Chapter 25
Emily
My stomach flips the second I open my eyes. I stay still, staring at the ceiling, breathing through my nose. Slow in. Slower out. It doesn’t help much. The nausea lingers anyway, low and persistent, like my body’s reminding me it’s running a different program now.
Onyx’s arm is heavy across my waist, warm and familiar. He murmurs something in his sleep and tightens his hold without waking. It feels like he instinctively knows I’m there even when he’s out.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed before the feeling gets worse. The room tilts and my stomach clenches hard. I rush for the bathroom. My feet are bare against cold hardwood floors. I barely make it in time, dropping to my knees in front of the toilet.
Onyx kneels on the floor behind me almost immediately.
“Hey,” he says, one hand steady at my back while the other pulls my hair away from my face.
I gag, dry heaving, as my eyes water. This seems like it’s more dramatic than it is. It’s really just my body’s reaction to carrying a new life.
Onyx doesn’t talk again. He waits for it to pass. He just rubs my back lightly. When it eases, I sit back on my heels, trying to catch my breath. “I hate this part about being pregnant.”
He snorts softly. “Tessa said morning sickness is a misnomer. She said it’s more like all-day sickness.”
I rinse my mouth at the sink as I let that little nugget of information settle in my mind. Onyx comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me. I lean back against his chest, letting him hold most of my weight. He presses a kiss to my shoulder.
“You okay?” he asks, quieter now.
I nod slightly as I gaze at our reflection in the large mirror over his sink. “Yeah. It’s passed for now.”
“I’m sorry you have to go through so much misery to carry our child.”
That makes me smile. “It’s just part of being a woman, our bodies letting us know they now house two instead of one.”
“Would some toast help settle your stomach?”
“Probably. Can we make some up here?”
“Of course. I always keep bread, butter, and eggs on hand for those mornings when I’m not quite ready to face the chaos downstairs.”
We get dressed for the day and instead of coffee, Onyx makes me tea and toast. We eat together and I tell him, “Christina sent me a text this morning, inviting me to go shopping for the baby. She wants to leave shortly. I told her that I’d love to get out a bit and start living again.”
“I’m glad you can go out on your own again. That’s what I’ve been fighting for these last few weeks. Go, have fun, and try to put this whole mess with Brennan behind you.”
I flash him a warm smile. Onyx is and has always been my hero since we were little. We may have lost touch there for a while, but he’s always been a fantastic human being.
“In case I haven’t said it already, I appreciate all the sacrifices you and the club made to make sure I didn’t end up like Charles Brennan’s other victims. You’re all good people and I’m proud to be here with you.”
Onyx looks taken aback and I realize that for all his bluster, he’s actually a little modest. “Thanks for saying that, Em,” he says.
“You have to know by now that I’d do anything for you.
” He pulls out a credit card and slides it across the kitchen table.
“This is gonna be our family card. Spend whatever you need to for the baby and yourself. I don’t want you feelin’ like you have to fuckin’ go without things you want.
” Pausing, he adds, “Just relax, let your hair down, and enjoy some retail therapy.” I know why he said that.
His mom talks about the joys of retail therapy all the time. Queenie is a trip sometimes.
Staring down at the card on the table, I don’t know why I’m hesitant to spend his money. I’m his fiancé and carrying his baby after all. I find myself stammering, “I have money saved, I could use that.”
“You could, but it would be a huge hit to my ego. I want my kid to have the best in life. Since I don’t know anything about what kids need, I’m relying on you to get the ball rolling for us.”
I laugh at that. “We’ll both learn on the job. I’m sure we can figure it out, and anything we don’t know Tessa, Christina, or Queenie can help with.”
“Yeah, my ma is having the time of her life these days. These are the days she’s been dreaming of for years.”
I tell him excitedly, “Even Rock is acting like the world’s greatest grandfather. I saw him giving Katie piggyback rides the other day. We really lucked out when it comes to grandparents for our kids.”
“Yeah, kids will be a great way to distract them from nosing around in our lives,” he deadpans back.
I laugh and poke him in the chest lightly. “Don’t talk about my future in-laws that way. Queenie and Rock are amazing. So amazing, in fact, that you have to make up things to complain about.”
Onyx shrugs. “Yeah, you got me on that one. I learned a long time ago that their overly involved parenting was just them showing they care.”
“Well, I happen to like them,” I tell him firmly.
He finally smiles. “I do too, but don’t go tellin’ everybody I’m a mama’s boy or anything like that.”
Before I can answer, he leans over, gives me a kiss, and heads down to his office to work. The club is buying a new business and he’s got paperwork to file with the county that can’t be put off.
After showering and getting dressed, I wander out of our suite to find Christina lingering in the hallway. She’s got her purse slung over one arm and a cup of coffee in the other hand. She takes one look at my face and grins.
“You look happy. Onyx must be doing something right.”
