Absolution road kings mc.., p.5
Absolution (Road Kings MC And Underworlds Book 1), page 5
Taking a step to the side, I sat down in the comfy chair, unsure what to say.
“I also saw his face when we got to you and he saw your back bleeding, and again as you had the boys. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want to shoot him in the dick, especially because he knew he was getting married while he was with you,” I flinched at this, getting a slow nod from him.
“Yeah, exactly. But I’ve heard some of the story, and I heard the emotion in his voice when you were being operated on, so now I only want to shoot him in one of his nuts. What I want to know is where your head’s at with it all.”
I mulled over what he’d said, and as much as I absorbed the feedback on Taras’ reactions, I refused to apply them to where I was at with him now. To do that, I might lose the numb feeling I had for him, and I couldn’t afford for that to happen. It was just too late.
Clearing my throat, I tried to explain it. “We had a brief fling. I thought it was something it wasn’t, and when I found out the truth I went to stay with Lena for a while.
“I’d intended to stay there for at least a year, maybe even find a man there to live happily ever after with, but I found out I was pregnant and came home.” I trailed off, running the tip of my finger down Walker’s cheek.
“I thought it was something beautiful, but it was actually something ugly. From that ugly, though, I received the gift of two little humans, who are so amazing they make my heart hurt. So, the raw wound Taras left behind is now a distant memory.”
“You didn’t tell him about the babies?”
I didn’t feel great that I hadn’t, but I had better reasons than most. “I didn’t tell him for many reasons, but I would have eventually. He’s a high figure in the Fedorov Bratva, and that comes with enemies and wars. I’m not equipped to protect my sons by myself from those threats,” I began, but he interrupted.
“You have us protecting you all,” he growled angrily.
“I know that, and I know you’d never let anything happen to us, but you can’t be with us twenty-four hours a day, and the Fedorov enemies are crazy,” I explained, but his face didn’t lose the pissed expression.
“I also didn’t tell him because he was married. It’s a cliché for an ex to approach someone, saying they’re pregnant suddenly.
“Not knowing the circumstances surrounding the marriage, I didn’t want to cause problems in it, which could then lead to problems between that family and my own.
“You know what the marriage means, so you know full well there’s a code that has to be followed. Me breaking it would come with consequences for all of us. His kids are meant to come from her so they’re in line for the Pakhan position.”
He was about to say something when the door opened, and his mouth closed audibly, as both of us watched Taras walk into the room.
“Hunter,” he muttered, stopping to look at Hendrix with a soft look on his face. “He’s grown already.”
Looking between us, Hunter stood up and held the baby out to him. “I gotta go. I haven't slept for shit in over a week, so I’m gonna head home and crash. Call me if you need anything, Nell, yeah?”
I wouldn’t need anything, I rarely ever did or had since I was little and Mom died. Still, I gave my brother a strained smile and nodded, aware Taras was watching all of it closely.
With a lift of his chin, he muttered, “Later, Fedorov,” and then walked out of the room, leaving me alone with the man I wanted to stay as far away from as possible.
There was a long, tense silence after the door shut, but I managed to stay strong and not say anything as he looked between Hendrix and me.
Finally, he ruined it. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you, baby, but—”
“You don’t owe me any explanations at all,” I cut in, talking quickly. “You don’t even owe it to me to come here—something I’ve already made clear—so I think it's best we go back to the way it was for the last eight months.
“If you want an update on the boys, I’ll get Hunter to tell you, but,” I finally looked up at him and then said firmly, “as I’ve said before, you’re off the hook. I know you’ll feel like you have a duty and a responsibility to them, but that’s not the case.”
Unwisely, I continued talking even though the expression on his face should have been my warning to stop. “They have my last name, and I didn’t put you on the birth certificate, so no one will ever know. You’re free.”
He stared at me for a while, his mouth a firm line, not giving away his emotions, but the energy coming off him was almost suffocating.
I was just about to ask him to pass Hendrix over to me, when he held up the hand of the arm that my son wasn’t cradled in to stop me. “No, I think you’ve said more than enough. And all of it was bullshit.”
Was he insane?
“Had I known that you were pregnant, malysh, I would have moved hell to make sure you were safe, healthy, and protected from everything and everyone—even yourself.”
I flinched when he used the Russian word for baby like he did when we were together. But hearing what he was saying, I couldn’t stop myself from rising to the bait and snapping at him.
“Protected from everything and everyone—would that have included you? Because, by my math, apart from a bomb exploding behind me, you’re the one who’s caused me the most harm.”
The only outward show of regret or upset at my words was a slight flickering of his eyes. Apart from that, he wore the same expression as before.
“If you’d allow me to explain, Nell, you’d understand by now that I had no choice at the time. But if I’d known my sons were inside you, I would have made sure you were safe, every hour of every day, and I’d have found a way out of the bullshit nuptials.”
