by Hazel Gower
Uncle Carl grinned at Alexa. “I’ll let my nephew tell you, but you will be in for at least twenty-four hours. We won’t release you until you’ve kept food down and we are happy with your vitals.” He turned to the nurse. “You don’t need one on one, so the nurse will be coming with me. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.” He caught my gaze. “We’ll talk more about the trial when she knows?”
Alexa squeezed my hand to get my attention back on her, and for a moment she just stared at me like she was trying to figure out what she missed. Then she sighed and huffed. “Fine, okay. Thanks, nurse.” When the door shut Alexa raised her brow. “Are you going to tell me or kept me in suspense?”
I brought her hand up and kissed it. I closed my eyes and savored her skin against my lips and the knowledge that she was pregnant and didn’t have some serious illness. I opened my eyes and stared into her big bright green ones. “You’re amazing, you know that right?”
“Oh shit, I’m dying?” The curl of her lips into the cheeky smirk, had me unable to resist easing off the chair and kissing her.
Reluctantly I broke the kiss and sat back on the chair. “Ha, ha, cheeky woman. You know I’d never let that happen.” Her laugh was music to my ears and I basked in the sound for a moment or two before I spoke again. “Bear, when was the last time you had your period?”
Her laughter stopped. “What? Gross. Why would you ask that?” Her brows furrowed and the look of utter disgust on her face made me chuckle.
“Think.”
I watched as realization came to her. Her eyes got wider and her mouth opened in an o shape. She gaped like a fish and brought her hands out of the covers to pat her breasts and then rest on her stomach. “I’m . . . am I . . . pregnant?”
“Yeah, bear, we’re going to have baby.” The smile that lit up her face was the most exquisite sight I’d ever seen.
“We are going to have a family of own. Someone who will always love me. Who will be part of me. I love you so much, Mason.”
I loved that she was excited and it was contagious. “Alexa, I’ll always love you.” I stroked her cheek. “You mean the world to me. You’ll always have someone to love you. Me.”
She turned her head and kissed my hand. “I know, it’s just this baby will be mine. He will have my blood.”
“Oh bear, you have a family and this baby will be one of many.” I never imagined having kids so young, but with Alexa I wanted to. I knew she would be an amazing mother.
“I’LL SAY IT AGAIN. HELL no.” Mason shook his head and glared at the lawyer who was sitting across from me on the sofa. “I’ll speak slower if that will help. Hell. Fucking. No.”
I had been given the all clear to go home yesterday, but was to keep up my fluids and book in to see an OBGYN as soon as possible. Mason wouldn’t let me do anything but rest, and he wasn’t letting me go testify at the trials. I had keep quiet, but I could see Mason was starting to get worked up, his muscles clenching tight and his face turning red.
I wanted to testify. Especially now that I was pregnant I needed to. I wanted to know that those men would be behind bars, and away from taking kids. My hand went to my stomach. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being taken and made to do unforgivable things.
I was having a baby and as much as Mason didn’t want me to go to the trials I knew that I needed to go, not just for myself, but for our child. The people those no-good men took were someone’s children. I had to stop being a coward.
I needed to say something before Mason lost it. I loved that he took care of me and protected me, but in this, I needed to tell all I’d seen. Closing my eyes, I opened the doors I’d kept shut and locked in my mind, and images of things I’d blocked came rushing to me. For a moment I struggled to keep myself calm, but when I felt Mason’s arms wrap around me and his lips press to my forehead, I opened my eyes and calmed myself, taking deep breaths. With Mason by my side I could do this.
As everything had come back to me, I knew I was one lucky girl. I had seen a lot more than I thought I had. I remembered why I was scared of the police and hadn’t gone and told them what I saw. There was one that I could trust. I had met a Silverman before, Ryder. I turned to Mason. “Get Ryder to come now. I remember. I remember everything I’ve ever seen. No more blocking.” I turned to the lawyers. “It would be best if you stayed.”
