by April Lust
Jessica cut Macie off by getting to her feet, immediately pacing around her small living room area as if she could push Macie’s argument away just by physically removing herself from it. “He doesn’t,” she murmured to herself as she moved around in big circles. “He can’t. There’s no way.”
“Why do you refuse to believe it?” Macie asked, getting to her own two feet and following Jessica’s path around the room. “Is it because of Gary? After all those years with him, you just can’t believe it when somebody actually gives a fuck about you?”
“I don’t know!” Jessica yelled, turning around to face Macie. “I don’t know, Macie. But you’re wrong. You have to be. He doesn’t care about me. He can’t.”
“He can and does,” Macie said, putting her hands on Jessica’s shoulders to keep her in place. “Look, you probably won’t believe it if you only hear it from me. You need to hear it from him.”
“But how do I—”
Macie cut Jessica off. “By telling him! Come on, what do you have to lose? What’s the worst that can happen, you raise the baby by yourself? You were already planning on doing that anyway, right? So just tell him. Be brave, and call him.”
Jessica bit her lip, unsure of what to do. “I’m scared,” she admitted, dropping one of her hands to rub up against her belly, wishing she was stronger for the life that was growing inside of her. “I’m not tough like you. I can’t do it.”
“You’re the toughest woman I know,” Macie said, smiling at her best friend. “I’ll be with you the whole time. Call him.”
Jessica exhaled shakily, letting the breath leave her body little by little until she was totally empty. “Okay,” she whispered, reaching down with trembling fingers to pull her phone out, rushing to pull up Pax’s contact information. She knew that if she didn’t do this within the next five seconds, she’d never do it. She couldn’t live her life in regret, always looking back and wondering “What if?” She had to try, even if it almost destroyed her to do so.
She held the phone up to her ear, listening to the shrill ringing, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited. “Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up,” she murmured before she heard the click that told her that Pax had answered her call. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest, fast and hard.
“Hello?” Pax asked on the other end of the phone, making Jessica’s mouth go dry in about two seconds flat.
“Hey,” Jessica said softly as soon as she conjured up the ability to form coherent words. “Sorry for bothering you. I know you must be busy.”
“You’re not bothering me,” Pax said quickly, faster than he’d ever said anything to her during the whole length of their relationship. “What’s up?”
Jessica could only breathe for the seconds that followed, sucking in air like she was dying. She had to do this, though. She couldn’t back down. She couldn’t be weak.
“Hello? You still there?” Pax said.
“Yes, yes,” Jessica said. “I’m here.” But then she fell silent again, staring down at her own stomach as she struggled to come up with the right words to say. “Something’s happened,” she finally said.
“What? What is it? Are you okay?” Pax asked, panic seeping into his voice. Jessica heard some weird shuffling sounds, like he was getting to his feet out of worry.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” Jessica said, even though it felt like a lie to say those words. “But I have to tell you something, okay? It’s a really big deal. So, you might want to sit down and make sure you’re okay before you hear this.”
“Okay,” Pax said evenly, but Jessica could tell by the sudden shallowness of his breathing that he was struggling to stay calm.
“I’m pregnant,” Jessica said, forcing out the words as quickly as she could, then letting her eyes fall shut in an attempt to hide away from the reality of it. “It’s yours,” she added in a hoarse whisper, possibly too softly for Pax to hear.
“What did you just say?” Pax said, sounding shell-shocked, his voice coming off distant and vague-sounding, like his mouth and his brain had totally disconnected from each other.
“I’m pregnant,” Jessica repeated herself. “Not very far along, but it’s real. I’m going to have a baby.”
“Fuck me,” Pax whispered on the other end, making Jessica feel like her heart was free-falling within her body, screaming as it kept hurtling through the air with nothing to catch it. So this is how it happens, Jessica thought, swallowing thickly as she listened to the sound of Pax’s ever-quickening breathing on the other end of the phone line. This was how her relationship with Pax had to end. Just like this.
But then another sound came out through the phone, muffled at first, and then louder and louder. Laughter. Not mocking laughter, but a deep, throaty sound that just got more and more intense as the seconds passed by. Pax sounded… happy. He actually sounded like he’d just received the best news in his life.
“Are you serious? Is this real?” Pax asked in between bouts of deep laughter, sounding like he still wasn’t sure if he believed it.
“I’m being 100% serious right now,” Jessica said, her heart beginning to restore itself to its proper place in her chest, beating hard but not as fast as before. She felt her hands tremble still, but for some reason she no longer felt as afraid as before. She felt stronger, like Pax’s disbelief had given her the motivation she needed to pull herself together. “I’m going to have a baby. Your baby.”
Jessica had almost forgotten that Macie was even in her apartment at all, but now she noticed her best friend pump her fists into the air victoriously and hop around like a kid in a candy store.
When Pax finally stopped laughing breathlessly, he cleared his throat and spoke again. “Wow. Jesus. Fuck.”
