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CHAPTER EIGHT

ANNA

I tilted my chin up defiantly and splayed my fingers protectively over my son. “I’m just over five months along.”

“It’s his ,” Jamie muttered, his face twisting with a rawness that made my heart thud painfully.

The words hit me square in the chest. What kind of woman did he think I was? Of course it was my husband’s baby.

“Well, it’s not yours, is it?” I bit back sarcastically.

He had the good sense to back down. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he breathed. “It’s just a shock.”

“What’s a shock?” I retorted. “That a married woman gets pregnant by her husband? Is that somehow distasteful in your world?” I punched my hand to my hip. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you stick a fucking chastity belt on me and save my womb for the second coming of Christ? Maybe an immaculate conception would be more acceptable for your delicate sensibilities.”

Breaker snorted loudly.

Hendrix glanced at him, then back to me. The silence that ensued was so loud it made my ears ring. The air between us thickened, and he stared at me as if I’d somehow betrayed him, even though I hadn’t.

It was Jamie who chose this, so he had no right to look at me like I’d wronged him somehow.

“You knew I always wanted kids,” I reminded him gently.

He nodded because he did know that, the same way I always knew he’d never give them to me, a fact I discovered when my period was ten days late and I told him I needed to take a pregnancy test. He proceeded to inform me he didn’t want to be a dad, and then I didn’t see him for six weeks, even though the test was negative.

I found out from Cara and Layla that he’d disappeared to Virginia and neglected to inform me he was moving away to start a new club, thus ending our relationship.

Asshole.

“Look, we gotta get outta here. My boys have your ol’ man contained downstairs, and the Feds will be storming the place any minute. I don’t want you around that bullshit.”

My head reared back, and a frisson of fear ran down my spine. “Antoni’s here? Did he see you? I assumed he was out, and you’d managed to sneak in.”

Hendrix grimaced. “Well...”

I let out an audible sigh, holding a hand up to stop his big mouth from talking and pissing me off even more than he already had. “Save it. I don’t want to argue, especially since I’m thankful you’ve come for me.” My voice took on a pleading quality. “I know we need to talk, but now’s obviously not the time. Can we please just leave?”

He jerked his chin, his eyes cold as they rested on my stomach. “I’ll go back downstairs and finish up. Break will bring you down when you’re ready. Move your ass. We need to get the fuck outta here before the cops make a nuisance of ‘emselves.”

My eyebrows pulled together. “Why would the cops come? Did you call them?”

Hendrix’s face hardened, and he snapped, “For once, Anna, can you do as I ask and stop asking inane shit?”

That one landed deep in the heart. “Right,” I murmured, my wounded tone conveying how much Jamie’s words stung. I turned my back on him and moved toward my bed, where I’d left my clothes while I washed up. “Give me two minutes, and I’ll?—”

“What the fuck’s that on your neck?” he barked.

My body locked.

Shit.

“Driiix,” Breaker drew the word out, warning in his tone.

I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to block out the sound of the ensuing scuffle and muffled curses. Breaker muttered something and then I tensed as gentle hands rested on my shoulders, and soft lips touched the bruised skin of my nape.

“When?” he breathed in my ear from behind.

Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I wasn’t tearful because my husband had beaten me. The reason I felt like sobbing was that, for the first time in months, somebody had touched me with love and care. Having that back, even fleetingly, made me realize how much I’d missed it.

“Last night,” I whispered.

“Has it happened before?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You know that’s a hard line for me.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. I closed my eyes again as soft fingertips trailed over the discoloration on my neck. “Have you seen a doctor?”

I shook my head again. “He wouldn’t let me, but I seem okay. My son’s been kicking the hell out of me all day. I still want to check on things, though, so I’ll contact Sophie the minute I get home.”

“Son?”

“Yeah.” I smiled fondly. “My boy.”

“Right,” he responded tightly, the hardness creeping back into his tone. “Congrats, babe. Know this is what you always wanted.” His hands fell from my shoulders, and my heart withered at the loss of his warmth. “Move your ass, Anna. We gotta jet.”

