by Lane Hart
“Good. Now, let’s get down to the fun part,” I announce. “We’ve got a new crop from the farmhouse ready for distribution to our northern charters, and we’re gonna need volunteers to make some runs!”
Every King breaks into a grin and slaps their palms on the table, knowing that once the run is completed for the season, we’ll handle all of our profit-sharing for the quarter. And business has been good.
Liam begins to fuss at the racket, and I even find myself grinning as I try to calm our newest little member down.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lexi
“Everything looks great.”
I keep repeating the doctor’s words to myself as I check out, set up my next appointment in four weeks, and then head for the parking lot.
Everything is looking great. I can admit that, when the first thoughts of being pregnant hit me, I was caught off guard. But the fact that Torin was so calm and seemed happy helped keep me grounded. It will be great for Liam to have a brother or sister. And sure, the nights will be hellish, but Torin and I make a great team. Things may still be new between us, but we can handle this. We will handle this. That’s one thing I’m actually certain of.
I’m standing next to the shiny, red car Torin bought me, reaching into my purse for my cell phone to call him when I’m suddenly falling face first into the driver side window. I drop my phone and the world spins while I try to catch myself on the roof, but I can’t grab it before I’m yanked backward by a sharp tug on my hair. Even then it takes me several seconds to realize what’s happening.
Someone attacked me, slammed my head in the car before they started dragging me away.
Twisting my face around to see who has a hold on me, I dig the heels of my boots into the ground to stop their momentum.
“Let me go!” I yell at the disfigured face I don’t recognize at first. Not until he speaks.
“Shut the fuck up before I slam your head in the ground,” he warns. Then it hits me.
“Holden?” I gasp. “Holden, please let go! You know Torin will kill you if you hurt me! I’m the only reason he didn’t before!”
I try to twist out of his grip while I plead with him, but his hold on my hair is too tight.
“You know, I thought about just killing you for ratting me out to the club,” he says as he continues to drag me across the pavement. I lose my footing, and then I’m on my hands and knees, the rough ground peeling up the skin on my knees and elbows while I try to squirm away and keep my purse on my arm at the same time. I’m holding on to it like the lifeline it is. If I could just get a minute to unzip the holster… “But that would be letting you off too easy, wouldn’t it?” Holden asks. “Instead, I’m gonna make a little profit, see how much you’ll go for at auction in one of those sex trafficking rings. Maybe take a few of your fingers like they took mine.”
When he grabs me under the arms to lift me up off the ground, I take the opportunity to slam my head back, aiming for his face. His howl of pain at the same time he lets me go tells me I landed a direct hit to his recently broken nose.
“Stupid bitch!” he yells. I don’t waste another second looking over my shoulder at him. My shaking hands frantically unzip the holster pocket trying to get to the gun Torin bought me, hoping I can get to it in time.
…
Torin
It’s been almost two hours for an appointment Lexi said would take half an hour. She still hasn’t made it to the clubhouse; and while I’m not panicking, my heart does feel like it’s trying to crawl out of my throat. I’ve tried to call her, but her phone just goes to voicemail. Telling myself that the doctor’s office was just slam packed can only pacify me for so long before I’m gonna lose my mind.
Finally, my cell phone rings in my hand. Only it’s not Lexi, it’s Jade.
“Jade, what’s up? Sort of waiting for a call,” I tell her in a rush.
“Hey, just wanted to let you know that your former prospect has met his end,” my stepsister informs me.
“What do you mean?” I ask in confusion.
“Albert Jacobs aka Holden Yates, the prospect you had my guys pick up for trespassing after you all gave him a beat down? Well, it looks like you made the right decision. The asshole tried to kidnap a girl and met an ugly end.”
Oh, no.
“Who? What happened?” I shout into the phone.
“Witnesses say that it looked like he was trying to throw a woman into his trunk when she pulled a gun, shooting him twice in the face and –”
“Three times in his groin?” I ask in horror.
“Yeah, well, twice actually. How did you know that?” she asks.
“Where is she? Tell me she’s okay, Jade!”
“I think the ambulance took her to the hospital. Why?”
“Because she’s mine!” I yell. “She’s…she’s my old lady, and she’s pregnant with my kid.”
“Torin, calm down,” Jade says. “I think you’re having some sort of PTSD flashback to what happened with Kennedy–”
“No, I’m not! Her name is Lexi Cruz, she’s Hector’s daughter. We have a son together, and she just found out this morning that she’s pregnant again!” I explain in a rush.
“What are you talking about?” Jade asks. “My mom said you had a son but…where are you? At the clubhouse? Put someone else on the phone, Torin, right now,” she tells me calmly, speaking to me like I’m crazy. And no, I haven’t had a chance to fill my stepsister in on all the gritty details of who I knocked up before I married my wife.
“Just find out an update and call me back! I’m on my way to the hospital,” I tell her.
“Have someone drive you!” she shouts before I hang up.
I go into Lexi’s old apartment and scoop up Liam from his nap, startling him awake so that not only is my heart racing away in my chest, but I have to try and think over the panic and his screaming.
“Everything okay?” Chase asks when I blow past him and some of the other guys in the bar.
