by Lane Hart
“Everything’s gonna be fine, okay?” I tell her.
“How can you even say that?” she asks. “We’re in a dead man’s house, and your friend is the one who killed him!”
“Yeah, but he deserved to die!”
“That’s not how the criminal justice system works, and you know it, Knox,” Jade replies with a shake of her head.
“I do know that, so thank you for not arresting him,” I tell her, which is apparently the wrong thing to say because she scoffs.
“I should have! Honestly, I’m standing here trying to figure out why I’m risking my career for you and your friends with a baby on the way, and I’m coming up empty.”
Empty, meaning I’m not worth the risk.
“I didn’t ask you to do me any fucking favors,” I tell her.
She shakes her head back and forth. “That’s the problem. You didn’t ask me; but for some stupid reason, I don’t want to be responsible for sending the father of my child to prison for the rest of his life.”
“I’m not going to prison, because I haven’t done a goddamn thing wrong!”
“You’re an accomplice to a murder, Knox,” Jade explains slowly like I’m an idiot, her eyes red-rimmed and angry. “That’s serious shit whether you want to admit it or not. If you get caught…”
“We’re not gonna get caught,” I assure her.
“You wanted a chance to prove to me that you deserve to be a father, but I can’t keep giving them out like candy,” she warns, and I know that I’m losing her. Whatever little piece of her I earned the other night is slipping through my fingers.
“Listen, this will all blow over soon, and then I swear I’ll show you that I’m done with the murder and mafia shit and that you can depend on me,” I promise.
“Maybe you’re right,” Jade says as she slips by me carefully to avoid any physical contact, when just minutes ago she let me kiss her. “But I’m not getting my hopes up.”
Before I can respond, she’s gone.
Now I just have to pray that I’m right and, with a little time to cool off, Jade will forgive me for getting involved in Ivan’s mafia family drama.
Chapter Seventeen
Jade
I don’t know why the hell I’m surprised that the man I’m sleeping with is up to his eyeballs in deep shit. From the first day we met, I knew what Knox was — an underground cage fighter with a dirty mouth and a body made for sinning. I mean, he was sleeping stark naked when I dragged his ass in for questioning for a murder involving the Italian mafia. And yet, for some reason, it took no time before I was eagerly taking my shirt off to let him put his mouth and dick on my breasts. Then, hours later, I was riding him like a horny cowgirl and begging him to fuck me harder.
After getting knocked up from that illicit affair, you would think I’d have learned my lesson — to stay away from the bad boy fighter who frequents a strip club.
But all it took was seeing him with his muscles and tattoos on display on my doorstep and I was throwing myself at him again.
Obviously, I have issues when it comes to men and dating. I thought I was in love with my academy instructor when he was just fucking me for fun. I stayed away from men entirely after Clint until the night I was blackmailed by the chief. It was such a horrible, shameful experience that I was desperate to replace it with someone else. Someone I knew would give me a night I wouldn’t forget.
Mission accomplished, I think to myself as I rub my bump that feels tighter than normal as I drive over to the Grandview Resort.
As soon as I walk into the extravagant hotel, I look for Walters and Bates to get an update. Thankfully, they’re standing at the front desk with some guys from the sheriff’s department.
“What do we know?” I ask them.
“Took you long enough,” Bates mutters, and I ignore him, instead waiting for Walters to hopefully provide more information.
“No suspects named yet, but they have a lead, despite the fact that the kidnapped witnesses aren’t talking,” Walters says with a nod to the sheriff’s.
“They do?” I ask with concern. “And who was kidnapped?” Jesus Christ, Knox!
“Perps were spotted on the cameras looking out of place. And the kidnapped victims were Russo’s guards. All of them,” he answers.
Well at least the “victims” weren’t innocents.
“Okay, so what do you mean the perps looked out of place?” I ask for clarification.
“There were two young thugs, you know, wearing hats, shredded jeans, hoodies and tees when one look around will tell you that the dress code in this place is a collared shirt and khakis, at minimum. The kicker is that one of them had some pretty distinguishable tattoos on his upper arms,” Walters explains, rubbing his own biceps right where Knox’s wing tattoos are.
Shit.
“Do you…do you think I can get a look at the video?” I ask the men.
“Yeah, sure. The sheriff’s planning to hold a press conference in the morning and put it out on all the media outlets. Should have a name in no time when someone recognizes the ink,” Walters informs me as he strolls over to the sheriff’s men. I follow behind him with a hand on my stomach that’s tightening again, this time with a sharp pain that runs around to my lower back.
“Mitchell, this is our homicide detective, Jade Horton,” Walters says when he makes the introductions between me and a tall man with a shaved head. “She wanted to take a look at that footage.”
“Knock yourself out,” the guy replies as he reaches for a laptop on the counter and spins it around to me. “Hopefully we catch these guys fast. Rich fuckers hate having blood spilled in their halls. I’ve heard the hotel owner has even called the AG’s office to try and hurry things along. Not every day they see a man’s brains blown all over the floor and walls.”
