Rock the Cradle: An Mpreg Romance (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 6)

by Aiden Bates

  "You thought a queer little thing like you could have something like that, with a guy like him?" His dad's memory let out a vile little chuckle. "Oh my Lord, kid, that's too precious. Did you forget who you are? Did you forget where you come from? I don't know why that stupid cow had to go and get in the way. You were too stupid to live then, and you're too stupid to live now."

  Derek bowed his head. He knew his father was right.

  He woke up in an empty bed, with his sheets drenched in sweat. He shouldn't still be having these kinds of nightmares. It had been fifteen years, for crying out loud. He was better now. He had a good life.

  The nightmares were obviously just his brain's way of trying to process things going on around him, and that wasn't easy. Of course his subconscious would choose a harsh figure to remind him of the harsh realities of his life. He needed to keep his own sense of identity in place. If he forgot who he was, and tried to fit in with Alex’s family, he'd be miserable.

  It hurt, but he needed to push all of those juvenile dreams of love aside. They weren't him, and he would just make himself miserable looking for it. Hadn't that same misery driven his mother to drugs, and his father to drink? No, Derek was fine the way he was, thank you very much.

  ***

  Alex didn't blame Derek for being down about the car. He'd had it for all of a week, maybe two, and then the cops went and took it as evidence again. Sure, the insurance company provided him with a rental, but it was a grudging provision at best.

  He didn't blame Derek for being down about someone trying to kill him again, either. That was the kind of thing that seemed reasonable to get upset about. Someone had tried to kill him twice in as many months, and that just had to wear on a guy.

  So maybe all of that had something to do with the way Derek couldn't get out of bed on the weekends. Even Carmela noticed it. In fact, Carmela was the one who brought it to Derek's attention. She asked him to check on Derek and make sure he wasn't sick.

  Alex was more than willing to do that, and of course since it was Alex and Derek the "checkup" quickly devolved into a make-out session. Alex didn't completely lose his cool, though. Derek's vital signs seemed good, and he didn't have a fever or anything like that, so his issue was clearly just mental.

  "And that's okay," he told Derek, holding his hand when they talked about Carmela's request. "You've been going through a lot lately. It's okay if it gets to you a little bit, you know? Everyone needs help at some point, even you."

  Derek huffed out a little laugh. Good Lord, he was beautiful, even when he was still sleep-tousled and laying against the pillows. Maybe that should have been especially when he was sleep-tousled and reclining against the pillows. "Okay," he said, and yawned. "I'll buy that."

  "Do you want to talk about it?" Alex squeezed Derek's hand. "You've been great about letting me talk, even when I'm pretty sure I should have shut up."

  Derek snorted. "I guess you could say that some of the things going on right now have brought back some ugly memories. But that's normal, you know?" He closed his eyes for a second. "I'm dreaming about my father."

  Alex hummed. "Well, I didn't specialize in psychiatry, but maybe all of these reunions, and all of this family drama going on around you, has convinced you it's time to reconnect with him. Is that something you might think about doing?"

  "Not in this lifetime." Derek's eyes slammed open. Alex didn't think he'd seen them that hard, even when they'd been butting heads. "He's been up for parole a couple of times, you know. And you know why he's been denied? Because every time, I've gone before that parole board and said, 'Hey, you know what? How about no.' And they say, 'Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.' And that's the end of it."

  Alex grimaced. "Yikes. Do you think you'll ever forgive him? I mean it's been fifteen years, right?"

  "About that." Derek ran his tongue ring along his teeth. "No. I don't think fifteen years is enough to rehabilitate from murder, especially not an intimate partner violence murder where he doesn't see where he did anything wrong. He just writes it off as 'I was drunk' and leaves it at that. But hey. Why should that stop anyone, am I right?" He rubbed his face with his hands. "And people ask why no one thinks I'm 'family' material. That's my role model, right there."

  Alex froze. They hadn't talked about the future in a little while. Alex had thought Derek was okay with their arrangement. Was he not, somehow? "Are you okay with that, Derek?" He licked his lips.

  "With what, my father shooting my mother or with the fact that him doing that basically means I'm too screwed up to ever start a family of my own? No. I am not okay." He turned his head and blushed. "Sorry. I've got a good life, all things considered. I don't mean to complain, and certainly not to you. I mean you've got enough of your own crap going on right now. You don't need a pile of ancient garbage clogging up your in box, especially when you can't do anything about it."

  Alex had plenty he wanted to say about Derek's words. He had questions, too. Was Derek really all that into the idea of starting a family, or was he just frustrated at not being considered suitable for a long-term partnership? Why would his father have anything to do with how his later romantic career developed?

  And what, if anything, could Alex do about it?

  Derek cut his train of thought off, though, by asking about Dad. "How's your father? Have any of the tests come back yet?"

  Alex squirmed. Should he be here with Derek, when his father was so clearly suffering? "Well, the dementia diagnosis was spot on. Before I met you, I probably would have felt some pride in that, just because I was right. Of course, before I met you, I might not have recognized what was going on with Dad for what it was in the first place." He lay down beside Derek and put their bodies together.

