“You think the club won’t wipe its ass with your family?” I query back, genuinely interested in his response.
“I think my family and your club are fairly evenly matched; I think the war both sides are preparing for will destroy us all. Our city, and the remnants of our organizations, will become fodder for lesser criminals. A cartel perhaps? A Russian mob? Who knows? However it happens, it won’t be good for any of us. We need a truce, and that only happens between me and you. Only we can trust each other.”
“Y’all just promised not to talk business,” Reba complains, and I sit up, tossing my hair over my shoulder.
“Reba will be safe in the convent?” I ask, and Grey nods.
“Regardless of what happens between our families, she’ll be safe there. The convent is affiliated with my family, but it’s also an extension of the Catholic church as a whole. She’ll be alright.” Grey reaches up to swipe a hand over his hair. It’s cut short again, slicked back, his face clean-shaven. I would love to know every detail of what’s happened to him since he crawled into that pipe organ, but that’s a story for another day. “As for you? I don’t envy you, being in love with four men. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“See!” Reba calls out, jerking the phone around in her excitement. “I told you. It ain’t me you should be concerned with.” She glances at me and lifts her chin in that saintly way of hers. “I have God on my side.”
“Well then, what am I supposed to do?” I ask, humoring the pair of them. I mean, who else can I talk to about this shit? Sure as hell can’t call up Dena, Chardou, and Amiya. How about Johnny R. and Johnny K.? Think they’d understand after that bad dope I fed them? “Sin promised to be mine, by the way. Beast is marrying me. Grainger is … well, you can lead him with sex like a horse with an apple. But Crown? Crown doesn’t want to give me his ring or his house or his heart.”
“You want all four of them?” Grey queries, but not in a judgmental way, more like he’s contemplating the situation the way he always does. He stares wistfully into the distance, at something I can’t see, and then reaches out, plucking a glass full of red wine off a nearby table. “Interesting proposition. You would’ve been better off marrying me.”
The edge of his mouth quirks up, and my chest gets tight. There’s a chance that he’s right, that marrying him could’ve worked out very well for me. But that’s something we’ll never know. There’s an equal possibility that the club would’ve taken the mafia down and dragged me right along with it.
“If Crown—this is the man named Calder Reid, the Vice President, yes?—if he doesn’t love you enough to accept that you need things done a little differently, then that’s his choice. Let him go. To be fair, you are asking a lot of him. Maybe he simply needs more than you can give?”
Grey gives sound advice, but it hurts. Goddamn, it fucking hurts so bad.
Especially because I already know that he’s right.
“State your intentions clearly, give the full truth always, and if it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t what you needed in the first place.” Grey taps his fingers against the side of the wineglass. “By the way, since I won’t get a chance to say this later, congratulations on your upcoming nuptials.”
He sounds sad, but whether that’s because he really did like me or some other reason, I’m not sure.
“I miss you, Grey,” I tell him, and he offers a melancholic smile in return, meeting my eyes through the screen.
“I miss you, too, Gidge. But don’t worry. One day, we’ll rule the city together from opposing thrones.” He lifts his glass in salute as Reba kisses the phone screen.
“I’ll be in touch after the wedding,” she says, and he nods.
“Will do. Stay safe, you two.”
The call ends and Reba hands me my new phone, the one I’ve been very careful not to reveal to Cat. After the wedding, I can flash it around all I want, and Cat won’t be able to say a damn word without having one out with Beast.
“Did that help?” Reba asks, and I nod.
It did.
But I’m still not giving up this goddamn bedroom.
Crown can pry it from my cold, dead fingers for all I care.
The morning of the wedding, I wake up early, like before the sun is up early. My skin is soaked in sweat, and it occurs to me how odd it is that I’m in another man’s house, in another man’s bed, on my wedding day.
None of the guys slept in here last night, but they were close, just like always. The world right now is far too dangerous to leave me alone for a second. I sit there for a while, my hands in my lap on Crown’s comforter, and I think about Beast. Catcher Coffey is his name, actually, a name that I’ve always loved the sound of.
