She tried to think, but it was a fog. “I was here, with Nolan. My son—my son is here, I think. Is this County?”
“Yes. Your son is here. I don’t think he’s been notified yet, though. Would you like him to be?”
All that would do would be to worry him. “No.”
“Corinne, I’d like you to listen to what I tell you and let me know if it jogs any memories, okay?”
She nodded, but that hurt. “Yeah.”
“You were brought in tonight by several men. They were wearing leather vests. They are known to be potentially dangerous. You were unconscious. They asserted that your injury was from a fall. Does any of this sound familiar?”
“I know the men. They’re not dangerous. I don’t remember falling. Or hurting myself at all.”
“Well, you certainly did. You have a concussion and a very probable skull fracture. The fracture appears linear, and that’s good, as skull fractures go. If you’re quiet for a few weeks and careful, it should heal on its own. But you were unconscious for quite a while, and there were some tests we couldn’t perform. So we want to keep you for at least a day to make sure everything is good.”
“What tests?”
“X-ray and CT. Corinne, were you aware that you’re pregnant?”
“What? No. That’s not—no.”
“Yes. When was your last period?”
She laughed, and that hurt. “I don’t know. Can’t think.” If they thought she could work that out in her head right now, they were nuts. She’d never paid much attention to when it was time, anyway. Her cycle was such that she started with a super light day, just a little spotting, and that’s how she knew. So she didn’t bother tracking it. She wasn’t really a ‘details’ kind of person.
But she and Havoc always used a condom. She knew the way he’d been in the clubhouse, and she had already had one STD in her life, which was plenty, so she had no intention of ever going without one. Maybe if they got tested, she’d consider another form of birth control. But until then, a condom every single time, no matter how horny she was—
The kitchen floor. Almost a month ago now.
But that was the one and only time.
Jesus.
“Corinne, I’m going to get you something to drink and see if your room is ready. Kathy’s going to talk to you, ask you some questions. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Dr. Callahan left, and Kathy the Clipboard Lady pulled up a rolling stool and sat down.
“I have some questions for you, Corinne. I want you to answer honestly. This room is a safe space. Understand?”
Her head was killing her. She was exhausted. She thought her throat might actually be cracking from dryness. And she wanted Havoc. She just wanted whatever was going on to be over. “Yeah, I understand.”
“Do you feel safe with the people in your home?”
And then it got through her pounding head what was going on. “Nobody hurt me.”
“Please, Corinne. Answer the questions I ask. Do you feel safe with the people in your home?”
Her heart began to pound with outrage, and that made her head hurt more. She took a breath to calm down. That made her throat hurt more. “Yes. I’m safe.”
“Have you felt controlled or forced to do something you don’t want to do by someone important to you?”
“This is crap. I told you.”
“I need you to answer these questions. They’re to help you. Please.”
“No. Nobody controls me.”
The questions went on and on, and Cory got madder and madder. The last question was “Are you afraid of your partner?”
Cory answered with her teeth clenched. “No. I want him here. Is he here?”
Kathy clipped her pen to her clipboard and crossed her arms over the paper she’d been filling out. “Corinne, Dr. Callahan explained to me that your injury is more consistent with being hit with a blunt object than it is with a fall. If you truly have no memory of what happened, then I would like to suggest that you proceed carefully. Have you answered my questions with complete honesty? Again, this room is safe for you. I can’t guarantee your safety elsewhere.”
She was beginning to remember some things—that Havoc’s sister was dead, and that Len had called her to the clubhouse. She didn’t recall seeing him, though. She must have fallen before she got to him. He was in pain, and probably worried about her on top of it, and she was here arguing with a bureaucrat. “I did not lie. I am safe. He wouldn’t hurt me. None of them would.”
After a pregnant pause—Oh, right. On top of everything else, she was pregnant—Kathy nodded. “Okay then. I’ll find Dr. Callahan.”
