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H aving the Marx family as allies has its fucking perks. And one of them is their private army led by Seth Riggs, who just happens to have a couple of explosive experts.

As the small building next to the chapel explodes, flames and debris flying in every direction, my men and I burst through the chapel doors, guns raised, ready to paint the walls red.

As we open fire on any motherfucker that stands between me and my wife, I shoot, reload, and fucking shoot again, picking off the congregation of armed men, one by one, filling them with lead before they can get a fucking shot off.

Then I hear it. My wife’s scream.

It cuts through the air from the other end of the chapel, but with the sea of men between us, this small space suddenly feels too fucking big.

“Fuck you!” JD roars, fury ripping through his voice.

He’s fuelled by what they did to Jols, and he starts blowing heads off without a second fucking thought as we move as a unit, deeper into the chapel.

“Three females spotted exiting the rear.”

Riggs’ voice hits my ear through the comms, always too fucking calm given the chaos around us.

“Don’t shoot them!” I bark, knowing he can hear me, and he responds instantly.

“Copy that.”

Ian Allen bursts through the sea of men, armed with a fucking fully automatic machine gun, and the moment he starts firing, we have no fucking choice but to dive for cover.

“Two males exiting the rear,” Riggs announces in my ear, but when I shout, “shoot them,” I get nothing but static.

“Fuck. Someone kill that fucker!” Smitty roars from somewhere behind me as Allen sprays bullets our way.

The doors burst open behind us, and I swear time fucking slows as Vender, the crazy fucker, strolls in with a fucking rocket launcher.

Everyone’s eyes fucking widen at the sight, and a beat later, we all scramble for cover right before Vender unleashes hell.

The blast rips through the air like thunder, and rubble rains down on us in a cloud of dust.

I’m already moving, scrambling back out the chapel doors, my fucking heart nearly in my throat.

Abbey. I need to get to my Angel.

“Riggs. Can you hear me?” I bark into the comms, sticking my finger in my ear to nudge the earpiece, but still, I get nothing but static.

“Fuck. I think comms are down,” JD pants, stumbling through the doors behind me. Smoke clings to him, blood smeared on his shirt, but his determined eyes are locked onto mine.

“We gotta find Abbey. She’s the top priority.” I tell him something he already knows, but he nods anyway.

I take off running, with JD on my heels, rounding the crumbling walls of the chapel, desperate to lay eyes on my wife.

A terrified scream echoes through the trees behind the chapel, and I fucking bolt that way, my gaze scanning wildly, my legs pumping fast.

“Abbey!” I shout, skidding to a stop, my chest heaving so hard I can barely hear over the thunder of my own pulse.

“Ringo!”

My Angel!

She can hear me.

Darting to my left, I chase the desperation in her voice, crashing through the shrubs and trees like a fucking freight train.

The sound of heavy feet pounding the forest floor up ahead, has me running faster, twigs snapping as angry male voices yell something I can’t make out.

“Fuck. Someone’s on her tail,” JD barks beside me, keeping pace.

“Let’s fucking end this,” I snarl, eyes trained forward, my blood boiling, my muscles primed to inflict the worst kind of punishment.

“Over there!” JD points to my right, and I spot the flash of a white dress moving east with two males closing in.

Changing direction, I point and shoot blindly towards the men, losing sight of them a second later when they disappear down an incline .

I don’t stop. I keep fucking running, pushing my thirty-three year old body to its fucking limit.

Another piercing scream rips from Abbey’s lungs, only this time, it’s laced with pain.

As I slide down the incline, I spot the men up ahead, standing over something.

“Fuck! I didn’t mean to!” one of them shouts, and as I get closer, I can tell it’s Daniel Stone, fisting his hair as he freaks out.

“Shut the fuck up! They’ll hear us!” the other guy snarls, shoving Daniel aside.

In three more fucking strides, I’m already there, but my eyes shift from the men to something that stops my fucking heart…

My wife.

Curled in a ball on the leafy ground.

An agonising scream ripping from her lips.

No.

I step forward, momentarily stunned by the sight of crimson soaking through the white fabric of Abbey’s dress.

“Fuck, man. I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Daniel stammers, stumbling backwards, his eyes locked on me as he tries to scurry away.

His idiot mate—who I recognise as Craig McRoe, Daniel’s best mate… and one of Abbey’s rapists—hasn’t even noticed me standing right fucking beside him.

His attention is on my Abbey, his gaze unreadable and cold.

“Let’s just get her back to Banes,” Craig snaps. “He’ll know what to do with her…” His words trail off as his gaze finds me right fucking there.

His lips part to speak, but I lift my gun, jam the barrel underneath his chin, and pull the trigger.

He doesn’t even get a sound past his lying lips before his brains explode in a bloody shower, raining down over the shrubs and leaf covered ground. Then he crumbles like a sack of shit.

I don’t even spare a glance at Daniel’s retreating form as I drop to my knees beside Abbey.

“Angel,” I breathe, brushing her hair off her face, only to find it twisted in agony.

“I fell,” she gasps. “It hurts. The baby, Ringo. The baby!”

Fuck!

“You want me to go after Stone?” JD barks behind me, but I shake my head, my eyes scanning my wife, locking onto the blood pooling under her.

“No. Fuck,” I snap my frantic gaze to my best mate. “Help. We need help!”

