“Everything will be all right, baby girl.”
I wipe a tear from my cheek as my mom holds my hand from her seat beside my bed.
“I'm gonna kill him!”
Trouble is, I believe my dad will actually kill Hammer for this. But I don't want that. Hammer is just shocked right now. This was a lot for him to take in. We hadn't talked about kids. Hell, we hadn't talked about anything to do with our future. But I guess – hope – he'll come around. He just needs a little time.
“Daddy?” I hold my hand out to him. He's angry, but he takes it and kisses my knuckles. “Please don't hurt him. He's just in shock, we both are. He just needs a few minutes to get his head around this.”
“He best get his head around it fast, because this baby is comin' whether he likes it or not!”
“I didn't mean for this to happen.” I sob, my eyes closed and heavy.
God, I'm tired.
“Baby girl, we know. Don't worry about anything right now.”
She says don't worry, but how can I not?
My dad believes Hammer has emotionally hurt me. Of course, he'd want to make Hammer pay for that. He warned us both what would happen if Hammer ever hurt me.
I just hope my dad doesn't do anything. I don't need him to protect me. Hammer will come around. I know he will.
“Mommy,” I'm struggling to stay awake. Christ, I've never been so tired. “Don't let daddy...”
“Shh...” Is all I hear before sleep takes me under.
Chapter Eighteen
Hammer
I've been a fuckin' nervous wreck all night. When Shepard pulled me out of the job watching Ghost, basically making sure Vidal didn't go back on his word to let him live and be with Avery while he cleans up the mess following us, I thought I'd done something wrong. Or at least, something else to piss him off. He's been quite the cunt since he found out about Willow and me.
But it was nothing to do with that or even watching out for Ghost. Nor is it anything to do with Vidal and him holding up his end of the bargain to deal with those fucks threatening us. It had to do with the fact my girl was sick.
I hadn't expected to walk into Shepard's bedroom and find her slumped in a chair beneath the window, sweating and shaking. Even her breathing was cause for concern. I couldn't wake her, so we called a doctor in who sent her straight to the hospital.
Turns out Willow has what the Doctor called, “Walking pneumonia.” Which is a mile case of the more serious strength of the illness. We’re all grateful it’s only a mild case. She's also pregnant.
Pregnant!
I'm so fuckin' shocked I haven't been able to get my brain to think for the past three hours. Shepard gave me fuckin' shit, of course, but Lynette forced him to calm down and take a step back. Not that I give a shit about him. All I give a shit about is Willow and our baby.
I have never given any real thought to kids. Cindy never wanted them, so I never thought about it. Maybe I did a little. Cindy was going to be my wife, of course, I thought about her belly round with my child. But it wasn't something I was willing to push with her. She didn't want them so I didn't.
But Willow? I always knew Willow would want to be a mother someday. But I have no idea if she's even ready for this.
She better get ready because this baby is comin' whether she's ready or not. There's no way on earth I'd let her get rid of it. And the next person that asks me if I'm sure it's mine is getting popped in the fuckin' head! The girl hasn't been with anyone but me in months.
How dare they suggest my girl has been unfaithful!
Do they have a fuckin' death wish?
They know Willow, they know full well she'd never do something like that. Especially as she's been through it herself with Trace. I could kill the lot of them!
I'm a bastard, though, I walked away from her when she needed me the most. How could I have done that to her? Yeah, I have a lot going on right now, too much on my mind to deal with, but that didn't mean I had the right to walk away from her.
I really need to speak to my brother about what I've found out. That we don't have the same father, that Tank is only my half-brother after all. But the truth is, I just don't know how to tell him. I don't wanna hurt him, but there's no way around it. The longer I leave it, the harder this is going to be on him. I don't want him to see me differently. I'm his big brother, ain't nothing in the world ever gonna change that.
I also need to get my head out of my ass and go see my girl, but the fact Shepard is now charging toward me with murder in his eyes, I'm not sure I'll be alive long enough to tell anybody anything.
