24. Mila
24
MILA
Despite being injured and probably having gone to sleep much later than me, Maverick wasn’t in bed when I woke early the next morning.
I frowned and touched the space where he had lain the night before, finding the sheet cold. Whenever he left the bed, it must have been a good while ago.
I didn’t need to go downstairs to know he wasn’t in the house.
And I still didn’t have a phone, so there was no way for me to try to get in contact with him. I was about to get out of bed when something white caught my attention. There was a small piece of white paper on top of Maverick’s pillow. A note.
Went out to deal with some stuff. I’ll be back soon. Be a good girl at home for me.
I rolled my eyes. Even on paper, he still sounded so commanding. At least he hadn’t left without saying anything.
I climbed out of the bed and got ready for my day.
Rachel was down in the kitchen cooking when I finally got in. She offered me a kind smile, and I hesitantly smiled back. Before, when I was being held here against my will, I didn’t try to get close to Rachel, mostly because I knew she was loyal to the brothers and wouldn’t be much help to me. But now that I was back, and the situation was different—at least, I hoped so—I should get to know her better, shouldn’t I?
“Good morning, Mila.”
“Morning.”
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
As if on cue, my stomach grumbled. Rachel let out a light chuckle. “I take that as a yes. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll prepare a plate for you.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. She smiled at me. I took a seat at the kitchen island, trying hard not to think about that one time I had been here with Killian and…
I shook my head. The last thing I needed to do was think about the way Killian and I had done some rude things in Rachel’s kitchen. I was blushing already.
I jumped when Rachel placed a bowl of eggs, bacon, and potato breakfast skillet in front of me. As if I wasn’t already blushing, my stomach decided to growl a second time.
“Eat up. Pregnancy can take a lot out of us.”
“They told you?” I asked.
Rachel didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “Yes. Were they not supposed to?”
“No, it’s okay. I was just surprised since I’d just told them last night.”
She shot me a gentle smile. “My boys are pretty excited about it.”
I assumed it wasn’t really a secret that I was in a relationship with all three men, but to hear her mention it so casually, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react to that.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine.”
She didn’t look like she believed me, but thankfully let it go. “Why don’t you eat? And I know you still don’t know me very well, but if you want, I can accompany you to buy some baby stuff. Lord knows those brothers can get so busy.”
She rolled her eyes as she said it, but there was still that fondness on her face. She probably wasn’t blind to what the brothers did and who they were, but she seemed to have no problem accepting them.
I thought about her offer while I ate. Rachel busied herself with cleaning up a little in the kitchen, and once I was full, I pushed the plate away. “Do you think we can go today?”
She seemed surprised that I asked. And happy.
“Of course. Let me call Maverick and have him arrange everything. Why don’t you get ready, and I’ll meet you by the front door in twenty minutes?”
I nodded. I was technically ready, though I was in one of Maverick’s shirts and sweatpants.
I walked up the stairs and into my room. As I was pulling on my jeans, I thought about my mom. I didn’t think about her often. The last time we spoke, she had unwittingly helped me discover the brothers’ true identity. I still haven’t forgiven her for leaving New Orleans the moment I showed up after running away from the clubhouse.
I hadn’t forgiven her for abandoning me to my father when I was eleven.
It might have happened over a decade before, but the wound never completely healed. And now, I was about to be a mother. And I couldn’t ever imagine myself abandoning my child, so why was it so easy for her to do it to me?
I knew now my dad would have never let me go. Not with Grandpa’s inheritance attached to me, but why was it so easy for her to leave me behind?
Didn’t she love me enough to stay… for me?
I shook away the melancholy I was suddenly feeling this morning. The only blessing today was that there was no morning sickness, though the day was still new.
I just… I didn’t want to be sad anymore.
I took a deep breath before walking out of the room and down the stairs twenty minutes later. Rachel was right by the door, where she said she would be. Rachel looked to be older than my mom by only a handful of years, and she didn’t know me. Even if I had lived in this house for months, we were nothing more than strangers to each other, but she had shown me more kindness in that time than my own mother had my entire life.
How sad was that?
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked when I walked over to her. I obviously didn’t hide my feelings well enough.
I could have told her nothing, and I was sure she would have let it go. I didn’t know what prompted me to answer. “I was just thinking about my mom.”
