She clicked around and took some measurements.
“We’re putting you at 8 weeks and two days,” she said proudly.
That was further than I thought I was. We were just weeks away from the “safe zone”.
“Due date would be May second,” she added. “Want me to write that down for you?”
“No,” I said, a smile forming on my face. “I’ll remember it. So the baby is okay then?”
“You’ll need to talk to the doctor, but generally yes,” she said. “At this stage, everything looks great. And a healthy heartbeat at 8 weeks is considered a very good sign.”
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if I’d tried. We never made it past six weeks with either of the other losses. This was a very, very good thing.
CHAPTER 9
“Everything okay, sweetie?” Mary Jane asked as we headed back out to her car.
“Yes,” I smiled. “Everything’s fine actually. Thank God.”
I reached for Tuck, but he yanked away in favor of clinging on to Mary Jane. Apparently those two had become well acquainted while I was being examined.
“It’s okay,” Mary Jane said as she helped him into his car seat. “I’ve got it. You get yourself settled for the drive home.”
As soon as the three of us were buckled in, Mary Jane turned down the road to take us home. I stared out the window and the miles of vacant prairie and open space and for the first time, I felt whole again. Ash and I had wanted a second child pretty much ever since Tuck came along. We loved Tuck so much that we wanted another one as soon as possible. Now it was finally happening.
I rubbed my belly and squeezed my eyes and hoped that the tiny little one growing inside me could feel my love for it. When I felt the car slowing down and taking a right, my eyes shot open.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I wasn’t familiar with the area but I knew damn well we were going north instead of west, towards the house.
“Oh,” Mary Jane said. “I have to run a quick errand while we’re in town. I hope that’s okay.”
She wasn’t asking, she was telling.
“What kind of errand?” I asked.
“I have to drop something off for my husband,” she said with a smile.
I glanced over at her hands, which gripped the wheel. Her left ring finger was naked as the day she came without so much as an indentation. “I didn’t know you had a husband. You never mentioned it before.”
A nervous smile spread across Mary Jane’s face. “Well, I suppose it just never came up in conversation before.” She shrugged like it was nothing.
From the corner of my eye, I watched her like a hawk. Something was not right. Something was very wrong. I just had to stay calm and try to put it together.
I studied Mary Jane. Her black slacks, cream blouse, pearls, and red lipstick seemed a little overdone for taking me to the hospital. Why had she dressed up for that? It was almost a little costume-y.
She reached over and dialed down the AC, since it was getting stuffy in there. It was unusually warm for a September day, nearly in the nineties, which made me question why she was in long sleeves and pants.
“Eeeeh,” I sieved. “Ouch.”
Mary Jane said nothing, pretending not to notice.
“I’m cramping again,” I said as I clenched onto my lower belly. It was a complete and utter lie, but I had to test her. “I think I need to go back.”
“Oh, we’re almost there. This’ll just take a minute. I promise.” She placed her hand back on the steering wheel and the cuff of her sleeve fell revealing part of a snake tattoo on her wrist. I didn’t know a single pearls-and-heels wearing woman with snake tattoos on their wrists.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I’d been set up. Mary Jane was a Cottonmouth all along, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce.
CHAPTER 10
I forced myself to breath and act calm. The last thing I wanted was for Mary Jane to know I was onto her. She has plans for me and Tuck, and I didn’t want to make things worse than they were already going to be.
Mary Jane pulled her Mercedes into the back alley behind an old abandoned warehouse. I glanced back at Tucker who was sound asleep in his car seat. I thought about grabbing him and running and getting the hell out of there, but with a million different buckles bolting him in tight to his seat would take time and draw attention to us. It was going to be our only option though, and it was a risk I was going to have to take.
I flung off my seatbelt, popped the lock button and flew out of Mary Jane’s car, yanking on the passenger door behind me. I was moving as fast as I could, but it didn’t feel fast enough. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. As I hurriedly unbuckled Tuck, sweet freedom was seconds away.
I glanced up at Mary Jane who was just sitting there, staring straight ahead, not trying to stop me, and I wondered if I’d had it all wrong. Maybe I was just tired, paranoid, or crazy? Sleepless nights and minimal human interaction could do that to a person.
With Tuck finally in my arms, I spun around, prepared to run as fast as my feet would let me, but was immediately bumped by a big man in a leather vest, blue bandana, and fierce, beady eyes just like my father’s. I didn’t know the man, but I knew that look. Behind the man were three other men, all standing with their arms crossed and blocking my path.
The man in front of me reached over and grabbed my arm, sinking his meat hooks into my flesh and yanking me towards a door.
The warehouse was dark and dust particles circled the air around us. Flickering fluorescent lights buzzed above us and the heavy, metal door slammed once the last of the men were inside.
