Chapter 34
Duke’s statement hung in the air between us.
I was going to let Savage field this one.
“Evie and I didn’t meet at a taco truck like I told everyone,” Savage said quietly. “I met her when I was fighting in an illegal fighting ring. Roxy was a bartender at the venue, and Evie was working there serving drinks.”
The diner was mostly empty, but that didn’t stop Savage from pitching his voice low.
“Son of a bitch. I knew there was something going on with you.” He stared at Savage. “The random black eyes and split lips. You weren’t bare-knuckle boxing at the gym with Acid, were you? That was just a cover.”
“It was mostly a cover,” Savage agreed. “But sometimes I really was fighting with Acid.”
Duke’s attention turned to me. “And you got fired why?”
Savage replied before I could. “Some drunk put his hands on her and I punched him out. They fired her because of me. They weren’t going to forbid me from fighting because I brought in too much money.”
“So you got her a job at Three Kings to make up for it. Got it.” Duke leaned back against the booth. “You tell the Jackson brothers the truth?”
Savage paused and Duke cursed.
“Just Roman,” Savage insisted.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Duke growled.
“I wasn’t going to tell you because that would mean I’d have to tell you what I was up to. And I didn’t want you to feel divided between me and the club. You know how Prez would’ve felt about this.”
“If you’d told me, I would’ve understood why you felt like you had to take care of Evie.”
“And then you would’ve doubled down on your feelings about our relationship. Come on, it wouldn’t have helped. It would’ve made it worse, and you know it. It would’ve made you think you were right—that I had some complex about saving her and that I don’t really care about her.”
Duke shrugged and then sighed. “I don’t want to argue about it anymore. You clearly care about her, and this is real. Are you still fighting?”
“No. I quit,” Savage said. “Soon after Evie and I got together.”
Duke looked at me. “Well, I guess I have you to thank for being a calming influence on him.”
“He came to that conclusion all on his own,” I announced. “But I’m happy he’s not doing it anymore. I’d be nothing but a bag of worry each time he got in the ring.”
“Don’t tell Willa,” Savage stated. “I know you two share everything, but I don’t want her to know about this.”
“Agreed,” Duke said. “She doesn’t need to know.”
My stomach rumbled and I picked up the burger. I offered Savage a bite first, but he shook his head, choosing instead to take a fry.
“You’re really done with it?” Duke pinned Savage with a stare.
“I’m really done with it,” Savage promised.
“Good.”
Savage reached across the table and took half of Duke’s sandwich.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Duke demanded. “Evie offered you her burger.”
“You think I’m going to take food out of my pregnant woman’s mouth? You’re out of your mind.”
We left the diner with Savage and Duke’s friendship on the mend. They bro-hugged it out and then Duke got on his motorcycle and left.
I hoped the turbulence was truly behind them.
Savage walked me to the car and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being fucking gracious. You could’ve held that shit against Duke.”
I shook my head. “That’s no way to live, Savage. And it’ll make things a lot easier moving forward.” I touched his cheek. “I wouldn’t have let this continue. At some point, I would’ve enlisted Willa’s help and gotten you two to talk.”
He turned his head and kissed my palm.
“His reaction to you fighting was odd, though,” I said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I thought he’d give you a lot more grief. Or there would’ve been a lot more deliberation about telling your club president. But there wasn’t, was there? To him, you come before the club.”
“When we patch in, we’re supposed to put the club first and always. And for the most part we do. But Duke, Willa and I . . . Life was once a pile of shit, and only the three of us got each other through it. The club is there for us, too. But Duke and Willa are different.” His eyes remained on me. “And now you. You’re everything to me.”
I hugged him and pressed my head to his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my hair.
“We better go or we’re going to be late meeting everyone before our baby class.”
I pulled back. “How am I supposed to eat again? I’m stuffed. Not to mention exhausted.”
“You’ve had a full day already,” he agreed. “Let’s go to the restaurant and I’ll buy you dessert. There’s always room for dessert.”
Savage followed me on his motorcycle to the French restaurant. We walked in, hand in hand.
“Good. Sutton and Viper already got us a table,” Savage said, leading me to the couple.
“Oh my God, you’re so pretty!” a petite brunette said.
I giggled and looked at Savage. “I like her.”
“Sutton, Evie. Evie, Sutton.”
“Sit next to me,” Sutton demanded, gesturing to the empty chair next to her.
