We all snicker, and Uno shoots us a shut-up glare. Stephanie is getting in his face threatening to go stay at her mom’s and he says, “Bitch, I wish you would.” I lose it. Everyone in the room does because he has never spoken to her like that. At least not in front of anyone that I am aware of. Even her bitch friends are laughing.

  “Maybe I will.” She huffs out an angry breath and grabs her purse.

  Uno simply hangs his head and shakes it as he goes back down to the basement.

  His cunt wife sneers at us as she makes her dramatic exit.

  Chapter Twelve

  —Cupid

  “Fucking bitch!” Uno slaps the file on the table in front of Hades.

  “I know you aren’t talking to me.” Our Prez growls up at him with a face that could turn weaker men into stone.

  “Sorry. Fucking Stephanie is acting like a Goddamn cunt.” You could hear a pin drop in the room it gets so quiet. Uno is the most pussy whipped motherfucker any of us know. I am fairly certain most of our jaws are on the floor. He never speaks of her in this manner. Ever. Sure, he might gripe or vent, but the dude is fired up.

  Normally Hades wouldn’t stop church to counsel us in marriage, but this is highly unusual behavior and warrants a discussion. “What’s going on, man?” Hades questions him.

  He runs a hand over his head and down the back of his neck before lighting up a cigarette. “She’s fucking crazy. Accused me of making eyes at Cocky’s sister.”

  “Were you?” I ask.

  His shoulder rolls. “I don’t know. I was just going to get the damn file and she was sitting with Sara and the other old ladies. She caught my eye. Then on my way back through she bumped into me. Nothing happened. Hell, I barely spoke to her. Said excuse me and Steph was jumping up out of her seat like I had grabbed her ass or some shit.”

  “Get a leash on her or I will,” Prez warns.

  “Boogeyman, It’s time you have a sit down with my wife,” Uno announces and Boogeyman grunts.

  “Now that we have the cunt squared, let’s take a look at the surveillance Reaper and Terror have on Tiny.”

  Church continues but we aren’t any closer to bringing that bastard down. All the intel proved was that Tiny doesn’t stick to a daily routine. The bastard doesn’t even use the same car. He seems to alternate between them randomly. We can’t just go in guns blazing. He’s a powerful man with big connections. He needs taken out quietly. No one can know what we are planning or else we risk exposure. We all have our reasons for wanting him gone. I’ve never been the best of men, but I loathe him for what he’s made me become. I never touched a woman in an ill way, never even thought about it. But when he threatened Sara and I found out he was the one he killed Harper it changed me. Changed the way I think. The way I feel. I want my revenge. I want to make him bleed for Harper and for me.

  I loved her...well I loved the idea of the girl I thought I knew. The girl I followed to Hell and back. She wasn’t always a crazy bitch. She was my first kiss. My first of many things but she was important to me. He ended her life and robbed her of motherhood. He took away her chance at being a mother—the one thing that could have redeemed her. Raising CT could have made her better. Restored her to the girl I knew. To the sister Danny loved.

  “You okay? You have a funny look in your eye.” Zo Zo scoots his chair back and I blink, coming out of my thoughts. Everyone has gone from the room but the two of us.

  “I’m good. Was just thinking about Harper and how she’ll never know her son. I just think about her sometimes and wonder if he would have changed her, ya know? She deserved the chance.” As I talk about Harper and what she will never get to experience I can’t help but feel guilty at wanting to deny Zo Zo of the same right.

  “She was one fucked up lady.” He smiles with a light chuckle. He moves to get up from his seat and I hold an arm out to prevent him from leaving. He squints at me. “What’s up? Got something else on your mind?”

  “Yeah, brother, I do. There’s something I need to tell you. I probably should have talked it through with MaryAnn more but there is something you should know. She’s pregnant and the baby could be yours or it could be mine. I didn’t want to tell you because she’s my old lady now and that makes her baby mine. I need you to understand that I don’t want you in the picture, but I’d be fucking asshole if I kept quiet and well that ain’t my style.”