We were surrounded. Four men in with leather vests and snake tattoos…and Mary Jane. My sweet friend, my angel, the nicest person I’d met in a long time – was one of them.
“How could you?” I whispered to Mary Jane as tears streaked my cheeks.
She wouldn’t look at me. She just stared at the hard cement floor and clasped her hands at her waist.
“I thought you were my friend!” I screamed at her. I wanted her to look at me. I wanted her to look at the helpless toddler in my arms who hadn’t the slightest clue what was about to happen. “You’re the fucking devil, Mary Jane.”
“MJ,” one of the bikers said. His eyes scanned the length of her. “Take that shit off.”
It was a costume all along. I was right. I watched as she kept her eyes averted to the ground and walked off, heels clicking, to change her clothes. Part of me wondered if she didn’t have a say. In some of the old school clubs, the women did as they were told. No questions asked. My father didn’t operate that way. He kept his club progressive. He had three daughters, and to him, women made the world go round. He didn’t treat them like slaves. He treated them with respect and gave them unwavering protection from harm.
“What are you doing with us?” I whimpered. I tried to hide the fear in my tone, but it came through loud and clear.
“LeRoy,” the man in front of me said, his eyes never leaving mine. His lips twisted into a sinister smile. “Take them to the holding cell. I’ve got to call the prez and tell him we got ‘em.”
I studied LeRoy’s face as it looked slightly familiar to me. Within seconds I’d figured it out. Green! It was the man who’d set us up in the safe house. He was supposed to be on our side.
A man no smaller than six foot four, LeRoy Green walked up to me and nudged towards a narrow corridor in front of us. He didn’t place a finger on me. He didn’t have to. Some men used force and others used the sheer threat of their body size. LeRoy was the latter.
I carried Tuck down the corridor, LeRoy following close behind, until we got to a door at the end of the hall. Made of thick, reinforced steel, the door was even heavy for LeRoy to open.
“Get in,” he said. “Sit down. And shut up. No screaming. No yelling. No crying.”
He slammed the door behind him, and the clunk of the locks echoed through the small space.
Tuck lo
oked up at me, confused, and I forced a smile. The last thing I wanted was for him to be scared.
“It’s okay, baby,” I soothed him. “This is just temporary. You’re with mommy. You’re okay.”
The room had to have been no bigger than eight feet by ten feet, with a small sink a toilet, and a bed. It was the equivalent of a prison cell, only much dirtier and unkempt. The thin mattress on the bed was nearly paper thin and covered with various stains, but it was the only remotely soft place in the room, so I laid down with Tuck in my arms and tried to get him to take a nap. I needed to think and the confused look on my baby’s face only made me an emotional wreck.
I shut my eyes and let the tears fall as soon as Tuck was asleep. All I wanted was for Ash to come bursting through the door, but that would never happen. Ash was on his way back home, and as far as he knew, Tuck and I were nestled nice and safe in the big house in the middle of nowhere.
CHAPTER 11
The afternoon sun had long faded and darkness filled the cell. Not a single light switch graced those cinder block walls, and I had to rely on the tiny bit of moon that trickled in through the barred windows to see my way around the cell.
At some point, I’d fallen asleep for the night, but I was awoken hours later by a bright flash in my face. Startled, I jumped up and clutched onto my sleeping son.
“Say cheese,” LeRoy said, a camera phone smashed up close to my face.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why are you taking my picture?!”
“So your daddy can see that you’re in real good hands,” he sneered. “Apparently we underestimated the Black Dogs and your daddy has decided to call our bluff.”
After a few flashes, he thumbed through the pictures. “Perfect. That one will do just fine.”
He turned to leave, flashing me a sinister look on his way out.
“Wait!” I yelled.
He stopped and turned towards me with raised eyebrows, as if I was inconveniencing him.
“Are you going to feed us?” I asked. “My son hasn’t eaten since dinner last night. He needs to eat.”
LeRoy laughed and slammed the door and locked it behind him. The heavy trodding of his boots down the hall grew faint within seconds.
My stomach rumbled, but it was only a reminder that Tuck had to go without food too. I could last. I could fight through the hunger pangs that were about to consume me, but he wouldn’t be able to understand, and that scared me.
I lay back down on the thin mattress and tried to remember happier times. I shut my eyes and pictured the day Ash had proposed to me. We were sitting by a lake, fishing. It was one of the first beautiful spring days after a long, harsh winter and everyone was dying to get outside.
We’d gone joy riding in his pickup before finding a nice, shady pond in the middle of nowhere. We hopped out and grabbed the bait and tackle from his truck bed and found the perfect spot on the grass.
