OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  “You threaten my fuckin’ family?” I growl, pressing the barrel of the Eagle firmly into his forehead. “Kidnap my fuckin’ daughter? Take my fuckin’ woman? Betray the fuckin’ club?”

  I stroke the trigger, getting ready to send his brains against the hallway wall, getting ready to see the big lump of shit collapse.

  “No,” Kayla says. “Dante—no.”

  “No?” I laugh, my voice gritty from the ice and the rain and the stress and the possibility of losing my family before I ever really experienced what it was like to have one. “No? Kayla, this piece of fuckin’ shit—”

  “Deserves to die,” Kayla says. “But if you kill him you’ll go to prison. People are watching. There are cameras. They will show that he was on his knees when you pulled the trigger. It won’t be self-defense.”

  I growl again, but I know she’s right. Fuckin’ hell.

  I lean down, gun still pressed against his head, and hiss into Ogre’s ear: “Where’s Silvertongue’s money, you fuckin’ giant sack of shit? Let me tell you somethin’, I can do the fuckin’ time for killing you. It ain’t a thing to me. So if you don’t tell me where Silvertongue’s money is, you’re a fuckin’ dead man.”

  I expect him to put up a fight, but the tooling up has made him realize that he’s human, and he tells me where the money is in a shaky voice. Buried deep next to the flowers just outside the club. All this time, buried right under my feet.

  “Kayla,” I say, standing up and keeping the gun trained on Ogre. “Call the police.”

  Kayla leaves the hallway, and returns in a few moments with a sleepy-eyed cop. The cop pulls his weapon and trains it on me, and then Kayla explains who I am, what the situation is, and he trains it on Ogre, instead. I step back and put away my gun, but the cop won’t let me join Kayla until backup arrives, just in case. So for about ten minutes Ogre and I kneel side by side, hands on our heads.

  Then a cop called Cohen arrives and Kayla explains the situation to him. Ogre is handcuffed, and I’m allowed to climb to my feet. I swear, the quick hug which Kayla and I share is about the sweetest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. As the cops drag Ogre away, he roars over his shoulder: “Vengeance is mine, and retribution. In due time their foot will slip, for the day of their calamity is near. And the impending things are hastening upon them!” He’s still roaring when they take him out into the parking lot, his voice mixing with the rain and the sirens.

  Kayla, Officer Cohen, and I go to the Macy’s room. Kayla rushes to Sandra, picks her up, and hugs her close to her chest, kissing her on the forehead. “I think Ogre might have given her something,” she says. “She’s too calm.”

  Officer Cohen goes and finds a nurse, and Sandra is looked over.

  The three of us sit in the waiting room, in the dim yellow light. I look at myself in the reflection of the vending machine, at my ragged, crazy beard, my wide black eyes, my soaked-through clothes. Then I turn to Kayla, and she is smiling at me, even if it is a tired, exhausted smile.

  “You protected her,” I say. “You protected our daughter.”

  She laughs without humor. “I did what any rodent would do.”

  “No.” I lay my hands on her hands, squeezing them tightly. “You did what any damn good mother would do.”

  Now she smiles for real. Officer Cohen takes me away for questioning, and it’s the first time in my life I’m not pissed off by talking to the police.

  When we return—Officer Cohen couldn’t find any holes in my story—Kayla is holding Sandra in her arms once again, both of them asleep, snoring sweetly. I sit down next to them, watching over my family.

  I can sleep later.

  Epilogue I

  Dante

  I wake up on a sunny Sunday in July, in our house in Leawood, to the sound of Kayla frying bacon. For a while I just lie here, listening to the sizzling of the bacon, letting the smell waft in through the kitchen into the bedroom. Bacon on a Sunday morning, and the sound of Sandra playing with her blocks in the living room, giggling and clicking them together . . . goddamn, but this is the life, even if it is exactly the kind of life I never dreamt I could have.

