“A joke,” I repeated while shaking my head.
“Pathetic,” he spat.
I nodded, fighting a smile as I turned to walk away. “I get it. Making it so you don’t have a job to come back to, that’s amateur hour, right? Come on, boys, let’s go back to the drawing board…” I paused, reaching into my club cut and pulling a piece of paper from my pocket. “Oh, shit, I almost forgot to give you this.” I held it out, though it took him a few seconds of examining the faces in front of him to actually take the folded paper from my hand and unfold it.
His eyes scanned.
Growing wider.
“I heard you were renting, and you know, just lately, the club has been talking about how we really want to get into the rental market,” I explained, knowing the word eviction notice at the top of the paper spoke for itself. “I think it could be fun, you know… to be a landlord. Mostly because I get to say shit like this to bastards like you… get the fuck out of my house.”
He finally looked up, and those fiery pits of hell were back, and they were alight, attempting to burn me down as we went head-to-head right here on the sidewalk.
Men like Garrett didn’t like to be outplayed.
They didn’t like to be made to look like a fool.
Everything about them had to be hotter, faster, more expensive with things they could flaunt, things that made them better than everyone else. And as of right now, his high-profile God-like job had been taken away, and now he was losing his expensive apartment downtown. And not just that, but it was being taken by me. A biker. Someone who should not even fucking compare.
“You should have taken your bitch and your son and walked away the other day.”
I tried not to grin at his use of a curse word while burying the subtle threat into the back of my brain for later. “And you should have stayed the fuck away from her like I warned you.”
This was the plan
He was unstable.
Taking another step closer to that edge.
“You want to play this game? You want to take my shit? You keep pushing, and eventually, I’ll be a man with nothing left to lose.” His breathing was heavy, and he shifted on his feet, all the signs he was full of fucking shit and talking out of his ass. If he hadn’t killed Thayleah yet, he wanted her for something, and I simply needed to figure out how to get to her before that timeline ran out. “You really want to play this game?”
Yes.
“I do, because not only does the idea of you not having anything makes me incredibly happy, but killing you will be the icing on a very fucking satisfying cake.” If I played it right. “So, you wanna keep playing? Well, check-fucking-mate.”
AVERY
“How big are a baby’s lungs?”
I tried to laugh, but I knew exactly what Meyah meant.
Gage had been screaming for at least an hour with no sign of letting up. He’d been passed around to almost everyone at the clubhouse who was awake and had a hand free. He’d had more than his fair share of bottles and three nappy changes, though I was pretty sure at least two of them were dead dry.
Shotgun and a bunch of the boys worked at Empire until six this morning doing extra security for a private function, so I was trying to keep Gage downstairs so he wouldn’t wake them up, but it was now ten-thirty and his morning naptime had come and gone, and the less sleep he had, the more screaming he would continue to do.
“It could be a little bit of reflux,” Meyah offered, her smile letting me know she’d been there, done that with Juliet. “Or he’s at the point where he’s worked himself up so much, he’s overtired now, and he doesn’t even know what he’s screaming for anymore.”
We were all learning.
Masters at googling the symptoms of the two small babies who lived here.
“Why don’t you try putting him in the car and driving around the block? He falls asleep in the car every single time we go out,” Adrian offered from the booth in the corner. He wasn’t working right now, his headphones hanging from his ears and about five books and three notepads spread across the table as he studied for an exam tomorrow. “I would—”
“No,” I cut him off instantly. “You, focus. You’re right. I will take this kiddo out for a spin, let everyone get some silence for a while. Even if I have to drive around the block for an hour or park with the motor running… if I can get him to have even an hour’s sleep, he should be much happier on the other side.”
Meyah walked with me out to the car, her small child having behaved herself and gone down for a sleep in Shotgun’s office without even a peep so Shake could have the apartment quiet across the road.
“I’ll move the SUV out of the first garage bay so you can pull in and park in there if he falls asleep,” Meyah said as she watched me buckle him in, his little body kicking and screaming. “Then at least you won’t die of heatstroke or something parked out in the sun.”
“Thanks,” I answered with a heavy sigh, shutting the rear door and instantly being eaten up by guilt at his cries.
It swallowed me whole.
It made my heart hurt.
Because I knew I’d fallen in love with this little person, so capable of breaking me even without him knowing it.
You’re in too deep.
With Shotgun.
With Gage.
With the club.
You’ll never survive when they leave you.
But maybe I didn’t care.
Maybe the love I felt for them was so much stronger than the fear I felt of losing them. Even though Micah left me, I never regretted loving her. I never regretted all the things we did together, or the bond we formed. I never regretted the way she made me feel, how she saved me, how she fought for me and how close we were.
It was those memories that made losing her survivable. It was the love she gave me which made it so I could keep breathing without her. Because through that love, she was never really gone. And whether Shotgun and Gage at some point walked away too, I had this. My moments with them, my memories, and I would never regret my time spent here.
Even with the screaming.
“Ave?”
I shook my head and forced a smile. “Sorry, when I hear him cry, I just want to comfort him.”
She nodded. She got it. “If he doesn’t fall asleep after a couple of laps just come back. We will think of something else.”
“Thanks,” I answered with a sigh and climbed into the driver’s seat.
The engine started with a loud shudder, my car getting older now, and I either needed to get Crush to completely overhaul or sell it and try to purchase something a little newer.
Something more reliable.
It took me a second to realize that starting the car had halted the screaming, and I gripped the wheel in my hand, sinking back into my seat with relief and hope that this could be the savior to our problem.
Meyah waved as I pulled out of the compound and onto the road. A bump here and a bump there and still no peep from the back seat. Humming happily, I cruised around a few blocks, staying close to the clubhouse, but making sure my right turns were long enough that I didn’t have to stop often, scared it would be my downfall.
After about ten minutes of just roaming the streets, I stopped at a set of red lights and risked a glance into the little mirror that hung on the back seat. Gage faced backward, so the reflection let me see him—snoozing. Dead to the world. His lip quivering as he took each breath, still calming from his epic breakdown.