“No! Lexi’s in the hospital,” I say on the way out the door. Before I reach the SUV, several motorcycles are already cranking up behind me.
“Hold up! Let me drive!” Chase yells when I open the back door to strap Liam into his car seat.
“Fuck! His car seat is in the basement,” I exclaim.
“Someone go get the kid’s seat thing!” Chase yells to the group of guys coming out of the bar.
“On it!” someone calls back.
“Now that we have a second, tell me what’s going on,” Chase says, loud enough to be heard over the engines and the crying baby while reaching into my jeans pocket and taking my damn car keys.
“I dunno, not any details at least,” I start while trying to bounce Liam to calm him down. “But Jade said Holden attacked her–“”
“What the hell,” he grumbles. “I knew we should have ended that fucker.”
“She killed him, but I don’t know if he hurt her. Jade didn’t know anything other than an ambulance took her to the hospital.”
“Jesus,” Chase mutters while tugging on his beard.
“Lexi’s pregnant,” I blurt out. “How fucked up is that? It’s like some sick, hellish version of déjà vu with Kennedy all over again!”
“I bet Lexi is fine and the baby too,” Chase says when he clasps my back in an embrace with Liam between us.
“She has to be,” I tell him, because I won’t survive losing her too.
Chapter Thirty
Lexi
“I’m fine, really. Please just check on the baby and let me go,” I beg the emergency room doctor who keeps shining a light in my eyes.
“We need to make sure you don’t have a concussion or any internal injuries,” he says.
“It’s just a few scrapes and bruises,” I tell him as I hold up my bandaged hands to show him. “Please, can you just do an ultrasound and let me go home?”
The clock on the wall in the tiny triage room says that it’s almost two, which means Torin is pro
bably worried about where I am. Instead of calling him from the hospital since I lost my cell phone, I thought I would just explain what happened once I get to the clubhouse. Otherwise, he’ll worry for no reason and want to show up here. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to come back to the hospital where he lost everything.
“How far along are you in the pregnancy?” the doctor asks when he sits down to type on the small laptop.
“Not far, just seven weeks or so,” I tell him, going by what the doctor’s office told me about dating pregnancy back to the date of your last period. It doesn’t make sense to me for the baby to be two weeks old or so when it’s conceived, but they’re the experts. Apparently, surprise baby number two is due around the first of July.
“We can try an ultrasound but it’s a little early, so we may not see anything other than the gestational sac,” the doctor informs me. “As early as you are with these minor injuries, everything should be just fine, but I’d like to a blood draw to check your hormone levels along with the ultrasound to be sure.”
“That’s gonna take a while, isn’t it?” I ask.
“You should probably relax and rest until radiology comes to get you,” he says with a small smile before he leaves the room.
“Great,” I mutter to myself as I throw an arm over my eyes. I’m about to give up and ask to use the hospital’s phone when I hear raised voices, male and female, along with a crying baby. “Sir, I’ll let her know you’re here, but you can’t go back there! Sir! Only family is allowed!”
“We are her family!” a deep masculine voice I recognize roars before Torin appears in the doorway, taking up the entire width with Liam in his arms. “Oh, thank God,” he says on a heavy exhale before he explodes again. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I-I was going to,” I say, wincing when Torin’s voice grows louder along with Liam’s cries. Chase pops his head in, looks over at me and then waves goodbye. Smart man.
“Were you?” Torin asks as he approaches the bed, his darkening eyes narrowed and bearded jaw ticking in anger. “Because I had to find out what happened from my stepsister. My stepsister, Lexi!”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I lost my phone…”
“Jade is the one who told me that you shot a man who was trying to kidnap you and that you were in the hospital in who knows what kind of condition!”
“I’m fine, see? Just a few scratches,” I say when I hold my arms out. “Now please calm down. You’re upsetting Liam.”
“Upsetting Liam,” he scoffs before he places our son on my chest. “You’re upsetting Liam! What the hell were you thinking?”
Cuddling Liam to me, I say, “What was I thinking when I was ambushed and nearly abducted? Well, I was thinking that you were going to be incredibly worried and disappointed in me if I didn’t fight back. So I did, thanks to the gun you bought me. Now I’m thinking about the fact that I just killed a man. What I’m really worried about, though, is that the bastard may have hurt our baby.”
“Did he?” Torin asks, his voice lowering to a normal level.
“I don’t know. They’re gonna come get me for an ultrasound soon,” I explain. “The doctor said it’s so early in the pregnancy that everything is probably fine. He just wants to check to be sure.”
“Fuck,” Torin grumbles while rubbing the back of his neck and tilting his head up to the ceiling. “I swear if that asshole weren’t dead, I would kill him again. I should have buried him when I had the chance, then this wouldn’t have happened.”
“That was my fault,” I remind him. “I asked you not to kill him. How could either of us have known he was so…deranged?”
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if he had hurt you,” Torin says. “I just found you, just found something worth living for again. I thought I was doing the right thing with Holden, just like I thought I was doing the right thing with Hector when I tried to pay him to leave my family alone. God, how do I keep fucking up so badly?”
