Page 41 of Slayin Villain (Royal Bastards MC: Nashville, TN #11)
Ember
The kitchen was too clean.
It always was at Rome’s place. Every damn surface wiped spotless, every liquor bottle lined up like soldiers on parade. But it was the silence that did me in, the kind that filled your ears until your heartbeat sounded like thunder.
Rome sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like he wanted to set it on fire.
I stood in the doorway, arms crossed over my chest, stomach tight.
“You gonna say it or not?” I asked.
He didn’t look up.
“I’m not ready for a baby, Rome,” I whispered, softer now.
His eyes shot up, fire lit. “Then why’d you tell me at all? Just to twist the knife?”
“No. I told you because you deserve to know. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to do this. Alone. Or with you.”
He stood up fast, too fast, and stalked toward me. “You think I’d let you be alone? You think I’d let you take my kid and vanish like Rachel did to Villain?”
“Don’t you dare compare me to her.” I jabbed a finger into his chest. “I stayed. I chose you. And now all you want is to own me.”
“I want to protect you,” he growled. “Hell, Ember, I love you. But you don’t make it easy.”
“I wasn’t supposed to,” I snapped. “I was supposed to be a phase, remember? The fun club girl, the pretty voice behind the mic. Not your Ol’ Lady. Not a damn mother.”
“You are my Ol’ Lady,” he said through gritted teeth. “I thought you figured that out when you got my patch.”
“I thought I did too.”
We stood there, breath tangled, both of us stubborn as hell and heart-deep in shit neither of us knew how to fix.
“You think I got into this for some picket fence?” I said, voice trembling now. “You think I wanted to get knocked up and fight with you every night?”
Rome’s nostrils flared. “You think I wanted to watch the woman I love look at me like I’m a prison cell?”
Silence.
And then he said it.
“If you don’t want this, then maybe you should go.”
Something cracked in me.
I grabbed my bag. Threw in my jacket. My phone. My keychain with the old club logo on it.
“I will,” I said.
He stepped toward me, expression crumbling. “Wait, Ember, I didn’t mean…”
“You did. And I needed to hear it.”
He reached for me, and I let him touch my arm. Just for a second.
Then I pulled away.
I didn’t weep until I got in my Charger.
Didn’t shake until I hit the edge of Royal Road, lights in the rearview like ghosts chasing me down.
I’d spent too many nights in too many beds trying to be what they needed. Rome’s safe harbor. Villain’s escape. The club’s songbird.
But what about me?
What about Ember?
I pulled into the old gravel lot behind Sassy’s Slop House. A place I used to play three nights a week before all this chaos swallowed me whole.
The lights were off. The stage was dark. But the memories played loud in my head, me and my fiddle, belting out southern rock and blues with fire in my belly and no ring on my finger.
I pulled my phone from my pocket.
Opened a new message.
To Eve: I’m sorry. I gotta go clear my head. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Don’t tell the boys.
Then I added…
And I’m keeping the baby. But I’m raising it my way.
Hit send.