems because of her age or anything else.

"Find that bitch and figure out what she's up to. We won't tolerate her messing with family. If you need a female to bitch slap her around for information, I'll be glad to come in and do it."

Scout laughed at Star. "Don't worry, they have me as the tech officer-slash-cyber enforcer, but it also means I get the wet work when it comes to females," she teased with a wink.

"That's not funny, Scout," Kip called out to her.

"Didn't ask for your opinion," she sassed back over her shoulder as she left the room.

"When are you going to straighten things out with your woman?" I asked my son once she was gone.

"As soon as she makes me stop paying for my past mistakes." He sighed and left the waiting room with his sister and me following.

"Hopefully, you two don't wait too much longer to patch things up. Life's short. You know that better than most." Kip agreed with a slight incline of his head to acknowledge what I meant. His mother was taken from us far too soon. You just never knew what would happen.

Davina popped her head out into the hallway about the time we came even with the door to the room where my daughter was being treated. "Hey, I thought I saw Bagger and Scout go by."

"They had to go do something for me. I'm needed too, for club business, but Star and Kip are going to hang out with their sister, if that's okay with you."

She seemed almost uncertain at first, but then nodded her head. I leaned in and kissed her cheek before whispering in her ear. "They aren't sticking around to give you a hard time about anything. They're genuinely concerned about their sister."

A blush warmed her cheeks as she took a step back and opened the door for my kids to get through. "I'll see you and my little peanut in a bit," I told her before I placed a quick kiss on her lips and left.

Before I could get back to the clubhouse, Scout was already blowing up my phone. The news wasn't great either.

"She's been following Davina, you, and even Star for quite some time. We caught her on video outside Bagger's house even before you took her there. She was watching them, Prez. I don't like how this is shaping up."

"Do you think she's been doing it the whole time?"

"As in since you were in high school or since you ran into one another again?" Scout asked and it made me think.

"What if she's been doing it the whole time?"

"I'll look into things and see if we can go back further, but you know, it's probably going to be impossible to tell how long this has been going on. Even video surveillance has its time limitations. Most videos are dumped after a set time unless something notable happened."

"Do your best and keep someone on her six. I don't want her out of our sight if we can help it."

"On it," Scout agreed before hanging up.