“You didn’t fuck anything up,” I whisper, as Liam begins to calm. “You’re a good man, Torin, and you did the best you could when some truly evil people confronted you. Guys like my father or Holden, they’re everywhere in the world. They’re not like the guys in your club, you know?” I tell him. “Your members are loyal to each other out of love. No one loved my father, not even me. The only reason anyone worked for him was because of money, or out of fear. You’re so much better, so much stronger than he was. You’ve got a family you can lean on, people who are going to stand by you and help you get through anything.”
I adjust Liam so that he’s cradled in one arm, and then reach out to grab Torin’s hand. He had been staring at the floor while I spoke; but when I touch him, his brilliant green eyes look up to me, tears threatening to fall.
“What about you?” he asks in a hoarse voice. “Are you…are you going to be part of this family?”
“Well, now that you’ve fucked me right out of my lucrative job and I only have a part-time one…” I laugh, until I see Torin wince in pain. “Hey, I’m kidding. Remember, I didn’t have any good role models for healthy relationships growing up,” I add, making him smile. “Torin, I know I can’t replace what you’ve lost. I don’t want to. I want you to cherish your memories of Kennedy, not agonize over them. I want to help you move forward…and yes, I want to be part of this family — no, our family. I want us, Torin, you, me, Liam, and…well, our soon-to-be-announced member.”
Torin gives my hand a squeeze before leaning over to kiss me gently. “That sounds perfect to me,” he whispers. He keeps kissing me until someone clears their throat.
“We’re ready to take you down for an ultrasound,” a man in scrubs says when he pushes a wheelchair into the room.
Torin straightens up, then reaches over to take Liam.
“You want to take him to the waiting room?” I suggest.
“Yeah, and I need to go give Chase and the guys an update,” Torin agrees. “Once you get checked out, let’s go home and start putting all of this behind us. I think you and I have a lot to look forward to.”
“I think we do, too,” I agree with a smile, watching Liam snuggle closer to his father. Once I’m sitting in the wheelchair, the technician begins to roll me out the door. Before he pushes me away, I look back to Torin and say, “You’re already a better father than any I’ve ever known, and I think you’ll make a pretty good old man, too.”
“I told Jade you were my old lady…” he says and the look of shock on his face is priceless as he finally realizes we’ve reached the serious relationship status in the MC’s culture. One that Torin probably never thought he would reach with another woman again. And I can’t help but smile as the technician takes me down the hall.
Epilogue
Torin
Several months later…
“Look at you, momma,” Dalton laughs, laying an uninvited hand on Lexi’s hugely swollen belly. “You’re about to pop!”
I turn from the grill where I’m cooking, ready to slap his hand away. Before I can get close, the baby kicks so violently Dalton’s hand bounces, leaving him with a shocked look on his face.
“Baby girl isn’t going to put up with your shit, either,” I warn Dalton, threatening him with my grill tongs.
“Oh good god,” Lexi mutters as she struggles up from the porch swing at our beach home. “She’s using my bladder as a trampoline again,” she explains as she waddles inside the house.
I watch her weave her way through the rest of the Kings and their family members gathered on the deck, making sure she gets inside, before I turn back to the steaks. War is right beside me, checking the smoker to see how the ribs are coming along.
“I sort of regret never bringing Ren around to stuff like this,” he sighs, taking a deep breath of the ocean breeze. “I thought I was doing the right thing, keeping my family separate from the MC…”
“Don’t worry, brother. You’re gonna get your kid back. You hear me?” I assure him as I give his sho
ulder a squeeze with my free hand.
“Yeah…yeah, I know I will,” he says, and I understand exactly what he means. He’ll try doing it the court’s way for now. If it comes down to it, though, the Kings will take things into our own hands. War’s ex-wife may be a worthless junkie, but he’s a damn good father.
Dalton clears his throat and asks, “Lexi’s due any day, right?” probably just to change the subject.
“Any day,” I reply. The sooner the better because I can’t help worrying myself to death about her and the baby. I just want our little girl here and to know both of them are healthy.
“I have no idea how that little woman deals with having your massive devil spawn kicking around. I would have C-sectioned myself by now,” Dalton says.
“Lexi’s a champ. I don’t know how she made it through morning sickness, back aches and all the other mess that goes along with pregnancy. At least, she says this one is a lot easier than Liam.”
“It’s because you’re helping this time,” War observes.
“Yeah, I hope that’s part of it,” I tell him. “I hate I missed out on so much before, but…”
“Hey, what did we talk about?” War interrupts. “No more thinking about before. You’re in a better place, Torin. A good place. A place you deserve.”
I wave my tongs at him, dismissing his words. “Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s not what I was getting at. I was going to say, before you got on your high horse, that I’m making up for all of it now. Lexi seems really happy with me, and the way things are going…”
“Ugh, Torin!” Lexi calls from inside the house where the sliding glass door is wide open. “Come here and look at this!”
“Uh-oh,” I grin at War, figuring Liam has gotten into something. Now that he’s walking, he’s a handful. I pass off my utensils to Dalton, who is still leaning on the rail nearby. “Here, make yourself useful, sunshine. Don’t burn my steaks or I’ll cut the next slab off your heinie.”