He’s still the right choice as far as politics go. Even if I suddenly changed my mind, it’s far too late for that. But … I don’t want to change my mind. I’m okay with this. It isn’t a step I ever thought I would take, but now that it’s here, it doesn’t seem quite so scary.
The only parts of this whole thing I’m afraid of are the other three men in the equation.
I’m not ready to give them up.
I swing my legs out of bed and pad across the hardwood floors toward the door. It creaks slightly as I open it, but in the most pleasant of ways, the soft murmur of a house with history. It thrills me yet again that Crown bought this place with me in mind.
Way to prepare for the life you want instead of getting complacent with the life you have.
Crown is in his own room—rather the room he relegated himself to after relinquishing the master to me—with the door cracked. He’s awake, on guard duty most likely, and working on polishing a sleek black handgun with a rag.
“Morning,” he says, but his voice is thick with emotion and hindered by deep thought. I pause briefly outside the room, leaning my body up against the doorjamb. I should probably apologize to him for yesterday, but I can’t seem to make myself do it. Admitting that I had an emotional meltdown feels too personal in the early morning light.
“You sound like you did the day of my sisters’ funeral,” I remark absently, and Crown sighs, setting his rag down and laying the handgun beside it.
“I’m happy for you, Gidget,” he tells me, and I hate that he uses the T at the end of my name. For years, I’ve yelled at him, refused to let him call me Gidge, and now that he’s stopped doing it, I’m just as irritated. “I really am. But it isn’t what I want.” He gives a harsh laugh and swipes a hand over his handsome face. “Seeing you walk down the aisle with another man is my worst nightmare.”
I swallow hard.
“Worse than anything you ever saw as a cop? As an outlaw?” It’s meant to be a bit of a dark joke, but Crown takes it like a serious question, mulling it over, exhaling, rising to his feet. He’s so damn tall that I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes.
“Worse than all of it combined,” he admits, cupping the side of my face in a way that probably would’ve annoyed the crap out of the old Gidget. The thing is, this is a new Gidget. The world feels like a different place than it was two years ago. “But I know this has to happen. I won’t do anything to interfere.”
He drops his hand by his side and scoots past me, heading into the bathroom.
We have a lot to talk about, me and him. Unfortunately, right now is not the time to do it.
After the wedding then. After the wedding night. There’s no honeymoon for me and Beast, other than one shared together in bed. We can’t really leave in the middle of a war.
I watch the bathroom door close behind Crown before continuing down the hall toward the kitchen. I’m not entirely surprised to find Grainger there, awake and sipping coffee. He lifts his brown eyes to stare at me over the rim of the mug.
“Coffee,” I say, and even though he lifts the edge of his lip in a snarl, he sets his own mug down and pours me a cup of my own. Grainger adds the appropriate amount of cream and sugar since, frustratingly enough, we like to drink our coffee the same way.
&nb
sp; “Here,” he says, handing it over before grabbing a familiar looking box from the surface of the counter. Another pregnancy test. Just like that day. Only this time, Beast is the only person whose kid it couldn’t possibly be. And he’s the guy I’m marrying today.
Man, my life is fucked-up.
“Um, thanks?” I reply, drinking my coffee with one hand and holding the box in the other. Grainger’s in a pair of gray joggers and nothing else. Me, I’m wearing an oversized t-shirt and shorts. He’s seen me in pj’s plenty of times, but I’ve never seen him in his, and I … gag … like it. I like the look of him, casual and comfortable.
“If you are pregnant,” he starts, and I roll my eyes to the ceiling.
“I’m not pregnant,” I snap back at him, but I could be. I could. Denial won’t help in this situation; it’ll only make things worse.
“If you are,” he continues, picking his mug up again. “Then it’s gotta be mine.”