  His mouth moves but no words come out. I understand I felt the same damn way when she first told me, though I tried to hide it from her. We sit in a tense and awkward silence for I don’t even know how long before he pats me on the back and says, “Congrats, man. Really happy for you.”

  Confusion crosses my face as I quirk a brow at him. “So that’s it then.”

  Bastard gives me a crooked smile. “Just wanted to make you sweat for a minute. I’m sterile. Have been since that wreck three years ago. Just do me a favor and treat her right.”

  “I will.”

  “Good because if you don’t, I’ll come at you.”

  “Noted.”

  “I’m out, brother. Catch you later. I might head upstairs and sweettalk that Melissa chick.”

  “You never quit, do you?”

  “Nope. Someone has to get Uno off his ass or should I say out of that cunt’s.”

  I follow him upstairs and the girls are gone. The prospect behind the bar says they went shopping. Guess there is no time better than now than to go see what the fuck Mandy wants.

  I hop on my bike and take the scenic route to her mother’s farm. It’s been a while since I’ve driven out this way. Her mom doesn’t live too far off from Boogeyman. I think their properties might border one another. Mandy’s car is parked in the driveway behind her daddy’s work truck.

  Bob’s an okay guy. A straight shooter who doesn’t like bullshit. He never much approved of me so I am sure he won’t be too happy to receive me now as I get ready to knock on the door at supper time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  —Cupid

  I knock three times and her father, Bob answers. “Ryan, to what do we owe this pleasure?” The grim expression he wears is anything but pleasant.

  “Mandy asked to see me.”

  An irritated noise sounds in the back of his throat and he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Very well. Come in. Candace has dinner on. Chicken fried chicken and all the fixins’.”

  My stomach growls at the thought of the food but I decline. I don’t think it’d be too respectful to MaryAnn if I stayed any longer than necessary. “I appreciate that, but I can’t stay long.”

  “Still running with that gang, I see.” He eyes my cut as I cross over the threshold. I want to correct him but I’m not here to argue with the man. I’m here to see my bitch ex-wife and find out what the hell it is she wants.

  “Mandy, his loud voice booms up the stairs. “You’ve got company.” He turns back to me. “You can wait in the sitting room.”

  I shuffle forward feeling so damn awkward being back in this house. Bob moves off once I take a seat, leaving me to wait for his daughter on my own. I let out a breath and glance around the room. I bet they haven’t changed a thing since they bought the place in 1985. No wonder Mandy had bad taste. She comes by it honestly. I don’t think there is one thing she did to the house that MaryAnn has liked. I know she is eager to gut the place and make it our own. Part of me wants to sell it and start fresh. Get our own place to make our new memories in. A place not tainted by my past to raise our child in.

  Mandy appears in the doorway of the room. If I didn’t know her, I might find her beautiful. Dark bob cut hair that doesn’t reach past her chin and frames her round face. Blueish grey eyes that look to be soulful. She’s dressed in a jean jacket over a little black dress paired with boots. A smile crosses her lips. “You came.”

  “I did. So what is it that you want?”

  “Walk with me.” Her head cocks to the side and she motions to the back door. I follow after her, I can respect she might not want them—her folks to overhear. “I’ll be back in time for supper,” she calls out as the backdoor clangs against the frame.

  We walk out toward the pasture where the horses and cows are roaming together. We walk along the fence and she takes a few sugar cubes out of her pocket and gives them to one of the horses that is sticking it’s head out to be petted. I allow her the moment but am growing impatient. I’m ready to hear her out so I can get home hopefully to MaryAnn and dinner.

  “You got me here. What is it that you want?” I cut to the chase.

  “I know you probably have better things to be doing with your time. I hear you already moved a new woman in. Didn’t waste much time, did you?” I fall in step next to her as she walks toward the woods I suspect separates their property and Boogeyman’s. She cuts onto a path that winds through the trees.