“Chill, spitfire. You’re overwhelming her.” The hulking giant next to her wrapped his arm around Sutton’s shoulder. “I’m Viper.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Doc and Boxer are on their way,” Sutton said. “They should be here in a few. Should we order some appetizers while we wait for them?” She placed a hand on her round belly.
“Her blood sugar is dropping. Bratty Sutton I can handle. Bratty and hungry Sutton? Forget it,” Viper said, peering down at his wife with amusement stamped across his mouth.
Doc and Boxer arrived. After Boxer introduced himself, Doc pulled me to the side and said, “How are you doing? Are you feeling okay?”
I nodded and smiled. “Better than okay, actually.”
Doc beamed. “Good.” She squeezed my hand.
“When are you bringing her to a club barbecue?” Sutton asked Savage after we’d all taken our seats.
“When everyone is back from Idaho,” Savage said easily.
I frowned. “They didn’t come back when you came back?”
“No, some of the boys had to stay up there a few days longer,” Savage explained.
“So you’re not hiding her from us anymore?” Sutton demanded.
Savage drawled, “I tried to ease her into you crazy lot but?—”
“Never gonna work,” Boxer said. “We’re insane, but you’ll learn to love us.”
The server arrived and took our order. Savage and I decided to split a meal. Savage kept his hand on my thigh, slowly inching it upward. It was difficult to pay attention to anything.
“What about you, Evie?” Doc asked.
Savage pressed a finger against the seam of my body.
“What about me?” I hoped I didn’t sound breathless.
“Do you want to go to prenatal yoga with me and Sutton?” Doc repeated.
“Oh sure, yeah, that sounds great.”
Savage slowly began to rub me.
“I don’t want to go,” Sutton whined. “I’m not really athletic.”
I stared at my plate and willed the heat away from my cheeks.
“It’s not like I’m asking you to play pickle ball,” Doc stated.
“I just want to be a lazy veal,” Sutton said. “And lounge on the couch.”
“There’s plenty of time for that,” Doc assured her.
I reached under the table and grabbed Savage’s finger, wrenching it back, which made him wince in pain.
“Do we have time to order dessert?” Sutton asked.
“Something chocolate,” I voiced.
“Let’s get one of everything and share!” Sutton suggested.
I looked at Savage and grinned.
He grinned back. Savage tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and leaned down to whisper, “I told you you’d like them.”
Savage kissed my stomach as we lazed in bed that night. “You’ve got a little belly now.”
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “Still a few more weeks before I have the belly pop, but then it will be pretty obvious. According to the baby books I’ve been reading anyway.”
He rested his head on me and took a deep breath. “I’m gonna read them, too.”
My heart warmed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I want to know everything there is to know about the babies and your body changing.” He traced his fingers across my hip. “Have you thought of baby names yet?”
I chuckled. “It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”
“No. Don’t think so.”
“We won’t know the sex of the babies until our twenty-week appointment.”
“Doesn’t hurt to get a head start,” he said.
I raked my hand through his mussed hair. “Okay. We can talk baby names. But if we settle on names, we can’t share them with anyone.”
“Why not?”
“I’m superstitious,” I said. “My parents always said not to share the baby’s name before it’s born because it protects the baby from evil spirits.”
“I’ve never heard that,” Savage murmured. “But if it’s important to you, we won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you.”
“So, your parents were superstitious, huh?”
“Yeah.” I shifted my body to get more comfortable.
“You never talk about them.”
“They weren’t just superstitious; they were deeply religious. And as I got older, they grew more . . . fanatical.”
“You said they died when you were eighteen?”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“How? Was it a car accident?”
“No,” I murmured.
Savage propped his head up and rested his chin on my sternum so he could look at me. The light from the lamp bathed him in a soft hue, but the contours of his jaw looked like stone.
“I told you they were fanatical, right?” I took a deep breath. “They took their own lives—joint suicide. They believed their lives were meant to be sacrifices so their souls could ascend to a different plane of existence, and they could be with God.”
Savage watched me for a moment but didn’t reply.
“I know. Crazy, right?”
“They left you at eighteen. To fend for yourself against a physically abusive man.”
His shoulders tensed and I waited. Would he get up and need to go for a ride to clear his head? Would he need to go spar to get out some of his anger?
Savage’s arms tightened around me. “They didn’t protect you. They left you vulnerable. Alone. I’m so sorry, babe.”
I wasn’t going to give him empty platitudes and say it was okay because it wasn’t. Parents were supposed to protect their children. And mine had abandoned me, essentially feeding me to the wolves.
“Yours didn’t protect you either,” I murmured.