“I was just thinking how much my life has changed in the past few months. From being alone to having a huge family. We were talking earlier about what great grandparents Queenie and Rock are,” I say.
She laughs. “Yeah, they’re beyond anything I could have imagined. I knew the first day that Katie and I arrived that we’d never be able to leave again because she’d cry her eyes out for them.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. They’ve always been just like they are now. I can remember when I was a little kid and my grandfather came to have breakfast with Rock on Sundays. Queenie would spoil me rotten and tell me I was born to be a club queen.”
Christina chuckles. “The joke’s on her. Tessa turned out to be the Sons of Rage club queen when she married Jasper because he’s the Prez.”
I laugh as we walk downstairs. “It’s not like I was gunning for the job or anything.
Tessa is like a force of nature. I don’t think I have it in me to do what she does in a day.
And the way she organizes the club girls and keeps them all on the same page is some form of dark magic I don’t understand. ”
“I agree,” she says as we push open the front door to the clubhouse and walk out onto the porch. Her vehicle is parked right out front. “Tessa even managed to tame Silver. I never thought I’d see the day that happened.”
We drive in silence for a while, me thinking about everything that’s happened and all the changes coming. Eventually I turn to Christina and ask, “So, what’s the plan for the day?”
She responds, “We’re going to a custom T-shirt shop to pick up a bunch of T-shirts for the baby that have our club logo and have cute sayings, like my dad’s a biker.”
“That sounds really cute,” I tell her.
She flashes me a quick grin. “The club is such a big part of Slate’s life, and he loves it when we lean into the biker theme for the baby. So, I figured why not dress him up as a little biker when we bring him home.”
Without pausing, she continues, “After that, we can go take a look around one of the baby shops. I need to pick up a few things for the nursery, and we can see what you need.”
As she continues talking, I decide on the spot that I really like Christina. She’s exactly the kind of woman I always hoped to have as a sister-in-law. I really lucked out in every conceivable way with Onyx’s family.
We’re on a lonely stretch of road that cuts through open farmland.
Christina’s still talking about our shopping trip, but I’m not really listening.
I’m looking out the front window, enjoying the scenery, when the hairs on the back of my neck start prickling.
Then I see a black SUV speeding up in my side-view mirror.
It’s moving too fast and it’s setting off my Spidey senses.
“Christina,” I say in a low voice.
She glances over. “Yeah?”
“That black SUV behind us is moving pretty fast. Do you think it’s trouble?”
She tilts the mirror, her eyes narrowing. “Maybe,” she responds, glancing between her rearview mirror and the road in front of us.
“Maybe?”
“I’m changing my answer to yes. Text Onyx right now. Tell him where we are. Do it now, Emily.”
The deadly serious tone of her voice is a sharp contrast to her happy chatter before we hit this danger point. I pull out my phone and frantically begin hitting buttons. “We share locations, so that should make it easy for him to find us,” I mutter as my fingers fly across the keypad.
Me: We’re in trouble. We’re on the back road heading towards the city. Black SUV bearing down on us. Need help NOW.
The minute I hit send, that SUV speeds up again and this time it slams into the back of us. Christina yells, “Hold on, Em.”
It takes two more jolts into our rear end for the SUV to veer off the road and end up in a shallow ditch. The airbags explode, sending a burst of white powder everywhere.
My head snaps forward and the seatbelt bites hard into my shoulder. My ears are ringing.
“Christina?” I choke out, trying to catch sight of her through the cloud of white powder.
When I see that she’s slumped over the steering wheel, I immediately unbuckle my seatbelt and crawl over the center console to help her. Her forehead is against the top of the steering wheel. I can see a trickle of bright red blood dripping down the side of her face.
I’m confused about what to do to help her.
Should I lift her head and assess the damage?
What if she has some kind of spinal cord injury?
I don’t want to do anything that could cause permanent damage.
Relief washes over me when she lifts her head.
She looks past me and her eyes get big. Her hand comes out to grab my coat and she chokes out, “No matter what, stay alive. The brothers will find you. Just stay alive.”
I don’t know why she’s telling me this. I reach for her, but before I can touch her, someone rips my door open.
I think for a second that it might be whichever club member is closest. But the man’s hands are rougher than necessary when he jerks me back.
And his fingers dig into my arm so hard it brings tears to my eyes.
I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I kick my legs, trying to shove him back off me.
But it’s useless. They just slide against the seat as he yanks me out of the vehicle.
He rushes a few steps away and shoves me into the back seat of his own vehicle.
My head crashes into the opposite door and my knees hit the floorboard hard.
I try to get up, but the man roughly shoves me against the window.
The last thing I see out the window is Christina.
She’s slumped forward again. Her face is turned towards the window and she’s not moving.
I lose the strength in my arms about the same time I become aware of a liquid dripping down into my eyes.
Lying in the floorboard, I bring one hand up to my head and I realize it’s blood.
A masculine voice barks out, “Drive, Charlotte.”