  "The question now is whether or not the dementia is related to something else, some larger cause." He bowed his head. "There is such a long battery of tests they have to do to rule out other causes, I feel bad for him. He broke his son's arm, and I feel bad for him."

  Derek snuggled up closer. He loved that skin to skin contact. He seemed to thrive on it. "It's only natural. He's a patient, and his understanding of what's happening to him is probably limited. And he is, at the end of the day, your father. That's important to you. You love him."

  "I do." Alex carded his fingers through Derek's long hair. He'd hated Derek's hair when they'd met. Now he loved it. "The question is, how progressive will his dementia be? Is the underlying cause just dementia, or is it something worse?"

  Derek yawned. Alex didn't take it personally. "I think the only real answer had to come from those tests. I'm no doctor, and I don't even really understand doctoring, but from what you've told me those tests take time to run. From what I've seen of hospitals, there's probably a line."

  Alex laughed a little. "Yeah. Being on staff only gets you so far."

  "That's totally bogus, man. I'm on staff at the station, and I get into all the best shows for free. Half the SU games, too, if I want to. You picked the wrong career, buddy."

  "Okay, but I get to be out and about saving people all the time. And I only have to work one job." Alex traced the lines of one of Derek's geometric tattoos with his fingertip.

  "Touché." He let Derek fall asleep in his arms.

  Derek had to work that night, doing his Spanish Alternative show for satellite radio, while Alex wanted to go check on his father at the hospital. He was confined for the moment to the psychiatric wing, since he'd hurt someone, but at least he wasn't in jail.

  Mama was with Dad when Alex got there. Alex couldn't understand why. Dad didn't appreciate her when he was awake, he certainly wasn't going to appreciate her when he was sedated. "The doctors were looking for you earlier." Mama's gaze had just enough reproach in it that Alex could only kick at the floor.

  "Sorry. They didn't call, so it must not have been an emergency."

  "I wouldn't know." She looked over at her slumbering husband. "You were with that boy of yours, weren't you?"

  Alex made a face. "H
e's twenty-five, Mom. And yeah. I was. Someone tried to kill him earlier this week and he needs some support."

  "It's not support if you don't take him out and show him you're proud of him." Mama sniffed. "Perhaps you aren't, though." She gazed out the window for a few seconds.

  Alex frowned. "I thought you didn't want me to be with him."

  "I don't. I think the family will treat him terribly and you would be too torn to do right by him. You're a good man, Alex, but you have your issues. You're very caught up in your father's idea of family. I don't mean the nonsense he's been spouting the past few months." She'd switched over to Russian as she spoke, and he relaxed a little. Between them, Russian was always a language of affection. "Find someone who will fit in with the Brennans, and let Derek find someone who can be what he needs."

  Alex narrowed his eyes. "I can be everything he needs. I can be all that and then some."

  Mama smiled, just a little bit. "Then that's even worse, Sasha. You're able to be what he needs, but you're not doing it."

  Alex took Mama's hand. "Mama, Derek does deserve better. I'm not pretending he doesn't. It's just that, well, he doesn't want it."

  "Of course he does. He's a nice and sweet young omega, he's a hero, he's good with children—"

  "He's good with teenagers, Ma, because he was one not too long ago. He's got a pretty bad history of his own. It's not the same as Ayla's, but it's pretty bad. And he doesn't look at family the way we do. For us, family is comfort and safety and people who will always love you no matter what. For him, family is violence and instability. He doesn't sit around and think, 'Oh, marriage will make me happy.'"

  "He thinks, 'Marriage will tie me down to someone who will beat me." Natasha turned her head away. "I can talk to him, if you'd like. The poor boy shouldn't have to live like that. I know he's not right for our family, but that's not his fault. He's too good."

  Alex laughed. "Too good?"

  Mama stared at her sleeping husband for a moment. "Yes. Too good. Those Brennans. I thought, 'Oh, I can live with them. They can't really hurt me, love is enough.' Your father always valued them over me. For a while I had my children, and my students." She licked her lips. "Then one of them sold my daughter into slavery. He stole her from me. And his brothers, his mother, they blamed anyone but him or themselves. They blamed a thirteen-year-old boy for not somehow mystically knowing that his uncle was going to do evil, but not the grown man for selling a child to pay a gambling debt." She spat onto the ground.

  Alex cringed at the lack of sanitation.

  "I will tell you a fact, Sasha. When your uncle died, and was brought back to the family plot to be buried? I danced on his grave. The old lady, too. I'm determined to outlive them all, and do the same to them."

  Alex pulled back, blinking. "Mama, I had no idea."

  "You weren't supposed to. I wanted to keep things harmonious, for you and Ivy. It was bad enough that you lost your sister. You didn't need to have your whole life torn upside down because of it. I wanted to be there for you."

