"You're sorry?" he asked, reaching for my chin and forcing me to face him. "You have nothing to be sorry about."
"I told you that I couldn't get pregnant. We decided to not use protection because of that."
"Right, because you totally should have known your shithead doctor ex would kidnap you, knock you out, and undo your tube tying. How stupid of you to not know that would happen."
I snorted at that, finding comfort in his gruffness. But the motion made tears slip down from the corner of both eyes.
"Hey," he said, ducking his head a little, reaching up to swipe the tears away. "This is not the end of the world, Riya. You have choices. Whichever one you pick, I'll support you. You don't want to have a baby and you want to get tied again, I'm okay with that. You want to have this baby and get tied after? I'm good with that too. You want to stay untied and have a dozen little ankle-biters, can't say we are there yet, but I'm open to the idea. I know this wasn't what you wanted, but you can still do this or don't do this and adopt like you have always wanted. It fucking sucks that some bastard took this choice away from you, but you are still in control."
I swallowed hard and nodded.
He was right.
There was no reason to break into hysterics, though I felt I had definitely earned that right over the past couple of weeks. It would do no good to break down. What I really needed to do was think.
"Remember when we were at Famiglia and I was so against the concept of vigilante justice and street crime?"
"Yeah, babe," he said, and judging by the way his hand squeezed my knee, he knew where I was going.
"I changed my mind. I want him to pay for this."
"Good, because I'm the mother fucking debt collector in this scenario."
"Can we get out of here?" I asked, feeling uncomfortable trying to make huge, life-altering decisions in a cold, sterile exam room.
"Yeah, let's go," he agreed, hopping down and reaching for my hand, folding it into his and squeezing tight as we walked out of the exam room, through the building, to the car. He even held my hand while he drove home and up the stairs to the building, only dropping it when I said I needed to go throw up again.
Though, that time, I was convinced it was more because of literally making myself sick with worry and not anything to do with the morning sickness that, for me, seemed to last all damn day.
I walked back out about half an hour later, teeth brushed, belly washed because there was still some sticky jelly there, and found Sawyer sitting on a chair against the counter. The second he saw me, he patted his knee.
"You alright?"
Then I said something that I never thought I would say.
"I think I want to have the baby."
See, in between bursts of dry heaving because my stomach was already empty, I had sat there on the cold tile floor and realized that, while I didn't know how I felt about what kind of higher power there might be or order to the universe or whatever, it was impossible to deny that waking up from some kind of coma or something where I had unwittingly had my tubes untied and falling into the arms of a hot private investigator who took me in and cared for me and that friendship slowly became more than that and turned romantic while I was sure there was no chance of pregnancy and getting pregnant? Yeah, that was fate.
I still stuck by my original decision- I was not going to keep having babies. I didn't believe in that. I wanted to adopt. I wanted to give love to kids who had never known even a drop of it before in their lives. I wanted to give them a sense of family where they had none. I wanted to give them a support system and a leg up in the world. So once I had the baby, I was getting tied again.
But I was going to have the baby.
I was going to have Sawyer's baby.
Somehow, though things were new and it was crazy to think it, somehow it felt right.
Because, fact of the matter was, since we got together, things had just clicked. The night after Famiglia and the comedy show, we had dinner at Marg's who was bursting at the seams seeing us at her table. The next couple of days, we each went to work, then he would pick me up or meet me at home. One night I cooked; the next he cooked. We ordered in. We went out. We saw a movie. He filled me in on some of the major world events I missed while unconscious. We made love. We had sex. We fucked. We slept in each others' arms. We woke in the same bed. Some days, we hit the gym together.
In all reality, our week and a half of being together was more than a lot of parents ended up having when one-night stands went reckless or contraceptives failed.
Plenty of people decided to have babies with men who they had literally known for hours, who they barely knew the last name of, let alone if they were good people.
I knew Sawyer.
He was a good man. He had his life together. He was responsible. And he treated me better than any other man I had ever met.
So it was okay.
It would all be okay.
He squeezed me tight at that and kissed my temple. "I'm gonna be a dad, huh? Marg is going to piss herself with enjoyment."
"Did you want kids?" I asked, realizing it was a little too late to ask.
"Yeah, babe. Always wanted one or two or whatever my woman wanted to give me."
"I think you'll be a good dad. Though, you have about nine months to learn how to watch your language."
"My dad and ma cussed like sailors. This baby will be fine if I can't mind my fucks and shits."
I laughed at that, resting my head back on his shoulder.
"You're gonna be a great mom, Riya. I know this isn't how you planned it and things are crazy right now, but they will all fall into place. I'm not saying it will be perfect. We're new and this is a lot of pressure and there will be growing pains, but I'm committed to making this work. And not just because of the baby, Riya. I'm committed to making this work because I think you're the most incredible fucking woman I've ever met and I want to explore that. And I know I'm not an easy man..."
"Don't," I cut him off, shaking my head, not liking the idea that he would think any less of himself than I thought of him. "You're the best man I've ever met. I mean, you're a pain in the ass too, but I like your particular brand of pain in the ass so it's okay."
