His words keep coming, but the blackness that is at the edge of my vision starts to take over as I fight and gasp for air. Just when I think that I’m dead, that my baby is dead, the constriction stops.
Bending over, I inhale a deep breath and cough. I don’t even look up to see where he’s gone, I can’t. I hear a scuffle in the background, fists against flesh, grunting and groaning, but I can’t look.
“Jesus,” a female voice gasps.
Turning, I look up to see the woman that I only met briefly, Della standing to the side, her mouth dropped open in surprise, her baby clutched tightly in her grasp.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her gaze flicking from what I assume is a fight to me, and back up again.
“I think so,” I rasp as I stand up straight.
Her gaze shifts to my belly, then her wide eyes lift to mine. “Holy shit,” she whispers. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
Her wide eyes full of surprise, shift to horror once she realizes that Wilder didn’t just have a woman by the throat, but a pregnant woman.
“No, and he won’t,” I snap.
I start to walk past her, but she doesn’t let me go far. Instead, one of her hands darts out and her fingers wrap around my bicep. Her gaze meets mine, her eyes are close to my same color, her hair too.
Shifting my gaze to her little boy, I blink. His eyes are dancing as he watches me and blows raspberries. His black as night eyes. His dark hair, his dark complexion. I don’t know her husband, but I know this child’s father and it isn’t his.
“He needs one of his own,” she whispers. “It could change everything about him. He’s hurting. He wants a good life, with a good woman, he’s just a little lost.”
I shake my head. “You’re the one he was going to marry. The one he offered to save from a bad relationship.”
My words are a statement of fact, I don’t need her to confirm them, because I already know them to be true, but I can’t deny that something ugly slides inside of me when she does confirm them.
“It was obsessive and toxic. I tried to leave, I did leave. It got really bad. I’ll explain it all to you, if you want, if you take him back. If you let him in. He was willing to give up his chance of love and happiness to save me. He is good, I swear it.”
I shake my head slowly, taking another step back, shaking her grasp off. “He was willing to marry you because you were carrying his baby, not because he’s a saint,” I whisper. “So, he would be willing to marry me too, but it wouldn’t mean shit.”
She takes a hesitant step toward me. “That’s where you’re wrong. If I had married him, then he would have given up his chance to find you. I can tell there is something there. It’s new, it’s budding, but the way he looks at you… it’s different.”
“It’s not. I’m the sloppy second. I look like you, our baby will look like yours, and then he’ll have what he wanted with you. What he can’t have now because you’ve been claimed and you’ve fallen in love with one of his brothers. I may be naïve, but I’m not a fucking moron.”
“Babe,” Dutch calls out.
I don’t even look behind me, I turn and walk away from her, from him—from all of them.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MOUNTAIN
Lifting the bottle of booze to my lips, I suck back a long pull. I don’t even hiss when it burns going down my throat, I’m so fucking numb from the inside out. Leighton wasn’t some big-time true love, but she was mine and now she’s gone.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck, hermano?” Silver asks.
Lifting my head, I look up at him, narrowing my eyes as I take another swig of liquid. I shrug a shoulder, not saying a fucking word to him. I’m not sure what to say. I spent months away while she was gone, I could have grabbed her and brought her back, made her want to stay.
Now, she’s with the Skulls and doesn’t want me, doesn’t want to be with me. I got a fucking week of her, a week until she turned tail and ran. A week before I fucking fucked it all up.
“What else am I gonna do besides drink and fuck?” I slur.
Silver snorts, sinking down next to me and rests his back against the wall. I watch as he pulls his knees up, resting his forearms against them as he stares straight ahead. He has something on his mind, some wisdom he’s about to impart on me, something that he knows I’m not going to like, I can tell just by the way his eyes are a little glazed over.
“Do I need a smoke to take whatever you’re about to dish?” I ask.
Slowly he turns his head to look at me. He reaches into the inner jacket of his cut and pulls out a joint. I take it greedily, jerking my chin as a thanks. I watch as he takes one out for himself, too.
We both light up, closing our eyes as our heads fall back against the wall. We sit in silence for a long moment, too long, because I know that Silver is about to drop a hammer on me and I’m not going to like it.
“You gotta grab life by the balls, Mountain.”
“Yeah?” I snort.
He nods his head, letting out a hum. “Yeah, you do.”
“You’re saying this as if I haven’t lived like that, Silver.”
He grunts, not speaking right away. “You haven’t. You don’t have a woman, any kids, nothin’ and you’re just going to let one that you actually fucking liked walk away from you, without even a goddamn fight?”
“I have a kid,” I mumble.
Neither of us says anything right away. We just stare straight ahead for what feels like far too long when Silver finally clears his throat.
“You don’t have a kid, sorry to tell you that, but you just don’t. That situation, you could have had him, but you chose differently and that’s okay. You did the right thing. Eagle and Della are really fuckin’ happy, your kid is really fuckin’ happy.”
Licking my lips, I bring the joint up and suck in another breath. I’m not ready to verbally admit to him that he’s right. I knew the moment Della was pregnant that the kid could be mine, and I also knew that we wouldn’t necessarily be happy with one another.
I would have married her had she needed me to, or wanted me to, but inside I’m just indifferent toward her. She’s nice, and a good lay, but beyond that, she was just this clubwhore I liked to fuck, nothing more, nothing less.
“I know. It’s better this way, for her, for him.”
“For you?”
I shrug a shoulder, looking down at the floor, then let out a sigh. “Be a lot fucking easier if I’d just claimed her and been done with it.”
“Easier than falling for a woman who has her own fuckin’ brain and doesn’t fall at your feet?” he asks.
Turning my head, I look over at him and he’s grinning like the dickhead he is. “No fuckin’ joke,” I grunt.
“Why are you sitting around here like a giant fucking pussy instead of bringing her home?”
“She made her choice.”
Silver blinks once, twice, then three times before he throws his head back in laughter. His entire body shakes with it. When he doesn’t stop right away, I narrow my eyes on him, my blood beginning to boil with anger. Apparently, this shit is fucking hilarious and it’s pissing me off.