This living-in-a-house shit was kinda cool.
We’d lived out of my room before the explosion, so we didn’t have much personal space. Now, with the return to the compound imminent, I wasn’t looking forward to it as much as I had been.
I’d lost all my shit in the blast.
Everything I fucking owned.
I had plenty of cash, so it wasn’t the material crap I’d lost but the personal stuff that pissed me off.
Mostly photos, but I’d had a dreamcatcher my Native American grandmother had made me for my firstborn.
At the time, I’d never imagined having kids, but here this one was and the fucking dreamcatcher was in the wind.
“How do you feel about getting our own place?” I asked her softly.
She tilted her head back to look up at me. “That’s what you’re thinking about when you’re manhandling my tits?”
“I’m capable of multitasking.”
“Thinking and copping a feel? You’re proof of the next evolutionary step.”
My lips twitched. “I swear your snark upped a notch since you started baking this kid.”
“I’ll sit on your bladder for the next nine months and you tell me you’re not snarky.” She harrumphed. “Anyway, our own place? Won’t you miss the clubhouse?”
The tension that throbbed through her might have been minute.
To anyone else, it might not have been noticeable.
To me, it was a massive red flag.
“I’ll miss it, sure.”
“Then why move out?”
“I’ll miss this too.”
“What? Teasing my tits on the sofa?”
I laughed. “Yeah. Personal space. It’s nice.”
“I know what you mean. Do you think we could have one of the bunkhouses? That’d be close enough for you to still feel like you were a part of things, wouldn’t it?”
“We can live in town if you want to.”
She shook her head. “You need to be there. I get it, Nyx.”
My brow furrowed. “I think I just said the opposite.” Or was I speaking Japanese and didn’t realize it?
“I don’t think it’d be wise for you to be away from the MC.”
Even more confused than before, I told her, “I ain’t glued to the fucking place, Giules. I can deal with a ten-minute ride to get there. When the kid comes, living out of one room won’t be ideal anyway, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable having sex when the baby was there.”
“Is that why you want to move?”
“No,” I retorted, but I grinned. “It’s one of the reasons why.”
“Uh huh, with that topping the list, I’ll bet. Could we build on the compound?”
I shrugged. “Why the fuck would you want to? Bikes coming in at all times of the day or night sounds like a nightmare when you've got a baby it took four hours to get to sleep.”
She'd never had baby brothers and sisters; well, I had.
“How about behind this place? That’s still Sinner land, isn’t it?”
“It is. Far away enough that you get some peace, close enough that I could walk if I wanted to.”
“You really mean this?”
“Don’t see why not. Look, if you want to live out of one room, we can until the kid needs his own space or whatever. I don’t even remember how long that’ll be. Six months?”
“Do you think they’re ready to move out when they’re toddlers? Parenthood’s gonna be an eye-opener for you, my man.”
I squeezed her tits. “Cut the snark, babe. I’m being serious.”
“I know.” She peeped up at me, looking, Christ, vulnerable.
I didn’t get what the problem was.
Trying to understand Giulia, sometimes, was like attempting to maneuver around a labyrinth blindfolded.
“I’m talking about moving in with you. You did get that part, didn’t you?” I clarified, wondering what was being lost in translation.
“Duh.” Giulia huffed. “I’m just worried that it’ll send you spiraling.”
“The brothers don’t keep me in line.”
“They do,” she derided.
“They used to.” I gave her tits another squeeze. “You and the kid do that now.”
“You gonna always call it ‘the kid?’”
“Don’t see why not.”
She sniffled. “I know you miss the hunt.”
“Sure I do.”
A lot.
Some days, it was a fucking ache in my soul. The need to avenge the innocent was as solid a craving as the need to lose myself in Giulia’s pussy. But I wasn’t the man I used to be.
I had responsibilities.
I had a duty to Giulia and this kid and Indy, but also the MC.
She peered back at me again. “That’s all you’re going to say about it?”
“There’s not much to say. We both know it’s difficult for me not to…” I blew out a breath. “Planning helped,” I said wistfully.
“I know, baby.” She twisted to press her lips to my jaw. “I wish I could make it better for you.”
“You do,” was my soft retort. “More than you know.” I rubbed my mouth against hers a couple times, but before things devolved and I ended up fucking her on my lap, I muttered, “You seen that kid hanging around the compound?”
Giulia tensed. “Kid?”
“He’s in his twenties.”
“You’re gonna need a new noun. A kid can’t be both our baby and a twenty-year-old dude.”
She had a point.
Grinning, I informed her, “I hunted the pedophile who killed his sister.”
Her eyes rounded. “Jesus! Talk about burying the lede, Nyx!”
“Nah. No lede to be buried.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Wants to take part in the hunt.”
She frowned. “He knows about you?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s bad, ain’t it?”
“Very bad.”
“Why don’t you sound worried?”
“I’m not. Everyone else is, but not me.”
“How come?”
“Because our sisters were both victims. Ain’t no way in hell, no matter if you’re a sinner or a saint, you’re going to turn evidence over to the state against the man who took care of the bastard behind her death.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
She gulped and was clearly worried enough that she twisted around on my lap. Her thighs straddled me as her ass settled on my knees. Hands to my shoulders, she breathed, “This is a problem.”
“It isn’t.” Staring down at her big belly, I rasped, “I’d tell you if it was. I’d want you to be prepared. But I’m really not worried.
“If I were, do you think I’d be talking to you about it? If I were, do you think he’d be hanging out around the compound?
“I made a promise to Indy that I wouldn’t go to jail. That I’d be there for the kid. But killing any fucker who tried to stop that from happening wouldn’t be reneging on that promise. It’d be protecting it.”