Rachel might be in the same town as me, but for all the distance between us, she could have been in Cali with our daughter.
“Fuck you, Maverick,” I hissed under my breath as I heard a truck start up.
He knew this time of year was always rough on me because Wynter’s birthday was on the fourth of January, so close to Rachel’s. I’d forgotten Rach’s this year, but I knew she’d have gotten my gift by now. Not that she’d thanked me for it.
That she was pissed at me was a given.
Hands clenching into fists at my sides, I stayed staring up at the night sky for a ridiculously sentimental amount of time, trying to figure out what to do.
Maverick wasn’t wrong; that was something I couldn’t escape from, so I didn’t bother trying.
After a while, when the universe didn’t right itself on the wish I settled on a shooting star, I trudged back to Dad’s bedside, re-dressing in the protective gear I had to wear in the ICU, feeling the burden of my position as I sat my weary bones into the armchair I’d been sitting in for hours at a time.
For days and weeks and months since the blast.
I did most of my work here, only leaving for important club business, to rest, and to eat.
But tonight, I didn’t want to work. Not even when Maverick sent me the school shooter’s details.
I wanted to forget this and think about something else.
Swiping through the photos on my phone, I watched Rachel mature from a kid of about eleven to the woman she was today.
I had a Rachel album on my drive, and it was my go-to stress relief.
Each picture was a memory I wanted to hold dear. Each one was a trigger of something I didn’t want to forget.
The time I broke my arm when I jumped in the lake in Verona because some fuckers had pushed her in when she couldn’t swim. That was the first time she’d let me hug her.
The time when—
“Rex?”
My name was one syllable long.
Short. Abrupt. Just like me.
But Dad whispered it on an exhalation.
A rasp.
A death rattle.
My eyes watered as I jerked up onto my feet.
This was the first time he’d had a whisper of consciousness since the clubhouse bombing, and though the relief should have been raw, as I looked down at his ravaged face, his torn-apart body, it was guilt that drowned me.
“Dad?” I whispered back. “I’m here, Dad. I’m here.”
His eyelids fluttered open, bright pink and patchy from burns. “Want—” He let loose a long breath. “Rene.”
I swallowed. “She’s not here anymore, Dad. She’s dead.”
“Need.” A breath. “Her.”
Eyes wet, I reached up and rubbed my thumbs against the lids. “I know, Dad. I know you miss her.”
“No.”
“No?”
The effort it took him to connect his gaze with mine almost blurred the staunch will behind that stare.
“Don’t. Want.” A breath. “To live. Without. Her.” Another. “Anymore.”
Each word was labored. The sounds tortured as he tried to verbalize the impossible.
“It’s not your time to go yet, Dad,” I rasped, wanting to touch him but not wanting to hurt him either. “The doctors want—”
“NO!” he growled, living up to his road name. “NO.”
Then, he broke me, because there was no mistaking what he wanted, no mistaking the command of a man who’d led his own army of Sinners for decades:
“Help. Me.”
SEVEN
RACHEL
“Motherfucker.” The bathroom doorknob rattled and shook again. “Is someone in there?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to tell myself that my houseguests would be gone within the week to their newly pink abode.
“Giulia, that’s why the door is locked,” I said as calmly as I was able.
“Rachel?”
My brow furrowed at the hitch in her voice. “Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry, but are you almost finished?”
Awkward.
I heaved a sigh, then something hit me.
Giulia apologizing?
Giulia saying ‘sorry’?
That was when I realized something had to be really wrong. Was it the Dresden boy? Nyx hadn’t mentioned him during church today.
Seeing as I was only sitting on the toilet seat, not doing anything other than staring at my feet, my gaze trained on the test I’d thrown in the trash can, I unlocked the door. She reared back when she saw me sitting on the seat, clearly expecting my pants to be around my ankles, then frowned as she waddled in, belly first.
I stared at that belly.
Was transfixed by it.
I’d been there once before, and I’d vowed I’d never get pregnant again.
Fate was such a bastard.
She cleared her throat, drawing my attention to her face, so I straightened up, saying, “I’ll leave you to it.”
“No. You don’t have to go.”
I arched a brow. “I don’t want to see you pee.”
“I don’t want to pee,” she warbled before she closed the door, with me on this side of the bathroom, locked it, and then promptly burst into tears.
Holy hell.
Rattled, I stared at her a couple seconds. I’d known her when she was a kid, didn’t exactly know her now that she was an adult and a Sinner’s Old Lady even if she had been living with me the past couple months.
She was Nyx’s woman. He was the VP of the Sinners, and his Old Lady was just as deadly as he was.
At least, that was what rumor said.
While gossip and hearsay could be useful in a court of law when used to manipulate a jury, around the Sinners, I didn’t need to be wondering about what they did and didn’t do.
The less I knew, the better.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
The old saying whispered through my mind as I cast another glance at Giulia’s belly then at mine.
There was no sign of life there yet. No sign whatsoever. The pregnancy test had been a last-ditch effort of not having to go to the doctor’s to see if there was something really wrong with me.
I guessed I should be happy I didn’t have an ulcer.
Yay?
“What’s wrong, Giulia?” I asked her wearily.
I didn’t particularly want to know, but she was clearly distressed, and while my rep as an ice-cold bitch seemed to be set in stone in the tristate area, she was pregnant. If I could solve her problem in the here and now, I wouldn’t have to hear Nyx and her arguing later on, followed by a three-hour-long session of angry sex.
Yes, three hours.
I wasn’t sure if I’d had three hours’ worth of sex in the past twelve months, never mind in one evening.
Of course, the hook up at the hospital ate into those one-hundred-eighty minutes for sure.
“I want to kill her.”
Confusion laced my words as I asked, “Who?”
Giulia was the kind of person who wanted to ‘kill’ a lot of people, verbally. This was different. The tears, the bitter hatred in her voice, it felt off to me.
“Kendra,” she hissed.
The memory of that white spandex dress had me grimacing.