"So we're doing this."
"We're doing this," I agreed.
"Then all that shit you still have piled in the guest room needs to find its way to our room now."
Our.
Could it really be that easy?
Maybe with Sawyer, it could.
Fact of the matter was, I had been clinging a bit to my independence still. I was sleeping in his bed, but I kept my clothes in the guest closet. I left all my old stuff in their boxes, not feeling like the place was mine to spread my things throughout.
"I can do that."
"I got some shit to handle," he said after a minute.
"I know."
"Don't want you to worry about me. I know what I'm doing."
"I know that too."
"When I head out tonight, you want to be alone or you want Marg or Barrett to come keep you company?"
"Marg would pick up on me being pregnant, wouldn't she?"
"Swear she's psychic."
"Maybe Barrett then?" I said, genuinely not wanting to be alone with my worries while he was out chasing down Michael.
"He's going to claim the remote control and make you watch some documentaries or shit like that, just so you know."
"But he will insist we eat junk food while we do it," I said with a smile. Since I needed a drink and couldn't have one, I would have to settle for one last big junk food binge before I did that whole 'going healthy for the baby' thing.
"Alright," he said, squeezing my leg, then sliding out from under me. "I am going to go call him then."
As I watched him make the call, I got the distinct impression that he was holding it together for me.
He was itching to find Michael, to get answers.
And, as much as I was freaked and uncertain and ove
rwhelmed, I knew I needed that as well. So I had to let him go.
Besides, I liked Barrett.
And his strange company might be able to keep me off my own worries for a while.
"Alright, he'll be here in ten. I'm just gonna go get changed."
He changed.
Barrett arrived. With two laptops, because, well, he was weird like that, and a handful of take-away menus for which I pretty much wanted to kiss him for.
We ordered from three places that had Sawyer shaking his head because neither of us had ordered anything green.
The buzzer down below rang and I watched as Sawyer slowly slipped from calm, sweet, amazing lover to controlled, determined private investigator.
"That's Brock and Tig. I got to get going, babe," he told me, walking up and folding his arms around my lower back, pulling my hips to his but keeping me arched back so he could look at my face. "Eat your junk food. Try to enjoy that weirdo's company. Don't worry about me."
"I'll try not to," I agreed.
"If I'm not back by then, I expect your ass in my bed waiting for me."
"Got it," I said with a smile.
He kissed my forehead, running his nose down the side of mine, then claiming my lips for a long second before pulling away.
"Try not to bore her to death with your documentaries," he said to his brother while giving my chin a squeeze and moving away.
As if Slim knew some serious shit was going down and he needed to be a good watchdog, instead of laying down at my feet, he plopped down right in front of the door, blocking anyone from getting in or out. Barrett actually had to slide his massive form with the door when he needed to open it to go downstairs to greet the delivery guys.
I told Sawyer I wouldn't worry.
And I tried not to as we ate dinner, as we watched two documentaries, as I threw up a third of the food I ate, effectively putting me off grease and cheese for a good long while, as I finally had to go off to bed because it was two in the morning.
But I lay awake in our bed.
And I worried.
TWENTY
Sawyer
Pregnant.
To be perfectly honest, no matter how safe a man was in his sex life, that was a word that made him sweat. Anytime I got a call or a visit from a woman I had a fling with, even knowing I never fucked without a condom, it made a pit of worry settle in my stomach.
That being said, I didn't feel that way about it when I walked in that room and she said that thing about her procedure being faulty and I realized what that meant.
Fact of the matter was, I always imagined myself with kids at some point. Whether they had my blood in their veins or they belonged to a woman I fell for and some jackass ex of hers who didn't man up and do right by his kids. It didn't matter. But I saw myself raising kids at some point.
True, this was sooner than I planned, especially so seeing as Riya and I were still in the 'getting to know you' stage. But fact of the matter was, I was plenty old enough. I made a good living. My life was in order. I was in a good position to start a family.
I was more worried about Riya than myself.
For someone who so adamantly didn't want to have biological children to be forced into it, that had to have been taking a toll on her. And, just as bad, an ex had taken her, held her, injected her with hormones to make her body perfect for reproduction, undid a decision she had made about her body, betrayed her in every way but the eventual (and seemingly inevitable) implantation.
I had no fucking idea if he planned to manage that by test tubes and shit or if he was going to rape her unconscious body, but either fucking way, he was going to pay for even thinking about either.
"This is so fucked up," Brock said, shaking his head as we made the way to the SUV and loaded in. "Leaps and bounds worse than some goddamn government testing shit. This was a man who supposedly loved her."
"Just so we're clear," I said, turning to face him in the passenger and Tig in the back, "we're not sitting outside his apartment. I am breaking in and I am finding that shithead and getting to the bottom of this. If that means some blood gets spilled, it gets spilled. No one is pulling me back unless I am about to kill the bastard."
"Got it," Tig said automatically.