Rachel’s eyes softened in understanding. “You miss her? It’s pretty common for us to miss our mom when we’re expecting.”
I shook my head. Now that I really thought about it, I couldn’t say I missed her. I never received any maternal love from her for me to miss.
“No, I was just wondering if she missed me. I don’t think she does.” Even I could hear the sadness in my voice. And the last thing I needed was for someone else to feel sorry for me. I shook my head. “It’s stupid, I know.”
Rachel grabbed my hand. “Hey, I don’t think it’s stupid. And if your mom made you feel that, then it’s on her and has nothing to do with what you did. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
She looked like she wanted to say something more, but I interrupted her when I asked, “Can we leave?”
After a pause, she nodded. “Yes, I’m sure Liam and Conor have brought the car around.”
“Liam and Conor?”
“Our guards for the day,” she answered like it was obvious. “Maverick was very adamant that we not leave their sight at any time.”
“I’m sure he was,” I muttered, following Rachel out the door. I wished he had told me himself. Or better yet, would give me a phone so I could directly contact him and not have to go through other people.
I squinted against the bright morning sun as Rachel and I walked toward a waiting black car that looked like it would have cost about as much as some people’s house. My heart rate started to pick up the further I walked away from the house, and it took me a moment to realize I was leaving.
What had once been a prison now felt like my safe haven.
In the Tiernan mansion, I was safe and protected.
No one dared to touch me.
But out here…
No one knew me or cared for me. I might be leaving the property with two bodyguards, but I was sure I was nothing more than a job to them.
Rachel turned back to me when she reached the opened door to the car. “Okay?”
I nodded and hurried to catch up to her. “Yes,” I answered. She reached out and squeezed my hand once before getting inside the car. I followed her. One of the guards closed the door behind me, and then we were off. I looked out the window and watched as the house got smaller and smaller until we turned a corner and couldn’t see it anymore.
My heart felt heavy for some reason.
We headed downtown, and if I remembered correctly, somewhere close to the Tiernan’s business building that Maverick had taken me to. It felt like years had passed since that day.
I wasn’t sure what they used the building for or what business they conducted, and I didn’t really want to know. We stopped on a busy street.
Despite growing up in Chicago, I had never really explored the city. I wasn’t familiar with the area, and now that I was here, I was feeling… overwhelmed.
It was too bright, too humid, too crowded, and too noisy.
Just too… much.
Rachel came up to me and hooked her arm around mine. “Come on, I know a great place that sells everything you will need for the baby and so much more.”
I smiled and nodded, letting her lead me on. People stared at us as we passed, and I was sure it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the two gigantic, intimidating men behind us.
They looked like how most would think made men looked—stoic, silent, and intimidating as hell. They wore the same expression Maverick often had on his face and a sort of arrogant impassiveness that was hard to imitate, and they looked nearly identical to each other, which I found out from Rachel was because they were cousins.
I was sure it was common for someone to join ranks with the mob if they had family members who were already in the life.
Both had bright forest-green eyes and short blond hair shaved near the scalp. Liam was only a few shades lighter than Conor, but that was where the dissimilarities ended.
And they both took their jobs very seriously, which I supposed wasn’t a bad thing, considering fucking Sebastian was still gunning for me.
We stepped into a very high-end place that sold baby stuff. Briefly, it crossed my mind that the brothers might want to come with me to buy baby things, but I was sure we had plenty of time before the baby arrived.
Right now, I wanted to feel pregnant.
Like I was actually an expecting mother, excited to be embarking on this next journey in my life and not like this. Not so normal. So apathetic.
And I didn’t want the brothers to be around. They were so goddamn inquisitive sometimes. I was afraid they might take one look at me and realize I wasn’t as excited as I should be about this pregnancy.
“Where should we start?” I asked, trying hard not to show how overwhelmed I was feeling.
I must not have done a good job of it because Rachel took one look at me, offered a sympathetic smile, and said, “It’s always smart to start with some gender-neutral clothes for the baby.”
I quickly agreed, letting out a small sigh of relief.
Liam helped push the cart around for us while Conor remained vigilant, looking around for any possible threat. It was almost comical to see this big, rough-looking man taking in all the pregnant women around as if they could pose a threat to me.
