Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adelaide
I stepped into Tristan’s hospital room, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. I was so fucking happy that he was awake, yet at the same time, I was nervous as hell to face him without River by my side. The last time we’d seen each other, he’d gutted me, and I’d ripped him to shreds.
Tristan was sitting up when I walked into his room, texting on his phone. He looked up as I entered. “That was pretty fucking fast,” he noted, breaking the silence as I let the door fall shut behind me.
I shrugged at him and stuffed my hands into my back pockets. “River brought me to town as soon as Jesup called him and told him you had been shot.”
Tristan shook his head, a scowl on his features. I bristled. “I’ll never understand River,” he quietly admitted.
I shifted my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket, hating how unsure I felt around him. “River is secure in the knowledge that I’ll never leave him or cheat on him with another man,” I informed him. Tristan scoffed. That familiar guilt surged within me. “And he knows that despite our past, I do still care a lot about you, and I worry about you.”
Tristan leaned his head back against the bed, seeming to drop that specific topic of conversation. “Dumb of him to let you come here by yourself considering the mother fucker that shot me is still running around,” Tristan grumbled.
I scowled, defensively crossing my arms over my chest. “For your information, River had Sam bring me up here since he had to get Axel’s shit together,” I snapped. “I’m not fucking alone.” As if my man would ever send me out somewhere un-fucking-protected. The mere thought made me scoff.
“Who the fuck is Axel?” Tristan demanded, his eyes flickering to my stomach, only to see that I was still very much pregnant.
“My nephew,” River spoke up as he strode into the room, holding Axel’s car seat in one hand with the small diaper bag in his other hand. He set Axel and the diaper bag down and pressed a light kiss to the top of my head, immediately relaxing me.
Kneeling, I unhooked Axel from his car seat, lifting him and cradling him in my arms as he opened his beautiful, blue eyes and looked up at me. I smiled down at him as I rubbed my fingers over his chubby cheek. He gurgled as he reached up to put his hands on my face.
“Kid looks a hell of a lot like you, River,” Tristan admitted as he looked at Axel.
River shrugged. “Red didn’t want him, so Adelaide told him she would take him. We’re parents a bit earlier than expected.” But River smiled at me—that smile that told me everything was okay, that everything would continue to be okay.
I looked at Tristan. “So, Jesup said that Frederick was doing some shit on the side, and when you confronted him, he shot you,” I said, spiking up that conversation. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on.
Tristan shrugged. “Something like that,” he said gruffly. Evasively.
Fuck, I hated it when he did this shit. He didn’t like anyone outside of the members that sat at his table knowing anything, and he liked it even less when women tried getting in the middle of things.
“Spill,” I snapped at him.
Tristan scowled at me. “You’re in no fucking position to be making fucking demands, Addy,” he snarled. “You’re a club woman. Remember your fucking place.”
I glared at him, opening my mouth to snap back at him, but River beat me to it. “Watch your fucking tone with her,” River warned coolly. “What exactly happened, Grim?” River demanded to know. “And don’t you dare fucking hold back information just because she’s in the fucking room. She’s my old lady. I determine what she knows and doesn’t know. She deserves to know this.”
Tristan glared at him for a moment. River’s expression didn’t change. He just looked at Tristan with cool eyes, waiting on Tristan to begin explaining what the fuck had happened.
Finally, Tristan grunted in displeasure. “Some-fucking-how, he got wind of Adelaide’s pregnancy, and he was under the pretense that it was my kid.” I tensed. River stepped closer to me on instinct, his hands settling over my hips. “I confronted him to tell him to keep his mouth shut about it. Told him that no one else was supposed to know. But Frederick is being paid by someone to get his hands on Adelaide because they know I will go to extreme lengths to make sure that she’s safe and protected.” Tristan clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what they want from me, but Adelaide isn’t safe—especially not here.”
River stepped around me, his glare fixed on Tristan. The door opened behind me, and Joey stepped in. He flashed me a warm smile that made my heart flutter in my chest before he focused his attention on the scene unfolding in front of him. “You should have fucking called me the second someone got wind of her being pregnant!” River barked at Tristan.
“Woah—what the fuck is going on?” Joey demanded as he stepped to my other side, his muscular arms crossing over his chest.
A humorless laugh spilled past River’s lips. I swallowed thickly. River angry and pissed at Tristan? I could handle it. I knew he wouldn’t hurt Tristan because River loved me too much.
Joey, though? Joey might love me, might have changed for me, but putting my life in danger drew the line for Joey. He would drop bodies regardless of the pain it caused me.
“Fucking dimwit here decided that instead of informing me that someone is after Adelaide to get to him, he would take care of shit himself. Now, the mother fucker—the only person we know that holds the answers we need—is fucking MIA, and Tristan got himself shot trying to talk to the fucker instead of getting the answers he needed and putting a goddamn bullet through the traitor’s skull.”
Joey moved to lurch forward, but River intercepted him despite the pure rage simmering in his gaze. “You hurt him, you’re fucking hurting her,” River growled at Joey.
