PREGNANT FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  “Thanks, Ma,” Damian said.

  “I'm going to put on an antibiotic salve and change your dressings,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little stiff. Sore. The one in my gut still hurts like hell. But all things considered, I'm feelin' pretty damn good about bein' alive.”

  “As you should,” I said and flashed him a grin. “You're a really fortunate guy – not everybody gets the top-notch care you got at my hospital.”

  “And I appreciate that,” he replied, his expression serious. “You saved my life, Cara.”

  I shook my head. “I assisted. The surgeon did all the heavy lifting.”

  He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “So you've said. But, thank you.”

  I smiled. “You're welcome.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Damian

  I wandered around the house like a prisoner in a cell. I was restless and wanted to get out and ride. To go do something. Anything. Of course, I knew me and knew that deep down, what I really wanted to do was go put a bullet in Mendoza's face. And I wasn't in any shape to go and do that.

  Yet.

  I was going to have my day with that son of a bitch. He put four bullets in me and left me to die. Oh, he was going to get his. There was no doubt about it. I didn't particularly enjoy violence – and I liked the idea of killing somebody even less – but I would make an exception for somebody that tried to kill me. No doubt.

  I paced through the living room, the utter silence in the house nearly driving me mad. Cara had taken Austin with her and had gone to run some errands. She said she'd be gone most of the day and that I was to stay in the house. Which meant that I was bored as hell.

  I was in the living room, staring out the window, trying to find something to do to drive off the boredom. I wasn't a sit on the couch and watch TV kinda guy, so that was out. I wasn't much of a reader – never had been. If I were, Cara had plenty of books on her shelves for me to sort through. And judging by how worn they looked, I had to imagine she did plenty of reading. Which wasn't all that surprising – back in the day, she'd been very serious about school.

  I walked into the kitchen and pulled a soda out of the refrigerator. Popping it open, I took a long drink of it before wandering back into the living room, my mind swirling with thoughts and memories.

  Cara.

  Back in the day, she'd been one of the hottest girls in school. Every guy wanted her. Me included. Even though we'd had a few mutual friends and ran in some of the same circles, Cara had always made it very clear that I wasn't her type. That I shouldn't even bother talking to her. She'd always been something of a goody-two-shoes – a little snobby and uppity. And I was beneath her.

  Which is what made last night so… strange. Surreal, even. Oh, it was great. Fantastic. Just really strange. Sort of like the fulfillment of a childhood dream, in a way. Back then, I would have given my left nut for a night like that with her. And now, what, twenty years later to have that night?

  Strange times, that was for sure. Especially because she still carried some of that same goody-two-shoes attitude with her. She was still a good girl, and I was still, very clearly, somebody from the wrong side of the tracks that she didn't want polluting her world.

  I couldn't say that I blamed her, necessarily. I ran with a rough crowd. I did some bad things. My MC had a real bad – and well-earned – reputation. Though that reputation was way overblown and exaggerated. But I could see why she didn't want that in her life. She had a little boy to think about. I didn't blame her for not wanting the sort of life I lived to rub off on him.

  I got it. I wished it were otherwise, but I got it.

  As I stood at the window, watching the street beyond, I noticed a car cruising by slowly. It was a black SUV – looked like an Escalade – with windows tinted so dark that I couldn't see through them. A jolt of adrenaline ran through me as I watched the SUV pass.

  My immediate thought, of course, was that the Fantasmas had somehow figured out who Cara was and where she lived. They were here to recon the place before they launched an attack. I strained my eyes, trying to pierce the darkness of their window tint, desperately trying to see if it was Mendoza and the Fantasmas.

  But I couldn't see. The windows were too dark. Not knowing the neighborhood, it could have just as easily been one of Cara's neighbors. Or it could have been Mendoza's crew. I didn't know, and because I didn't know, the adrenaline was flowing freely.

  Cara had stuck her neck out for me. The last thing I wanted to do was bring Mendoza and his men down on her. The SUV finally left, leaving me to wonder who'd been inside. Were they a threat? Or was I simply being paranoid?

  I remained at the window for a while, just watching. Waiting to see if they came back. I waited and waited and… nothing. The fact that the SUV didn't come back around made me think that I was being paranoid. But the warning bells were still going off in the back of my head, and I couldn't ignore them. Not completely.

  As I stood there, a familiar sight appeared, and I had to smile. I called him about an hour ago and told him where I was and that I needed to talk to him. Crank pulled his bike to a stop in front of Cara's place and backed his bike in. He dismounted, took his helmet off, and hung it on his handlebar before coming up the front walk. I had the door open before he even had a chance to knock.

  “Dude,” I said and pulled him into an embrace, pounding him on the back. “Good to see you, man.”