We looked through the clothes. Rachel had several picked out already, and I was trying hard not to focus too much on the fact that the clothes were much smaller than I imagined them to be. Fuck, but why were they so small? How small was this baby going to be? And how could I hold the baby and not fear I might hurt him or her in some way?
“I know this can be a little much for first-time mothers,” Rachel said when she noticed me holding up a pale blue shirt with a picture of a smiling elephant on it.
I let out a nervous chuckle and added the shirt to the to-buy pile. “Is it obvious?”
“Only if you look close enough. You’re actually doing really well hiding it.”
“Are you… are you a mom?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too personal. She talked as if she had experience with these kinds of things.
Her face softened. “Yes. I have a son. Robbie.” Laughing, she said, “My, he’s probably older than you by a couple of years. Doesn’t that just remind me of how old I am?”
I frowned. “You don’t look very old.”
“Oh, you flatter me. I’ll be fifty-five in December.”
Fifty-five wasn’t old, but it was older than what I thought Rachel was. “Really?”
She laughed again. “I can see why my boys are so taken with you. You are quite charming, aren’t you?”
I looked away, blushing a little. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me charming before.”
“Well, that’s hard to believe.”
I shrugged. She’d be surprised. Most people found me to be cold. Though, I knew that was just a product of my environment.
“What does he do?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
Rachel held up a yellow one-piece with red stripes. “He’s a lawyer. For the brothers.”
She shot me a look.
So her son worked for the brothers. I was sure with what they did, they would need a trusted man as their legal counsel.
“So he lives in Chicago, then?”
“Yes, not far from where I live actually. I do hope you get the chance to meet him someday.”
I smiled at the kindness in her eyes. “I hope so too.”
She patted my hand.
We went back to browsing, moving on to some baby bottles. I took this chance to observe her. She had long brown hair that she tied into a bun and kind brown eyes. Her face had very few wrinkles, which contributed to why I thought she was much younger than fifty-five, and her skin was a beautiful golden tan that I knew wasn’t from the sun but from genetics. It was hard for me to tell what ethnicity she was.
She was beautiful in a kind way.
“How did you come to work with the brothers?” I asked.
Her eyes widened in surprise. I wondered if it was too personal. I was about to tell her she didn’t have to answer me when she spoke. “They never told you?”
I shook my head.
“I was their mom’s best friend. At least, I was before she married her husband. Then Saoirse kind of disappeared on me after a while. I know now it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t able to have any contact with the outside world. Her husband loosened the rules a little when she finally gave birth to Maverick—his heir.”
I looked away. It wasn’t like I didn’t have any idea of the brothers’ mom and what her marriage had been like. A kind of marriage I imagine I would have endured had the brothers not attacked the clubhouse that one fateful night, and I had to go through with the marriage to Sebastian.
I shook away the thought. “So you have known the brothers their whole life?”
“I missed the first five years of Maverick’s life. I didn’t know how Saoirse managed, but she was able to convince Declan—the boys’ father—to let me work for the family as the nanny. Saoirse was happy for a little while. Then things started to unravel, and the more I saw of her marriage to that man, the more I wanted to take her and the boys away. But I was a woman. A powerless woman. And their mother had taken on a victim’s mentality for so long that she forgot to think of herself as a woman who had needs and wants. Maverick was around twelve or thirteen at the time when I finally got through to her. We were going to take the boys and run away.”
Her eyes turned sad, and I didn’t need to ask her why that was. Obviously, they hadn’t been able to escape. “He found out,” I guessed.
She nodded. “She heard him on the phone with his mistress. She told me to go to the bus station without her first and that she would meet me there with the boys.” She paused, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “She never showed up. And when I realized Declan’s men were there, I knew I had to leave. It broke my heart into a million pieces to get on that bus. I realized right away that Saoirse never intended to take the boys and run with me. She was just trying to help me escape Declan’s grasp while she resigned herself to her fate.”
She wiped away her tears and looked away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
She waved her hand away. “Of course not. It’s been years, but I still think about my dear friend. Sometimes, I imagined what it would have been like had we succeeded in taking the boys and running. But that was just the wishful thinking of an old woman who missed her friend.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say.