Four hours later I was exhausted, mentally and physically. My whole body was wound tight as I told Ryder about the warehouses I’d seen, the basements and clubs I’d seen the Devil’s Queens at. I described girl after girl that I’d seen taken and each member of The Devil’s Queens. I saved what I had been terrified to tell to last, the five cops that had been at the warehouses and basements and the girls they’d brought with them. Three of the cops I’d seen with The Devil’s Queens regularly, the other two I’d only seen at the warehouse. I described them as best I could and tried to remember as close as I could get with dates and times. Mason sat with me the whole time and he gave me strength to get everything out.
“Okay, it’s time to go. You’ve been grilling her now for hours.” Mason snapped at Ryder as he opened his mouth to ask another question. Mason reached across the table and turned off the recording device. “Get out. Alexa has only just gotten out of the hospital. She has given you everything she can tonight.”
Ryder must have known that Mason was at the end of his tether because he nodded and stood to leave, but one of the lawyers was an idiot. “Mr. Silverman. Miss Jennings has held vital information and when she was first questioned none of this information was brought forward. She will be lucky not to be charged with withholding evidence.”
Mason sat forward in the seat and, from where I sat leaned back, I could feel him vibrating with his barely leashed anger. “I do not have our lawyers here today as I felt Alexa was safe. I promised myself when I found her beaten, battered, and bruised, that I would never let her be hurt or put through anything like that again. She has had nightmares from day one and today has been the first time she has been able to talk about this stuff without having a breakdown.” His sharp gaze shot through the lawyer. “Now, if I have to call our team of lawyers I will but know that I’ll find a way for them to bury you and they’ll take this case over.” Pity washed over me for the lawyer who turned a sickly white. “If you were wise, you’d ask to move to another case.”
It was telling when none of the man’s colleagues came to his rescue or even spoke to Mason. I slid forward and sat my hands on Mason’s tense shoulder and massaged them. “Mason, it’s okay.” I kissed his cheek. “I understand why they’d be upset I withheld information that could really help put these guys away and save some girl. All I can say is that I was scared.” I turned his head so he looked at me. “I’m not scared anymore because I know I’m safe with you. I know that you’d never let anything happen to me. I set myself free telling it all because I needed to know that no other child or woman gets taken again. They are someone’s children. We are going to have a child and I would want someone to give all they could to help if, God forbid, anything ever happened. I should have dug up the courage sooner. They have a right to be angry with me.”
He sighed loudly and brought me around so he could brush his lips over mine. “I understand, but I don’t have to like how they talk. I’m proud of you for telling them, but . . . ” He cupped my face. “I’m going to be selfish and say I’m damn happy you ran and hid and survived.”
I hugged him tight and buried my face into his neck and let myself go, tears falling. It was all out there now.
THE POLICE AND LAWYERS ACTED quickly with all the information I had given them. They couldn’t postpone some of the trials, but the extra information changed my testimony enough that I didn’t need to stay on stand as long.
To look across a room at the men I had feared for years, and see them walked in with cuffs on, and listen to others testify was scary, but I had Mason’s family supporting me. Due to being in hospital I had missed one of the trials, but with the new in
formation I’d given them and more they’d found, the man would have his short sentence turned into a long one.
The man I now stared at was one I would never forget. He was the reason I’d spent weeks in hospital. He was the only member of The Devil’s Queens to have caught me. Others had come close, but none had ever done the damage he’d done. He wasn’t the monster I remembered from my dreams. He seemed smaller and not as big. His eyes, though, were what would continue to give me nightmares.
Stiffening my spine, I trained my gaze on the love of my life. The man that made me feel safe. Mason. “Yes.”
“Yes, Jesse Dickson assaulted you?”
“Objection. Leading the witness.” I didn’t look at the defense lawyer.
I wasn’t going to let this guy get away. “Jesse Dickson chased me down, grabbed me, punched and kicked me. I ran because I saw him and his friend Devon Rickers dragging Stacy. I knew an—”
“Objection. The witness was asked a yes or no question.”
The lawyer was pissing me off. I glared at him and growled, “You were the one who made me extend my answer. If it wasn’t for the Silvermans, and my fiancé—"
“Order. Order.” The judge banged down with his gravel. “Miss Jennings, I’m advising you to stick to yes or no answers unless asked otherwise.”