“Right,” I agree as I try to hide my wince at hearing that gruesome information and knowing who is responsible. I work the touchpad to get the video started, thinking about how a part of me can understand where Ivan was coming from, but at the same time, knowing he went too far in his revenge. Knox should’ve come to me and trusted that we could arrest Russo for Ivan’s mother’s murder.
Those thoughts immediately screech to a halt as I watch the video of two men in baseball caps who I recognize without a doubt as Knox and Cain walking down the hotel’s hallway. The feathers of Knox’s ink sticking out from underneath his short sleeves is clearly visible even on the fuzzy, distant footage.
That’s when it hits me that I’m having a baby with one of the “thugs” the sheriff is going to arrest any minute now for first degree murder.
I fight back the tears trying to burst free, certain that this video, Knox’s actions here, are going to change everything. Our baby will never meet his father because he’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison.
Knox is so goddamn screwed, and he has no idea.
…
Hours later, after I’ve ensured there’s no video footage of my car being linked as the getaway vehicle for Russo’s murder, I finally get a minute to walk outside and text Knox to call me. Since my stomach is still cramping painfully every few minutes, I take a seat on a bench to rest for a while and wait for him to call.
I don’t have to wait long.
“Hello?” I answer quickly.
“Hey, it’s me,” Knox says.
“What in the hell were you thinking?” I yell at him, so fucking angry I could explode. “The police didn’t have any evidence to narrow down a suspect and the guards you kidnapped wouldn’t talk…but then they looked at the fucking video surveillance from the lobby! You and your friend wearing ball caps look a little out of place. And the hotel staff said that they didn’t recognize you as guests!”
“How do you know it’s me?” Knox asks, not having the slightest idea how badly he’s fucked up. Not covering identifying tattoos is a huge rookie mistake he should’ve learned in Criminal Delinquency 101.
“Because the fucking tattoo on your arm p
roves it’s you!” I yell into the phone, blinking away more tears that try to escape.
“Oh, fuck,” Knox mutters in understanding.
“There’s no footage of you in the parking lot with my car yet, and you better hope there’s not any.”
“Don’t worry, I switched out the license plate with a phony before we left the city. And just the fact that I was in the hotel doesn’t prove anything,” Knox tries to reassure me.
“There’s footage of you leaving the hotel right after the estimated time of death and not long after Liam O’Donnell! My sergeant thinks Liam hired you and your friend to take out Jimmy!”
“Oh, shit.”
“So now you two are the most likely suspects, along with O’Donnell. They want to bring all three of you in for questioning, but they are fairly certain that O’Donnell wasn’t the trigger man.”
“So what? They don’t even have a fucking clue who we are,” Knox says. “They may know Liam’s name but not ours.”
“That’s why they’re about to go national with the damn video footage!” I shout at him as I clench my belly that’s hurting even worse.
“Jesus! Can’t you like destroy it or something?” Knox suggests, as if it’s that simple.
“You did not just ask me that,” I scoff in disbelief as I roll my eyes up at the night sky. “Do you know how many officers have seen that video? The original is now locked up in evidence, but there are copies on flash drives floating around every media outlet!”
“So, what the hell am I supposed to do?” Knox asks. “Turn myself in and deny everything?”
“No! You can’t turn yourself in!” I exclaim in a rush, because he’ll never walk out of the station again if he comes in. After spending the last few hours thinking over the best chance for him to keep his freedom, I say, “They’ll never release you until after a trial. And if there are no other suspects by then, you’ll be fucked! You could try and leave the country, but honestly I don’t think you’ll make it across the border before you’re caught.”
Before I can tell Knox anything else, Walters comes out the back door of the hotel, looking for me.
“I-I’ve got to go,” I say softly into the phone as Walters heads in my direction. “Just…don’t call me again, okay? It’s too dangerous. Good luck, Knox.”
I quickly end the call, even though it hurts to cut ties with him for good. But I can’t let Knox drag me down into this shit any further. It’s still possible that someone will find out I was at Russo’s house earlier today or that my car is the one Knox has been riding around in.
“You and Bates can go home for the night. I’m about to leave,” I tell Walters when he’s standing in front of me.
“Everything okay?” he asks in concern.
"I’m just tired,” I lie.
Dealing with all of this today is just too much stress for me to handle, and not good for the baby. I don’t know what’s been going on for the last few hours, but I can tell something is wrong.
When I get into the car a few minutes later to leave, I call my doctor’s office’s afterhours number. The obstetrician on call listens to me describe my symptoms, and then scares the hell out of me when he says I need to go straight to the hospital and that he’ll meet me there.
Chapter Eighteen
Knox
One mistake is threatening to ruin every fucking thing in my life. Ivan and Cain could go down for murder because of me and my goddamn tattoos. Jade is furious at me and, before she hung up on me, told me to never call her again. Which means, in one fell swoop, I lost any chance I had with her and to be a father to our son or daughter.
I’ve lost it all, so it seems like I owe it to Ivan to turn myself in to protect him and Cain.