  With Silvertongue’s debt money, and some of my own savings, I bought us a three-bedroom in the suburbs. Me, a suburb man, goddamn. But it’s fitting me better than I ever would’ve dreamed before all this started. I’m already beginning to give Dogma more and more responsibility, slowly transitioning out of the club. I reckon it’s time I tried something else, for my family. Maybe I’ll have a go at being a mechanic, or a doorman, or a bodyguard, somethin’ like that. But money isn’t a concern for at least a few years; my savings will cover us for a while, as well as my share in the club, even if it becomes a silent share. But I want to leave the club, ’cause I won’t have Kayla and my daughter anywhere near that life.

  I roll over onto my back, arm over my head, thinking about Ogre. He was shanked to death three months after getting to prison. Turns out one of the Wraiths’, a psychopath named Bear, survived the blast only to get chucked in prison a few months later on drug charges. When he found out Ogre was in prison—and when I put the word out that Ogre was the arsonist—he took his chance, and now Ogre is gone. Maybe he’s up in the sky with that God he loved so much, or maybe he’s just in a cemetery somewhere. Either way, he can never touch my family again.

  I sit up when Kayla walks into the bedroom, one hand on her hip, head tilted, wearing an apron and shorts and a tank top, still the sexiest, sleekest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, still capable of getting me rock-hard just by the sight of her.

  “Morning, lazy,” she says.

  Just outside the window, in the garden, Sandra lets out a giggle and tosses one of her blocks across the grass. I look out on her, through the blinds, making sure she’s safe. The garden is empty but for her, and if anybody tried to harm her, I wouldn’t hesitate to throw myself through the glass.

  “Morning, beautiful,” I respond.

  She dances across the room, laying the plate on my bare chest.

  I sit up, devour the sandwich, and then watch her for a while. She just sits on the edge of the bed, ankles crossed, looking like the sexiest woman alive.

  “Damn, but I love you,” I say.

  She blows me a kiss. “Love you, too.”

  Then she squeals as I toss the plate onto the mattress and dive across the room, tackling her to the bed. I kiss down her belly, and she tells me we can’t, not with Sandra just out there, and I tell her that I’ll just make her come, just once, and if any bastard tries to hurt Sandra, I’ll break his neck.

  She may be a mother now, a responsible woman, but there’s still a damn lot of lust in her, and when I talk about protecting our daughter, that really gets her going. She grabs my hair and pushes me down to her pussy urgently.

  Epilogue II

  Kayla

  When I wake from my afternoon nap—an indulgence I’m ever grateful for—I wake up to a vase of flowers. For a second, I flinch, leaning back, remembering the thorny flowers and all the pain they brought. But thankfully, these are just red roses, and Dante has even sheared the stems, making them smooth. It’s little touches like that which make me sure nobody could ever take his place.

  I walk through the house, still in awe that this is ours—in mine and Dante’s name—and that we have paid for it outright, no mortgage, something to leave to Sandra one day. I make my way into the back garden. Sandra sits on the floor, playing with her dolls and her action figures. She can’t decide if she likes the army men more than the princesses, and Dante and I are content with letting her make up her own mind. Dante kneels off to one side, his bike up on stilts, working at it with a wrench.

  He wipes grease from his forehead with a rag and calls over to Sandra. “Look, sweetheart, Daddy is a grease monster.” Then he juts out his chin, making his bushy beard look bigger, and goes, “Arrrggghh!” Sandra always loves when he does that; she giggles, the most beautiful sound in the world.

  Then Dante looks up and se
es me standing there. “You sneakin’ around, Mommy?”

  “You know me,” I say. “I am a rat, a mouse, squirrel, Guinea pig.” I dance over to Sandra, who watches me with wide, loving eyes. My eyes, I realize, big and wide and brown. And I will make sure that those eyes see lots of good things, way more good things than me or Dante were ever allowed to see, and far fewer bad things, too. I kneel down next to her. “Mommy’s a rat, baby, did you know that?”

