Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
River
I stood outside of the nursery at the hospital, my arms crossed over my chest. Red stood beside me, both of us watching Adelaide talk to the nurse on duty about the baby. I was pretty sure this was the longest that my brother and I had been civil with each other since we were teens.
Red went off the deep end not long before he was supposed to graduate high school, and he brought shit on the club all for power and money, almost getting our father locked up. He even had a hand in killing our mother in a bad car accident that left him hospitalized. Only for my dad, I hadn’t killed him, no matter how badly I wanted to. Even though he was in the car with the drunk driver that hit our mom as she was crossing the street to the supermarket, dad found it in him to forgive Red.
But I couldn’t. I was a bit less bitter about it as time went on, but I could never forgive him for that shit.
After a moment, Adelaide was led over to a clear bassinet that literally looked like a fucking clear tote where a baby in a blue hat was swaddled in a hospital blanket. The nurse said something, and Adelaide nodded. Then, she reached in and grabbed the little boy, cradling him against her chest, a small smile tilting her lips as she looked down at him.
A small smile twitched at my own lips.
Fuck, I couldn’t wait to see her holding our own kid.
Adelaide made a fucking stunning mother. It was a sight that would warm any cold man’s heart.
She stepped out of the nursery and walked over to us, the baby still cradled in her arms. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes closed as he slept peacefully in her arms. “Guys, meet Axel King Boris,” Adelaide announced, smiling down at the baby as she adjusted him to one arm, reaching up to rub her finger over his soft, chubby cheek.
Red shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ve signed the necessary documents for you all to be given temporary custody of him. I’ll have a lawyer draw up the necessary documentation so you two can adopt him.”
I nodded at him. Without another word, he turned and sauntered off down the hallway, his back stiff. Adelaide watched him for a moment before she turned those beautiful, brown eyes to me, stepping closer to me as she did so. “Do you want to hold him?” she softly asked.
Slowly, I reached out and took Axel from her, surprised at how light he was. I’d never held a baby before, and I was almost thirty. It almost felt like I was holding a fragile bomb. One wrong move, and the baby would explode all over me.
“The nurse said that he’s a little underweight, but otherwise he’s perfectly healthy, and we can take him home whenever we’re ready,” Adelaide informed me as she reached out to run her fingertips over his chubby cheeks.
He was perfect. I never thought that I would say that about anything that was a part of Red, but this little boy, with all of his little innocence… he was absolutely perfect.
Red had done the best thing for him by walking away. Axel would be raised in a loving family with a gentle, soothing mother.
I stared down at Axel, blowing out a soft breath. Looked like I had a lot of shopping ahead of me, starting with a car seat and a car for Adelaide.
Tristan and Jesup were gone when we got back to the clubhouse, and Sam informed me that they would be in touch to set up our first exchange. Good thing they were gone too because I didn’t want Adelaide having the added stress of them being here while she was trying to handle taking care of a newborn, all while still preparing for our own kid.
Tristan was toxic for her. But forcing her to never speak to him again… yeah, that was a fight that would not only cause her to walk away from me, but it would be a pointless one. I sure as fuck wouldn’t win it.
When Adelaide got settled in with Axel, I left her in the clubhouse with him, giving her strict instructions to come get me out of the garage if she needed me, and now, four hours later, I was fucking tired, and I just wanted a hot shower and to crawl in bed with my woman.
As soon as I stepped into my room, I smiled at the sight in front of me. Adelaide was on the bed, propped up the slightest bit against the pillows with Axel resting on his stomach on her chest, her arms protectively wrapped around him as they both peacefully slept.
That was an image I could definitely get used to seeing. Seeing Adelaide being a mom… fuck, it was a sexy as hell sight. I could watch her take care of Axel all day. She was a natural at it. Anyone looking at them would never even think Adelaide wasn’t his biological mother.
Turning on the lamp on my dresser, I cast the room in a soft orange glow, breathing a slight sigh of relief as Adelaide and Axel continued to sleep, not stirring the slightest bit.
Someone knocked softly on the door, and I yanked it open to find Reina, one of the club girls, on the other side, a baby bottle in her hand. She’d come to me a little while back, begging for sanctuary, saying someone from the bar had sent her to me. So, I’d welcomed her in, though I knew that I made her nervous. It’d been every jerky movement she made and the way her eyes had nervously shifted and refused to look at me for too long.
“Adelaide asked me to bring a bottle when it got to nine,” she explained at my questioning look, swallowing hard as she cast her eyes from me in submission.
Reina was still a little new to the club, and I knew that I intimidated her. In fact, I was pretty sure that this was the first time she had ever actually spoken to me outside of me laying down the ground rules for her when she first came to me for help and I welcomed her into the club, promising her safety from whatever or whoever she’d been running from.
Something had happened to the woman, but I didn’t pry into people’s personal shit. All I did was offer protection and make sure no one harmed her again.
I took the bottle from her with a gruff thanks, remembering that Axel needed to eat every couple of hours since he was a newborn. I softly shut the door behind me, setting Axel’s bottle on the dresser, deciding to feed him after I got a quick shower so that Adelaide could continue to sleep.
Taking the quickest shower that I had in history, I quickly yanked on a pair of sweatpants before I strode over to the bed. I grabbed the bottle off of the dresser on my way to the bed. Gently, I shook Adelaide awake, not wanting to alarm her by trying to slide Axel out of her arms.
It hadn’t even been a full twelve hours since we’d brought the boy home, and she was already extremely protective of him. She was a perfect mother, even if she didn’t realize it or believe it herself. Axel and our little one would be extremely lucky to have her to call mom.
I just couldn’t wait to see what kind of mom she would be to her own flesh and blood if she was like this with Axel. But something told me that she would always treat Axel with the same love and attention that she would give our own baby.
She blinked up at me tiredly. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice rough and thick with sleep.
“Give me Axel so that I can feed him,” I gently ordered, reaching out to tuck some of her soft hair behind her ear.
She slowly released him, allowing me to grab him off her chest. He whimpered in protest but quieted as soon as I brought him close to my chest, placing the bottle at his lips. He instantly latched on, his eyes never opening.
“Don’t forget to burp him,” Adelaide murmured as she slid down the pillows so she was laying down flat on the bed, curling into a ball on her side as she quickly passed back out.
I gently sat on the bed, being careful not to jostle her. Then, I looked down at Axel, finding him already looking up at me as he drank from his bottle, his blue eyes, which strangely looked a hell of a lot like mine, locking on my face.
“That woman loves you like her own, kid,” I told him quietly. He ran his eyes over my face. “Even if your father didn’t want you, you’re always going to have a family,” I swore. “We will love you and take care of you just like the baby she’s currently pregnant with—the little one that will be your little brother or sister.”
And he would always have a family with us. No matter what happened, Axel would always have a home, would always have people that he could rely on, no matter how old he got.
And knowing Adelaide, she would never turn her back on him, no matter what he may do when he got older. Her love was unconditional. I’d seen that love of hers three times now—with Tristan, then Joey, and now me. Her love was beautiful to everyone else, but when she couldn’t control it, for her, it was toxic.