The water.
Boats.
Luckily, Casten and I were good at what we did.
Hitting a moving target was a skill we’d both mastered.
These boys, however, probably had never shot at a moving target in their lives.
And it showed as they missed us, repeatedly.
Surprisingly, the only half way decent shot was Liam.
He hit above my head not once, but twice.
I dropped down to my belly and slipped into the water that was rolling with waves from all the boat traffic in the bay.
The salt in the water burned my injuries, and I was rethinking the wisdom of my decision to get in the water.
The hull of the boat protected me as I moved around the front of the boat, then down the other side.
Liam was still aiming at the spot where I’d been, which was his fatal mistake.
I aimed, then fired.
The difference between me and Liam…I didn’t miss.
Chapter 24
Vodka mixes well with everything except decisions. Drink responsibly.
-Konn Vodka T-shirt
Mig
“Oh, God. You look terrible,” she whispered.
I looked up from where I was hunched over in the hospital bed.
It was the only position I could find that didn’t make my body ache so badly that I wanted to barf.
Despite the fact that the nurse had been kind enough to provide me with not just a painkiller, but an anti-nausea medicine.
I smiled slightly, hating the way her face broke out in despair when the movement split my lip open once again.
“Thanks,” I muttered dryly.
She placed her hands on my chest.
“Is there anything I can get you?” She whispered brokenly.
I nodded, wincing once again when the movement made pain explode in my brain.
“Yeah,” my voice cracked. “Come ‘ere and give me a kiss.”
Annie came, pressing her lips whisper soft against mine.
I appreciated the effort on her part, but right then I needed more than just a peck.
I needed to feel alive, to prove to myself that I didn’t die in that hellhole due to my own stupidity.
I deepened the kiss, and although I tasted blood, I kept pushing the kiss until we both had to stop due to shortness of breath.
“Enough of that now, boy,” Nonnie called, entering the room at her usual snail’s pace. “Thought for sure I’d have to walk back out because the clothes were gonna come off,” she huffed and sat down in the chair next to the bed. “And I barely got here as it is. Not to mention if I fell, my Life Alert button wouldn’t produce any hot firemen. Instead, I’d get ugly nurses who do nothing for me.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
My Nonnie never ceased to amaze me.
“Do you want me to get you something to drink, Nonnie?” Annie asked, worry evident in her voice.
“No. I have something to drink right here,” Nonnie said, pulling out a bottle of vodka. “Want some?”
Konn Vodka, to be specific.
“Uh, no. It’s three in the morning, and I don’t usually imbibe so late. It makes me restless,” Annie said, sounding like she wanted to laugh.
Nonnie twisted off the lid and looked at me pointedly.
“That woman is in labor,” Nonnie said, sounding as if she could care less about the situation.
Really it was because ‘that woman’ had nearly gotten her grandson killed.
I’d known Jennifer was in labor, too.
She was under protective custody until she had the baby. Then, once she was healed enough to be released, she’d be arrested and charged with all the crimes she’d committed.
From what I’d learned from Casten, only minutes before, Jennifer hadn’t really wanted to get me killed.
Apparently, she was more scared of Liam than she’d been of me and had done the only thing she thought she could do.
Tell Liam where I was.
What it had done, though, was snowballed and slammed her right in the face.
Now she was looking at accessory to attempted murder, conspiracy to the kidnapping of a federal officer, along with the date rape charges.
I couldn’t get her out of those if I tried.
But, I wouldn’t even try.
After all I’d done for Jennifer—despite what she’d done to me—she still didn’t hesitate to sacrifice me.
“I know. What floor is the maternity ward on?” I asked.
“The fourth. I’ve already been up there to check on her,” Annie said.
“I wanted to say she wasn’t in labor, but Casten said her water broke when the police officers placed her under arrest,” I observed.
Annie nodded.
“We got home to an empty house, and Jennifer sitting on the couch eating popcorn,” Annie said softly. “It didn’t look different at all. No sign of a struggle, nothing out of place. But we knew something was up when Casten talked to your father.”
I nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“Your father brought us home immediately, walked into the house and started yelling at Jennifer,” Annie said.
“I would’ve snatched the witch up by her hair,” Nonnie offered her input.
I snorted.
Annie laughed.
“I was on the verge of doing that too when the police officers got there,” Annie supplied. “Would’ve done it, too, but they took her into custody so fast that I thought she was going to get whiplash.”
I sighed.
“She’s so fuckin’ screwed,” I told them. “I’ve done all I can, but she’s still going to serve ten years, minimum.”
Annie snorted. “I hope the bitch serves life. Or possibly dies in there.”
Nonnie made agreeing sounds, and I smiled.
“So how much longer until the baby gets here?” I asked her.
Annie shook her head.