“The boys actually tracked me down about ten years after that event. They remembered me. It helped that their mom kept a diary. At that time, I was a single mom trying my hardest to raise my son. The boys offered me a job and their protection. They helped put my boy through law school, and well, the rest is history.”
And it made sense now why Rachel was so loyal to them.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Of course, my dear. I know we were talking about your mom earlier, and you don’t have to tell me about her, but just know, I always wanted a daughter to love and spoil. Given the chance, I’d like to think I can be a mother figure for you… if you’ll have me.”
Tears burned my eyes. The yearning I had felt for my mother when I was a little girl after she’d abandoned me came back, but now I was with a woman who had shown me nothing but kindness from the very beginning.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I would like that.”
“Oh, my dear girl.” She pulled me tightly into her arms, holding me to her. I closed my eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. “You’re going to be alright. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded against her. Yes, I was beginning to see that now.
I was going to be okay.
An hour later, we were done shopping for the day, and I was feeling lighter than I had felt in a long time.
And I was smiling.
Liam carried the bags behind us while Conor led us to the car. The men still hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to me.
Conor suddenly tensed then, and Rachel held me back. Tension filled the air, and I looked around, wondering what the source of it might be.
“That’s far enough,” Conor said, his voice rough and commanding. I took a small step back, taking Rachel with me, as a familiar-looking man appeared in my line of sight. Liam came up closer to Rachel and me, his face taut.
Despite the two guards staring him down with a look that said they would much rather kill him than talk, the man looked unconcerned. He was also staring directly at me.
“I know you,” I said. “You were at the restaurant the other night.”
My men didn’t say, but I was sure it was the reason for Killian’s angry face right before we left for the barbecue joint.
“Miss,” Liam said quietly beside me.
The man smiled. “And I know you, Ms. Hayes. Let me introduce myself.” He made a move to hold out his hand, but Conor got in his way. The man was smart enough to back away a little, though he still looked unconcerned. “I am Supervisory Special Agent Matthew Jones.”
An FBI agent?
I worked hard to keep my face contained.
“What do you want?” Conor asked, moving until the man wasn’t really in my sight anymore.
“To speak to Ms. Hayes,” Agent Jones answered mildly.
“You have a warrant for that?”
“Gentlemen, there’s no need for a warrant when I was hoping to just have a friendly chat.”
Conor laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. “Get a warrant if you want to talk to her, motherfucker. And only when she has a lawyer present. You can leave now.”
Agent Jones ignored Conor and looked around him at me. “Aren’t you a bit curious about the men you’re with?”
He said men with a curl of his lips, which told me exactly where he stood in thinking about my relationship with my men. I narrowed my eyes at him. Who I was in a relationship with was none of his concern.
“You seem to know a lot about me,” I commented. Did he really think he could get me on his side?
“I've done my research. Send your father my regards, won’t you? No one has seen or heard from Daniel Hayes in a while. Isn’t it funny that the president of one of the most notorious MCs would just up and disappear?”
“My father’s a grown man. I don’t concern myself with his business. Sometimes, he would leave for months and not return. It’s not that uncommon,” I replied coolly.
“Then I’m sure he’ll turn up soon.”
I smiled a little. “Maybe.”
“Do you think you can lose the goons and come talk to me?”
I glared at him. Behind me, Liam looked like he was about to grab me should I make the wrong choice. I nearly turned around to scream at him. I wasn't a child, and I wasn’t stupid.
“It’s as Conor said. If you want to talk to me, make it official. Get the paperwork in order, Agent Jones. And I won’t be going anywhere with you without a lawyer. But I have to say, you’re wasting your time. You won’t get anything from me.”
Anger flashed over the agent’s face, and though I wasn’t scared, considering Conor and Liam were close by, there was just something about seeing a man angry that got to me. I took a step back. Liam held me steady. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
I could only nod.
“So they got to you, too, huh? What did those brothers do? Dick you down so much, you’d blindly follow them to prison?”
I didn’t really get the chance to react to his rude words.
Liam dropped the bags he was holding, and before I knew it, he was on Agent Jones, pounding him to the pavement. Conor tried to pull his cousin off, but even I could see he wasn’t trying very hard.
A crowd gathered, and suddenly, it was just chaos everywhere, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
Hell.