I nodded, but I had said what I needed to and I hadn’t missed the whitening of Mr. Dickson’s lawyers when I said the Silverman name. It was a show of the Silvermans’ power. I knew now that Jesse Dickson was going to jail and his lawyers weren’t going to fight much now they knew the Silvermans were involved.
A heavy weight lifted from my shoulders and I was so grateful for the Silvermans. They were my saviors.
OUR LAWYERS WHERE HAVING A field day helping put away all The Devil’s Queens. Alexa’s nightmares were happening less and less frequently. We now sat in our OBGYN’s office. Well, I sat and Alexa lay on the doctor’s medical bed. Since my uncle had prescribed Maxolon, Alexa had been doing a lot better.
Doctor Kara Bay, who had been my aunt and Uncle Carl’s OBGYN, stood next to Alexa were the ultra-sound machine. “We’re going to listen to the baby’s heartbeat.” This is a fetal Doppler. She held up the white machine. Alexa was smiling, her eyes bright with excitement as she nodded. “Now the gel will be warm, I heated it.” Dr. Bay put the gel on her lower stomach and then put the machine head against Alexa’s belly and moved it around until we heard a loud thumping noise like little rabbits stomping their feet. “That’s a great strong heartbeat.” I watched her closely to see if what she said was true and growled when she raised a brow and then moved the Doppler. It made a swishing noise like waves for a moment or two before the rabbit thumping came back again, but this time not in the same spot as before. “Another strong heartbeat. I want to do an ultrasound to check, but congratulations, you are carrying twins.”
“Oh. My. God. Mason. This is amazing!” Alexa beamed at me, her face lit up like a Christmas tree with her happiness. “Thank you so much, Mason. You’re amazing. You’ve given me two babies.”
Twins. Holy crap, Alexa was pregnant with twins. How on earth were we going to function with two babies at the same time? My Uncle Carl had had twins and I had no idea how he stayed sane. Sure, my family helped, but my Aunt Annabelle didn’t want a nanny. We were getting a nanny. There was no way I could function on the amount of sleep I knew Uncle Carl and Aunt Annabelle got. Wow, twins. I was just getting my head around one. I mean, I wanted Alexa happy and if she wanted a family I was willing to give it to her, but twins. Fucking hell. I had super sperm. I rolled my shoulders back and gave my head a mental shake. Why was Alexa thanking me and telling me how I awesome I was to get her knocked up with twins?
“Bear, you don’t have to thank me.” I got up and took over cleaning the gel off her stomach.
“I’m going to go get the ultrasound machine and be right back.” Dr. Bay said, but all my focus was on Alexa.
DARREN WASN’T HAPPY WITH ME right now. “She won’t leave. She’s sitting in the front row.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You already make it hard enough for me to protect you when this is what you want to do for a living, but your woman is just as stubborn as you.”
I didn’t want her at my match either, but no matter what I did, and I had tried a lot, she wouldn’t listen. I’d even tried the excuse that she was pregnant and shouldn’t be at a violent sport match, but she’d shut that down when she reminded me she would have Sam and a bunch of bodyguards surrounding her. “I know. I tried to get her not to come, but she’s determined to watch me in her first ‘real’ boxing match.”
“I thought all you Silvermans had more control over your women. Christ, she’s pregnant.” If anyone but Darren had said that they’d have been fired and sporting a black eye, but because it was him and I felt the same, I let him get away with it. Darren sighed loudly. “Just don’t get the crap beat out of you tonight.” He whacked my back and moved back to the door having said his piece.
I started my warm up, channeling my focus on my goal . . . winning. I could hear the crowd from my dressing room and it revved me up. Shutting out the outside world as soon as Micky, my trainer, touched my shoulder and told me it was go time, I strutted out of the dressing room.
The crowd went wild when my name was called. I kept my focus and didn’t take notice of them. I knew I’d lose it if I saw Alexa. My whole attention needed to be on the match. I trusted my security and Alexa would have Sam.
The other guy was new to me, so I hoped it would give me some advantage. The announcer said both our names, weight, and hyped us up, but when the bell went he got out of the ring quick. I let go of the world around and focused on the here and now and winning.