  She grins up at me.

  Dante starts working the wrench again, grunting, his powerful muscles shifting, the thorns on his arms moving as though they are real thorns, blowing in the wind.

  And as I sit here, I think of the Movement, and Mom, and the running, and the pain; I think of love, and contentment, and a sense of belonging.

  I find myself wishing I could climb through time and talk to that little girl who was forced to stand outside Master’s bedroom door. I know exactly what I would say to her. I have thought about it many times. Looking around the sun-touched garden, Dante’s bike glinting, Sandra’s eyes full of love and life, I think of it again.

  “Fight through the pain, because one day, you will be happier than you can even understand. I promise.”

  THE END

  Read on for your FREE bonus book – FILLED BY THE BAD BOY

  FILLED BY THE BAD BOY: Tidal Knights MC

  By Paula Cox

  THE ONLY WAY I COULD ESCAPE WAS WITH HIS BABY IN MY WOMB.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of this life.

  Leering men who think their measly tips give them a right to touch me?

  Hell to the no.

  I’m a waitress, not a stripper or worse.

  I’m done with this world.

  Sick of it.

  And I’m taking the first thing smoking to literally anywhere else.

  But when a sexy biker on a monster motorcycle pulls up to the cafe, I begin to question how bad I really want a ticket out.

  He looks… dangerous. Scary.

  It’s easy to tell that those hands of his have done some awful things to an awful lot of people.

  And by the way he looks at me, I can tell: I’m next.

  He says he’ll help me get what I want:

  A fresh start.

  But it’s gonna cost me something.

  Because you see, the bad boy biker wants to carry on his name.

  And to do that, he’ll have to put his baby in my belly.

  As his enemies circle us and our child begins to grow, I keep wondering…

  What have I done?

  Was it worth it?

  Should I have let myself get filled by the bad boy?

  Chapter One

  Lana

  I walk to work dressed in a long overcoat. I clutched my heels in my hand, and the wind whipped my hair. Walking like this, it’s hard not to feel like a hooker or a stripper, or something in between. Some hooker-stripper stalking the early morning on her way to earn a few bucks by pleasuring men who will leave her the moment they’re done. The fact that the truth is a little better can only give me so much comfort. Dressing in a bikini and heels to highlight your curvaceous, petite body, serving businessmen who offer leers and “charming” comments as often as tips is only a few rungs up the Whore Ladder—some would say. But screw it, I tell myself. A woman’s got to make a living.

  Twin Peaks rises out of the morning mist like a stone prison, before its more appealing features come into view: the large neon coffee mug, flashing through the fog; the castle-style door, a giant oval yawning onto the street; a statue out front of a fat-bellied man downing a keg of coffee, the words Twin Peaks scrawled across his chest by some enthusiastic customer and left there by David Hogan, my boss and multiple divorcee.

  As I get ready for the morning shift, I tell myself: “Listen, you’re just doing this for cash. That’s all. Just cash.” I tell myself this a lot, sometimes out loud, sometimes just inside my head, but however I say it I always have to try and believe it, believe it with that commitment which drives me through the shifts. I. Am. Doing. This. For. A. Reason. If you can keep the reason straight in your mind, I’ve learned, you can get through anything.

  I take off the overcoat and slip out of my t-shirt and sweatpants and stow them in the locker. Then I stand in front of the full-length mirror and study myself. Short, blonde, curvy, eyes just as golden as my hair. Yes, I think, yes, here she is, here is a Grade-A bikini waitress, gentlemen, here to be leered at, snickered at, come onto, and, hopefully, tipped generously.