I’m fucking shaking, the sight of all that blood mixed with the smell of the dirt rips me back to the day I found Kylie… and my daughter dead by her side.

“I’ll go get help. Watch your six,” JD calls over his shoulder as he bolts back towards the chapel, leaving me alone in the trees with my haemorrhaging wife.

“Hold on, Angel. Help is coming.” I force the words past the lump in my throat as I run my hands over her trembling form.

“It hurts so bad,” she whimpers into the dirt. “Something’s wrong.”

Wrong is an understatement given the amount of blood seeping through her dress.

Fuck. This can’t be happening.

Not again.

A guttural scream tears from Abbey’s throat, echoing through the trees, startling a flock of birds into the air .

Then, she starts panting.

“No. No,” she groans, slowly rolling onto her back as she clutches the swell of her bump. “It’s too soon. I can’t have my baby yet.”

“What can I do?” I reach for her, but hesitate, not sure what to fucking do. If I should touch her.

Think.

Fucking think.

Abbey starts panting, blowing air in short bursts, curling in on herself.

Fuck! Is she having the baby now?

“Check,” she cries, her caramel eyes wild. “I need you to check!”

“Check what?” My fucking eyes nearly bug out of my head, but I already know. I’m just freaking out too much to make sense of it.

Her trembling hands start dragging the blood soaked fabric of her dress up her thighs, and my fucking lungs seize up, like the oxygen around us has vanished.

“Oh my…” She heaves like she is bearing down before another scream rips from her lungs. “It’s coming!”

More screams. Nothing but fear-laced agony echoing off the fucking trees, bouncing around us like the whole forest is in pain with her.

My heart is fucking hammering in my chest like it’s ready to explode, agonising images from my past trying to slip into the present.

I don’t know what to do.

What the fuck do I do?

As panic claws at me, I slap my own fucking face, trying to knock some sense into myself.

Get your fucking shit together.

She needs you.

She fucking needs you!

Scrambling across the dirt and twigs, I position myself between her bent, parted legs, bracing myself for something I’ve never had to see or do before.

Her big caramel eyes lock with mine, and fuck me, the fear in them is like a violent storm, twisting within her beautiful orbs.

“I’m going to take a look, Angel. Hang on for me.”

My voice is fucking gritty, like I’ve swallowed half the dirt under us, but she must understand, because she nods frantically, her hands white-knuckling the fabric as she finishes dragging it up to her hips.

Fuck.

Blood.

There’s so much fucking blood.

Her underwear is soaked through, and when I see her struggling to tug the drenched fabric down, I take over, gently pulling it down her legs and off her feet.

I’m not prepared…

I’m not fucking prepared for what I see.

Oh fuck.

How is her body even doing this?

“They are over there!” JD’s voice calls from somewhere behind me, but it feels like his voice, along with Abbey’s screams, are another world away.

This can’t be happening.

No .

My beautiful Angel.

“Fuck, get out of the way!” a gruff voice shouts, before strong hands start dragging me back.

I start swinging fists, wild with rage at whoever would fucking dare to harm my Angel when she’s already suffering so much, but I freeze the second I realise it’s JD and Murf.

They hold me back, keeping me out of the way as two of the Marx security team drop to the ground and start working on my wife like they have a fucking clue what they are doing.

“Abbey, my name is Dylan, and this is Clive. We’re trained medics,” one says with a level of calm that has Abbey nodding.

“Help me!” she screams, clutching her stomach with another guttural cry.

“Fuck. I can see the head,” Clive barks, already on the phone.

The head.

Did he just say he can see the head?

Shit, was that what I was looking at before? Her baby’s head?

“No!” Abbey cries, her head snapping towards me where JD and Murf still hold me back. “Ringo! It’s too early! I can’t have my baby yet!”

Ripping free of my club brothers’ grips, I stumble to my knees beside her, taking her cold trembling hand in mine, before she squeezes the fucking life out of it.

“I know it’s too early, Angel. But it looks like your baby is coming…” I glance at Dylan between her legs, and he gives me a nod. “So he or she needs you to be strong, yeah?”

Even though she’s crying and there’s more terror on her face than I’ve ever seen, she nods, panting through what I can only assume is another contraction.

Fuck, I don’t even know. This is all so fucking new to me.

Why didn’t I read a book on this stuff?

Why didn’t I prepare?

I thought I had more time .

I thought we had more fucking time!

“Get a van out here! We can’t wait for the ambulance!” Clive snaps into the phone as Dylan’s hands disappear between Abbey’s legs.

“Abbey, your baby is coming fast,” Dylan warns. “It looks small, so he or she is coming right fucking now .”

“Cam,” she whimpers, taking a shaky breath as her terrified gaze meets mine. “Make sure they save my baby. Promise me.”

I nod, brushing her sweat soaked hair off her face, the strands clinging to her skin, as I swallow the fucking lump in my throat.

“Of course.”

“N-no… you don’t understand,” she sobs, curling in on herself again as pain lashes her from the inside out. “ Make sure they save my baby first. Before me .”

I stiffen.

“What?” I fucking squeak so high pitched, I swear I must have lost my nuts.

Did I hear her right?

“ Promise me! ”

Her scream is excruciating, a sound made of agony and raw terror as she starts bearing down again.

“Okay!” I shout back, because I don’t know what else to fucking say.

How the fuck am I supposed to mean that?

I can’t lose her. Ever!

How can she ask me to choose her baby… over her?