Page 13 of Reaping Havoc (Royal Bastards MC Tonopah, NV #21)

“ Y ou can’t do that!”

Several nurses yelled at me to stop, but I wouldn’t listen. I lifted Cameron and held her against my chest, refusing to believe she was gone. Lucifer wouldn’t fucking do that to me. He wouldn’t fucking take my wife from me.

I signed his contract. I fucking reaped souls.

I did every motherfucking thing he asked.

They kept shouting for me to stop, but this was a free country, and I could do whatever the fuck I wanted with my wife. I carried her out of the hospital and noticed my club brothers behind me. They had my back.

Hannibal carried my newborn son in a carrier and walked behind me. My son stirred, but didn’t cry, like he waited for his mama to wake up.

I couldn’t ride with Cameron and a baby. Just before I had a chance to panic, Zane pulled up with an SUV from our club’s auto shop business. Relieved, I ticked my chin at him in greeting when Jigsaw opened the door and I climbed inside, adjusting with Cameron on the bench.

She wasn’t cold, and she hadn’t turned stiff. That fact alone gave me hope. Was it cruel? Maybe.

But if she was dead, I would have seen signs that she had left me completely.

“I can feel her,” I explained as Zane pulled away from the curb, and the steady thrum of motorcycle engines followed us onto Hwy 95.

“Then maybe she’s not gone,” he responded.

“I know she isn’t.”

The entire ride, I spoke to her, brushed her hair away from her face, and held her hand. Was the warmth slowly fading? Hard to tell. In my mind, it lingered like she fought to stay with me.

When we arrived at The Crossroads, I allowed one of my club brothers to hold her as I exited the vehicle, and then I carried her into the clubhouse. I didn’t bother going to my room. Instead, I took her into the chapel. It was a sacred spot to the club and one that felt right.

Gently, I placed her on the surface, anxious as I asked Zane to find a pillow for her head. Once I placed it beneath her, she appeared as some fictional princess awaiting love’s first kiss—cheesy shit.

But I didn’t care about that. Not if it meant she would wake up, and I could stare into her eyes as I held her.

Someone placed my son beside her, and I unbuckled him, lifting him out as he blinked up at me.

“This is your mama, Liam.”

I lowered him to Cam’s chest, and he began to cry as he smelled her. A part of me felt like she would open her eyes and smile, reaching for our son. It should have happened that way.

It didn’t. Cameron didn’t stir.

Nothing happened for hours. I fed Liam. Changed him. Rocked him. He slept in the carrier.

But I never left that chapel.

“You need to wake up, angel. Liam needs you.”

Fuck.

“I need you, Cam. Come back to me.”

I pleaded. Begged. Bargained with Lucifer.

All to no avail.

In a fit of temper, I shoved my fist into a wall. I only succeeded in scaring Liam. He settled down as I picked him up, trying to soothe my son while my heart was breaking.

“Don’t leave us, Cam. Please.”

The chapel became a revolving door of club members and ol’ ladies trying to help. They took care of Liam, but I refused any offer that extended to me.

I left to use the restroom and ignored the pang of hunger gnawing at my gut. None of this mattered without her. It couldn’t.

A sob left my chest as I lowered my head, and tears dripped onto her arm. “I can’t do this, Cameron. You hear me? I won’t raise him without you.”

Outside the room, the bar was quiet. At three in the morning, most members were in bed.

“Cam,” I begged. “Don’t wake up for me if you don’t want to, but do it for Liam. Please. Come back so we can raise our son.”

He was so tiny. Seven pounds. Twenty inches long. I memorized everything about his birth. He was perfect.

“Chrome.”

I looked up from where I perched on my knees beside Cam.

“Noah.” His voice broke.

No. He couldn’t tell me the truth. I wouldn’t hear it.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

His chin dropped. “I know.”

The ground beneath us began to quake in my grief. I knew it was my odd ability to manipulate the dirt, rocks, and debris underneath the floor. It shifted as I remained in place.

