Page 63 of Heart of Stone

We're at the hospital. She's in ICU.

Andi

Don't bother calling. I've got it handled.

The last message is from Ginger.

Ginger

I get it, Hawk. Club business comes first. But not like this. Andi and that baby needed you tonight, and you left her to go in that ambulance alone. You better pray that baby is okay, asshole. Because if anything happens to her, Andi will never forgive you.

"Fuck," I breathe, already moving to my bike.

"Hawk?" Lee calls after me. "We need to?—"

"Handle it," I snap, kickstarting my engine. "I've got somewhere I need to be."

But even as I roar through the pre-dawn streets, I know it's too late.

I'd made my choice. I'd put the club first.

And for the first time in my life—that was the wrong fucking choice.

16

ANDI

Isit in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside Abby's bed, watching my tiny niece—my daughter in every way that matters—breathe with the help of an oxygen mask. Her dark curls are damp with sweat, her little chest rising and falling rapidly.

Croup, they'd said. A bad case that had come on suddenly in the middle of the night.

I run my thumb over her small, soft hand, my chest tightening as panic gnaws at the edges of my composure. I'd woken up to her choking cough, the sound so sharp and unfamiliar it sliced straight through the fog of sleep. There hadn't been time to think—only to act. I'd grabbed the kids, bundled them into my car, and driven to the hospital in nothing but sweatpants and adrenaline.

We'd had to pull over halfway there, her lips blue. I'd held her, trying to keep all three kids calm while waiting for an ambulance. An ambulance that finally came to take us all the way.

The clubhouse had been empty. Hawk was nowhere, the prospects had scattered to God knows where, and I'd been alone.

Again.

Just like always.

I should've been used to it by now—should've known that, when things fell apart, no one would be there to catch me.

That is the hardest part to admit, the thing that burns hot and unforgiving in my chest. I can't rely on anyone. I never have been able to, not really. It doesn't matter how much they promise, how many sweet lies they whisper when the world is quiet and the sky is dark.

When it comes down to it, I am the one who has to hold everything together, the one who has to keep Abby safe.

And I will.

Because I have no other choice.

I've always handled things myself. It looks like it's time to admit that the last few weeks have been a blip. A false sense of security.

I won't make that mistake again.

Amy is curled up asleep in the chair beside me, exhausted from crying. Adam dozes in his carrier at my feet. Four AM and I am alone with three kids in a hospital, one of them fighting to breathe.

I'd called him. God help me, I'd called him over and over, convinced he'd see my messages and swoop in light a knight in shining armor.