“You don’t know that,” I throw out with a scoff, taking a sip of the coffee and finding it pleasantly hot and perfectly sweetened. Figures this dickhead would be able to make a great cup of coffee. He has to be good at something other than sex, right? “It could be Sin’s or Crown’s.”
Grainger’s already shaking his head, his reddish-brown hair mussed up in a way I’ve never seen before.
“No. If you’re pregnant, it’s mine.” He takes a step toward me, and I glare up at him. “I fucked you in the cathedral; I fucked you in the woods.”
“Maybe we should wait until I actually take the test before having this argument?” I say with a sigh, lifting the mug to my lips only to have him grab my wrist, sloshing hot liquid onto the floor.
“God help you if you have my baby, Gidge,” he says, his fingers burning where they press into my skin. His eyes blaze, and that possession I’ve always seen in him becomes almost glaringly apparently. “I will never let you go.” He yanks me closer, spilling more coffee onto the floor. “Never.”
My nostrils flare with my usual anger, but I push it down, fighting back against a motley of emotions.
This is my wedding day for fuck’s sake. Of course I’m going to be emotional. I didn’t want to get married. I don’t really believe in marriage. Yet, I’m not entirely displeased by the idea of committing to Beast. Committing to Sin. To … Grainger. Crown, if he’ll have me. Hard to say, based on his melancholy mood this morning and yesterday.
“And if I’m not pregnant,” I start, the reality of that so heavy that it nearly staggers me. Would I get an abortion? Would I keep it? What would the guys think? Whose baby would it even be? “You’ll let me go?”
Grainger releases me suddenly, drawing back and turning away with a curse that sounds a bit like a prayer. That, or a dark spell. Yeah, more likely that. We’re all heretics here.
“I told you that I knew the night you walked into the clubhouse bathroom that you were meant to be mine.” He turns away from me, grabbing his own coffee and then moving over to the window to stare out at the bare dirt of Crown’s front yard.
Mm. A non-answer, but an acceptable one. I’ll take it.
I finish my coffee, set the mug aside, and head into the downstairs bathroom. Déjà vu is hitting me hard today. Not just because this is my second wedding in as many months, but also because it reminds me of the last time I did this.
Unlike last time however, I don’t look at the two tests I take. Instead, I grab them off the counter and head back into the kitchen, waiting for Grainger to turn around and look at me.
“I can’t do this right now,” I tell him, emotion making me feel dizzy and lightheaded. I slip the two tests in his pocket (sure, I peed on them, but whatever) and put my forehead against his chest. “You keep them and tell me after the wedding. I don’t want to know right now.”
I turn away and Grainger lets me go, but I can feel his eyes as I flee down the hall.
I know exactly where I’m going and what I need to do.
Beast doesn’t seem surprised when I burst into his room and find him in the bathroom. But I sure as hell am.
“What … what are you doing?” I choke out, staring at the clean-shaven man standing before me. Beast takes a wet cloth and swipes it over his chin, glancing my way with a slight smile on his unbelievably gorgeous mouth. I mean, I liked it before, but I can see it so much better now.
“This is a one-time thing, Gidge,” he drawls, tossing the towel over his shoulder and moving over to stand in front of me. He rests his forearms on either side of the jamb, leaning down to look at me. “Don’t get too used to it.”
My throat constricts because even this wedding, which seemed so certain, now feels impossible.
“We’re getting married today,” I whisper, and he nods.
“That we are.”
I gather my resolve together, an ironclad force that pushes the words from my mouth that I really, really don’t want to fucking say. It’d be easier, maybe, if I just looked at the damn tests now. But only if they’re negative. If they’re not, this whole situation becomes even more tangled, even more twisted.
“Would you still want to marry me if I were pregnant with another guy’s baby?” The question is bold, forthright, direct. Because we’re club, right? Not the mafia. Although, the advice on honesty did come from a mafia brat’s lips.
Beast taps his fingers on the wall as I gape up at him, still trying to come to terms with the fact that his beard is gone. I mean, I liked it; he wears it well, short and well-kempt. But this is … this is nice, too.