“She kept screaming at me and throwing so much of a fit that I had to leave before she hurt herself or others,” Annie explained.
I growled in frustration, then threw the blankets off of me.
“Go get a nurse to take this out for me, please. I’m going to get dressed, then I guess I’ll go up there and see her.”
My voice sounded as tired as I felt.
And Annie must’ve realized it, because she didn’t argue at all.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Don’t move too fast.”
I gave her a salute and got out of the bed, careful of the IV that was in my forearm.
They’d been pumping me full of fluids through the line, and I had to pee worse than I’d ever had to pee before.
I moved like an old man as I shuffled my feet forward, one after the other, to the bathroom.
“I can see your butt,” Nonnie called from behind me.
I held up a thumb.
Nonnie laughed.
“It’s the only thing that doesn’t have any bruises. Annie should be happy.”
I shut the door on her laughter.
“Look, you’re on the news!” Annie yelled through the door. “Your ass looks awesome in those jeans. You can’t even tell you’re hurt!”
I turned my eyes to the wall and just shook my head.
I hadn’t realized it until about thirty seconds after waking up from my pain med-induced haze, but I was scared.
Scared that I wouldn’t be who I needed to be for Annie and my child.
But all she had to do was yell about how good my ass looked and all of my worries seemed to slip away.
Sort of.
With a baby on the way, there were about fifteen thousand more worries that were about to be placed on my plate.
And I was scared shitless.
***
“Get her out of here,” Jennifer hissed.
I wanted to laugh.
“No,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not complaining that you’re keeping my kid. I’m not complaining that I’ll be leaving the only home I know. What I am asking you is that you give me this, and the first hour, and I’ll be gone.”
I wanted to argue.
But I also felt that maybe she did deserve it, not because she was a good person, but because she was having her child taken away from her, and she’d be spending at least the next ten years in prison.
“I’ll wait outside,” Annie whispered.
I watched her leave, wondering if I should follow her.
“Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s have a baby,” the doctor called.
I nodded.
I was surprisingly nervous.
I didn’t wish any ill will upon Jennifer.
It made my stomach hurt that she had to go through a surgery to have my child because she could die if she didn’t.
And I’d lied earlier.
I was sympathetic to her situation.
I don’t know what I would’ve done to kick the habit of drugs. I know she went through the whole rehab thing when she first got pregnant, paying for it with the money she got from drugging and raping me.
I’ve never been in that type of situation.
But I do know that I wouldn’t have gone about it the same way she did.
I wouldn’t have put my body on the line for drugs. I wouldn’t trade my life for another’s.
And I wouldn’t have brought an innocent child into this world all because of a lie.
So I would give her the surgery by herself.
But that would be it, and then she’d be gone.
And it would be Annie, me and the baby.
Annie would be the one that my child thought of as his or her mother.
Annie would be the one the baby went to when it needed something.
I’d be there, too, of course, but the point I was trying to make was that Annie would be everything that Jennifer should have been.
Things moved quickly after that.
I’d arrived at the room in time to overhear the nurse and the doctor speaking with Jennifer about the baby’s heartbeat and how it would drop with every contraction.
I’d been the one to tell Jennifer that she needed to go ahead with the surgery seeing as she was extremely adamant about not having a caesarean section.
Once she’d agreed, the nurse and the doctor left the room to get ready for the emergency surgery, leaving me alone with Jennifer for the first time without anyone else in the room to overhear what I was about to tell her.
“You fucked up today,” I told her. “I had a way out for you. You had your entire life before you, a fresh start, and now you have nothing.”
Jennifer hung her head.
“I know. I didn’t have a choice, though. He’d have killed the baby,” Jennifer said.
“And how do you know that? Maybe if you’d given me the chance to fix this, you wouldn’t be spending the next ten years in an eight by eight cell,” I said, crossing my arms stiffly over my chest.
Everything hurt, and I quickly realized that there would be no crossing my arms in the future, possibly for the next couple of weeks.
I had a fractured wrist that was in a bright green cast.
A sore shoulder from my dislocation.
Multiple lacerations on my face from the brass knuckles and Liam’s fists.
But at least I was alive.
And I would recover.
Jennifer hadn’t known I would get out of it alive, though.
She’d been looking out for herself, even if she had said it was all for the baby.
Another contraction hit Jennifer, and I watched in terror as the baby’s heart rate went from 143 to 89.
The nurses rushed into the room then.
One handed me a pair of scrubs, foot booties, and a mask.
“Get dressed. I’ll wait here until you’re done, then I’ll take you back to the OR,” the nurse instructed.
I nodded, going into the bathroom and taking off the pair of jeans Annie had brought me, and slipping my legs into the scrubs that were on the verge of being too short.
The scrub top didn’t fit very well, but I didn’t really care seeing as my shoulder felt like it was on the verge of falling off.
