“I never thought that Remy would have grandparents. My parents disowned me. Even after everything it hurts that they won’t know their granddaughter. But she has family now, and they don’t even know it.”
“Does that mean you’re going to tell them?” Austyn asked.
My head shook. “No… Yes… I don’t know. It’s all too confusing right now.” I swiped my face, getting the wetness off. “It’s all just too much.” The energy just came pouring out of me.
“I get that,” Austyn replied. “But you gotta know, we won’t let anything happen to you or Remy. Hell, not Katie either. You are family, and we protect family. Now this Micah stuff is rough, but we’ll all make this work. No one is taking anyone anywhere, and this is all new and fresh. Sleep on it. Digest it. You still don’t want to tell him, that’s fine. We’ll stand by you. Know we have your back.”
This I knew, but the fear of losing my baby girl was almost too much to bear.
“Processing it means I have to think longer on it. Which, I’m serious, will probably put me in the hospital with heart failure because it’s pumping so hard a damn cheetah couldn’t keep up with it,” I rambled, needing to let all this junk out of me. This pain. Panic. Fear. Restlessness.
I had to get up and move again, so I started pacing the room. My voice kept changing octaves as my words came out in weird rushes. “If we have to leave, where would we go? How could we start all over again? We have great jobs and a nice place. I can’t…”
Chewing on my thumbnail, I was making record time for dashes across my small apartment. Maybe I could be in Guinness Book of World Records or whatever.
That was it. I was certifiable.
“He’ll want to see her because that’s my lot in life. Everything I love being taken away. My childhood. Family. All of it. Poof…”
My strides were becoming longer, making the back and forth shorter than before. Before I could think better of it, I was at the other end to turn around.
Not looking up, I ran right into something, stopping me in my tracks. My head lifted and I realized it was Austyn, as her hands rested on my shoulders.
“Breathe, Ensley. You’re gonna pass out, if you keep this shit up.”
Tears came once again, and this time they cascaded over, falling down my cheeks and to the floor. Austyn wrapped me tight in her arms and held me close.
I couldn’t stop the rivers of salt. It was so bad that when the hiccups kicked in, I turned into a blubbering mess. My face buried in her neck, and she didn’t move an inch as my tears, snot, and whatever else could come out of a person got all over her.
Never did she flinch. Never did she step away. She held me tight, letting me get everything out with no judgment. It was one of the best gifts anyone had ever given me.
How long we stood like that, I had no clue. My body heat started to regulate. My tears were simmering down. My nose wasn’t running as much, but the hiccups wouldn’t go away.
I pulled out of Austyn’s embrace, seeing the absolute mess I’d left her shirt in. “Well, I can Shout it out for ya.”
Austyn smiled wide. “All good. I’ll have Ryker do the laundry.”
“That ain’t happenin,’” Ryker said from the couch. “You good now?”
Walking across the room, I grabbed a box of Kleenex and went to town on my nose and face. Swiping under my eyes, black showed up on the tissue. This meaning I had coon eyes and would scare the shit out of people.
Whatever.
“Good? That’s yet to be determined. But I’ve worked damn hard protecting my little girl since the moment I found out I was pregnant; I won’t stop now or ever. I may be scared shitless. I may lose my shit now and again. But I’ll do anything and everything to protect my little girl.”
And I would. Until my dying breath.
12
Micah
“What the fuck, man?” Cooper had his arms around my chest, while Deke stood in front of me. Nox, Green, and Jacks stood behind Deke. There was no getting out of the clubhouse with these men blocking my path. I didn’t want to hurt her. In fact, I wanted to spend time with her. It had been years, but she was always in the back of my mind.
One moment Cyrus was in front of me, the next she was gone like she'd evaporated into thin air. Then these guys were in my face and all over me like white on rice. Who was she to Ravage that they would act like this?
I just wanted to talk to her. She’d been in my dreams since the night we spent together. Now she was here in the flesh, and they wouldn’t let me near her? Why? Surely they weren’t protecting her from me, but the more I looked at the men, the more I came to the realization that yes, they were. Why? What in the hell was going on?
Not only that, there was this pull to her. This part of me that wanted to knock every single one of these men down on the ground and go after her. A cosmic pull? Hell, I had no idea, but it was something. More than anything in this world, I wanted to go after her.
“Chill. Ryker said to keep you here. Any reason why?” Cooper asked, making it clear he was as clueless as me about the situation. There were many possibilities for why he wanted me to stay at the clubhouse, but my gut told me he was protecting Cyrus. I didn’t spend years fighting as a Marine and not learn to go with my instincts.
My instincts were screaming for me to go after her. Only I knew I was outnumbered, and this wasn’t the time. So I relented and relaxed.
“You can let go now.”
Reluctantly, Cooper released me only to come and stand beside Deke. Yeah, plowing through all of these guys wouldn’t be an easy task, but if I had to, there were ways. I just needed to see her. To make sure it was her. Yes, her hair was red now, but it was those green eyes, the ones I could never get out of my head, that came to me in my dreams, that beckoned me. Eyes that I’d missed over the years.
“That girl who just left. Cyrus. How do you know her?” I asked the men, wanting to understand this big brother protection act.
The guys had these looks on their faces, partially puzzled, partially curious. If this weren’t an intense as fuck moment, I would’ve laughed at it. “Who the fuck is Cyrus?” Deke asked, but something told me he knew exactly who I was talking about. His eyes were cold, but the way he asked gave it away that he knew who she was.
“The woman who just ran out of here. The one Austyn chased, and the reason y’all are standing here blocking my view,” I countered, knowing that she’d be long gone before this interrogation concluded. My mind started racing with all the computer programs I had to try to find her.
“How the fuck do you know her?” Nox asked, staring me down in a way that let me know he wanted to put a bullet in my head. Which was always a possibility at this point. Eyes in the back of my head was the motto I was rolling with for the foreseeable future. Good thing I had a shit ton of practice at it.
What I didn’t like was that all of these men knew who Cyrus was and were giving me shit.
“Seriously, why was she here?” I tried again.
Green answered, “Friend of the club. Now how do you know her?”
Well, he didn’t deny she was Cyrus. Although he didn’t confirm it either, but I could tell there was a fuck of a lot more going on right now. All of it leaving me with the burning need to know why she was here. A friend of the club? How was that possible? Was she one of the mommas? No, she couldn’t be… Fuck me. Yeah, she could. Maybe she was someone’s ol’ lady. Wouldn’t that kill. What did I really know about her besides she was good in bed? Nothing really.