~oOo~
She was in a regular room before anybody she wanted to see came to see her. It was way past visiting hours, but she didn’t have a roommate in her semi-private room, and the nurse had said she’d look the other way. So Cory had been propped up in bed, waiting for Havoc, wondering how in the fuck she was going to pay all these medical bills, for Nolan and now for her, when her door opened. She had a flutter, expecting it to be Havoc. But it was Isaac.
“Hey, sweetheart. How’re you feelin’?”
“My head hurts. And I’m lonely. Where’s Hav?”
“Not far. I wanted to talk to you first. That okay?”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?”
“Jesus, Isaac. Everybody is being so weird with me. I don’t remember. I know that Sophie died, and that I went to the clubhouse for Hav. And then I was here. What am I supposed to remember?”
“Talk to Hav—”
She cut him off. “I want to. I want him. Where is he?”
“He’s pretty fucked up, sweetheart. He’s torn up over his sister, and now you. He’s not doin’ so good.”
She was going to lose her mind with all the cryptic going on tonight. “Isaac…”
“Okay. Just…he needs some forgiveness tonight. If you can find some for him.” He came up and kissed her forehead. “I’ll get him.”
He left. A few minutes later, the door opened again, and finally, at long last, Havoc came in. He only came in a few steps, far enough for the door to close behind him, and then he stopped. He looked like reheated shit. His face was haggard, with a long scratch on his cheek and another across his forehead. His eyes seemed wrong, either empty or too full, but black as night. There was blood on his shirt, under his kutte.
When she saw him, she remembered the rest, and she felt sick. He had hurt her. He’d hit her with a sledgehammer. She had no idea how she was alive, unless he’d caught his swing at the last second.
“Oh, no. Oh, no, Hav.”
“I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I did this to you. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I’ll go. I’ll leave you alone. I just needed to say I’m sorry. I love you. Never want to hurt you.”
She remembered the bloody mask of furious pain he’d been wearing, standing over the ruin of a motorcycle, the reek of gasoline so strong in the room she could taste it. Isaac had told her to stay clear of him, and she hadn’t. She didn’t think that meant she deserved getting beaned with a sledgehammer, but it made space to forgive him. She loved him—that made space, too. Nolan loved him. And he was suffering. And one more thing.
“I’m so sorry about Sophie. I don’t want you to go. I forgive you. I love you.” She took a breath and tried out the other thing. “And you can’t go, Hav. I’m pregnant.”
The look of horror and exhausted self-loathing left his face, and he gaped at her blankly.
“What? How? Why?”
She smiled. She didn’t know if she thought being pregnant was such a great thing, but she was, and, though she didn’t have anything against abortion, she knew she wouldn’t have one. The thought of having a child with Havoc wasn’t entirely bad.
“Pregnant. The usual way, I expect—and I’m guessing on the kitchen floor. Because we didn’t use a condom. I think that answers your questions.”
But he was shaking his head, the movement
increasingly violent. “No. No. No, Cory. No. I can’t. I can’t be a father. I can’t.”
He turned and left the room.
Cory felt like she’d been hit with a sledgehammer. Again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Havoc wasn’t a man who had nightmares. He wasn’t a man who dreamt at all, at least not as far as he knew. When he slept, he slept hard, and he slept well. His whole life. He couldn’t remember a single dream he’d ever had, not in his whole life.
Until now. Now he woke in cold sweats over and over, and no amount of Jack seemed to be enough to stop the pictures in his head. He didn’t even know if they were dreams. His idea of dreaming, from what people said, or the way they showed it in movies, was little stories going on in the dreamer’s mind. That’s not what he saw. He just saw Sophie’s head, dead-eyed and white, her pretty, gold hair dyed red from her blood. And a sledgehammer, swinging, always swinging, until it connected, and Cory’s head exploded into red haze.
He hadn’t even realized he was holding the fucking sledgehammer, not until he saw it come around toward Cory’s head. Like his brain had just checked out and left him to tear everything down. He didn’t know why he’d turned on her like that, what he’d intended, but the hammer was arcing to her head, and then he’d let it go, shocked. It hit her, then glanced off and flew into the wall behind her.