  “I didn’t come all the way out here to fight, Mandy.” I pull out a cigarette. She drives me to want to smoke.

  “I know.” Her voice is soft and thoughtful. “I need to tell you something, though, I’m not sure you are gonna be so happy about it.”

  I take a hard drag and prepare myself. “Whatever it is, just spit it out.”

  “Did you know that this path leads straight to Boogeyman’s backyard?”

  “What of it?”

  “Well daddy has game cameras all over and one just happens to point at the back of the trailer. Daddy always suspected that drunkard who used to rent the place of trying to have relations with our animals. Anyway, that’s not the point. One day daddy asked me to review the footage. I saw something very interesting. I saw your friend aiming a gun at a man’s head and pulling the trigger. He killed him right there and buried him in the very hole the unsuspecting soul was digging.” She stops walking and I do to.

  Fuck. Fucking Boogeyman. I bet it was Eugene. The prospect who went missing about the time Boogeyman decided to save Shelly. “You didn’t go to the police, so you must want something.”

  “Not only something. I’m pregnant, Ry. That night we slept together. We made a baby. I want you to take me back. I want us to start over. It’s a sign. A sign that we belong together.” Her hand moves to the small curve of her stomach.

  Sweat breaks out across my forehead and it’s dripping down my spine. She must be lying. I shake my head. “You’re lying.”

  “Why would I lie?” She grabs my hand and holds it to her belly. “I’m almost through my first trimester. Do the math.”

  This can’t be happening. Life is fucking me up the ass without any lube. If she is telling the truth...about Boogeyman...about the baby she’s going to use both against me. “We don’t have to be together for me to raise this baby with you.”

  “No, but it’s what I want. I want us to be a family. I haven’t told my folks. My daddy will kick me out. You know how religious he is. He’ll disown me if I have a child out of wedlock...I’ll have nothing.”

  “I’ll get you an apartment once I see proof that this baby is real, and you hand over whatever you have on Boogeyman.” She cackles sounding like a witch from an old Halloween movie.

  “I know all about your whore you have living with you. Let me tell you how this is going to go down. First, you are going to send that tramp packing. Second, you will move me back in. Third, we are going to renew our vows.”

  “Why the fuck would I do that?”

  “Because if you don’t I will go to the police and tell them how you and your club kidnapped those college girls. I will tell them how Boogeyman brainwashed Shelly. You didn’t think him killing that prospect was all I had on you. Baby, I’ve missed you and I have been watching your every move.”

  I grab her throat and squeeze. “I could make you disappear,” I grit in her face.

  “But you won’t,” she croaks as I let her go. “You won’t hurt your baby.”

  I turn away from her, biting my knuckle. What the fuck am I to do? Hades will want her dealt with. No matter what I do, I’m going to be hurting a woman and my child. Two fucking kids coming at the same time. Motherfuck me. “I need a week.”

  “You have three days to kick her to the curb and bring me home. If anything happens to me, I have a friend who knows to go to the police,” she warns and there’s a confidence in her tone that tells me she isn’t bluffing. Mandy means every word. She’s never been a good liar.

  Swallowing, I nod. We part ways and I wonder how in the fuck she knows so Goddamned much. Someone has been feeding her information but who? I want to tell Boogeyman but am afraid of what he will do. If what she says is true, then I have another child to protect.

  Maybe if I explain to MaryAnn...tell her the truth...if she makes it convincing for Mandy then it will buy us time to find out who in the hell she is getting her intel on the club from. Hades is going to have my balls chopped off.

  There are only two people I can trust right now in the club. Hades and Boogeyman. I’m going to have to investigate every Goddamned member and prospect. Hell, it could be an old lady whose old man talks too damn much.

