by Franca Storm
“How could you? You’ve never done it before.”
Good point. In fact, he was making a lot of good points. He was trying to make it okay, to make it seem like it wasn’t such a big deal, that it wasn’t such a crazy curveball. And I wasn’t ready for that. I couldn’t take it down a notch yet. I was still very much immersed in freak-out mode. “It’s not that simple,” I told him.
“It could be.”
I blew out a breath and slumped back in my chair. “I don’t know.”
“You gotta talk to Slade.”
“Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “I want to know where I’m at, what my decision is, before I sit down with him.”
“What about deciding together?”
“I need to be sure.”
“Well, while I appreciate you talking it out with me, I ain’t exactly a major resource in this area. Ain’t never had a kid, nor come close to it. Never got nobody pregnant, not even a scare.”
“I still don’t know how I’m pregnant. I’m always careful and so is Slade.”
“Yeah, well, nothing’s one-hundred-percent, is it? Luck of the draw.”
Luck of the draw? He was right. That was exactly what it felt like. A game of chance, something absent of rules, strategy, or control.
Out of the blue.
Unplanned.
Chaotic.
Uncontrolled.
Not exactly the way I usually lived my life, or went about doing things. The whole situation was actually the antithesis to what and who I was. And yet, it had to be dealt with.
But not right now.
I was in the middle of a mission. I needed to get back to it ASAP.
Rising from my seat abruptly, I told Ricky, “I need to get back to work.”
“Right now?”
“I was close to IDing the commander.”
“Willa, I don’t think—”
“People are counting on me.”
Besides, I needed to bury myself in something that made sense to me. It was my salvation, my lifeline, the thing I could always count on when everything else around me was going to shit. Soon, though, when Shadow officially went away, I’d have to find something else to take its place, to be that lifeline.
31
~Slade~
I WATCHED HER.
It felt like that was all I’d been doing for the last few days. As much as I wanted to go to her and sort this thing with her, I knew I couldn’t. It wasn’t what she needed and I knew it wasn’t what was best. Besides, I needed to know that she could come to the realization on her own. And, fuck, if she couldn’t, we were in a shitload of trouble.
Telling her she was going about this the wrong way weren’t going to do shit. She had to see it. She had to damn well know it.
I got that she was in some major shock. So was I. We’d been careful, yet it’d happened. She was pregnant. We were pregnant. But I wasn’t shocked in a negative sense, like she seemed to be. In fact, it was verging on excitement for me. I weren’t used to surprises being… good. They usually meant brutality, pain or… death. But this was all about life. And it was my second chance. I’d been so close years back and I’d lost it all. I never thought it’d come my way again.
There was only one way I could see this. It was a miracle. And I was nothing but happy about it. I was sure I would’ve been full-on bursting with excitement and shouting it from the fucking rooftops, if Willa had seen it the same way, if she’d reacted well. But her pulling away from me had put a hell of a damper on it all.
And it had me worried.
There was no way I was gonna let this second chance slip away from me.
Loving her.
A baby on the way.
Leaving our dark and dirty lives behind.
We’d made it so far now. I weren’t gonna let nothing stop us from making it the rest of the way.
Everything in me was willing me to go to her, to tell her all this, to convince her that this baby was a good thing, that it was everything.
But I didn’t get to call the shots here. To do this, to have this baby, to raise it, to love it… she had to be all in. There weren’t no other way it could work.
I knew her real well. Willa Rose was somebody who made damn sure she had all the answers before she acted—or reacted. Some things took longer than others for her to figure out. And this was the heaviest of anything she’d dealt with so far, because it was way out of her wheelhouse. I had no doubt that a lot of her pulling away and shutting me out, shutting down as a whole, was largely due to that. It was the way she operated, the way she’d always operated. It was more than just her procedure. It was a survival tactic.
I cursed and pulled my gaze away from my phone, where I’d been tapped into the surveillance room camera watching Willa hard at work on trying to track down that commander. Thankfully, she wasn’t going it alone this time and she’d let Mason in on it with her. It meant she’d actually slept decently over the last few days. She’d also been eating and managing to keep it down too, thanks to some meds the doc had hooked her up with. Unfortunately, she’d pushed back the checkup and sonogram that he was trying to get her to go in for. She weren’t ready yet. Meanwhile, I was fucking well dying to see. Jesus. It was a mess.
The creak of the clubhouse door had me swinging my head that way to see Liam rushing in. He caught sight of me and headed over quick. He’d barely come to a stop beside me when the words came pouring out, “I just finished up getting Powell’s men positioned at our borders, securing the hell out of Warlow.”
I frowned. “And that’s got you majorly on edge?”
“No. I got a call while I was taking care of it.” He blew out a breath. “Our ruse is over and done with. Freeman hit one of Nolan’s businesses and it had Nolan reaching out, calling him, and telling him that he didn’t have Willa, that it was us, all a ploy to extract her and buy some time. It also means he now knows you’re alive, so we don’t even have the element of surprise going for us anymore.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. It won’t be long now before he heads straight for us.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I mean, the borders are secured, but an attack right in the open on our own territory is going to draw the very attention from the law that we’re trying hard to avoid right now.”