I felt him move away, and I couldn’t stop my neck from craning to watch him leave. My stare swept down his back, taking in the broad width of his shoulders and the muscles rippling under his tight black shirt as he stalked away from me.

I’d always loved Jamie’s back. I used to wake up early and turn over in bed just to study it. He reminded me of a Roman statue carved by the gods. His body was a pure work of art, perfectly inked and perfectly proportioned.

I got a good look at his back the last time I saw him, too. But then, I guess that was always the last thing you got from somebody when they walked away.

And Jamie was good at that.

“You okay?” Breaker asked gently.

My gaze slid from the door to him, and I smiled ruefully. “I will be.”

“Yeah.” He grinned and shot me a conspiratorial wink. “Reckon you will.” He jerked his thumb in the same direction Hendrix had walked. “I’ll wait outside while you get dressed.”

I nodded my thanks, watching as he walked to my closet, grabbed my small case, and slipped silently from the room.

The instant he disappeared, I let out a quiet sob and blew out a hard breath. “Keep it together, Anna,” I whispered to myself. “Just for a few hours longer.” Tears filled my eyes, and I sucked in air through my nose, trying to calm myself down.

I hadn’t felt this way in so long, even though the last few days had been emotionally tough. Of course I was feeling tearful. It wasn’t every day you discovered your husband had lied through his teeth to you for years about his job and then got violent when you asked him for a divorce. Plus, pregnancy hormones were kicking my ass, and I was worried sick about my baby.

Things hadn’t been working between me and my husband for a while. I’d just gotten to the point where I’d resigned myself to the fact my marriage was over, but then I got pregnant and felt I owed it to the baby to at least try to make it work.

My husband was often stressed and frustrated, and I knew to give him a wide berth, but I never dreamed he’d put his hands on me.

I called Tristan and asked him to speak to our friends about helping to get home, but I assumed a few Speed Demons would come, knock on the door, and strong-arm Antoni into letting me leave. What I never expected was for my ex-lover to stalk into my bedroom all commando-like, looking like a hot, long-haired, sexy man bun-esque, heavily tattooed James Bond, and break me out in the dead of night.

Would I have loved to see Hendrix when I was living my best life so he regretted the day he left me?

Yes.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. I wasn’t in a position to send Hendrix on his way. I had to suck it up, put my pride to one side, and take the help he offered, if only to get my baby safe. And if that meant looking like a sad loser in front of my ex, then I’d just have to deal with it because I couldn’t stay here for another minute.

I wanted my life back the way it used to be before I got my heart ripped out. No more men, no more love. I’d learned my lesson the hard way too many times. All I needed was myself and my baby. I’d be content with a quiet life full of friends and my own little family.

Hendrix had been blowing hot and cold since the day I met him. Some things never changed because even just then, when he’d walked in, he was sweet to me, but the second the man saw my baby bump, he turned.

Drix used to do this to me all the time. My head spun with it most days, and it screwed me up for a while because I grew so desensitized to it that it eventually became the norm when really there was nothing normal about it, especially when all I wanted was a healthy, loving relationship.

Hell to the fucking no.

That was not the way this was gonna go.

Jamie was pissed I was pregnant because he probably thought if I was single, it would leave the path clear for him to toy with me again. Except things wouldn’t be so simple if I had a baby. He could hardly roll into town on a whim to visit his booty call when I had a child to care for.

For most of our rollercoaster ride, Hendrix had treated me like a second thought. I gave him so many chances to sort his head out but he threw everything back in my face. Thank God I came to my senses and stopped putting up with his bullshit.

My jaw hardened, and I tilted my chin up with a renewed sense of determination as I reached for the pile of clothes I’d laid out on the bed.

The sooner I got out of here and returned to my old life, the sooner I could put all these asshole men with their mommy issues behind me.