I grunted, maneuvering my arm into the scrub top, but I had to hand the mask to the nurse once I got back outside.
“I can’t get this on. It hurts to lift my arm above my bottom rib,” I told her.
She slipped the mask on, tying the two ends so the mask lay against my face just so.
Then she gestured for me to follow.
I did and was bombarded by Annie taking pictures of me the entire time I walked down the hall.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, liking the way she was smiling so big.
“I’m documenting this day,” she said happily. “The next time I see you, you’ll be a daddy.”
I grinned at her, even though she couldn’t see it.
“Thanks,” I said. “Wait here for me, okay?”
I gestured to the corner of the wall right outside of the operating room, and followed the nurse in.
It was freezing.
And Jennifer was already strapped down to a table with both of her arms held out wide beside her.
She had on a blue cap similar to mine, and her eyes were closed.
“She’s been knocked out,” the nurse said when she caught my wariness. “We don’t have time to put in a spinal block or epidural. Just sit down right there, and we’ll get the baby to you as soon as we can.”
They’d all been prepared, and knew the situation.
Plus, it wasn’t their first rodeo.
There was a prison located about fifteen miles from the hospital, and from what I’d learned after I’d told them what was going on, they had women from the prison coming in all the time to have their babies.
They knew protocols and would hand the baby over to me as soon as he or she was checked over.
I was nervous.
Would I be a good father?
Would all of this work out with Annie?
Would she marry me?
Would she be any better at taking care of a child than I would?
All of these thoughts swirled through my brain as the minutes passed by.
Then suddenly, my world stopped.
The sounds of my child’s cries filled the room, loud and pissed way the fuck off.
“Oh, he’s upset,” the doctor drawled.
He.
I had a boy.
I had a boy!
I looked up in time to see the doctor pass my son off to a waiting nurse who had her hands outstretched with a blanket covering them.
She curled her arms around him expertly, and brought my son over.
Then she handed him to me.
“What do you think?” She asked.
I looked at my son.
At the child that was conceived not in love, but during a desperate circumstance, and I couldn’t love him any more.
I’d been indifferent about the entire situation since I’d found out about it.
Thought about giving him up for adoption.
Thought about having Jennifer abort the baby.
But now that he was in my arms, I couldn’t imagine ever not having him.
He was mine.
And he was perfect.
He had a red splotchy face; a set of lungs that I could just tell would be fun in the future, and a head full of hair that looked exactly like mine.
He had my nose. My hairline.
My everything.
He looked nothing like Jennifer, and for that, I was thankful.
Because I didn’t want to look at my son and be reminded of the fact that he was conceived in such an awful way.
I wanted to look at him and be proud, just as I was now, with what I had.
And V
italy did make me proud.
Vitaly Andrew Konn.
Chapter 25
I didn’t mean to gain this much weight. It happened by snackcident.
-Annie’s secret thoughts
Annie
I was supremely nervous.
I put on a good show, but I was a mass of nerves as I waited for Mig to come back out of the operating room with his child.
Would it be a girl or a boy?
I’d asked Mig why he didn’t know a few weeks ago, and he’d said that he didn’t want to know, because it didn’t matter.
As long as he or she was healthy, he’d be happy.
And I found that I quite liked the way he thought.
“You need to give them some time before you go in there,” a nurse said callously at my side.
I blinked, turning to her.
It was the one who’d walked Mig into the room.
How she’d gotten out when she’d entered was beyond me, but I wouldn’t be investigating.
“I’m giving them their time,” I said, somewhat annoyed that she even had the gumption to say something like that to me.
She didn’t know my story. She didn’t know Mig. Nor did she know what Jennifer had done to Mig.
All she knew was that I was the other woman, and had decided to judge.
I decided the best choice would be to not respond.
Instead I stood there, waiting for the doors to the operating room to open.
“You’re ignoring me,” the nurse said.
She was right. I was.
“I don’t know what gave you that idea,” I replied softly, my heart beating quickly in my chest.
Was that a cry?
It sounded like a cry!
Then the doors to the operating room opened, and out came a very happy Mig, a smile about a mile wide on his face.
I started taking pictures.
This was too good not to document forever.
I’m so glad that I brought my camera!
“Oh,” I breathed when Mig stopped in front of me.
I went up on my tippy toes, then peeked over the side of the blanket.
“It’s a boy,” Mig rumbled, pride evident in his voice.
My eyes went up to meet his, and a smile transformed my face.
“Congratulations,” I said softly.
He winked.
“Want to hold him?” He asked.
I did. I so did.
I took about fifteen more pictures, then squirted my hands with the hand sanitizer that was on every corner in the hospital.
Jack & Coke (The Uncertain Saints Book 2) Page 19