Joey’s eyes flashed dangerously. I shifted Axel to one arm and settled my hand over Joey’s bicep. His jaw flexed as he turned to look down at me.
“I’m holding you with me,” I whispered, willing him to stay with me and to not hurt Tristan, silently begging him not to.
He leaned down and brushed his lips to my forehead. My heart squeezed in my chest. “I’m stepping out,” Joey growled, taking a step back from Tristan’s hospital bed. “River, I’ll catch up with you in a bit. I need to cool the fuck off, or I’ll be eliminating one dumb fuck from your woman’s life.”
I frowned after Joey as he stormed out of the room.
“I was trying to do fucking damage control without worrying Adelaide,” Tristan snapped at River, drawing River’s attention back to him. “I knew the second I told you, you would tell Adelaide because you just can’t keep your fucking woman out of club shit. Adelaide is too unpredictable, can’t fucking trust her to not take shit into her own hands. This is club shit.”
“This club shit involves her!” River roared at him, stepping back from me as he started losing his cool.
I reached out to River, gripping his cut. He swung his burning, blue eyes to me. “Stay with me,” I pleaded.
He drew in a deep breath, nodding once at me before he turned his attention back to Tristan.
“Fucking hell, Tristan, I tell Adelaide shit because if she knows, then she can take necessary measures on her part to keep herself safe, and she won’t feel fucking trapped when I do what I have to do so that she’s protected,” River growled, but he wasn’t shouting anymore. “You still haven’t grasped that fucking concept when it comes to her. Keeping her in the dark about shit will only get her stuck in the same fucking position she got herself into a year ago, or it’ll send her back into that same fucking hole she got into with Joey.”
“River…” I called softly. His words were cutting me, no matter how true they were. I was doing my damnest to not be that woman anymore, and he knew that.
River shook his head at me, his blue eyes blazing with rage. I swallowed thickly. “Nah, darlin’, he needs to hear this shit. You and everyone else has sugar-coated this shit way too much. Yes, you made some dumb ass decisions on your part, but Tristan played a fucking hand, too. I don’t give a fucking shit how close you two are. I will never trust him to keep you safe because he just can’t seem to fucking understand how to do it.”
Axel began crying in my arms, and I bounced him gently, quieting his cries. “Watch yourself, River,” I warned him, my guard going up hard against him to protect myself.
River stepped up close to me, his hands clamping down on my hips when I tried to take a step back from him. His grip held me in place. “Remember what I told you?” he asked. “I will never lash out at you, Adelaide. But you and Tristan are extremely toxic for each other. I promised you that I would never make you choose between me and someone else, and I’m not going to, but I will step in when it’s necessary to make sure that you, Axel, and our unborn baby are safe, and right now, Tristan needs to understand that this was a dumb ass fucking decision on his part. He put you in grave danger. It’s not just you that all of us have to worry about anymore. You’re pregnant, and you’re Axel’s mom. He should have been thinking clearer instead of being prideful and deciding to not reach out for help.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead for a moment, and he didn’t move away until he felt me relax some. “There you go,” he whispered. He gently pressed his lips to mine before he turned to face Tristan again. “I want to know how anyone found out about Adelaide being pregnant in the first place,” River ordered. “She fucking lives with me, Grim, and not a fucking person besides Sam knows she’s pregnant, so how the fuck did the news get out in your fucking club and Adelaide isn’t even fucking here with you?”
Tristan fisted his hands on his lap, and I knew he was restraining himself from destroying something. He wasn’t used to people talking to him like this, but he knew River was a force to be reckoned with. It was one of the reasons he had always trusted River with me over anyone else, even his own VP.
His only mistake was that River had betrayed him by sleeping with me because River’s loyalty to me ran a hell of a lot deeper than it did to his had-been president.
“Frederick has to have people in his pocket,” Tristan finally told him. “I don’t know how the fuck he found out, but he knows, River, and Adelaide is in danger. He had no idea she was with you, so that may work in your favor.”
A smirk twisted River’s lips as he looked over at me. I already knew what he was thinking before he even spoke.
“You want to finally let people know that I’m with you and that the baby is yours,” I stated more than asked.
River nodded in agreement. “It’s time to let everyone know that you’re mine, darlin’, and any mother fucker that tries to fuck with you has another thing coming for them because everyone knows that I’m not the one to be fucked with.”
Joey stepped back into the room, looking a lot calmer this time. I honestly hadn’t expected him to come back to the hospital at all. He said he wouldn’t get back with River until later.
“Include me in that,” Joey said, looking to River. River nodded once. “Someone wants to be stupid enough to fuck with her, they fuck with my entire club,” he growled, sending a shiver down my spine.
Joey looked at me then, his dark eyes clashing with mine.
He was letting me keep him with me.
I let a small smile touch my lips. He nodded once at me, his lips twitching, but he didn’t smile. “Always, pretty girl,” he promised.
My heart swelled in my chest.
Tristan looked between the three of us, clearly confused, but River only slid his hand along the back of my neck, drawing my lips up to his for a soft, slow kiss.
“Hold him with you,” he whispered against my lips.