Hendrix

Iceman took one look at the set of my jaw and folded his beefy arms across his rock-hard chest while he watched me descend the stairs. “You need to calm the fuck down, Jimmy.”

Trust him to know, and trust him to understand where my head was at.

“Say again?” I retorted. “You think I can stand down after seeing the state of her fucking neck?”

“I get ya, brother, but let’s not get it twisted. It’s not just her neck making you pissed; it’s also her belly.”

My gut stabbed painfully.

I could always trust Ice to cut to the chase. It was why he was my friend, although at that moment I could’ve punched his fat mouth. Anything to stop him from flapping his gums.

“You got what you asked for, brother,” he went on. “This is what you wanted. You can’t blame her for living her life. She tried to help get you there and probably for longer than she should’ve, but you still ran like the goddamned wind.”

My foot hit the bottom step, and I snarled, “Shut the fuck up, Iceman.” My sneakers squeaked on the hard tile floor as I stomped past my brother and headed back into the kitchen, sliding my knife from its holder as I went.

My insides shook, and my chest felt as if it were on fire. All I could see in my mind was the bruising across the top of Anna’s back and her nape. He must have punched her hard for it to bruise so badly and from behind too. How the fuck could a man walk up behind a woman and sucker punch her, and when she was carrying his fucking kid, too? What kind of weak-assed, pathetic excuse for a man would hurt the woman he’d promised to love and protect before God?

The hard set of my jaw ticked as I approached the brothers still on their knees with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

The second Antoni Lis saw my face, he knew. I’d warned him what would happen if he screwed Anna over.

All color drained from his face, and he opened his mouth to protest, but I didn’t give him a chance to get a word out. The knife in my hand glinted in the overhead light, and with a snarl, I thrust it into the side of his neck and twisted.

A whimper left his throat, followed by a loud, gargling sound. Lis’s eyes rounded as he stared up at me in pure shock. Blood oozed down the butt of the knife and onto my gloves, and I dug the blade in harder. I leaned down to ensure he could hear me. “I warned you,” I rasped, satisfaction coursing through me as I stood and stared Anna’s fuckhead husband straight in the eyes while he suffocated on his own blood.

When his stare turned vacant, I tugged the knife from his neck, allowing him to drop to the floor. Then I stooped down to the dead body, tugged up one of Lis’s hands, and sliced it clean off.

A pained, animalistic wail from Leon Lis filled the room, and he began to struggle against Picasso’s hold. “I’ll fucking hunt you down,” he screamed, his accented voice almost impossible to understand through his rage. “I won’t stop until I find you and that bitch whore and?—”

I nodded at Picasso, who lifted his gun to the asshole’s temple and pulled the trigger. A muffled pop from the silenced weapon sounded, and Leon’s body fell sideways to the floor, landing with a thud.

“Shall I take his hand?” Picasso asked.

“Leave it,” I replied. “Antoni is the money man so it’s more likely he’d be the one skimming. Taking Leon’s would be overkill.” My lips twitched. “Excuse the pun.”

Gambit snickered.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here,” I muttered, throwing Lis’s hand onto his dead body. I tapped my earpiece to open comms. “We’re done here, Colt.”

“Good timing,” he fired back. “Philly PD just received a call from Lis’s neighbor reporting a disturbance. They’re sending a unit out to check on things. We need to get you the fuck outta here, then get back to head up the investigation. PPD shouldn’t get involved—they know this is a Federal case—but I wanna be one of the first on the scene in case they start nosing around.”

“We’ll be out in three,” I muttered, closing comms and turning toward Gambit. “Did you find any evidence?”

He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a soft voice coming from the door.

“There’s a safe in a small basement below the garage. If you walk to the back, you’ll see a cart of tools. It’s underneath there. Toni keeps—I mean... Toni, umm kept his important papers there with his ledgers. I took pictures of everything on an old phone and posted it to Tristan about six weeks ago, just in case anything happened to me.”