“Yeah, I second all of that,” Jessica said, chuckling herself, feeling freer and lighter than she had in weeks. “So, um, I’m going to have the baby. And I’m going to keep it. Do you want to...?” Jessica trailed off, uncertain how to ask if Pax was willing to be a part of the child’s life.
But Pax seemed to understand what she meant. “Yes,” he said firmly, not a single trace of doubt audible in his voice. “Yes, I want to. Please. I’d be honored.”
“Fuck,” Jessica murmured into the phone, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “I was so scared of what you were going to say. I almost didn’t tell you.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Pax said softly. “But you know what this means now, don’t you?”
“No, what does it mean?” Jessica asked, feeling sparks of fear shoot up her spine in response to his words.
“We have to fight now. There’s no other choice,” Pax said. “You can’t run away, Jess.”
Jessica didn’t know how he knew that was her plan, but she didn’t question it. “Macie told me you guys have a plan,” she said. “But I don’t know… The Nightwalkers are too big. How are we supposed to fight, Pax?”
“Just trust me,” Pax said. “Can you do that? Just this once? Trust me. Please. I’ll get us through this.”
Jessica didn’t know if she believed him, but she knew that she had no other choice. They were about to go to war, for real this time. Chances were, Gary and the rest of the MC would smack them down like flies for even trying to interfere with his authority. But they had to try. Otherwise Jessica would be scared of Gary for the rest of her life, and that was no way to raise a baby.
If the worst happened, if Gary won, Jessica and Pax would go down hand-in-hand. And that would have to be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pax
At around 8 PM the next night, Pax drove up to Sully’s, patting his pocket to make sure he had what he needed. He caught his own reflection in the rearview mirror of his car, staring at himself for a second. “I can do this,” he said out loud. He had no other option, really. He had to do this. For Jessica. For the baby.
Pax inhaled deeply, gathering as much inner courage as he could muster before exiting his vehicle, striding up confide
ntly to the front door. He stared blankly at the bouncer of the club for a second before the smaller man stepped aside, allowing Pax to walk inside without a fight. There were crowds of young women gathered around the bar, all of whom turned their heads to gape at Pax as he stepped further inside the clubhouse. But he didn’t pause for a second, heading to the back of the room, where a door was slightly ajar. It was Gary’s office; Macie had told him how to find it. Pax headed across the bar and walked through the unlocked door, shutting it hard behind him to send the message that this was a private meeting.
“What the fuck?” Gary said, his mouth full of some kind of noodle dish, while his legs were propped up on the desk in front of him. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought we should have a little discussion,” Pax said, forcing a thick, snarly smile. He felt smug and satisfied as he watched the indignation slip off of Gary’s face, replaced by something that looked an awful lot like fear. “You know, man to man. You deserve to hear the big news straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Gary asked, putting his plate full of noodles off to one side and taking his legs off the desk, scooting up in his seat to get as close to Pax as possible. His eyes were wide and hard, burning with some primal hatred. In the past, such an emotion would have terrified Pax, having seen it in too many men right before they tried to kill him in battle, but now he was beyond that. He had a purpose now. A reason to fight. A reason to survive.
Pax shrugged. “See, I figured you would have guessed the truth by now. Me and Jessica. We’ve been fucking for months now,” he said as casually as he could.
Gary’s mouth fell open in slow motion, his eyes narrowing as he stared across at Pax. “What. Did you. Just say?”
“I’ve been screwing her for the past couple of months,” Pax said, smiling a little at Gary, honestly surprised the other man hadn’t already leapt across the table to beat him into a pulp. “She’s really good in the sack, except the only problem is she’s knocked up now.”
Gary sputtered for several seconds, stuttering a little as he struggled to come up with a response. “What the fuck?” he finally managed to force out.
“Yep,” Pax said, stepping a little closer to brace his hands on the desk and lean closer to Gary. “Listen, I’m not really into the whole baby thing. I’m not even really into her, if I’m being honest with you. She was just a convenient lay, someone I could fuck at work whenever I wanted. But it’s boring now, you know? You can only fuck the same hole so many times before you get sick of it. So, I’m leaving town tonight. But she’s got this crazy idea in her head about keeping the baby rather than aborting it. So, I thought, hey, why not tell the guy who’s been obsessed with her ever since she was a teenager?” Pax shrugged again, nodding to himself like he’d come up with the best plan ever, even though inwardly his stomach was churning as a result of all the fucked-up things he’d just said.
Gary slammed his fists down on the desk in front of him, his entire face screwing up with anger as he looked up into Pax’s eyes, his own pair fuming with rage. “You knocked her up? And what, I’m supposed to take her back after you’ve fucking ruined her?” Gary spat out.