It had left a gouge in the concrete wall.
If he hadn’t let go, he’d have killed her. He loved her, and he’d hurt her. He’d have killed her. Sophie and Cory, in the same fucking day. He was an animal, and he ruined everything.
It was too late for Sophie. She was dead because of him. But Cory had another chance. She was pregnant, with his kid, but she had a chance to be safe.
So he stayed away.
~oOo~
They were still working the weed run. Even after Sophie, even knowing that the Scorpions had served them up to Martin Halyard and a fucking Mexican drug cartel—and that Bart had let it happen—they were still working the run. No choice. The Perro Blancos made Lawrence Ellis look about as scary as a purse-snatcher.
Dom had found info that had made every face around the table blanch. Ellis had done some seriously horrible, deeply fucked up shit, killing animals and children, raping women and children—or contracting that work out, anyway. But Jesus, the Perros…Dom had found photos, in news archives, of retaliation crimes they’d claimed. Medieval shit. Worse, even. Stuff out of torture porn.
Once you were in with a cartel, you were in until they were done with you. And then you were dead—after they’d tortured your family to death. So the Horde stayed on the weed run, and they let Sophie’s murder go unanswered. And Havoc had voted for that plan. All eyes around the table were on him, waiting for his vote to come first, letting him lead their play, in deference to what he’d lost. And he’d voted to let Halyard off, for now.
He couldn’t risk more than he’d already lost.
The vote had been unanimous then. And Isaac had looked at him and said, “We’ll find a way out of this, brother. And we will make him pay what he owes.” Havoc had simply stared. He believed in his President. He believed in his brothers, his club. But he didn’t believe that.
He remembered being glad to be getting back into the outlaw business. He remembered missing the adrenaline, the hard-on he got from taking a risk. He’d been a fool.
He needed to make as much distance between the people he loved and the risk he was.
So he stayed away.
~oOo~
He stayed away through Christmas and the New Year. He locked himself down in the clubhouse with Jack Daniels and stayed away from everyone.
His mother had started taking Christmas decorations down the day he’d told them about Sophie, before he’d even left. The story he told them was that Sophie had been the victim of random violence. His father had gone into the living room and opened the paper within two minutes of Havoc breaking the news. He didn’t know what to make of any of it, but he held his mother while she cried, and then he left when she pushed him away and went to dismantle the Christmas tree.
They weren’t having a service for her until the middle of January; his mother didn’t want to ruin anyone’s Christmas. Havoc didn’t know what to make of that, either, but he didn’t make a fuss. He wasn’t in a hurry to put what was left of his sister in the cold earth.
He stayed away from Cory and Nolan, too. He knew Nolan was home—Badger and Omen had helped Cory get him home. They’d built a ramp up over the front steps for the wheelchair he’d need to use for several weeks. He knew Cory was doing okay. Lilli and Shannon and Bonnie were checking in on them both, so he knew they were okay.
He also knew they were angry and hurt. Cory had tried for days to reach him. Nolan, too. He’d finally turned his personal cell off and changed out his burner for a newly wiped one. He had nothing to say, and talking would only make him want what he couldn’t have, make him want even more to be what he wasn’t made to be. He wasn’t a family man. He didn’t know how to take care of people—that had become blazingly, painfully clear. And he sure as fuck didn’t know how to be a father.
The whole town knew she was pregnant, and he figured that for Bonnie’s big mouth. He was getting sideways looks from his brothers, but no one had confronted him yet. Turning a back on family was not something these men cottoned to.
But he ruined everything.
So he stayed away.
~oOo~
The morning of the January weed run, a couple of days into the new year, Havoc came out less hung over than usual and in search of coffee. It was a clear day, and the next day was forecast the same. The temps were right at freezing, with a ten degree bump expected by afternoon. Not bad weather for a winter run. They got an early start on this run, with a meet for the pickup at eight o’clock. Today wouldn’t be a full-club show; Omen and Dom were staying back. They’d taken to keeping at least two members and the Prospects in town, just to make sure things stayed level. The days of complacency were over. Now it was time again to watch their backs.