My face swiveled toward Anna, who stood at the open door alongside Breaker.

“I needed leverage,” she continued, her eyes glued to the body of her dead husband. “Something I could use to protect me and the baby. I didn’t want his money; I just wanted my life back. I don’t suppose that matters now though...” Anna’s voice trailed off, and she let out a loud snort before she began to laugh.

My eyes narrowed on her, taking in her uncontrolled giggles. Her emotional state seemed almost manic, and it hit me that she was going into shock. But to be fair, her husband was lying dead on her expensive kitchen tile in a pool of his own blood with his hand cut off. Not exactly an everyday occurrence for anybody, especially Anna.

“What did you let her in here for?” I demanded.

“She heard everything when she walked downstairs,” Breaker retorted, his golden eyes flashing. “You weren’t exactly discrete about it. If you didn’t want her privy to the shit you do, maybe you should’ve waited until I got her ass outta here.”

“For real,” Iceman muttered.

My stare slashed toward him. “Get your ass into the garage with Gambit. Get what we need, then get the fuck out. We haven’t got time to fuck around; PPD are on their way.”

Ice nodded and made for the door leading to the attached garage with Gambit trailing him.

I turned back to Anna, noticing her maniacal laughter had stopped. She stood, staring down at her husband, her eyes glued to his face and her throat working as if she’d forgotten how to speak.

She’d lose it soon if I didn’t bring her out of it.

“Anna,” I called.

She ignored me.

“Anna,” I called louder.

She gave a start before turning slowly to look at me.

I held my arms out. “Come here.”

Her eyes lowered. “I can’t. You’ve got blood on your hands.” She thrust her fingers through her hair, and I didn’t miss the tremor in them. Then, she dropped her arm back to her side, and her body began to shake.

My heart contracted painfully. “I know this is hard for you, baby, and I get he’s the father of your kid, but I had no choice, not after he hurt you. I know you think I’m a monster, but he would’ve gone after you if I allowed him to live. If keeping you safe means I gotta get blood on my hands, I’m good with it, even if you’re not.”

“I didn’t mean it metaphorically, Jamie,” she whispered in a shaky voice. “I meant, you’ve literally got Toni’s blood on your hands, and I don’t want any part of him near my baby. I don’t care that you killed him. He threatened me with worse when I asked for a divorce. If it came down to a choice between him and my son, there’d be no contest.”

“You’re shaking,” I pointed out. “You’re in shock.”

“I never realized there’d be so much blood,” she murmured. “It’s gory as hell. Of course I’m fucking shaking. It’s gross.” Her eyes met mine. “Can we go now?”

I jerked my chin in agreement and watched Breaker take Anna’s elbow and guide her toward the door.

“Boss.”

I turned toward the sound of Gambit’s voice. He stood with his head around the door leading to the garage. “There’s a fuck ton of cash in this safe as well as his papers,” he informed me. “Do we grab it?”

I thought for a minute.

We were setting the scene up to look like a local street gang had hit the Lis brothers for skimming. There was no way they’d leave cash behind. They’d take what they reckoned was owed.

“Take it,” I ordered. “We’ll give it to a Philly drug rehab facility.”

Gambit chuckled and disappeared back into the garage, calling out, “Prez says take the cash. We’re playin’ Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor again.”

“Wasn’t that Batman and Robin?” Ice called out.

Gambit gave a snort. “Stop bein’ a nobhead. Batman fought the Joker and the Penguin. Never once saw him give a toss about poor people. He was rich as Midas.”

“Who?” Iceman inquired.

I tipped my head back and sighed.

Those two fuckers were yanking my chain while we were surrounded by dead men. The cops would be here any minute, so I needed to make sure we didn’t leave anything incriminating behind except for our bullets, which could never be traced back to us or our weapons, seeing as they’d be melted down within twenty-four hours. On top of that, Anna was going into shock, which was a problem at the best of times, even worse now that she was pregnant.

My heart jolted.

Anna is pregnant.