“Then we contain him before he reaches us.”
Liam cocked an eyebrow.
“The Strikers MC compound. He’ll pass by that area on his way to us. We don’t let him get any further.”
“To do that with the army he’s got at his back, we’ll have to use Powell’s guys. I don’t want to risk pulling protection from our borders.”
“Liam, sometimes you gotta take a risk to win. Playing it safe has got us nowhere so far.”
“I get that, but some risks are unacceptable no matter what.”
He might’ve upped his game in a lot of ways, but he still had a lot to learn. Unfortunately, that took time and experience. We didn’t have any of that right now.
“Van’s watching him, so at least we’ll know when he’s on the move.” He pulled away, telling me, “I’m gonna give Mason a heads up about all this.”
Before he could even take a step, Willa’s cry sounded from my phone. I jerked my head back to the screen to see her pumping her fist in the air and spinning around to tell Mason, “I’ve got it. Will Decker. That’s the commander’s name. Now we just need to track him down.”
Liam stilled as he heard it, hope sparking in his eyes.
He took off without another word, his boots thumping rapidly on the hardwood as he went deeper into the club, headed for the surveillance room.
I couldn’t let this happen. He was being way too cautious. If we didn’t cut Freeman to the quick, he’d expose the club, bringing the law down on us. He was in an untouchable position. Well, as close as anybody could really get to that. He weren’t tied to nobody or nothing, meaning he could disappear at any time to escape the wrath of the law. Steel Titans couldn’t. My boys cou
ldn’t. If Freeman launched an attack right on club territory, it weren’t only the physical damage of it that was a concern, it was the fact that the law would come down on them hard, so hard that the club might not survive it. I’d worked relentlessly for years to keep things on track, to protect them all from that and any enemies that came our way. The club was prospering. I wouldn’t let all of that be put at risk. I wouldn’t let everything I’d ever done be for nothing.
I knew what I had to do to protect Willa and the club in one shot.
It just weren’t gonna go down well.
Sometimes you had to be the asshole to get shit done though.
Jesus, this was something else.
I chugged the rest of my whiskey, then leaned my elbow on the bar top, holding my face in my hands.
I’d come so close to the freedom and peace I’d wanted for too long now. We’d come so close to it.
But now it felt like Willa and I were further away from it than when we’d started.
How much longer could I possibly hold on?
It weren’t infinitely, I knew that much.
I was already right on the fucking edge.
32
~Willa~
THE DOOR FLEW OPEN.
I jerked back from my duffel bag and spun around to see Slade storming into my room.
To say he looked pissed didn’t really cut it.
My first thought was that he’d finally had enough of me keeping to myself and putting space between us. I’d actually moved out of his room and into the spare room downstairs so that I could get my head around the recent… development. It was just my process. But it had filled me with a lot of guilt. I didn’t want to hurt Slade. It was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
He stomped up to me, stopping just shy of my personal space and barked, “You ain’t going after that commander! You ain’t leaving this compound until all this is over!”
Okay, so that was what it was all about then.
“Slade, I—”
“No!” he snapped. “I ain’t hearing it, woman! I almost lost you already. No way you’re doing that. I’ll cuff you to your goddamn bed if I have to! Don’t be fucking stupid here!”
“Well, that’s a hell of a loving and gentle way to talk to the woman who’s going to bear your child.”
“Bear my child? You mean that?”
“I… uh… well…” I blew out a frustrated sigh, hating that I was feeling like this. Flustered and definitely a far cry from my usual non-nonsense, hardass persona.
“Wait,” he said, shaking his head at me. “Don’t. Don’t say nothing.” He reached out and took my hands. “Let me.”
I gave a nod, then we settled at the foot of the bed, facing one another.
He took a moment, then locked eyes with me as he said, “You know my history, yeah?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Right, then you know that this thing you and me have got going on don’t come along for the likes of me.” He took my hands in his. “This, what we got together, is a gift to me, Willa. Never thought I’d have it, but now I do, I ain’t gonna give it up. I ain’t gonna let you go. No matter what. Nothing’s gonna change that, not even if you decide you don’t want to go through with this pregnancy. You and me are gonna stay intact, so I don’t want that influencing nothing for you.”
“That’s why you haven’t come to me,” I realized aloud. “You already know what you want to do about this baby, but you didn’t want to put it on me. You wanted me free to make the choice.”
“Yeah, darlin’.”
Well, shit. Sweet didn’t even cover it. He’d gone way beyond that. I inched closer to him and took his hands in mine, telling him softly, “Slade, you get a say here.”
“Nah, I don’t. Not with this.”
“What does that mean? This… development… is not mine, or yours. It’s ours.”
A chuckle escaped him. “So it’s a development, huh? Not a baby yet?”
My cheeks heated. It did sound ridiculous. “It’s just what I’ve been calling it in my head. Baby. It’s our baby.”