“I didn’t even know I was pregnant when I found out you were getting married. As far as I knew, we were going on vacation together to discuss how to tell our families about us, and spend time together where we didn’t have to hide. I had no idea your ring was on another woman’s finger and that I wasn’t the only one in your bed.”
This time it was my turn to hold my hand up when he went to speak. “No, I want you to listen and understand why I don’t want you in our lives,” I told him firmly.
“One of the first things I did after I found out I was pregnant, was to ask them to run tests, to make sure I hadn’t caught a sexually transmitted disease from you, on the same day I found out I was over four months pregnant with twins.
“Can you imagine how dirty, embarrassed, and hurt I felt doing that? Thinking that, for four months, I’d potentially carried something that would hurt my unborn babies, and that it had come from their father?
“Trust me, you can’t imagine how I felt, or how relieved I was when it came back negative.”
“That’s because I wasn’t sleeping with both of you at the same time.”
His words made me speechless for a moment as I warred between feeling relieved and not believing him. But then one of the feelings won the war.
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered, “and you taught me to feel that way with your actions. All of the promises, the plans, and the pretty words were a lie. Because if you felt for me even one-tenth of what I felt for you, you wouldn’t have done what you did.”
“I had no choice, Nell,” he growled, shifting slightly like he was going to get up, but then Hendrix made a small noise and he settled back down again.
“It wasn’t my decision to do it, but the alliance between the Fedorovs and Azarovs would save the lives of thousands of people, both here and in Russia, and not just within the Bratva. We have enemies who’d stop at nothing to kill all of us.” He looked at me meaningfully, but it was lost on me.
“With two of the most powerful families tied together, they’re unable to take the risks they were planning to.”
I could understand that duty, but every word felt like a sword through my chest.
“Well, I’m glad it worked out so well for you. And what you’ve just said confirms what I’m saying: we have no place in your life. So, I’ll allow you ten minutes with Hendrix and Walker to say goodbye. After that, Hunter will update you when you want one.
“And when the day comes when I can trust a man again, I’ll choose well for them and for me, so you don’t have to worry about that. Until then, I have the protection of the MC, so we’ll be fine.”
His eyes had been blank as I started talking, but by the time I was finished, they were on fire.
“Like hell, you will,” he bit out. “If you’d let me finish, you’d have heard me say that I told my father I was already with someone. He likes you a lot, but the arrangement had already been agreed on. The day before the wedding, I gave Donna the option to cancel the wedding. She chose to proceed. I also told her that I wouldn’t—”
The door opening beside us interrupted whatever he was going to say, and in it was the nurse who’d brought the boys through to me earlier.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, grinning. “I have good news for you. The doctor in charge of your handsome boys has reviewed their charts, and it looks like you can take them home on Friday.”
Glancing down at Walker, I saw him looking up at me. “I can really take them home in three days?”
“Yup. There’ll be a list of things you need to watch out for, and just for now it would be an idea to give them formula as well as the milk you’ve been expressing for us. But so long as they stay as they are, congratulations, you can go home, and the four of you can be a family.”
I was so happy about what she’d said, and my mind had been working a hundred miles an hour with what I still had to do for them, that it took a moment for her final words to hit me. When they did, the smile slowly dropped from my face.
Taking advantage of my delayed reaction, Taras got up off the bed and moved closer to her with his free hand outstretched, holding Hendrix effortlessly in one arm like he’d done this every day of his life.
“We’re very grateful to you and everyone here for what you’ve done for our sons,” he told her, and I saw her blink as she shook it gently, no doubt stunned by the full force of what those eyes on you alone could do.
Swallowing audibly, she looked over at me with wide eyes and then back at him. “You’re welcome. We love your sons in the nursery, so we’ll be sorry to see them leave.”
With one corner of his mouth hitched up in a smile, he replied smoothly, “They’re the most precious boys in the world, and I might say,” he added conspiratorially, “the most handsome ones, too.”
Give me strength not to throw up—even if what he was saying was true.
Finally, she took in a deep breath and looked over at me. “Okay, we need to make sure you have everything set to go. When you leave, they need to be in their car seats. Have you got those?”
I ignored the way Taras was staring at me and nodded. “I do. They clip into the buggy, but there are also those bassinets that can be changed into seats for them once they’re old enough,” I added unnecessarily, but it felt like I was being graded so why the hell not.
“Excellent. You have a sterilizer for their bottles, pacifiers, and things like that, yes?”
“Electric and microwave ones.”
“After they left the NICU, we put them in the same bed here because they’re calmer together, and that first night apart didn’t go well,” she reminded me.
Still, it’s not like I could forget a phone call at 3 am, where I was told that Hendrix’s oxygen stats had fallen because he’d been crying so much, so they’d given him some to help while a doctor had checked him over.
When he’d found nothing obvious, he’d concluded that he had separation anxiety from his twin. It hadn’t happened in the NICU, but not all twins who suffered from it reacted immediately, and they’d wanted to attempt them in the same bed.