  Alex searched for words in his dry mouth. It took time, but he found them eventually. "Did you know? About Veronica?"

  "A few months after Ayla was taken, your father came to me. He said he thought we should open up our marriage. He thought it would bring us both comfort." She scoffed. "What would he know about comfort, right? At any rate, I let him. It was either that or worse, I knew, and I had about as much interest in—" She seemed to remember to whom she was speaking because she brought herself up short. "Well, it was best that he got that elsewhere, I suppose. Anyway, he was with different people all the time. Girls, of course. Sometimes students, you understand. It was disgraceful.

  "I had no idea you and Ivy knew." She bowed her head. "I kept silent because I didn't want you to know."

  Alex gave a hysterical giggle. "Funny. We didn't say anything because we didn't want you to know."

  "You're good children. You knew we'd opened our marriage up."

  "But we didn't think you'd opened it up quite that much."

  "We hadn't." Mama glared at Dad's prone form. "But we all make choices in life. I'm more disgusted by the way he treated that woman and that child than anything else."

  "I can be disgusted by the way he treated Joey." Alex tapped his heel on the ground. "And I can be disgusted by the way he treated you. I'm less sympathetic to how he treated Veronica. She knew what she was getting into, and with whom."

  "Ah. Well, there is that, then." She nodded. "I worry, Sasha. I want you three to be happy. I want to see you with people that will make you happy, and I tried to stay with your father so you'd have a stable relationship in front of you. I don't think it helped."

  "Maybe not." Alex shook his head. "But I don't think it hurt, either. At least not with me. I just can't find anyone with a heart that matches my Mama's."

  Mama hugged him. "Did you have to turn him in for abuse, though? You can see that he's sick."

  "I'm not the one who turned him in. It was the orthopedist. But I would have." He rested his chin on her head. "I had to do the right thing. If you'd seen that little boy's arm, you'd have made the same choice, Mama."

  "Maybe." She sighed. "Everything seems so complicated now."

  "It does." Alex kept his arms around his mother. "Try to think about it this way. If he hadn't been caught abusing Joey, he wouldn't be getting the help he needs now. So it's a hassle, and a complication, but he's where he needs to be."

  She chuckled. "Maybe one or two of the things the priest taught you sunk in."

  "Maybe one or two." Alex grinned.

  Mama gave him a playful swat on the arm. "Go, you. Go and see that handsome omega of yours. Pay him a visit and take care of him. Maybe, if you try very hard, you'll figure out how to be worthy of him."

  Alex took his mother's advice. He didn't know if he could find a way to be worthy of Derek, and he knew Derek didn't want the kind of relationship Mama was suggesting. He could still enjoy Derek's company, though.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Life in Derek's condo settled into a new pattern. Derek disliked the new pattern intensely. Langbroek came through with the assigned protection detail, and even managed to make sure they were attractive. It was a small comfort to make up for being pulled off the air, again.

  Derek's bosses were understanding about the whole thing. They put him on disability at a fraction of the pay. He didn't have a physical disability, but he had a major impediment in terms of getting to and from the station and that was the main issue. At least Derek and Carmela wouldn't starve while they waited for this nightmare to be over.

  "It feels like they're winning." He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at Ayla as they sat in his living room. All that work to get Carmela ready to leave the house, and here they were cowering in the apartment again.

  "It probably does." Ayla crossed her ankles. "That's because we're close to trial time and they've stepped up their attacks. It means you're more restricted, but it also means they're not confident in their case."

  Derek glared at her. "They shouldn't be confident in their case. They were caught red handed."

  Ayla laughed. There was a lot of bitterness in that laugh. "Oh, Derek. It's nice to think that everyone who gets caught messing with kids the way those monsters were goes to jail. Let's face it. They're going to get up there and they're going to rip every one of those girls apart. They're going to say the girls liked it. They're going to say the girls were there voluntarily, or that they lied about their age. And a lot of the time, a jury will believe a man over a woman. Even women jurors believe men over women. Four of the rescued girls have already backed out of testifying. They were too scared, and didn't want to go through the difficulty of testifying."

  "Christ." Derek glared at the window, because he didn't have any place else to glare. "I'm just—I don't even have a response for that. I'm floored. You hear stats like that on the news, or you see them in an article, but you can't wrap your head around it until you're involv
ed."

  Ayla acknowledged this with a dip of her head. "I give you and Carmela a lot of credit, actually. It's pretty impressive that you're willing to stay the course. A lot of people aren't. I try not to judge people when they aren't."

  "But your case didn't go to trial, because the DA wouldn't bring it to trial. So you can't help but resent folks who won't take that step, at least a little bit." Derek grinned. "That's okay, you know. It's okay for you to feel a way about what's happened to you. You're not supposed to be a robot."

  "I kind of am." She rolled her eyes. "I'm most effective when I can separate myself from the case. But it's a little harder this time. Believe it or not, it's easier to separate myself from the case where my father abused my half-brother than it is from this case with strangers."