He grabs the front of my cut, lifting me right out of my seat and slamming me back against the wall so fast I don't have time to blink. “You stupid fuck!”
“Shepard, let go of him!” Lynette pulls at his arm, but there's no way he's letting go of me until he's said his piece.
And I'll let him because I deserve it.
“Do you have any idea how Willow is feelin' right now?! Do you even care?!”
“Of course I care!” I yell back. “I love her! I'm a little fuckin' shocked here, Prez!”
“I don't give a fuck how shocked you are, you little fuck! You're gonna take responsibility for my daughter and that baby she's carrying, or so help me God, I will fuckin' kill you!”
His eyes bore into me and I feel the fires of hell burning deep into my soul. Does he honestly think that I'd walk away from Willow and our baby? I know leaving the room when I did was the wrong thing, but I honestly couldn't get my head around any of what the doctor was saying.
“Don't do this, Vince. Please.” Lynette pleads.
“She's right, Dad.”
Shepard snarls at Jett's words. My eyes lock with Tank's for a second, he shakes his head at me. What the hell does he think I'm going to do?!
“I'm sorry, okay?” I yank his hands off of me and push him away from me. I can't fuckin' breathe with him this close! “I know I've pissed you off, but I need to see Willow.”
He opens his mouth to spit some more fatherly shit at me, no doubt. But Lynette tells him to shut up and pulls him away from me. I can't blame the guy for being pissed at me, he made me promise never to hurt Willow, and look what I've done. But I'll make this right. I'll make her see that I love her and that I'm sorry for making her cry.
“Shepard?” He turns his angry eyes to me. Everyone else out here waiting, my brother, Willow's brother, sister, a couple of other brothers, all turn to look at me. “For what it's worth, I really am sorry. I love Willow and I'm not going to let her down. I'm gonna make her my wife, and I hope we have your blessing.” It wasn't a question. I don't need his approval, but it would mean the world to Willow to have it.
He says nothing, just looks at me for a moment, his arm wrapped around his wife before nodding slightly and turning away. That's all the blessing I need to make this happen.
I look at Tank for a second, he smiles, his arms around Nova. How the hell am I going to tell my little brother what I know I can't put off any longer?
I turn away from him and walk into Willow's room. She stirs as I take a seat beside her, I just want to look at her. I stroke her hair back from her forehead. She's so beautiful that it stifles me.
How did I get so lucky?
There must be a reason God handed this angel to me. He took Cindy but he gave me Willow. I'm done questioning why things happened, I'm done wallowing in the past. I have to think about the future.
Willow is my future. Willow and our baby. The baby I know Cindy is protecting from her perch in heaven. I know she's smiling down on us, happy in the knowledge she was right all along.
I've never wanted to admit this, but Cindy once asked me why I chose her. Why would I want her when she believed Willow was my destiny? I laughed it off and told her that was crazy. I loved her more than life itself and she was never to question it again.
But she looked at me with a smile on her face and said, ‘One day, you'll see what everyone else sees, Hammer. One
day, you'll see how Willow looks at you, you'll see how much she loves you, would do anything for you. When that day comes, the love I know you have for her will hit you so hard, you won't know which way is up.’
‘Never gonna happen, baby, you are my life.’ I told her.
‘I know. I don't doubt your love for me, Hammer. I just know what I know.’ She said nothing more, simply laid her head on my chest and let me hold her close.
We never spoke about it again. Now I wonder if she really knew this would happen. Did she really know that one day she would no longer be here and Willow and I would fall in love? Or did she believe that we'd fall in love and I'd leave her?
I can't answer that because I just don't know the answer. I won't question it, I won't even think about it. Because if I do, I'll lose myself to the what if's.