"Just like old times," Brock said, giving me a smile, but it was strained.
It was just then that I was reminded what a good team I had. While we tried to stay above-board most of the time, we all recognized there were times when that couldn't happen, when we needed to get inventive. Or even, on a rare occasion, had a grudge to settle.
"Wouldn't get your hopes too high up though," Tig warned, often being a voice of reason. "We've been sitting on this place for days. Unless he's some doomsday prepper with a stockpile of food, my money is on him having already cleared out of that place."
"Yeah, and there's no way he was able to keep Riya there either. He would have needed a sterile environment to do fucking surgery on her."
True.
And I didn't like that one bit.
But it was a reality I might have to accept.
I drove and parked out front of Riya's old apartment building, all of us getting out in unison and crossing the street. None of us had been inside, watching only from our cars outside. So we weren't prepared for it to be a complete shithole. He was a fucking doctor and there was garbage lining the hallways and holes in the walls.
"Jesus," Brock hissed, shaking his head.
"Looks like my childhood apartment building," Tig added.
We went up two floors and found his room among one of the ones that faced the street. Where he could look out his window and watch his ex's comings and goings. The sick fuck.
"This is it," Brock said, motioning to the third door. I nodded to him and he knocked. We listened. Nothing. He knocked again, louder.
When we still heard nothing, I nodded at Brock who reached into his back pocket for his lock-pick kit. He didn't even need it honestly. He could open a door with a paperclip or bobby pin. It wasn't some skill he learned in training. It was because he learned as a kid to pick his dad's office door lock so he could sneak in and look at his nudie mags. He was a pro by the time he was eleven.
The door clicked quietly open and we all shared a look before Brock moved inside.
What we found was chaos.
Michael's place was a dimly lit one-room dungeon to begin with, nothing but some old, yellowed, dingy dome lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling to light it. Which was probably good because it didn't highlight the ratty brown carpet straight out of the fifties and the nicotine-chic look of the yellowed walls, pointing to some obvious heavy indoor smoking from some previous tenant. There were cheap blinds on the windows, a few of the strips broken in places and caked with dust. A simple twin bed was butted up against a wall with a blue blanket and white sheets. A kitchenette was to the far left, just a straight counter against the wall with an apartment size fridge, a small sink, and a cooktop. To the side of the end of the counter was a door to the bathroom that had broken tiles, mold in the grout, and a broken mirror. There was a desk set directly in front of the windows facing the street, piled with mail, newspapers, and old festering cups of drinks.
The chaos was in the fact that the office chair, a solid wooden thing, was broken in six pieces all over the floor. Takeaway containers, crumbled papers, and food wrappers were everywhere, likely because the garbage looked like it had been thrown at the wall. A sauce pan, two glasses, and a plate were in pieces all over the kitchen area.
"Break in?" Brock asked, shrugging.
"Nah," Tig said, shaking his head. "Looks like someone blew his lid," he said, waving a hand toward where a fist-sized hole was in the Sheetrock.
But I wasn't looking at the mess.
I wasn't even looking at the shitty kitchen and bathroom and general squalor.
What I was looking at was the wall above his bed.
Because the entire goddamn thing was a creepy stalker collage of Riya. Some were p
ictures they had taken while together- in New York at the tree, in Chaz's bar with a margarita in her hand, a huge smile on her face, one of them kissing at a New Year's party.
Most of them, though, were shots of her that were taken without her knowing. There was one of her in full workout gear- super tight magenta leggings and a black sports bra, her face still flushed from the gym. Another had her mussing up her hair on her way to her car. Another had her smiling at a puppy walking past her on the street.
"Binoculars, digital camera, portable printer, and," Brock said, looking at the desk area, "yup, a telescope pointing right into her windows. Looks like we got the right guy."
"Yeah, but why is she in your place?" Tig asked, looking at me, his dark eyes probing. "If he is this obsessed with her, if he had been injecting her with hormones for a year, if he reversed her tube tying, if he had some sick bigger picture plan... why did he dump her at Famiglia?"
That was a good point. Nothing about what he had done seemed to point to him wanting to let her go. He seemed devoted to making his sick plan play out, convinced she would magically change her mind about him if he got his baby inside her, that she would forget the betrayal and live happily ever after with him.
Why was she in my apartment with my baby in her belly?
"Goddamn it," I hissed, kicking the side of the bed in frustration.
"We'll get him," Brock said, steadily sifting through the mail on the desk.
"I'll get Barrett back on his financials," Tig said, pulling out his cell. "If he's got another place where he kept her, he had to have paid for it somehow.
I nodded at both of them, going for my own phone to look for the email Barrett had sent me. "I want to talk to the wife," I said, scanning the email for the address. "If he has been in contact at all, she had to have noticed how off his rocker he is. And she might be able to point me to any other property he might have had."
With that, we all flicked through his paperwork, seeing nothing but bills and an invite to his twenty year high school reunion.
"Coffee and over to the wife's place," I said, knowing it was going to be a late night and that we all got nasty if we weren't caffeinated.
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