Fuck.

Shit, fuck, shit, shit, fuck.

Never in a million did I see that curveball being lobbed at my head, though maybe I should have because now I had all the facts, it was obvious why she was so desperate to leave and also explained why it had to happen so quickly.

Becoming a mom was everything she’d ever wanted, and there was no way it would’ve happened if she’d stayed with me. Anna was caring and nurturing. She took people under her wing and did all she could to help them—people like Layla and Tristan, who’d been cast out because of circumstance or just for being who they were. Anna deserved the chance to shower that care and attention on her own baby, which was another reason I gave her up.

Iceman was right. I did get what I asked for. Anna went out and lived her life with another man. She moved on while I stagnated and died a slow, painful, internal death without her. Antoni Lis was an asshole who abused her in every way he could, but at least he gave her something meaningful, which was more than I ever did.

Perched on my bike, atop that hill, and watching her come out of the church after marrying another man, I’d suddenly had the urge to ride down, accelerating as I went, and not stopping until I hit something at full force.

I’d been to places that God hadn’t touched in years. I’d slept in jungles while lying in shit, and on beaches, choking on sand and seawater. I’d trudged through icy mountains and dense forests, my face and body fucked up and bleeding from stray branches and the elements. I’d been chased through deserts and hidden in bogs while swallowing so much dirt and mud that I thought my lungs would collapse.

But I’d never felt more helpless than I did that day or more hopeless than I did the next.

And the crux of it all was that I could’ve stopped it.

Anna had told me weeks before how she’d always love me, and my ego thought that would be enough to stop her going through with it. Anna put up with a lot of my bullshit while I took my time getting with the program and coming to the realization that she was mine. It was a given that she’d get sick of my back-and-forth bullshit and move on.

But I was still shocked as shit when she did.

Jeez, I was such a fucking tool back then. Egotistical and entitled. I fucked around and found out to my cost. Women like Anna were the type to bend over backward to accommodate men like me, men who tried to work out what was important (in my case... her). However, she also wasn’t the pushover I played her for the instant I closed down communication. I’d moved away without even a conversation to explain my thought process, though if I was honest with myself, I’d played her way before that.

See? Tool. Egotistical. Entitled.

That was me all over.

You could add fucking dumbfuck, numbskull idiot into the equation, too.

But anyway... I digress.

When she walked out of that church with the bells ringing for the happy occasion and confetti falling around her beautiful face, my soul died. Although I’d given her no choice but to walk away, a part of me couldn’t believe what she’d done to me—to us.

With the burn of emotion sweeping through my throat like an out-of-control wildfire, I jerked my helmet on, revved up my ride, and got the hell out of there, suddenly feeling like a broken man.

That was three years ago, and I hadn’t seen her since, but I’d dreamed about her. Not at first—initially, I was so fucking mad at her that I did everything to prove to myself that I didn’t care; however, all I managed to prove was that I did care, more than I ever thought possible. Then, I kept telling myself it was for the best. Anna wanted kids and a family, and I wasn’t built that way. I lived my life wild and free, and all she wanted was to be tied to somebody.

It took me no time to realize I’d made the biggest mistake of my life; one I couldn’t rectify because she was married. Somebody else had given her everything she’d yearned for. Another man held her at night, and I had to accept he’d make her dreams of being a mother come true one day, too.

The most fucked-up thing about my big ol’ come-to-Jesus moment was that, in hindsight, giving Anna Bouchard a baby wouldn’t have been so bad.

In fact, it would’ve been beautiful.

It was true what everyone said... you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and Anna was definitely gone... until today.

And now I had a dilemma.

If I wanted Anna Bouchard in my life, I’d have to be raw and vulnerable, open up, soften, and fundamentally change who I was. I’d have to be wise, nurturing, steadfast, strong, unwavering, dedicated, and loving.

And now I’d also have to be something I never thought I’d be, something that frightened the bejesus outta me.

I’d have to be a father.

Fuck!