There are no what if's here. Everything happens for a reason. Ghost is right, you can't fight fate. Cindy will never be forgotten, she'll always be in both mine and Willow's hearts. That beautiful angel loved us both and we loved her. If she took anything to the grave, it was that knowledge. And the truth is, for the first time since she died, I can breathe easily without one shred of guilt inside of me.
My beautiful Willow is having my baby, and as I stroke her still flat stomach, I smile. Titus might not have been my biological father, but he was my dad, the best there ever was. If he taught me anything it's how to be a good father. I may not have given any thought to having kids, might be too early in our relationship for it, but this little girl has loved me most of her life. She's loyal, smart, beautiful, everything any man on this earth would be lucky to have, and she's all mine.
“I'm going to take such good care of you, little one,” I swear it, this baby is going to want for nothing. They mean everything to me. Everything.
A little hand slides over mine on her stomach. I look up. She's looking at me, teary-eyed. “I'm sorry.” She whispers, and that whisper cuts me up. She's done nothing wrong. We both made this baby. I should have used condoms, I knew she wasn't on any kind of birth control, I knew she hadn't been able to take anything for a while. This is my fault.
God, but once I had her bare the first time, I couldn't even think about covering it up after that. She felt so damn good. That and we're always so fuckin' hot for each other that it just don't come into mind that we need protection.
I should be angry with myself, and I guess I was for a short while there. But I'm not angry anymore. This happened because it was meant to be, simple as that.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, beautiful.” I smile while stroking her cheek with my free hand. “This was not a mistake, Will.”
“It wasn't?” Her eyes narrow slightly. I know why she thought it would be when I walked away like I did. But I refuse to believe this baby was any kind of mistake.
“No, baby girl,” I shake my head. “I'm sorry that I walked out the way I did, I was in shock. But I'm not in shock now. This baby is a sign, Will.”
“What kind of sign?” Her voice is low but so full of wonder.
“A sign that the both of you are mine. You were born to be mine, Willow.” Her smile is what I live for. “Weren't you?” She nods and bites her lip. I take her hands in mine and bring them to my lips, kissing them long and hard.
I'm a little nervous. God, I wasn't this nervous when I proposed to Cindy. I need to stop thinking about Cindy and what we had, that time is over. Now is mine and Willow's time.
“I love you, Willow Jackson. I really fuckin' love you.”
She laughs. “I really fuckin' love you, too, Sam Marshall.”
“Then marry me, Willow. Please?”
“Sam,” My name gushes from her mouth in a shocked whisper. Her mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I know what you're thinking,” I tell her. “You're thinking that I'm doing this because of the baby. I'm not. I'm doing this because it feels right. I was going to ask you to marry me, just didn't realize it would be yet. But why wait? We're meant to be, Will.”
She nods, tears falling from her eyes. “You have no idea...”
“Hey,” I scoot closer to her. “Baby, everything is going to be okay, I promise.”
“I love you so much. You have no idea how long I have wished for this.” I smile at her, my beautiful girl. “I want to be your wife, Hammer. There is nothing I want more.”
I help her up and into my arms, her head on my shoulder. “I'm gonna make it perfect, baby. You'll see.”
All I need to do now is tell my little brother the truth about me. I only hope he understands why my mother did what she did, even if I don't fully understand it myself.
This has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Or at least, it's up there with losing my parents, Cindy, and almost losing Willow.
Over the top?
Possibly. But seeing my brother's face after explaining everything I know about my true bloodline, the truth of what my mother and father did to keep me safe, I think it's safe to say my brother is crushed.
This man sitting across from me at my dining table, this big, tough man wearing dark jeans, t-shirt, his cut, and motorcycle boots, was once the young boy who followed me around wanting to be just like me. This man was once the teenager who clung to me the night our parents were killed, murdered just for being part of the club Tank and I have belonged to since the day we were born.
That day will never leave my mind, never will I forget my fifteen-year-old brother's sobs as I held him close to me. I was twenty or thereabouts, I shouldn't have been telling my little brother that our parents were never coming back. I shouldn't have been holding him up while he crumbled.