Even though Mikey and Omen lived in the clubhouse, too, Havoc was up early enough that the Hall was almost empty. Just Isaac and Show, standing over their damn chess set, with mugs of coffee. Good—there was coffee. He went behind the bar and poured himself a mug, then sat down at the bar, wanting his own company. These days, he mostly wanted his own company.
But Isaac and Show walked over, and the men exchanged good mornings. Isaac sat next to Havoc. “Thinkin’ you should stay back for this run, Hav. I’ll bring Omen instead on this one.”
“What? Why the fuck?” He needed the run. He’d needed to keep an eye on the cartel shit; he needed to be up to his fucking eyeballs in the thing he’d either lost or given up so much for.
“Need to keep things cool, while we get a read on the situation and find our play. We want out of this cartel fuckery, we need some time. They need to think we’re cowed. You need some time, some distance, get your head straight, before I put you face to face with cartel people again.”
Havoc’s temples began to pound. “My head’s fucking straight, boss. I need this. And you need me. Omen doesn’t have the sack for work like this.”
But Isaac shook his head. “Decision’s made, Hav. Take some time. Your house is not in order. Nor your head. Soph’s not even buried yet.”
“All that’s gettin’ buried is her head! You want to talk about order? I got nothin’ else but this. You take it away from me, and there’s shit left. I fuckin’ need this. I need it!”
He threw his mug, still half-full of coffee, and it broke against the edge of the booze shelf behind the bar. Coffee exploded over the bottles. Isaac stared at the mess, and then he turned back to Havoc, his green eyes cold.
“And that’s why you’re staying, Hav. I’m not taking shit away from you. I’m trying to help you. Your focus needs to be elsewhere, brother. And you know it. You know it.”
“Fuck you, boss. Just fuck you.” He swiveled his
stool and stood, storming back to the dorms. He almost ran headlong into Wrench, who was coming with rags and a mop to clean up his mess.
~oOo~
He’d been back in his room, sitting on the end of his bed, trying to get hold of the emotions bouncing around inside him—fuck, he was so goddamn lonely—for maybe twenty minutes or so when Show’s distinctive knock hit his door. He didn’t answer at first, but Show knocked again—knock-knock, pause, knock—and Havoc called out, “Yeah.”
Show opened the door. “Talk a minute, brother?”
That’s what he’d figured. Show was Isaac’s chief advisor, and therefore the club’s chief advisor. Havoc, furious and feeling uncharitable, barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the fatherly talk he figured he was about to get. But Show had been through it, lost more than most. And he was a clear, steady thinker. He’d earned his place as club sage.
That didn’t mean Havoc was in the mood to have wisdom bestowed.
“Save it, Show. I don’t need the Daddy Walton bullshit.”
Show leaned on the tall dresser near the door. “Fuck you, brother. I’m not your Daddy. I’m here to tell you to get your head out your ass. Be a fuckin’ man.”
At that Havoc stood. “Where d’you get off?”
“You know exactly where. You got a woman, you got a boy who looks on you like a father. You got a kid of your own on the way. And you’re hiding in the clubhouse like a pussy little bitch. Crying into your whiskey. You say Omen doesn’t have the sack? Well, where the fuck is yours?”
Havoc swung, aiming for Show’s throat, looking to shut him up, looking to do damage. Show caught his fist in his hand, barely flinching. Havoc had farmboy hands, brawler hands—large, wide, and tough. But Show’s hands were like something from a circus sideshow; they completely encompassed Havoc’s fist. He held it and squeezed. Fuck.
“You want to fight me, we’ll take it to the ring tomorrow, when I’m back from the run. You swing at me like that again, though, and I will crush your fuckin’ hand.” He released his hold and pushed Havoc’s fist away. Havoc resisted the strong urge to shake his fist out.
All the Sky (Signal Bend Series) Page 25