  “Good to see you too, bro,” he said. “Glad to see you upright and off death's door.”

  I scanned the street outside once more before pulling him inside and closing the door behind us. We walked into the living room and dropped down on the couch. Crank looked around the place and nodded.

  “Sure is an upgrade over that hospital room,” he said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Crank looked at me and shook his head. “Man, I gotta be honest – I didn't think I was ever gonna see you again after last night.”

  I smiled. “I'm impossible to kill, didn't you hear?”

  “Yeah, keep tempting fate like that and see what happens, bro. So, what happened?”

  I filled him in on everything that had happened the night before. He listened attentively, and then a wide smile crossed his face.

  “You got balls of steel, bro,” he said when I'd finished. “So, that hiding a gun under your hair shit worked?”

  “Like a charm.”

  Crank shook his head, his grin wide. “Unreal, man. I didn't think that shit was gonna work. Never in a million years.”

  I laughed. “Then why in the hell did you come up with that idea?”

  He shrugged. “I had to come up with somethin'. It was all I could think of.”

  “Yeah, well, it worked out. Thankfully.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I stood up and walked around the room. I noticed that if I sat too long, my body hurt more than if I was moving.

  “Mills is pissed, bro,” Crank said. “He's ready to go to war with the Fantasmas right now.”

  “Yeah, we need to put the pin in that. For now.”

  “Good luck convincing him of that,” he said.

  “He's gonna have to. I'm not going to get Cara and her boy caught in the crossfire here.”

  Crank nodded. “I get it. But you're gonna have to talk to Mills.”

  I shrugged. “He's gonna have to bring it to the table. He can't make a unilateral move on Mendoza. He's gotta put it to a vote first.”

  “He's got everybody pretty fired up, bro,” Crank said, a note of concern in his voice. “He's riding the fact that they put four bullets in you pretty hard.”

  I sighed and nodded. Something about the night I got shot bothered me. Why was I out there alone? Mills had sent me out to pick up the bag, saying he wanted Mendoza to see our MC's leadership taking an active role, which was fine. But why didn't I have any of the guys with me? Why had he sent me out there by myself?

  We weren't at war with the Fanta
smas, and we did some business with them, but I wouldn't go so far as to say we had a warm and fuzzy relationship with them. We weren't friends. We didn't go grab a beer together. And given the chance to take out a rival MC's leadership, some guys would do it in a heartbeat. Cut the head off the snake, the snake often dies.

  If nothing else, it throws a club into chaos and makes them ripe for the picking. The Kings had a stranglehold on the weed business throughout the Central Valley up to the Bay Area. It was a business the Fantasmas hadn't been able to crack.

  But if they threw us into chaos by say, assassinating the VP, they might just be able to gain a toehold. And from there, they could slowly start siphoning off the weed market from us.

  On the other side of that coin though, if a rival club like the Fantasmas were to say, assassinate the VP, an ambitious club president could use that as a means to incite a war. A war that could potentially weaken, if not destroy a rival club that would then allow that ambitious club president to expand his reach into areas controlled by a club like the Fantasmas.

  Mendoza's MC had cornered the market on hard drugs like heroin and meth, as well as running guns for various groups. It was incredibly high risk, but the payout was enormous. It made our weed business – which wasn't inconsequential by any means – look like table scraps in comparison.

  Knowing that there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to be had if he could make some inroads into that business – if not take it over entirely – an ambitious club president could possibly be willing to sacrifice one of his guys.

  I didn't like feeling that way. I wanted to believe that there was no way in hell Mills would set me up to justify making a move on Mendoza. The club was supposed to be a brotherhood – it always had been. When my dad was running the show, it was all for one and one for all. But now? Now, with Mills at the head of the table, things were different.

  I hated that the thought even entered my mind, but I just didn't know how far Mills would go to build up his own personal wealth and power.

  “What's on your mind?” Crank asked.

  I normally wouldn't share concerns like that with anybody in the club. I was the VP and a certain decorum needed to be adhered to. But I'd known Crank a long time. He was my brother and somebody I knew I could trust with my life – somebody I had trusted with my life. And he'd never let me down. Not ever.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “You think Mills is lookin' to cut into the Fantasmas businesses?”

  “Which businesses?”

  “More than likely, the H and the guns.”

  Crank looked at me like I'd grown a second head. “C'mon man, he's not gonna fuck around with that shit.”

  “Isn't he?” I asked. “I mean, it's not like we've got a warm and fuzzy relationship.”

  Crank waved me off. “Maybe not, but I don't think it's so bad that he'd set you up to get killed. I don't think he'd do that, man.”

  I shrugged. “I dunno. It just didn't make a lot of sense to send me out there to meet with Mendoza alone.”