Ash always had to bait my hook, but I think he liked feeling useful and manly. He’d grown up without a father, and almost everything he learned about being a man was a direct result of my father taking him under his wing. Ash was born to be a part of our family in one way or another, and somehow our kindred souls found a way to make that happen.
“I got one!” I recalled saying as I reeled in the line. “It’s really big! I can tell!”
Ash had to stand behind me and help me pull the fish in, but after several fruitless attempts, we realized my line had gotten stuck in the reeds and the fish swam away.
“That’s okay,” I said. I really didn’t care about catching a fish that day. I just wanted to spend time with Ash. That was when I was the happiest, and that was when everything in my crazy life made sense.
I dropped the fishing pole and turned around to grab the container of live bait, only when I turned around Ash was standing there on his knees with a black, velvet ring box propped open. A sparkly diamond shimmered under the midday sun and the biggest smile crossed Ash’s face.
“Marina Elizabeth Barrett,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
We were only twenty years old, and some may have thought we were too young to even be thinking about marriage, but we both just knew.
“Yes!” I shrieked. “Ash, yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!”
He stood up and slipped the ring on my finger, and I wasted no time in admiring the simplistic beauty of the diamonds that dancing reflections all around us. I wrapped my arms around him and then kissed him. The longest, sweetest kiss we’d ever shared was that day.
“I knew I was going to marry you,” he said. “I knew since we were eight years old.”
“How’d you know?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off my ring.
“I just knew,” he said with a half smile. “I couldn’t live without you then. I couldn’t imagine ever living without you in the future either. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
My eyes opened and I was thrust back into reality – into the cold, cinder block cell walls that surrounded us. It was a far cry from that sunny day by the fishing pond and from the arms of the man I loved more than anything.
I rolled to my opposite side and readjusted Tuck, but I couldn’t get comfortable. Something was poking me in my pocket. My phone! I’d completely forgotten that it was in there.
I popped up and turned it on. One bar left on the battery. Signal floating in and out. I walked around the room, trying to find an area where the signal would hold. Below the window, the signal seemed to be the steadiest. I quickly composed a text message to Ash, my heart racing. It was the first time I’d had so much as a glimmer of hope since we’d been made captives.
My fingers trembled as I typed in a message:
KIDNAPPED. WAREHOUSE. COTTONMOUTHS.
I wished I had more information for him, but that was all I had. I pressed the send button and waited, but a red “x” next to the message told me it didn’t go through. I attempted to send again. Nothing. Before I went to try again, footsteps came from down the hall and grew louder. Someone began to unlock the heavy metal door. I jammed the phone back into my pocket and rushed over to lay down on the bed, feigning that I was still asleep.
CHAPTER 12
The metal door slowly creaked open and there stood Mary Jane with a bag of fast food in her hands. Her once perfect, smooth bob was pulled back into a low ponytail. Not a speak of makeup graced her face besides some jet black eyeliner and gobs of black mascara. She wore cut up jeans and a faded t-shirt and sneakers. Mary Jane had vanished and a stranger named MJ had taken her place.
“Here’s some food,” she said. She could still hardly look at me, but the second we locked eyes, I could see her searching for a sliver of forgiveness. “Don’t tell anyone. I wasn’t supposed to give you anything. When you’re done, shove the wrappers under the mattress. I’ll pick them up later.”
“Why’d you do this to us?” I asked her, tears welling in my eyes. “I thought you were my friend.”
She shrugged. “Everyone has to atone for their sins, Marina.”
I was confused.
“Are you being forced to do all this?” I said. “They’re just using you like some puppet aren’t they?”
She bit her lip before looking over at me with her big brown eyes. “Tripp Cotton was my kid brother.”
My heart stopped, and I felt sick. I wanted to throw up.
“Look,” she sighed. “I’ve long forgiven my brother’s killer, but my family hasn’t. I have to do what I’m told.”
“Are they going to kill us?” I asked. My eyes pleaded with hers for the truth, but she stayed silent. “You have to tell me, Mary Jane.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what the plan is. I just know what I was told to do. I was supposed to get you here. I did my part. I know nothing else.”
I didn’t quite believe her. “Do you have children?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No.”
“Then you don’t understand what this is like,” I said. “Mary Jane, I
know you’re not one of them. You may have the Cotton name and the club markings, but you’re like them. Do you know what your brother did to me? Do you know why Ash beat him to a pulp that night in the country?”
She shook her head. “I know my brother wasn’t the best person in the world, but he was still my brother.”
“Your brother was a monster,” I seethed. “I hope you can rest easy at night knowing that your family thinks it’s okay to murder a fucking baby. I hope it makes all you Cottons feel much better about yourselves.”
JUSTIFIED (Motorcycle Club Romance) Page 5