Pax was so tempted to just reach across the table and slam the guy right into the wall, crushing his skull against the concrete as punishment for talking about Jessica that way, but he knew that at the first sound of an altercation all of the Nightwalkers would storm in here and kill Pax. He had to be smart about this. He had to keep a clear head.
So, he just nodded and smiled as sweetly as possible to Gary. “Yeah, I mean, I’m done with her, right? But you seem to still want to tap that, so why not just take her and the baby both? It’s not the kid’s fault the mother will fuck anything that moves.”
Gary roared then and got to his feet, grabbing the edge of the desk and flipping it over, sending papers scattering in every direction around the room as he continued to scream like a beast. “Motherfucker!”
Pax had only barely enough time to grab the item out of his pocket before six Nightwalkers forced their way into the office, fists raised and ready to go before Pax swung his gun into Gary’s face. “Back off,” he warned them through clenched teeth, gripping onto the gun as hard as he could.
The Nightwalkers all looked at each other, fear written plainly across each of their faces even as they looked to Gary for instructions.
“Get him!” Gary screamed, even though he was backed against the wall, as far away from the gun as he could possibly get.
But none of the men moved, too terrified that Pax would blow their leader apart at the first sign of movement. “Boss…” one of the MC members said, practically squeaking in fear.
Pax slowly began shuffling forward, keeping his arm outstretched so that the gun was pointed at Gary. “Nobody fucking move, or I’ll unleash a stream of lead right into your fearless leader’s face,” Pax grunted as he approached the door. “Now, you’re going to let me walk out of here, or a lot of people are going to die.”
None of the MC members moved an inch, all of them watching with wide, worried eyes as Pax finally walked through the door out the main room of Sully’s. He kept going, keeping his gun pointed at the most vulnerable-looking target in the room, feeling a little pang of guilt at the sight of the crowd of girls huddled against the wall in fear. But finally, he made it to the front door, dashing for his car and jumping in as quickly as he could, backing out of the parking lot and onto the main road.
Pax blew out his breath, tossing the gun onto the seat next to him as he tore off down the road, heading for his apartment. He’d done his part, at least for now. Now he could only trust his friends to do their part. It was weird, having people in his life to trust. He hadn’t felt that in so many years, even before his stint in the military. In the back of his mind, he still worried that they were going to betray him, that they were going to cower in the face of the Nightwalkers and feed him to the dogs.
But he had to believe in people, for once. He had to believe that the world wasn’t designed to hurt innocent people. He had to believe there was hope.
It was a strange, unfamiliar sensation, feeling like he had a chance in hell to be happy. But Pax would be damned if he wasn’t going to fight like hell for it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gary
“Goddammit!” Gary screamed, tearing up the sides of his throat by the sheer volume of his voice, right as he slammed his foot into the hard wall. He kicked it again and again and again, until his toes throbbed with pain, his body practically screaming at him to stop. “Fucking! Shit!”
“Sir…” one of his top lieutenants, Bobby, said tentatively, hesitantly stepping forward a little.
“Don’t!” Gary yelled, putting his hand forward to tell all of the MC members in the room to stay where they were. “Don’t fucking say a goddamned word. How the hell did that fucker even get in here?”
Nobody answered, each set of eyes looking hurriedly around the room to avoid eye contact with Gary, everybody attempting to shirk responsibility for the catastrophe that had just happened in his goddamned office. “Nobody hears about this, do you understand me?” Gary said. “I said, do you understand to me?”
“Yes, sir,” several of the men said in one voice the second later, still sounding hesitant, like they weren’t sure if they were allowed to speak.
Gary shoved past them into the main room of the bar, rushing over to the stack of drinks against the wall and grabbing bottle after bottle, smashing each of them against the far wall, causing the gaggle of stupid bitches standing there to shriek and shrink back, terrified of being struck. But Gary couldn’t stop himself. He had to keep going, keep destroying everything in this path. How the hell had this happened? How had he been so utterly humiliated in his own goddamned territory? Now all of the Nightwalkers would hear about this. They’d all know that he’d had a gun pulled on him like a weak little bitch. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to live this down.
No, fuck that, he said to himself, stopping himself from smashing another bottle against the wall and opening it instead. He lifted it to his mouth and drained a quarter of the liquid in less than a minute, feeling a familiar burning sensation at the base of his stomach as a result. Fuck that. I’m not going to be humiliated. I’m not going to fucking take this shit.
He had to fix this somehow, if only so that his inferiors didn’t think he was weak or soft. That just couldn’t be allowed to happen. He had to make someone pay. There was Pax, of course. But that fucker had said he was leaving town. For all Gary knew, the asshole was already halfway out of the state by now, heading for God knows where.
And anyway, he wasn’t the one who’d betrayed him. He wasn’t the one who really humiliated him, who’d treated him like a piece of shit. Jessica. That fucking whore. That fucking idiotic little slut, prancing around like she had a life without Gary, like Gary was nothing to her. That bitch had to fucking pay.