  “I would have gone, but—”

  I nodded. “I know, it's not on you. But Mills wouldn't let me take anybody else. Said he needed 'em for something else. He shoulda known there was a possibility that could happen. But I was out there by myself.”

  Crank sighed. “I think he screwed up. No question about that,” he said. “But set you up on purpose? Try to get you killed? I just don't know, bro.”

  I nodded. I hadn't expected Crank to agree with me right away. Hell, I didn't even know if I was right. I was just connecting some dots in my own mind – and didn't know if the picture I was creating was even the right one.

  “Yeah, I don't know either,” I admitted. “I'm just… maybe I'm just all fucked up in the head.”

  Crank grinned. “Yeah, getting plugged four times might do that to you. Might make you see shadows that aren't there.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Crank may have been right. Maybe I was seeing shadows that weren't there. But something about the whole situation just seemed off to me. Something wasn't sitting right in my head. And until I got some definitive answers, it probably wouldn't. Which meant I needed to have a sit down with Mills. But I wasn't about to do that until I was stronger and up to the task. I had no idea what was going to happen if I confronted him, but I wanted to be sure I was ready for a fight if it came to that.

  The front door opened and sent a jolt of adrenaline through me. I half expected to see Mendoza's men coming through, guns at the ready. I let out a sigh of relief though when Cara stepped through the door. She was home a lot earlier than I'd expected. Austin's face lit up when he saw me and he took a step forward, ready to run over to me – probably hoping I'd pick him up and hang him upside down again.

  But Cara's eyes widened when she saw Crank sitting on her couch and she grabbed hold of Austin, pulling him to her protectively. I saw the fear in her eyes and immediately felt terrible.

  I cleared my throat. “Cara, this is my friend, Crank.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cara

  “What were you thinking?” I asked. “What made you think it was a good idea to bring one of your guys here?”

  I was mad. Beyond mad. I couldn't believe that he had been presumptuous enough to bring one of his biker buddies into my home – knowing I wanted to keep that element out of my home, out of my life, and away from my son.

  He stood in the kitchen, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor as I read him the riot act. He looked like Austin when I was calling him out for breaking the rules. Maybe that pouty, hung dog look was just a default setting of men the world over when they were in trouble. It would be adorable if I weren't so infuriated.

  “Well?” I snapped. “Aren't you going to say anything?”

  “I–I didn't expect you home that soon—”

  “Oh, so that excuses you bringing your biker buddies into my home?”

  He shook his head. “No, I should have asked fir—”

  “Yeah, or maybe you could have called.” I was on fire. “You know I'm trying really hard to keep Austin away from—”

  I wasn't sure how to finish that sentence without sounding like a total asshole. Maybe it wasn't possible. But then, I didn't really care. I mean, I felt bad – Damian, despite his rough exterior, was a decent enough guy. But I didn't want my house to become their next biker hangout. I was willing to keep him in my home until he was well enough to get back on his feet, but I wasn't going to have his biker buddies hanging out in my home.

  “I know you are,” he said. “And I'm sorry. I understand where you're coming from. I do. I don't want to bring anything bad down on you and Austin. I really don't. I just needed to talk to Crank about a few things.”

  “And you couldn't have just picked up the phone?”

  He shook his head. “No, I didn't want to risk it on an open line.”

  I looked at him and felt my mortification growing as fast as my anger. “You're not working some drug deal out of my living room, are you?”

  “No, nothing like that, Cara. I wouldn't do anything illegal in your home. I'd never jam you and Austin up like that. I hope you can believe that.”

  I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. “I don't know what to believe, Damian. I really don't.”

  He sighed and looked away. “I know it's asking a lot, but I'm asking you to trust me, Cara.”

  “If you weren't working some illegal deal, what was he doing here? What was so urgent and secret that you were afraid to talk about it on the phone?”

  He gave me a rueful grin. “I'm afraid that saying anything to you is going to put you in danger.”

  I wanted to smack him across the face. “You mean more danger than letting you stay in my home? Because from where I'm standing, with those creeps looking to kill you, I'm already in a pretty vulnerable spot.”

  He gave me a sheepish look. “Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought of it like that before. I'm sorry.”

&nb
sp; “So? What is it then?”

  He sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter, staring out the window toward the backyard. His face was conflicted – torn between wanting to be honest with me and trying to protect me. My heart softened a little bit. I did believe that he wouldn't be doing illegal club business in my house. I didn't think he was that big of an asshole. But the shock of coming home to find one of his biker buddies sitting on my couch was a little more than I could take. It made me angry, and I wanted answers. I deserved them.

  “You sure you want to know?” he asked. “I don't want to pull you in any deeper than you already are.”