But I was holding him up because he needed me. He needed me so badly. I only left him for a short while after we found the cunts who killed our parents. While my brothers obliterated the rest of that pathetic club, I ripped the cunts who actually pulled the trigger on my parents apart.
Fuck, there was nothing left of those cunts by the time I'd finished.
Once it was over, I burned that place to the fuckin' ground!
I went home, and Shepard's son, VJ, was born that very night. While everyone else was gushing over the new baby, I sat with my brother and told him how our parents had been avenged. I'd gotten justice for them. With tears in his eyes, he told me, ‘Ain't nobody gonna threaten us again. I'm gonna make sure of it, Sam. As soon as I'm allowed, I'm joinin' the Snakes, and no one will fuck with us again.’
I held him close to me that night, my little brother. I believed every word he said. But I couldn't've known just how dangerous that young boy would become. In the thirteen plus years since that day, he has become one of the most dangerous men I have ever known. Loyal, but dangerous.
Seeing him right now, sitting in front of me looking so shocked and broken, I just don't recognize him. He doesn't even look angry. Why the hell isn't he angry about this?
“Tank? Say something.”
He's sitting with his head in his hands. He rakes his fingers through his hair before looking up at me. “You need to talk to him. Vidal, I mean.”
“What the fuck for?” Is he insane?!
“Because like it or not, he's your brother, Hammer.” I roll my neck and feel the tension crack. I don't wanna hear this shit! “You can be as angry and as annoyed as you want, brother, but the fact remains, Vidal is as much your brother as I am.”
“Bullshit! He is nothin' to me.”
“But he is. It doesn't matter how much you tell yourself that, he is something to you, big brother. And whether you want it or not, he's not just gonna walk out of your life now that he knows the truth.”
He's right. I know that he is. Trouble is, I don't want that prick in my life. He's not my brother. He's nothing to do with me!
“Don't do that, Hammer.”
“Do what? Enlighten me, as you seem to know everything about me!”
“I do know everything about you,” He laughs. I don't understand. Yeah, he's gutted about the truth, but
he's not angry. Shouldn't he be angry? “All right, a mafia Don ain't the ideal sibling, but it could be the best sibling a guy could have.”
What the fuck has gotten into him?
“You're untouchable, Hammer. Ain't nobody gonna mess with you for fear of what Vidal will do. Do you have any idea how powerful that makes you?”
“I'm a biker, Tank. What makes you think for one second that cunt would give a shit about me?”
Draven Vidal cares about Draven Vidal.
“Because family is everything to him. Didn't he prove that you meant something to him when he threatened Shepard with death for daring to so much as think about hurting you? Hasn't he proven how much you mean to him by sorting all this shit out for us so our women and kids can go back to their lives? And then there's Ghost. He did that for Avery, but for you also.”
All right, I'll give him that.
“I won't lie, I'm gutted that dad wasn't your biological father. But he was your dad, Hammer, he always will be. If taking Ember on as my own has shown me anything, it's that it doesn't matter if a kid is of your blood or not. Because it's so damn easy to love them as if they were.
“Dad loved you as much as I love Ember. He took you into his heart before you were even born. He was the first man to hold you, tell you he loved you, would do anything for you, just as I did for Ember.
“You won't be hurting his memory if you get to know your brother and sister. You won't be getting to know Joseph Vidal because it's common knowledge that Draven and Maria have nothing to do with him and haven't for years. It isn't their fault, Hammer. They didn't know about you until now, and it sounds like Vidal has moved heaven and earth to find out the truth. Whether you like it or not, he loves you, and that is a powerful thing.”
I wish I could tell him to go fuck himself, but he's right. He loves his daughter as if she was his, no one can ever say that he doesn't. I know Titus loved me just the same. It isn't my half-brother and sisters fault that I didn't know about them, they didn't know about me either.
All For You (Snakes Henchmen MC Book 2) Page 16