And then something in the air changed. It sounded like the wind at first, but grew in pitch and intensity. Everything around us became engulfed in the shrill sound. The ringing took over, invading my ability to see, think, or move.

I felt my club brothers fill the room and knew when my blood brother joined us.

He sank to the floor beside me, hugging me against him like he could steal my pain and wear it like armor.

When every member was inside the chapel, the ringing stopped. Only an echo was left behind as I blinked, and then I saw a man lounging on the table beside Cam.

Lucifer. That fucking devil.

“Bring her back!” I roared as I shot to my feet. “Do it. Now!”

“So demanding.” He winked at me and turned to Rael. “Ah. Quite the little stunt earlier, huh? I wonder how you have the ability to produce your own hellfire. Is it possible someone gifted you with it so you can reap souls in a hurry?”

Rale flipped him off.

Lucifer chuckled. “Such emotion in this room.” He inhaled. “Suffering. Vengeance. Blood. Death. Sacrifice.”

We all ignored him.

“We should meet like this more often.”

“No,” Grim growled. “We won’t. The chapel is sacred. Even you know that.”

“I do.” He played with a strand of Cameron’s hair. “I have a new deal to make if anyone is interested.”

It sounded like a trap, and Rael told him so.

Lucifer waved him off. “I’m only speaking to Chrome now.”

I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I wanted Cameron alive more than my pride. “What is it?”

“Leave Tonopah. Start a new chapter of Reapers in another start. Go anywhere you want other than Nevada.”

“Why?” I wondered.

“Because I’m bored.”

I wanted to punch him in the throat.

His lips twitched. “You lot never need amusement. Must be the perk of a Reaper.”

No one aided him in that answer.

“What if I told you I would bring Cam back if you moved out of Nevada?”

Wow. What an offer.

He was an asshole to make it.

“What if I just rearrange Hell? Move the rocks around? Put lava in your fucking bed.” I wasn’t joking.

Lucifer snickered. “This is why I love the twins. So imaginative.”

Rael tried to speak and threaten him, but he didn’t get far. His lip flipped upward and tied like a fucking knot.

“Quiet,” Lucifer admonished. “I can think of creative ways to silence your tongue.”

Rael glared at him.

“As I was saying, you have the option of our deal, Chrome.”

“If I refuse?”

“She dies.” Lucifer said it so heartlessly that I wanted to plunge my hand into his chest and crush his heart. But the bastard didn’t possess one.

I didn’t have to think this over. I wouldn’t leave my club or family. “I can’t.”

I slumped against a chair, knowing it meant I would lose my wife. How did I make that decision so easily?

“You’re sure?” The devil asked, probably enjoying the havoc his question caused in my heart and sanity.

“I am.”

I couldn’t tear my family apart or move away from my brother. It wasn’t that I chose him over Cameron. I just had to go with my gut.

Lucifer swung his long legs around and stood. His head nearly reached the ceiling. “Keep her close, Reaper.”

I didn’t know what was happening until Cam’s fingers twitched. A shout of pure joy launched from my throat when her eyes fluttered. “Thank you!”

He dipped his chin and turned to the room. “See? I can be merciful.” Then he fucking disappeared.

Rael’s lip finally fixed itself. Lucifer probably enjoyed that a little too much.

The asshole didn’t want to hear what all my club brothers were thinking. It was his fault Cameron died in the first place. Or nearly died.

When she whispered my name, I hugged her against me. I think I laughed, cried, and choked at the same time. “You came back to me.”

“Noah.”

“I love you, Cam.”

“Love you. Where’s our son?”

I picked up Liam from his carrier and handed him to my beautiful, and very much alive, wife. “We’re a family, Cam.”

“We are,” she agreed right before our lips met in a soft kiss.

“And you’ve got a lot of family here,” Rael joked as he cradled his daughter in one arm and the other wrapped around Nylah as he held her close.

We made it. We were all alive. Even Lucifer couldn’t take that from us.

We finally had a happily ever after.

It felt fucking good.