Chapter 19 Bonnie
BONNIE
The buzz of my tattoo machine fills Snake’s shop like a heartbeat.
I’m working on Miller’s memorial piece, shading in the roses around his mother’s portrait. He sits still as stone in the chair, eyes closed, letting me mark his grief permanently into his skin.
The design took me three weeks to perfect—her face captured from an old photograph, surrounded by thorns and petals that represent the pain and beauty of loving someone you’ve lost.
“Looking good,” Snake says from his station across the room. He’s finishing up a tribal piece on a client’s calf, but I can feel his eyes on me every few minutes.
He’s been doing that all morning. Watching me.
Louie bought me those pregnancy tests four days ago. Of course he wants to know the results.
“Almost done,” I tell Miller, wiping away excess ink. The portrait is perfect. His mother’s eyes look almost alive, staring out from his bicep with the same fierce love Miller always talked about.
When I finish wrapping his arm, Miller examines it in the mirror. His eyes get wet. “She would’ve loved this,” he says quietly. “Thank you, Bonnie.”
“She would’ve been proud of you.” I clean my station while he pays Snake at the front desk. “Come back in two weeks so I can check on it.”
After Miller leaves, the shop falls quiet. Just me and Snake and the guard posted outside the front door. Rodriguez, built like a brick wall, is watching the street for any Savage Legion threats.
I start breaking down my station, organizing supplies, and avoiding Snake’s gaze.
“You gonna tell me or do I have to drag it out of you?” Snake finally asks.
I don’t look up from the ink caps I’m sorting. “Tell you what?”
“Don’t play dumb. About the tests. So? What happened?”
My hands are still. I stare at the black ink staining my gloves, unable to meet his eyes. “Positive,” I say quietly. “All three of them.”
Snake sets down his machine.
I peel off my gloves and toss them in the trash. “I haven’t been to a doctor yet, though.”
“Bonnie—”
“I just got married, Snake.” The words burst out of me before I can stop them. “I’m nineteen years old. I just became someone’s wife and now I’m going to be someone’s mother and everything’s moving so fucking fast I can’t breathe.”
He crosses and pulls me into a hug. I don’t cry—I’m done crying about this—but I let myself lean against him for a moment, borrowing his strength.
“Life doesn’t wait for you to be ready,” he says into my hair. “It just happens. And you deal with it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can.” He pulls back and grips my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “You’re the strongest kid I know. You survived your father selling you off. You survived Marcus Stone. You escaped a forced marriage, and you’re still standing. You think a baby is going to take you down?”
“A baby is different.”
“Yeah. It is.” His expression softens. “But you’re not alone in this. You’ve got your husband. You’ve got your club. You’ve got me and Louie. And you’ve got more fight in you than anyone I’ve ever met.”
I take a shaking breath. “I haven’t told Ash yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because once I do, it becomes real. Once he knows, everything changes.”
“Everything already changed the moment you saw those positive tests.” Snake releases my shoulders and leans against the counter. “Hiding it doesn’t make it go away. It just makes you carry the weight alone.”
“What if he’s not ready?” I ask quietly.
Snake wipes down his station, not looking at me. “Ready for what? A baby?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody’s ready for a baby. You just deal with it when it happens.” He tosses the paper towel in the trash. “But Ash married you to protect you from Marcus Stone. You really think he’s gonna bail because you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I pick at the edge of the counter. “Everything happened so fast. The wedding was strategic. We barely know each other. And now I’m dropping this on him—”
“You’re his wife. That’s not ‘dropping’ anything.” Snake leans against the counter across from me. “You think he’s gonna be pissed?”
“I think he’s gonna feel trapped.”
“He already married you. How much more trapped can he get?”
I want to laugh, but it comes out wrong. “This is different.”
“Yeah. It is.” Snake’s expression softens. “But I’ve seen how he looks at you when he picks you up from the shop. That’s not a man who feels trapped. That’s a man who’s already in deep.”
My chest tightens. “You don’t know that.”
“I know what I see.” He crosses his arms. “And I see a man who moved heaven and earth to get you out of that wedding to Marcus. Who married you himself to keep you safe. Who lets you come here and work even though there’s a war happening and you’re a target.”
“He does that because of Dad. Because Dad asked him to protect me.”
“Bullshit. He does it because he wants to.” Snake moves to the front window, checking the street. “Your dad’s in prison. Ash doesn’t owe him anything anymore. He could’ve shipped you off somewhere safe and forgotten about you. But he didn’t. He married you. Made you his.”
I press my hand to my stomach. “What if the baby makes everything harder?”