Time meant nothing to me so every bell was like I came out of a fog for a moment or two, and then the bell went again and I was back in the game, dodging, ducking, dancing, and punching. Micky’s yelling and my brother Andrew shoving a towel at me and dribbling water over my face and into my mouth was like a dream between each round.
The last bell rang and the crowd went wild. I slowly came out of my zone and listened to the announcer say I was the winner. Now I was done and the winner, I wanted one thing, or I should say one person, the only person I ever wanted to celebrate with and the only person I cared about getting to . . . Alexa.
Pushing through the people that surrounded me, I zeroed in on where Alexa was and when I found her I stalked her like I was a lion and she was my prey. I didn’t care that I dripped with sweat, and panted with hard suppressed need. I wanted my woman. She stared at me, wide eyed and cheeks flushed. I took her in and growled and I saw her nipples harden beneath the dress she wore.
“Mine,” I growled. Not giving her a chance to say a word, I gathered her to me, lifted her up, and slammed my lips against hers. I drove in my tongue, seeking entrance as my hands roamed her body. She plastered her body against mine as she clung to me. Cheering and yelled obscenities had me pulling my mouth from hers, turning, and dragging her to my dressing room.
I made it to the room and slammed the door shut knowing my security would keep anyone out. “Shower,” I snarled. I took us to the bathroom and let her slide down me before yanking and ripping our clothes off. I got the water on and dunked us under it as I took possession of her mouth again. I plastered her back against the shower wall, and she wrapped her legs around me.
Pumped up on adrenaline and my need for my woman, my hands roamed her body as I lined my dick up with her soaking wet pussy and thrust home.
Fuck yes. This was just what I needed after my win. Alexa tore her lips from mine and her head fell back against the wall with a yell of pure pleasure as I dragged my cock out before slamming home. “You’re so fucking beautiful and you’re all mine. Mine. Who do you belong to?”
She whimpered as she dug her nails into my skin and cried out, “You. Only you.”
Grunting in satisfaction with her response, I covered her lips again with my own, ravishing them like I was
her body. Gripping her thigh, she moaned as I propelled in and out, quickening my pace. My tongue tangled with hers as I drove my dick into her, over and over, lost in my lust. Her lips left mine and she panted for breath as she hung on for dear life.
“Tell me you’re mine always and forever. Tell me who you belong to. Scream my name, Alexa.”
“You, Mason. I belong to you,” she moaned. “Mason!” She screamed as I pumped her harder.
“Damn right,” I snarled. The need to mark her for the whole world to know rushed over me. I leaned into her neck and sucked her skin. Her pussy quivered and pulsed and I nibbled and drew her in. My body was going to explode and I could feel she just needed a little extra push, so when I thrust up, balls deep inside her, I gave her a little bite.
“Mason. Oh fuck, Mason. Yes. Yes. Mason!” She yelled as I rammed into her pussy one final time and shattered. I pumped my seed into her, coming so fucking hard that if she wasn’t already pregnant she would have been. We stayed like that for a moment, just basking in our blissed-out state until in a hoarse husky voice she muttered, “That was beyond fucking amazing. I’ve never been so turned on in my life. Better than porn. You were so damn hot. My man is Fine with a big fat capital F.”
I slowly eased her down, grinning like I’d just won the fucking lottery. My woman got off watching my matches. She was perfect.
GREAT KEPPEL ISLAND WAS PARADISE. Crystal blue waters with white sand, palm trees, beautiful coral reefs and a relaxing atmosphere. I’d hit the jackpot. This was a dream location and I was getting married in minutes.
Staring at myself in the mirror one last time, I couldn’t believe the woman that stared back at me. My hair was done in an elaborate crown with curls of pink falling to frame my face. A shining diamond tiara was the centerpiece. My make-up was light with different shades of pink eyeshadow and bright pink lipstick too. My gown was a fairytale style Cinderella dress of tulle, silk, and lace. Crystals and diamantes adorned the top part down to my waist. The back was done up with over a hundred and fifty cream silk buttons. I was going barefoot until we entered the reception where I had cream and diamante covered strappy heels. To top off my look, all of my exposed skin was covered in a shimmer.