“At least I had Willa and Duke. And at least you and I found each other, too.”
“We get to do it differently,” I whispered. “Our babies will never know that kind of fear or loss.”
“No, they won’t,” he agreed.
We fell silent for a while, and I let him ponder what I’d unveiled about my parents. It was a lot to take in.
He finally spoke again. “I haven’t told you how I got the name Savage.”
“You haven’t. No.”
I waited for him to gather his words.
“I grew up in foster care,” he said softly. “It was my third foster home in a year. I was fourteen. Full of anger, resentment. But my foster mother, she was kind despite life beating her down. Despite her husband beating on her.”
He let me go and sat up, facing me on the bed.
“She made sure I had clean clothes, lunch for school. She did her best, you know? She couldn’t have kids of her own, but the way she treated me . . . she really wanted them. She would’ve been good at it. A good mother, I mean. She was a good mother, to me . . . for a while. But maybe it was a blessing she couldn’t have kids because her husband was a dick. An angry drunk. A useless piece of shit.”
He reached out and clasped my hand in his.
I linked our fingers like a lifeline.
“She got sick. Uterine cancer. She was gone in three months. That fucker moved a new woman into the house not even two weeks after she died. The woman who moved in with us had a sixteen-year-old daughter. I didn’t like the way he looked at her.”
I knew where Savage was going with his story, but I let him talk. I let him purge his past.
“One night, her mom was gone. She worked the graveyard shift at a gas station. I heard his heavy, drunken footsteps as he came up the stairs. I ran down the hall to Tracy’s room to protect her, but when I got inside the lock on the door was broken. We dragged the dresser in front of the door to slow him down. We climbed out the window into a huge oak tree next to the house. We sat in the tree together. He shoved against the door, like he was throwing himself against it. He either gave up or passed out. But it wasn’t a permanent solution, you know? Because he’d made the decision to hurt her, and it was only a matter of time before he did.”
I was quiet and waited for him to go on.
“A few days later, we came home from school and as soon as I opened the front door that motherfucker clocked me so hard he knocked me out cold. He was so much bigger than I was . . . When I woke up, I panicked and ran to Tracy’s room to find her. He had her cornered. Her shirt was torn, and her lip was bloody. I was too late. Her eyes were glazed, like she’d just mentally checked out, so she didn’t have to process what had just happened. I lunged for him. Jumped on his back and started choking him. It was enough for her to get away. She ran to the neighbors while my foster dad beat me senseless. But because he was drunk, he got tired and passed out.”
“ Savage ,” I whispered, horrified.
“Somehow, I dragged myself up and limped over to the neighbors. Tracy’s mom eventually showed up and said the police were on their way. She told me they were moving out, and that she was going to press charges and that he’d never get to hurt Tracy again.”
His eyes drifted from my face to look over my shoulder. Like he was staring into the past, trying to find the last piece of it to divulge so he’d never have to tell his story again.
“I knew if I was still there when the cops showed up, it was going to start all over. A new foster home, some new asshole to fuck up my life. I wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t protect Tracy, so I just left. Went to live on the streets. Bounced between living with Duke and Willa. Had a gym teacher who suspected what was going on and used to leave the door to the locker room unlocked so I could shower and shit.”
He swallowed. “Anger fueled me. The idea of revenge kept me going. When I was prospecting for the Tarnished Angels, I finally had my chance. I was living at the clubhouse, and I’d been fighting for years. Training, you know? One night, I went to that old house. That decrepit, stinking, moldy old house. He’d been out of prison for a couple years already and was sitting in his recliner when I kicked the door in. He tried to fight, but I was young and strong as a bull. He was old. Used up by life and booze. He tried to hold his own, but he was no match for me. He finally begged me to stop. That’s when I beat him to death with a fucking pipe wrench. Didn’t stop until his skull had caved in.”
The visual turned my stomach. I clenched his hand tighter.
“Duke was with me that night,” he said. “He told the club. And then they gave me the name Savage.”
“Does Willa know? How you got the name?”
“Yes. They were the only people outside of the club who knew the story of my name. Now you know, too.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me.” I brought our hands to my mouth and kissed his knuckles. “It explains so much about you. The fighting, the anger . . .”
“You’re incredible, you know? You love me and accepted the fighting and the anger all without knowing about my past.”
I tugged him toward me. “Hold me, Savage.”
He turned off the lamp and then folded his body around mine and rested his hands on my belly. I fell asleep, sheltered in the protection of his embrace.