I’d agreed and spent the night waiting for the time I could come and see them, to make sure he was okay with my own eyes. Which he had been.
She relayed all of it to Taras after he explained how he’d been called away on business, and had been out of signal range for his cellphone. It was a weak story, but she bought it and explained it all to him.
Once she was done, she turned back to me. “What are your plans for them with regards to sleeping?”
I’d read the books, all of the books, and I’d also spoken to friends who had babies, so I already had a plan for them.
“They’ll be in the same bed through in my room for the first six weeks. After that, I’m going to put them in separate bassinets for their naps, and at night they’ll be in the same bed in their room for another month, until I start them off through there for naps in separate beds, too. Hopefully, separating them slowly will be more effective than doing it immediately.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Taras nodding his head as he agreed with this plan, but it was the nurse—the expert on babies in my mind—that I was more interested in.
“I like that idea,” she said through a smile, and I felt like I’d passed the test. “I know we’ve had issues getting them to latch on during feedings, but continue to try with them, and don’t get upset if it doesn’t happen. You’re still expressing milk, so they’re getting what they need from you. It’ll happen when they’re ready!”
This was another thing I was struggling to accept. Almost every woman was able to feed her baby, so why couldn’t I? They weren’t tongue-tied, and they fed well from the bottle, but every time I tried to feed them myself, they got so upset that I picked up the bottle to avoid another oxygen drop.
Through some impossible feat, I was so caught up in the feelings that the breastfeeding problem brought up in me that I’d forgotten Taras was in the room.
“Is this a normal thing to happen with babies, or could it be because they’re premature?” he asked, sounding like he genuinely cared, and I almost believed it for a second.
Shaking her head from side to side, the nurse replied, “I won’t say it’s common or uncommon, and it even happens with full-term babies. Sometimes baby just needs to work on their sucking, and sometimes they prefer the ease of a bottle. As we explained to Penny, babies sometimes need to have a small surgery done, where we just cut the piece of skin that connects the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth.”
His eyes widened slightly, and he looked down at Hendrix.
“But neither of the boys are tongue-tied, so we don’t have to do this. They’re eating a lot, and well, so it may just be a case of patience and perseverance.”
Taras let out an audible breath. “This is good, then.”
“It tends to affect the mother more than the babies, because it’s quite an emotional thing breastfeeding your child, and having issues with it can be upsetting and stressful,” she told him, and he looked up at me like he was trying to read my emotions.
“It’ll happen, dorogoy,” he assured me, using a word I’d never understood when he’d used it before. “But they’ve put on weight and are strong boys. So no matter what, you’ve done the best for them, and it’s paying off.”
I didn’t want to let him know how much those words meant to me, especially coming from him—a man who, if the rumors I’d heard were correct, had no issues killing someone. But I couldn’t help the way my face softened for a split-second, before I managed to get control of it again.
“Okay, I think I’ve covered everything, but we’ll go through it all with you in more detail on Friday. If you’ve got any questions between now and then, just ask one of us,” the nurse said through a huge smile.
“They’ll probably be wanting their next feed in just over an hour. So if you press the button, we can bring through the bottles with the milk you gave us.”
This was something we’d done every day since the boys were able to be fed in this room. I expressed milk and froze it in bags that I brought in every day with me, and the bags were then warmed up and put into a bottle. Not only was it sterile and easy for me to do, but apparently it helped prevent colic, too. I hadn’t known anything about this sort of thing until they’d explained it to me.
“Okay, and thank you so much for all of your help,” I told her. “I can’t wait to take them home.”
Grinning at me, she asked, “What colors have you done the nursery up in?”
Chuckling quietly, and doing my best not to jiggle the sleeping baby against my chest, I said, “My brother, dad, and some of their friends did it, so it’s Harley Davidson themed. The floor has a light varnish on it, but the walls are a pale gray with water-colored Harley prints on them.
“They wanted to get black beds, but I ordered white wooden ones because I hated the black version. One of the men’s wives is also good at sewing, and she made them bedding using a material with Harleys and the logo on them. I bought soft white, brushed cotton sheets with dark gray stars on them to finish it off.”
The nurse burst out laughing after I was done, and it was so infectious that I started, too.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she asked, wiping under her eyes. “You know, we’ve never had a group of big men visit the nursery before, but those guys have been there every day to say hi to your boys. We tried to stop it, but because the boys were in a side room on their own and you’d put approved visitor names on a list, they were allowed in.”
This I knew because I was usually here during it, or I got a text with a photo from one of them if I wasn’t.
“The first thing they do is pull out their ID, say their name, and then use enough of the antibacterial gel to sterilize ten men and go through. I wouldn’t have believed men like that were capable of cooing and baby talk unless I’d seen it myself. It’s become the lunchtime topic of the year.”
“They have a lot of uncles who love them.” And I loved that for my sons.
“What about you?” she asked Taras. “You don’t look like a biker. Has your family come to meet your sons?”