“It will. Babies make everything harder.” Snake turns back to me. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t step up. Give him a chance to prove it. Go home,” Snake says. “Tell your husband you’re pregnant. Stop carrying this by yourself.”
“Okay.” I grab my jacket. “I’ll tell him tonight.”
Snake walks me to the door and calls out to Rodriguez. “Get her home safe.”
Rodriguez nods and falls into step beside me as we head to my bike. The afternoon sun beats down on the asphalt, making the chrome on my Softail gleam.
I fire up the engine, and Rodriguez follows on his own bike as we head back to the compound. The wind clears my head but does nothing for the knots in my stomach.
By the time we pull through the compound gates, my heart is hammering against my ribs.
I park my bike and head inside, looking for them.
The common room is empty except for a few brothers watching TV. The kitchen’s deserted. I check Ash’s office—empty.
Where the hell are they?
I find all three of them in the garage bay behind the clubhouse. Ash has his bike up on a lift, working on something in the engine. Ghost sits on a workbench nearby, cleaning a gun. Titan’s under his own bike, cursing at something I can’t see.
I lean against the doorframe and watch them for a moment.
Ash notices me first. He looks up from his engine, grease smeared across his forearm, and smiles. “Hey. How was the shop?”
“Good. Finished Miller’s piece.”
“Is he happy with it?”
“Yep.”
Ash sets down his wrench and wipes his hands on a rag. “You okay? You look pale.”
Titan rolls out from under his bike and sits up. “She always looks pale. That’s just her face.”
“Fuck you, Titan.”
He grins. “Later, baby. I’m covered in motor oil right now.”
Ghost sets down the gun he’s cleaning and studies me with those dark, unreadable eyes. “Something’s wrong.”
I take a breath. This is it. No more stalling.
“I need to talk to you. All three of you.”
The garage goes quiet. Ash straightens, wiping more grease off his hands. Titan gets to his feet, suddenly serious. Ghost slides off the workbench and moves closer.
“What’s wrong?” Ash asks.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just—” I stop. Start again. “Can we go somewhere? Somewhere private?”
“How private?” Titan asks.
“The cabin,” I say. “Let’s go to the cabin.”
They exchange glances.
“Now?” Ghost asks.
“Yeah. Now.”
Ash doesn’t argue. He just grabs his jacket. “Let’s go.”
We ride out in formation—Ash leading, me in the middle, Ghost and Titan flanking me on either side. The road stretches ahead, leading us away from the compound and into the hills.
The cabin sits exactly where I left it six weeks ago. Small, isolated, surrounded by trees that rustle in the wind.
We park our bikes, and I stand there for a moment, staring at the front door.
Last time I walked through that door, I was drunk and reckless and desperate for one night that was mine.
Now I’m walking through it sober, married, and about to tell three men that I’m carrying a baby that could belong to any of them.
Or to the monster we’re at war with.
Ash unlocks the door, and we file inside. The main room looks the same—worn furniture, dusty windows, the bed in the corner where we spent that night, tangled together.
I can’t look at it. Can’t let myself remember how good it felt to have all three of them touching me, wanting me, making me feel like I was the center of their universe.
“Bonnie.” Ash’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. “Talk to us.”
I turn to face them.
Just say it, Bonnie. Rip the band-aid off like Snake said.
“I’m pregnant.”
The words hang in the air between us.
Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.
Then Titan says, “Shit.”
“Yeah.” My hands shake, so I shove them in my jacket pockets. “Shit.”
“How long have you known?” Ash asks. His voice is calm.
“Four days.”
“And you’re just telling us now?”
“I needed time to process it myself before I—” I stop. Take a breath. “I’m telling you now.”
“When…” Ghost clears his throat. “When was your last period?”
My face heats. “Like six, seven weeks ago? I don’t know exactly. I don’t keep a calendar.”
Titan shifts his weight. “And before that, when did you—” He stops. Starts again. “How regular are you?”
“Jesus Christ, are we really doing this?” But I answer anyway. “Pretty regular. Every month. I missed one. That’s how I knew something was wrong.”
The math is sitting there between us. Unspoken but obvious.
Six weeks since my last period. Which means I got pregnant right around—
“The cabin,” Ash says quietly.
Nobody responds. We all know.
“So it could be any of us,” Titan says.
“Yeah.” My voice cracks. “Or it could be Marcus.”
The temperature in the room drops twenty degrees.
“What?” Ash’s voice is dangerous now.
“He didn’t finish inside me. He pulled out. But there’s still a chance—” My throat closes up. I can’t finish the sentence.