“I told you before that I was on your side,” he says, and then he steps forward and I’m scrambling out of the way. He gives me a bit of a warning look, but I can’t touch him right now. I just can’t. I’ve waited years for this; he’s been teasing me for weeks. I’m explosive. Beast opens the nightstand drawer where he’s stashed some of his personal things.
One of the items buried in there is the pregnancy test that he put in his pocket, two long years ago.
“I don’t care who fathered your baby,” he says, tossing the old test onto the bed and giving me a look. “You’ll be my wife after today; that child is mine.”
He moves toward the bathroom, pausing in front of me just long enough that my skin begins to ache at his nearness, and then steps inside and closes the door behind him.
I’m only standing there for a minute or two when I hear footsteps behind me.
“Are you really pregnant?” Sin asks, maybe wondering if the kid could be his. If I am, it might be. You never know.
“I don’t want to look at the test until after the wedding,” I admit, and he slides his arms around me from behind. Everything feels so uncertain right now. Not just things with the club, but with these men.
We haven’t fully agreed to anything, the five of us.
But the wedding is happening. The pregnancy thing is … ugh. And I’m in love with four dudes.
That’s about all that I know.
“Regardless, I told you: once you said I could have you, that’s it. I’m not going anywhere.”
I squeeze his hands and close my eyes for a brief moment.
That sense of wrongness I felt the other night when I was with Sin is the same that I feel now, like something terrible is going to happen. My stomach is twisted into knots, and my head is spinning.
With my eyes still closed, my other senses are heightened.
Sin’s touch is electric, his breath stirs my hair, and I swear that I can taste the faintest tint of blood and ash on the breeze through Beast’s open window.
The old church has never been so packed. I mean, this obviously isn’t the first wedding to take place on this compound (far from it, considering even Nellie and Cat got married here), but it’s certainly the most well-attended. As far as I know, nobody involved with Death by Daybreak is religious, but the stone church we’re standing in now has been here since the club bought the place in the early eighties.
Every single fucking member of DBD is here, their wives, t
heir kids. The Lost Gatos chapter is here; the even larger Seattle chapter is here. Anyone who turns out to have been missing will be a pariah for sure.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” I growl at Sin under my breath. He casts me a quick look, but it certainly isn’t a light or inconsequential look. His silver eyes remind me of the stormy sky outside, the one filled with floating pieces of ash from the wildfires. It bathes the world in charcoal flakes that catch the wind, spreading like dust across the compound.
“Why not? I’m not the groom.” His words are a tad bitter, but not without reason. He knows better than anyone that we have to do this. That I want to do this. Beast isn’t lacking, the other guys just stack up. “I’m not leaving you alone, Gidge.”
I give him a look.
We’re standing outside a set of doors that lead to the nave of the church. Whatever domination this place once was, it’s lost in some barbaric form of club worship, an entity of Death by Daybreak and nothing more. It’s fine by me. I don’t know if I believe in God.
But I sure as fuck have seen the devil.
“I’d hardly be alone,” I retort dryly, gesturing over at Nellie, at the gaggle of teenage girls who are going to be my bridesmaids (against my will, obviously), at Reba who’s giving me one of her looks. Behave! This is a place of worship, she says. Don’t be obscene, Gidge.
Obscene, her eyes say, but it’s one of my favorite things to be.
“What I meant was, we came up with a deal: you are never to be separated from us. You agreed to that.” He lets his gaze scan the church, searching for threats. Technically, we shouldn’t have to worry about any of that, surrounded by the club, on club property, with hundreds and hundreds of soldiers at the ready.
Still, I am. Sin is. If the mafia were to launch an attack, now would be a good time. Just like the club did to them.
Instead, I focus on the shape of Sin’s face as the sunlight comes through the broken stained-glass windows on our right. Colton’s face looks so young in that light, so determined. His dogged resolve to protect me, no matter what, shines through.
I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2) Page 36