  The Twin Peaks isn’t technically a restaurant, more of a drive-thru for perverts, so there aren’t any of the normal preparations to make. I think back to working at The Chez, a run-of-the-mill café, where you got to wear clothes and sensible shoes, a smart white T and smart black pants. I think back to folding napkins and steaming milk and carrying sandwiches on trays out into the winter cold. I never thought I’d miss all that, let alone long for it like some Victorian heroine longing for her lover, and yet as I make my way over to my booth, I can’t help but miss it. I sit on the stool, which is high so the men in their cars can get a good look at everything: legs, tits, and ass. I slide the window open and wait, looking down at the car lane. Two lanes, one out to the Bremerton-Seattle Ferry and one for the way back. It’s spring, but it’s cold and when I look down yep—hard. Nipples are absolutely ice-hard. Two little chips of ice poking into the morning.

  A car thrums into the booth. The window slides down. It’s always interesting to see what kind of man is going to be sitting behind the window. When I first started working here, I’d assumed that it would only be perverts, and that they would look like perverts. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that perverts come in all shapes and sizes. This one is tall, thin, pale, and ginger, with a freckled nose and a ruddy cheeks, a thin smile, and long fingers which claw at me as he hands me a five-dollar bill. But he doesn’t make any rude comments, and, in truth, I sometimes like the way the men look at me. As I get him a coffee—drip, no steaming milk or espresso shots required—I lean over and give him a cheeky look at my belly. I mutter under my breath, too quiet for Ginger to hear: “I hope the sit-ups were worth it.” They were; he tips me five.

  That’s the thing about working here, dressed like this, a stripper-cum-barista, loaning out my body as well as my coffee-making skills. I don’t entirely hate it. It’s not as cut-and-dry as some people might expect. It’s not as though I wake up for work and dread the thought of the eyes which will soon be aimed at me with hungry lust. No, sometimes, I kind of like the way they look at me. It beats being invisible; I know that from experience. Not myself . . . or maybe myself. But mostly Mom, sweet Mom, and defeated Mom, Mom who has spent her entire life claiming disability and sitting on her bottom and coasting through life and doing little more than waiting for the party to be over. And Dad, not-so-sweet Dad, who has spent his life bouncing in and out of the prison like he gets some kind of thrill from being in there. Invisible, as far as life goes, two fades lurking in shadows and never making their imprint on the world. But not me, I tell myself, I will not be invisible. Hence the creative writing course of which two years is already completed.

  “And hence the push-up bikini and skimpy panties, to pay for the remaining year.”

  As I serve the customers, that is what I tell myself. I am not invisible. I am not a fade, not like Mom and Dad. I will break the cycle. And so, twisted logic or not, when some of the men look at me, I get a thrill. The dim blue lights are no longer dim blue lights; they are spotlights and I am the star, sitting here, illuminated and beautiful and observed, most of all observed. I won’t be left-by-the-wayside, not like Mom and Dad. I exist.

  I cycle through these thoughts most mornings, as I serve leery and smiley and friendly and begrudging men, and then, sometimes, my thoughts get cut short by Chester’s imposing presence. Even his name is a goddamn joke. Chester. Who, in real life, is called Chester? What sort of person names their kid Chester? Chester is the only customer I would say
I one-hundred percent, without the shadow of the shadow of a doubt, hate. He always leers, and it’s with a sort of glimmer in his eyes which suggests ownership. His eyes seem to say: “Since you are here, this early, dressed like this, all alone, I have every right to stare at you like this. Since you are here, looking all slutty and whorish, maybe one of these days I’ll reach through that window and take you by the throat and just keep squeezing until no more squeezing’s necessary. Got it?”

  He drives one of those huge trucks with massive monster treaded tires, a car as arrogant and space-filling as its driver. He’s always wearing one of those white tank tops called a wife beater, and I wonder if it’s true for him. His shirt is always stained, there’s always food around his mouth, he’s just sloppy. Like a little kid no one ever taught how to eat. He’s fat and speaks in harsh, barking words. He’s never said anything mean to me, not outright, but there’s a sea of something behind his eyes. Something bad—I don’t want to think about what. His imagination, stirring, waiting.