by Rie Warren
I patted the small mound of my belly.
And every emotion I’d staved off, everything I’d pushed away, surged to the surface.
Padding across the bedroom floor, I slid under the bedding Killian held open for me. I huddled against his unshakeable warmth, tears flooding my eyes.
“Hey? What is it?”
His concern made me sob even harder.
“Pregnancy hormones?” I eked out in broken gasps.
“Seriously, Grace. Did I go too far too fast? Did I hurt you?”
“Mercy. Is she really all right?” I blubbered harder.
Killian had opened me up to everything, and it all came tumbling out in gusts of tears.
“I abandoned her,” I all but wailed.
His arms came around me. “She feels the same thing about you.”
I shook my head, leaking all over his chest. “She shouldn’t. As long as she’s okay.”
“You saw her. She’s better than okay. She and Angel are getting hitched in the spring.”
After blowing my nose on a tissue Killian handed me, I settled down. A lost kitten seeking warmth.
My breathing evened.
My thoughts didn’t.
I was going to cause more damage.
Drawing from my last reserve of strength, I quietly stated, “It’s Thursday. Thanksgiving’s always on a Thursday.”
I knew Killian immediately understood the unpleasant implications in my simple words.
He stiffened into a statue, and I heard his teeth clatter together.
Thursday night was one of Roark’s nights.
“This thing between you and me, you know it changes nothing, right?” I whispered.
Killian stormed off the bed, bending right over me as hot anger blasted from him. “Like fuck it doesn’t!”
Chapter Nine
SLADE
I COULDN’T STOP MYSELF from shouting.
Fuck.
I didn’t want to scare Grace, but god-fucking-dammit again.
“You don’t understand.” Stumbling from the bed, she wrapped a sheet around herself. “It’s biologically his baby too, and I can’t do anything about that. He has all the control. Just think about the legal ramifications of the whole thing!”
“Legal ramifications? Legal ramifications?” I fisted my hands at my sides. “What about the fucking ramifications from the fact he bought you then raped you and uses your body for profit against your will?”
Grace blanched, slumping to the bed.
“He has connections everywhere. He’ll get out of anything. And I’ll never see my baby once it’s born.” Looking up, teary-eyed, she laid out the sad truth of the matter. “My baby means everything.”
Getting down on my knees, I pressed my hands over hers, which rested on her belly. “I know. I know.”
I sought her lips, and she kissed me back with a tenderness I never wanted to forget.
I’d finally broken through to her.
And my heart was fucking breaking because it didn’t make a single damn bit of difference.
****
Back at Thunder Road, the Thanksgiving brouhaha was in full swing.
I wasn’t really in the mood, but when was I ever? I definitely needed a drink though.
I’d taken Grace back to the cathouse. And that left an empty pit where my heart should’ve been.
I grabbed onto the good moments just so I could keep myself standing upright instead of keeling over from the pain grabbing me from the inside.
The good moments with Grace . . . like the unselfconscious way she had of pulling me out of my silence, even making me chuckle.
Her glorious body, which she gave me the honor of touching, of knowing.
Her radiant satisfaction.
Her overwhelming joy.
And her fierce mother-love I’d never compete with.
With Grace on my mind—her scent spinning around me and her flavor still in my mouth—I walked into the bar with less of a scowl and more of a smile. Or what passed as one for me.
Angel swung toward me wearing an expression I was familiar with.
Oh yeah, a glare coupled with a grimace.
“You missed Sol’s meal. Where the fuck have you been all day.”
“Jesus.” I accepted a glass of bourbon from the prospect. “You the new den mother in town or what?”
“We had family Thanksgiving and you missed it.” Mercy hit me with her big gold-brown eyes, and I couldn’t be pissy with her.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
Revenge smirked, because he liked it when someone was in the shithouse instead of him.
And he’d brought his Doublemint Twins back for an encore of riding his cock.
“Well?” Angel pressed.
“Visiting my grandma.”
“Fuck that. Bet you don’t even have a grandmother. You were probably hatched from a soldier cyborg egg.” Saint pulled a hand down over his goatee.
Soldier cyborg egg?
Maybe I should take that as a compliment.
Lennox—the big silent type—sat on the edge of a table, almost toppling the whole thing over, as he watched me get interrogated. Meanwhile the lumbersexuals and their boyfriends and girlfriends—oh, look, Batman and Robin unmasked!—saluted the holiday with their smoke-puffers, vape-sticks, and stiff gasoline-style drinks.
Saint ambled closer, sniffing all over me like a police dog.
Then he triumphantly crowed, “Bullshit. You look like you finally got some use out of your cock.”
Swilling down the last of my bourbon, I murmured, “I found Grace.”
“What was that?” Saint stared holes through me.
“I fucking found Grace!” I bellowed. “And I’d appreciate it if you kept your rude comments to yourself, motherfucker.”
Shit, I’d vowed I wouldn’t say anything.
Now I’d just blurted it out to the whole goddamn bar.
But screw it. These were dire straights.
And I was goddamn tired of lying to everyone, keeping everything bottled up inside.
Silence ranged from Blood Legion member to member as the news traveled.