We argued about it for a while until Liam, Maylin’s dad and the head of the Irish mafia, took Jade’s car keys and went to bed. Now I’m stuck here in Liam’s safe house, hiding out for murder, and listening to Ivan and Maylin fuck just a few feet away from me on the sofa, with nothing but my self-loathing to keep me company.
My head is all over the place, but mostly I’m just fucking destroyed knowing that I could be going away to prison, leaving behind a baby that won’t ever have a father. It’s the worst fucking nightmare imaginable for me, and it’s happening right this very second.
I swore that I would never let this happen, that I wouldn’t knock a woman up and have a kid that feels unloved and unwanted. And yet, I’m a sorry sack of shit for doing exactly that to the first woman I ever slept with.
Unable to sleep, I send up a prayer, not asking for God to work a miracle and help me, but for him to send Jade a good man to love her and to be a better fucking father to our son or daughter than I could ever dream to be. The baby is better off without a piece of shit like me in its life anyway. I just hope he or she can come into the world with a father that loves them from the moment they take their first breath.
If God can do that for me, I’ll die a happy man in whatever jail cell I end up rotting away in.
…
Jade
“The good news is that your cervix hasn’t dilated, but you are having contractions, which at twenty weeks is what we call preterm labor,” Dr. Brassfield, the doctor on call tonight, informs me as I lay on the hospital bed with various cords attached to machines that are monitoring me and the baby.
“What does that mean?” I ask him.
“I need to give you a shot of terbutaline to hopefully stop the contractions. Even if that works, you’ll need to take a few days off to rest and stay hydrated; because if the contractions keep coming back, there’s a chance you could very well begin to dilate and go into actual labor. At this point, it’s too early for the baby to live outside of the womb, so there’s nothing we can do to save him or her if you deliver before twenty-four weeks.”
“So this is serious?”
“It can be. We’ll keep you here on the monitors for a few more hours to see if the shot works and bring in the ultrasound to check on the baby. If things improve, we’ll let you go home tomorrow. Will you need a note for work? I think you should plan to take off at least a week.”
“A week?” I repeat.
“That’s my recommendation. If the contractions continue, I may have to put you on bedrest to hold off labor. We’ll see how things progress.”
“Okay,” I agree, because making sure the baby is okay is the most important thing right now. Besides, getting away from the Russo investigation is probably for the best. And now is as good a time as any to go home and share the news with my family.
After the doctor leaves, a young woman knocks on the door and then pushes in an ultrasound machine.
“Are you ready to see the baby?” she asks as she gets sets up.
“Yes,” I answer when she lifts my hospital gown to squirt gel on my belly. I take a deep breath, praying the baby is okay even though I’ve been having contractions.
The technician places the probe on my bump, and then the image appears in black and white on the screen.
“Does everything look okay?” I ask after a few minutes of her taking measurements in the silence because I desperately need to know.
“The baby looks perfect, and the heartbeat is right around a hundred and thirty-two beats per minute, which is great.”
“Good,” I reply on a sigh of relief.
“I’ll print you some pictures,” she says. “And would you like to know the sex?”
“You can tell? Right now?” I ask in surprise.
“I can. The baby gave me a good look,” she replies with a laugh.
“Then, yes, I want to know,” I answer as I hold my breath and wait to hear.
“It’s a girl,” she tells me with a smile.
“He was right,” I say as the tears from earlier today come crashing down in waves that turn into sobs.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you hoping for a boy?” the technician asks when she reaches for a tissue and hands it to me, obviously thinking that my reaction is about the gen
der.
“No, no, of course not. A girl is…is wonderful,” I assure her. “It’s just been a stressful day with the baby’s father and worrying about the contractions…”
“Oh, well, try not to get too upset. Just rest, and hopefully the doctor can get the contractions under control,” she offers, handing me three black and white photos that I take with a shaking hand.
“Thank you,” I tell her before she quietly packs up the machine and leaves the room, giving me one last sad smile before I’m left alone with the exciting news that we’re having a little girl, and no one to share it with.
Chapter Nineteen
Knox
I’ve been sitting on Jade’s porch for two, long, miserable days, ever since I left Ivan’s wedding. That’s right, his wedding. He got married to Maylin after Liam demanded as much in exchange for Liam turning himself in and taking the heat off us for Jimmy’s murder. Since the night she called to warn us about the hotel video, I haven’t had a clue where Jade is or when I’ll see her again. Her phone number has been disconnected, but that doesn’t stop me from calling it.
I get that she’s pissed at me. What I did, nearly getting caught for being an accomplice in a murder was stupid and goes against her entire being since her job is to catch criminals. She takes that job seriously, so being involved with someone like me is a huge risk.
Apparently too big of a risk for her to take.
I just wish she would let me explain or try to convince her to give me another chance to show her that I can be a good man. Although, I can’t say that I would even believe that shit myself. Still, I have to figure out a way to prove to Jade that I deserve to be a father to our baby. I’ll never give up on trying to be a part of my child’s life. I refuse to let him or her think for one second that I didn’t love them, because I already do. This baby is more than my flesh and blood. They’re my heart and soul, the only other person in this world who is my actual family.