I unlock my phone the second I sit in my Jeep.

I need to talk to Mom.

Pulling up her number on speed dial, I hit the call button. The damn thing goes to voicemail. I blow up the woman’s phone, dialing over and over. She answers on the tenth call.

There’s no hi, and I don’t wait for the woman to say hello either. “Come home now, Mom. We need to talk.”

“Honey is everything okay?” she asks. She’s probably at the country club in North Las Vegas. The sound of her friends all babbling in the background already infuriates me.

“I’m fine. But no, everything is not okay. How soon can you be here?”

“Not until tonight. Can this wait?”

I start the car. “I’m coming to you now. Don’t leave the country club. That’s where you are, right?”

“Yes, but what in the world has gotten into you?”

I’m tempted to blurt out the question, but if Cindy isn’t completely crazy, I want to look my mother in the eye to find out why she’s been keeping secrets from me for all these years. “See you in an hour, Mom. Oh, and get us a suite. This has to be a private talk.”

“Molly, why are you—”

I hang up and drive out of the diner’s parking lot, leaving a trail of desert dust in my wake until I turn onto the I-15 highway. My mind is racing, and my stomach is churning for the entire ride. One of my parents was involved with the Mongols MC? In deep enough for Cindy to have seen my birthmark before and remember it after all this time? And if it’s not a birthmark, what the hell is it? I have no memory of stepping foot in a clubhouse during my childhood or adolescent years, or even for most of my adulthood. I’d only been in two. While I was with Jett back in Louisiana, and here in town with Tate. I had to have been really young, or a baby. The fact that Cindy spotted my faded little birthmark that she says isn’t a birthmark, and remembered it, well, I still can’t wrap my mind around it at all.

Just a little over an hour later I’m in North Las Vegas. I take the winding turns on the road flanked by the lush manicured golf green of the country club where my mother has a membership. Getting to the parking lot of the main building, I grab my purse and hop out of the Jeep. I hurry inside. Thank goodness, I dressed decently before I left the house, or they’d never let me in, family of a member or not. The dress code is strictly enforced. I don’t bother to text my mother and announce I’m here. I walk right into the dining hall. Even in my haste, I draw in a breath when I enter the hall. The place is breathtaking. It’s the one major project my late father was hired to design before he moved the family to Louisiana. Mom always used to say he was one of the most talented architects in the region. The main reason she comes down to the country club so often is to feel connected to him again.

I’ve never seen any architecture anywhere else that’s so awe-inspiring. The room is vast, like walking into an English castle. It has a soaring cathedral ceiling made of some type of light-colored wood, probably maple or oak. Four gothic-like chandeliers light up the ceiling even more. There’s timeless wall paneling down the rounded sides. They straighten out and meet the all-glass walls on either side of the structure. At the far corner is a massive wood burning fireplace, large enough to dwarf Tate if he stood next to it. It looks like something out of a Viking movie, complete with a hand-carved crest on the mantle. After I take in the space, I scan the room for Mom, who’s sitting at a table with four ladies her age, blabbering.

“Good afternoon,” I say to the old biddies, remembering my manners and nodding to each one. “Mom, can we have a word?”

She places her napkin beside her plate and grabs her purse. “Sure, dear.” She turns to her friends. “I’ll be back, ladies. Don’t wait for me if dessert arrives.”

“Did you get us a private meeting room or suite to speak?”

“Yes, honey. Follow me.” Mom is smart enough not to ask what this is about until she steps into the private day room on the main floor that’s available to members. She turns to me. “What’s going on, honey? Is it the baby?”

I fold my arms and look at my mother in her conservative clothes and neat blonde bob haircut. I shake my head. “You and Dad lied to me for years.”

“What?” Mom tries to come across as innocent. I see right through it. Her eyes always dart all over the place when she’s hiding something.

“Stop it, Mom. You and Daddy lied. Now tell me which of you was involved with the Mongols MC so I can let you get back to your tea and crumpets.”

Mom walks over to the nearest chair and sits at the edge. Her hands are shaking. “I’m sorry we never told you.”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry! I had to find this out from Silas’s mother when I could’ve heard it from you and Dad? You let me get to my twenties without knowing this kind of life-altering information! Wait a minute. Which one of you was it? Or is it? This is so confusing. I don’t even know what it’s about.” Mom says nothing. She just sits there looking down at her hands. “Mom, are you a part of the Mongols?”

Finally, she shakes her head. “No, baby. It was your father. Not exactly, but it was him.”

Now it’s me who needs a seat. My father lied to me all my life? The man who I adored and who loved me dearly? He took this kind of secret to his grave without telling me? I can’t even fathom the betrayal. And I can’t wait to get to the part about my birthmark that’s not a birthmark.

“But…how?”

“Honey, that was all my fault. I made him keep it from you. I’m sorry. He wanted to tell you when you were old enough, but I didn’t want to scare you. I was sure you didn’t need to know. Don’t be upset with your father. All of this is my fault….”

My eyes slowly look over at my mother. “How can his being a member of a gang not be his choice?”

“God… I never thought I’d ever have to tell this story ever. I need a drink.” She gets up and walks over to the minibar in the corner of the room. Opening the fridge, she takes out the first thing her hand makes contact with. She opens the tiny bottle of vodka and downs it, then repeats that with the champagne, white wine, and whiskey until all that’s left in the minibar are macadamia nuts, chocolate bars, and fizzy water. This has to be some story. She barely ever drinks alcohol.

“Enough, Mom. Tell me what happened and what you know. If I’m a target because of something you or Dad did years and years ago, I don’t want my ignorance to affect the safety of the child I’m carrying.”

“Okay.”

Mom dumps the last bottle in the now overflowing tiny trash can beside the minibar and comes to sit beside me on the sofa. The woman stinks of liquor. I shake my head to focus and listen.