Meanwhile, the Man Bun groupies whispered among themselves.
Angel let out a glass-shattering whistle.
Even deeper silence echoed.
“Out! Everyone out!” Angel ordered, blue eyes trained on me as Mercy—standing right beside him—cupped her hands over her mouth.
One of the flannel trendsters shook his glass filled with a poisonous looking concoction. “But I haven’t finished my—”
“Pussy drink,” Chase the probie muttered.
“Do I look like I give a flying motherfuck?” Angel stalked to the door and banged it open. “Take your hookahs and your top-knots—”
“Top-knots?” Revenge asked.
“Motherfucking man buns and Get . . . Out.”
“Here’s a tip, bro.” Another of the dudes-in-glasses slipped Angel a twenty.
“A tip?” Confusion crossed Angel’s face. “For shutting the bar early?”
“Hell yeah. Closing down at ten in New Orleans? Epic marketing tactics, dude. Wicked. There’ll be a line down the road to get in here tomorrow night once we spread the word about how off-limits this place is.”
I blew out a breath then refilled my glass.
This was gonna be a long night.
No one said a word until all the civilians had vacated the premises.
Mercy dashed tears from her eyes, coming up to draw my big paw into her hands. “She’s alive?”
I nodded.
Angel wasn’t quite as happy-clappy. “How long have you known.”
“Since just before Halloween.”
The Blood Legion prez looked like he wanted to slam his fist through a table or straight down my throat.
Couldn’t blame him.
“It was that flyer at Tit for Tat, wasn’t it” Angel asked.
I nodded, tugging my hand back from Mercy’s grip.
Saint hollered, “I fucking knew it!”
“Yeah. Well don’t congratulate yourself yet, bro.” Plunking down on a chair, I hunched forward. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry most of all to you, Mercy.”
She curled up inside Angel’s protective embrace. “She made you promise, didn’t she?”
I nodded.
“You don’t have to explain.” Mercy’s lilting tone soothed some of my prickliness.
But then Angel gnashed out, “Like hell he doesn’t.”
“I second that.” Revenge’s hard edge came out, like he had skin in the game.
“Look. She’s at the brothel, and maybe it isn’t as nasty as the Lair—not to an outsider. But this isn’t Grace’s choice. She never had a choice. Ned fucking sold her that night when we went back for all the women.
“She never had a chance to escape.” Something raw and wounded seeped into my voice.
Everyone shut up.
“She’s point blank refused my help . . . our help. It’s taken me this long just to get her to open up the tiniest bit.” The biggest bit, but that’s between Grace and me, and no one else.
“Is she healthy?” Mercy’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears.
“Off the drugs. No drinking.” Nothing like that, in fact.
But her predicament was even more sinister than anyone could imagine.
“We’ll get her back then. We’ve done this kind of thing before. Just need a plan, that’s all.” Angel paced back and forth.
“It’s not that easy.” Standing, I stopped the blond man in his tracks.
“Why not? She’s there against her will. What the fuck, Slade?”
The whole goddamn chorus chimed in—even Lennox raised his voice.
“She’s fucking pregnant!” I cut through their protests just as Sol stepped into the bar.
He joined up with me, the wise old man adding more weight to the moment.
“She’s four months pregnant,” I added more quietly.
“Is it yours?” Angel asked.
“Jesus Christ no! Can’t you do math?” I took another slug of bourbon. Then I whispered, “But I wish it was.”
Sol laid a hand on my shoulder.
Mercy’s tears dripped to her chin, and Angel wrapped her close to him, drying her eyes.
“Whose is it then?” Mercy’s question speared right to the heart of the matter.
“The dickhead’s who owns the brothel.” My face hardening, I gritted my teeth. “Basically forcefully impregnated her. She’s too scared to leave because he’s the actual biological father. The fucking sickest thing”—blistering anger dragged up my darkest hate—“he still whores her out. Charges more, in fact, because she’s in the family way.”
For men who’d seen hell, who’d fought tooth and nail and through blood and guts for their lives and those they loved—much like my Marine brethren—the Blood Legion soldiers were stricken.
Sickened.
Even though more tears tipped off Mercy’s eyelashes, she drew up strong. “I always said Grace was a survivor, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
“’Course. Like you, cher.”
“So, what could be worse than my kinfolk or the White Lair?”
Except even Sol looked nauseated now that he knew the full details.
Sitting back down, I splayed my scarred tatted hands on the table. “It is worse, Mercy. This guy . . . Roark Finnegan . . . he’s a goddamn businessman and a local politician. He’s running for fucking mayor. It isn’t like we can just mow him and his cronies down. There’s some deeply connected, deep human trafficking shit going on here.”
The heavy truth made everyone buckle down to chairs around the table.
Chase brought over a new bottle and plentiful glasses.
I kicked out a seat for him. “Take a pew, prospect.”
Angel glowered at him. “This doesn’t mean you’re getting your colors though.”
We didn’t clink our drinks as we downed them one by one.
I’d basically just made this a totally dysfunctional family holiday, singlehandedly.
Par for the course or whatever.
I didn’t tell them Grace and I had a relationship.
That I’d . . . made love to her.