  Chapter Fourteen

  —MaryAnn

  I knew today...hell the past few months were too damn good to be true. I can see it written on his face. Whatever Ryan is about to say to me I don’t want to hear it. He’s going to destroy me. I finally let my walls down and he’s going to demolish the rest of my foundation. When I came through the door after going shopping with the girls he was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a beer. Next to the beer was an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. I don’t know if it was full when he sat down with it but judging by the smell of him it was close enough. His head hung low and when his eyes lifted to mine I wanted to cry.

  The man who had promised me the world this morning was getting ready to take it all back.

  I’ve been standing at the sink washing the same plate for five minutes waiting for him to get the courage to say what he needs to say. However, he decides to spin it, I already get the gist of it—we’re over before we really began. At least he possibly gave me something beautiful that no one can take away from me...this child growing inside me.

  I feel his breath on the back of my neck and his arm curling around my waist. “I want you, sweet Mary.” His torturous lips that I crave touch the base of my neck. His hot, sticky, liquor coated breath clings to my skin as his tongue darts out and licks before his teeth bite and suck me there.

  “You’re drunk.” I move to dry the plate and put it away, but he tightens his hold.

  “Don’t pick a fight. Tonight I need to hold you. I need to love you. I need to get lost inside you.”

  I twist around to face him, on the verge of tears. “It won’t change whatever is eating away at you.”

  “No, but it means I can deal with it tomorrow.” So many emotions are swimming in his eyes. I feel dizzy trying to recognize them all. “Give in to me.” He cradles my face and I am powerless to deny him. He’s right. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow. Even if he breaks my heart at least we’ll have tonight. “I hope you know how much I love you and how damn happy you make me.” His voice though doesn’t match his words. He sounds so sad and faraway. Detached.

  Trying not to focus on the worry that is harping in the recess of my mind I muster a smile. “I love you too.” Our lips meet, his tasting of liquor and regret. Mine so full of want and hope, praying I have enough love in me to get us through whatever we are about to face. I want to believe that Ryan loves me but something is already coming between us. I thought maybe the stuff with Zo Zo, but I’m not so sure. I wanna know what’s changed since this morning but I won’t dare ask him.

  Not yet.

  Not tonight.

  With my hand in his he leads me to the bedroom. I’m moving through the motions unable to concentrate on anything other than giving him this. What could possibly our last night together. I belong to him so completely. I don’t know how I will let him go because he’ll take all the good parts of me with him.

  Ryan takes his time undressing me, studying my naked form, committing every curve, every mark, and dimple to memory. He’s memorizing every inch of me with his lips, eyes, and hands. I repay the favor, tracing every tattoo, every line of ink. The smooth touch of his hard chest. The softness of his passionate lips. The tender way he holds me. The deep longing in his gaze. I want it all forever and a day. I want to live here in this moment. The one where I get the boy. Where he chose me, and everything is okay. I don’t want tomorrow to come if it means losing him.

  It’s never been like this between us. Our bodies meld together in a slow rhythm. Both of us so desperate to make it last. Neither willing to give in and let go. Sweat drips down my back as he increases his tempo from soft and slow to fast and steady. The soft murmur of I love you disappears between my lips as he kisses me, deep and hard much akin to him inside me, owning every part of me.

  He pulls back to stare at me. “I love you. I love you. I love you,” he chants almost as if he is trying to convince us both of his feelings for me. Or maybe as though he is afraid I will forget. “Fuck, I love you, baby.” His mouth come back down on mine hungry and true.

  Our bodies slap together as he comes at me hard once more. Pumping in and out faster and deeper with every stroke until we both find our release. His warmth flows through me as he stills on top of me, not breaking our connection, not letting tonight go.

  Heavy breaths and racing heartbeats pass between us stretching into the silence, saying what our voices won’t. He kisses me and rests his forehead on mine. Outside I hold it together but inside I’m shattering into a million and one pieces.

  Eventually Ryan rolls off to the side of me but keeps hugging me with his arm holding me hostage. Those kisses I can’t resist pepper up and down my arm until his breaths even out and sleep claims him. Darkness surrounds me with only the sound of his breathing and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat for company.

 

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