His smile grew. “Well, they say the first step is admitting it.”
I slapped his shoulder playfully. “Shut it. I’ve gotten much farther along than that.”
“Yeah?” he asked, the humor evaporating and that intensity back, as he waited on tenterhooks for my response.
“At first, as I’m sure was ridiculously clear to you and anybody else who saw me the day I got the news, finding out I was pregnant was a hell of a shock. My life, everything I do, every single thing about me, has been planned and meticulously executed.” I smiled. “Except when it comes to you. The mission itself, our developing relationship, and now, this baby. All of that has flown in the face of how I operate. But how I operate has taken its toll over the years. You know that I’m feeling the weight of it now. Talking to Ricky made me realize that it’s even worse than that. I’ve never experienced anything outside of the dark and the dirty, of our fucked-up world. It’s been all about the fight for me. All about Shadow and serving my clients, righting injustices, and taking down the worst of the worst. But I’ve done my part now. I’ve done more than I ever thought possible in that vein actually. For others. Now I want to live for me. I want a real, full life.” I gave his hands a squeeze, locking eyes with him. “You said that what we have together is a gift. I agree one-hundred-percent. But now, after thinking all of this over, that extends to this pregnancy.” I let go of one of his hands and ran it over my belly. “This baby is a gift, Slade.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me. He was so incredibly stunned.
It was clear that he really had thought I was going to take things the other way.
Maybe I’d been wrong about what I’d assumed he’d wanted too. “That’s not… the baby… you’re not for it then? We’re not on the same page?”
“Fuck,” he muttered, scrubbing his hand over his face and pulling away.
He got up from the bed and turned his back to me.
I watched him run his fingers through his thick, jet-black hair.
When he didn’t say anything, or make another move to turn back around, I got off the bed and went to him. Laying my hand on his back, I said carefully, “I’m sorry it took me so long, but we’re here discussing this now, so don’t hold back, okay? We need to have this out either way. If you don’t want this baby, I need to know, Slade. We can figure it out together.”
Startling me, he spun around. “‘Course I want it.”
I wasn’t just taken aback by his unexpected movement. No. It was the sight of tears in his eyes that was the really shocking thing.
“Slade—” I started, reaching out.
He stepped back and roughly swiped the evidence from his eyes.
“This is the second chance I never thought somebody like me could have,” he told me, his voice unsteady.
“I know, baby. I understand.”
He cleared his throat and forced down his choked-up state by sheer force of will. He couldn’t stand showing vulnerable emotion like that. It wasn’t macho posturing or anything like that. No, for Slade, he really believed that he couldn’t afford to put it out there. Even experiencing it was too much. We were the same. With the lives we led, we had to be above all of that.
Sure, things would be different soon. But it would still take a long time to get used to that.
“Didn’t want no pressure put on you. It’s why I didn’t tell you what I wanted. But, yeah, I want this baby. I knew it the second I heard you were pregnant. I want to raise a kid, be a father. With you. I wanna do it all with you, darlin’.”
“I want that too.”
He took my words in and I watched his features light up.
He was happy, hopeful.
And I was right there with him.
“Then we do this thing. All the way. Get out, live a regular kinda life, and raise our kid.”
“Absolutely.”
He threw his arms around
me. “I love you.”
I clutched him to me. “I love you too.”
We stayed that way for a long while, holding one another, savoring the moment, one without pain, stress, or sorrow. For once it was all hope, love, and joy.
I wanted more of that for us and for our child. For the little family we were going to build.
Slade loosened his hold and pulled back a little to look me in the eye. “Now that we’re doing this, I need you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“I’m gonna do all I can on my end to keep you and the baby safe, but you gotta be a big part of that. Can’t have you running into danger, getting into the thick of nothing. That starts right now and includes all this bullshit we got going on with Freeman and Nolan.”
I pulled away. “You’re benching me?”
“You wanna put it like that then, yeah, I’m benching you.” He gestured to my duffel bag. “I know that’s what you were doing, packing for the mission.”
“Slade, I’m crucial to this and—”
“Don’t matter. I can’t risk you or the baby. I just fucking can’t, Willa.”
Shit. He had no idea just how crucial I actually was to the mission, or how close I was to ending it all. I hadn’t told him yet. Now, with this reaction from him, I knew telling him was completely off the table.
“Nothing is going to happen, Slade. Relax, okay? I’ll be careful.”
He scrutinized me for several moments.
Unlike Freeman, though, Slade didn’t fall for my façade. He knew me. So, he went on pressing his case, realizing he hadn’t won. “I lost this once, because I was a damn fool. I ain’t gonna lose it this time, because you’re being a fool.”
“Wow. That was harsh.”
“I gotta be with you when it comes to this kind of thing.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
“Willa!”
“Fine!” I yelled back, throwing up my hands in exasperation. “I’ll be careful. Extra careful. I promise I’m not going to let anything happen to me or the baby.”
“I’ll be holding you to it.”
“All right, you do that.”
His severe expression broke, that gentle side of him sneaking through.