And I didn’t tell them about the safe house, although Angel knew of its existence.
Angel spoke first. “What do we do now?”
“You all sit back and act normal—”
“Normal?” Saint questioned.
“While I try to figure out a way to un-fuck this thing without endangering Grace or her baby.” Swigging down the last of my drink, I left the room.
****
Several days later, I still had no firm solution.
What I did have was a final memory of Helai. It came to me in a dream instead of the usual nightmares.
Dawn broke across a great desert, coloring the vast land in yellow that glowed.
I sat slightly behind Helai. I saw her in profile. She was covered head to toe in the burqa, and I could only make out the tilt of her nose and the fall of her eyelashes lined in the sun’s golden rays.
“Allahu Akbar.” She said then a smile lifted the shadow of her dark covering. “God is great, Mister Slade.”
In that moment I knew grace.
And with Grace, I might find peace.
Not that I believed in signs or anything . . .
Chapter Ten
GRACE
AFTER THANKSGIVING, I KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt Killian wouldn’t stay away long. From what I’d learned—all he’d told me in his succinct way—he wasn’t the type to just fuck a woman for the fun of it.
When I really thought about being with him, I realized it wasn’t just fucking at all. What we’d done had gone deeper, brought me more pleasure than I’d believed possible.
Mistress Bunny smirked knowingly every time she escorted Killian to my rooms. We’d kiss and we’d touch until want, desire, passion climbed up inside us, burning as hot as any fire ever could. Tongues writhing, lips caressing, hands feeling and discovering and teasing to the point of tortured arousal, we’d stop just short of making love. I wouldn’t have him that way in this room, on that bed, which Roark had sullied.
“Fuck.” Breath rushed in and out of Killian’s wide chest one night after I’d slipped my hand down the front of his jeans.
He rocked up into my hold, the long throbbing thickness of his shaft rising up from the open placket of his pants. “I want you so goddamn badly right now. Going out of my mind for you, Grace.”
I leaned over him, and flicked my tongue across the shiny weeping slit of his cock.
Just to taste him again.
I fell in love with his grunts. With the ruddy coloring of greedy arousal on his cheeks. With the hooded blue of his eyes.
And when it became too much—and it always did—we’d separate. We’d put our clothes back together. We’d sit and hold hands and talk, but nothing was definite, and everything was still so complicated.
The night he truly melted my heart was when he showed up with a sheepish grin, color already splashed across his cheeks in a rare flush.
“What have you done?” I’d teasingly accused.
“Who? Me?” He tried to look innocent, which he just couldn’t pull off.
Then he’d produced something from inside his jacket.
It was a tiny gift bag decorated in pastel bunnies, and tears had sprung to my eyes. My hands shaking, I’d lifted out a plush teddy bear with hand-stitched eyes.
Killian stood there awkwardly. “Not very practical, like one of those sucky-things—”
“A pacifier?”
“Yeah. One of those. But I mean, babies like cuddly things, right? And it was . . . cute or something.”
I’d flung my arms around his neck, squishing the teddy between us as I curled up to kiss him softly on the lips.
When Killian tipped his head back, his eyes shone brightly. “Guess that’s a ye
s then.”
So he continued, bringing me little trinkets like adorable baby booties and tiny little onesies. Books that when opened played nursery rhymes and a little knit cap covered in bright yellow duckies.
Just the thought of this big somber military man going into baby shops and picking up items for a layette . . . swoon. I bet he didn’t even know what a layette was—a thought that made me giggle. Yet I wished for nothing more than to be with him. To go shopping with him for all the special items a newborn needed.
To nest and make a home and a life, which was never to be mine.
I hid the gifts away from prying eyes, taking the presents out one by one on the darkest days when I needed something to hold onto.
The darkest days when I knew Roark would come for me.
Those times with Roark made me feel filthy. Dirty. Disgusting.
I couldn’t openly defy him. So I concentrated instead on Killian who made me feel honored and protected and important.
Two weeks after Thanksgiving, Roark appeared in my rooms, frenetic energy pinging off him like electricity.
It was a morning. On a Monday.
Not his usual time.
Not his usual day.
“I’ve planned a very special outing for you today, Gracie.” He pulled his thumbs down the lapels of his overcoat.
Then he propelled me toward the door.
“An outing? Should I get changed?” I wore nothing but the usual garb, a nearly sheer dress, which showed a brazen amount of cleavage, and open-toed heels I hated.
“No need, cher. Once a whore always a whore no matter what your Mr. Slade says. No need to hide your true colors where we’re going.”
Sudden apprehension shivered over me.
Where we’re going . . . my true colors.
“Here.” Roark slid a warm cape over my shoulders. “That should do.”
He led me through the bordello as if I were prime beef, winking at the other women he enslaved, stopping to tip one of their heads this way or that and critiquing their general appearances and/or lack of sensual charms.
Outside, he hurried me into a shiny sleek car, advised me to buckle in, and sped off.
He wore a secret grin during the entire ride, which made my stomach curdle.
I didn’t ask any questions. I couldn’t make a dash for it when he stopped at red lights. And I hated his clean-cut profile and the perfectly manicured fingers he tapped on the leather steering wheel.