Chapter 22
Rainey
I press my palm against the horn outside Leo’s house, the sound cutting through the quiet morning. My phone sits on the passenger seat, the blue text bubbles from last night still visible.
You guys okay?
And Leo’s reply at eleven p.m. Yes, I’m at Max’s. Crashing here. He will drive me home tomorrow.
I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, watching his front door for movement.
My chest tightens like someone’s wringing out my lungs—Leo’s face—God.
One eye is swollen completely shut and bruised.
He is walking like he is trying not to breathe too deeply on one side.
When he smiles at me, his split lip cracks open again, and he doesn’t even flinch. I have to grip the car door.
“What the hell happened?”
Each step he takes toward me comes with a wince, and his shoulders hunch forward as if bracing against invisible blows. Gently, I lay a hand on his shoulder.
“Why did you do that?” I frown. “Why did you fight?”
He sighs. “You’re going to hate me.”
“No, you’re talking nonsense. I could never. Come on, get in the car.”
On the way to the OB-GYN, Leo explains that he had wanted to fight on a whim and, after the first fight, realized he had made the wrong decision. I’m so close to rear-ending the car in front of me when he says Max fought his second fight.
“Jeez, you almost killed us,” Leo grumbles.
I grumble right back, adding an eye roll. “So, is Max okay? Is he hurt?” I ask at the stoplight.
“Yes. His pretty little face is just fine. Although his knuckles are in bad shape.”
My chest expands with a large exhale. I was so worried when I got home last night.
I took a hot shower and tried to read a book, but my mind kept drifting to the guys.
Then Lana called to check up on me. She had left when she saw me walk in the opposite direction.
When I told her I had broken the windows, she burst out laughing, then insisted on checking whether I had glass on me, but I told her I was fine.
And thank God the cops didn’t show up. How embarrassing if they had.
Jealousy can make you do crazy shit. I know it’s a stupid move.
“I’m glad it all went well.”
From the corner of my eye, Leo tenses up. “Umm, something happened.”
I speed down the parking lot, tires screeching against the asphalt as I veer between two yellow lines. The car lurches forward when I slam on the brakes, my knuckles white against the steering wheel as I kill the engine in a vacant spot near the back entrance.
“What happened?” My heart is racing wildly.
He tells me word for word, and I have a need to shake him.
I lift a hand when he’s about to say something.
I need a moment—a moment to pray. Max can’t get involved again.
The last time, they had him fight two guys in the ring.
Daniel will take advantage, and who knows what can happen in a year? It’s dangerous.
“Maybe there’s another way?” I suggest, although I know there isn’t.
“I don’t think there is. I just don’t know how it will work out fighting for the Underground and WBC. If the WBC finds out, he will be disqualified. Illegal fights are not permitted.”
I check in at the front desk, then wait to be called.
My mind is still on the fights Max now has to take at the warehouse to help Leo.
He’s always been a kind and unselfish person.
He’s risking everything he’s dreamed of to help a young man who he sees as a brother.
As much as I hate the idea of Max fighting at the warehouse, I know he’s doing it for a good reason.
I just wish there were another way. I grin when a mother walks in with her newborn.
My heart melts at the precious baby. I can’t wait until I get to hold mine.
A couple of kids stare at Leo’s face in horror. I probably should have left him at home to rest. He elbows my side gently. “Can we talk about the smashed windows?”
I groan. Of course, he has to mention it. “He didn’t tell you why?”
His brows connect. “No, he was too busy scolding me. He said something about Annette…and you being jealous.”
The asshole is enjoying this, isn’t he? Like Max is not a jealous man.
“I was having dinner, and I saw him and Annette. I was angry that, of all people, he would be with her. It felt like a slap to the face. After smashing his windows, he said Carlos had set up dinner plans and didn’t show.
” I laugh. “It doesn’t surprise me. It’s like the pieces are starting to fall into place.
” Besides being worried about Max and Leo, I kept thinking of everything Carlos had told me and what Max had mentioned.
Carlos had obviously set them up. What makes Annette so much better than others?
Is it because she’s athletic? Is it the fame they would have if they were a couple? I don’t understand.
“What do you mean?” Leo cocks his head. “What pieces?”
I’d said more than I should have. I wave a hand at him. “Ahh, nothing.”
Leo leans closer as more patients file into the waiting room. “Nuh, uh, uh. You have to tell me now,” he whispers. “What did Carlos tell you?”
I look down at my hands in my lap. The waiting room hums around us. The soft flip of magazine pages, a toddler murmuring to a stuffed animal two chairs down, the receptionist’s keyboard clicking in a steady rhythm.
His name has been living there for months.
Carlos. Every time I thought I was getting somewhere—therapy, school, the baby giving me something to hold on to.
His evil voice would find me. You’re his trigger.
You’re holding him back. If you love him, let him go.
I carry those words like scripture. Built my whole decision around them.
I hesitate, weighing my options, then give in with a half-hearted shrug. “He said a lot. He wasn’t wrong about a lot of it. I guess I expected him to…I don’t know, I guess be more of a father figure, supportive. Hell, I thought he liked me. Apparently not.”
“I don’t follow.”
I huff about to tell him what Carlos had said when the medical assistant peeks her head out, calling my name. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Leo.
“It’s okay, Daddy can come in.” She waves at Leo.
“Oh, he’s not the d—”
“Thank you.” Leo stands, grinning.
I roll my eyes at him.
The medical assistant dashes away, and we follow behind. “I don’t want them to think you got knocked up and the dude left you.”
“First of all, that did not happen, and second, many women come alone because their significant other probably works, and also, there are so many single mothers out there, and there is nothing wrong with that,” I whisper-shout.
Leo lifts a shoulder. “They don’t know that.”
I roll my eyes, set my purse down to jump on the scale, then I’m handed a cup to pee in. When I get back to the patient’s room, Leo is leaning in a chair, scrolling on his phone.
“What names are you thinking of?” he asks, while I struggle to sit on the bed.
“Umm, I haven’t really thought about it yet. I wanted to talk to Max first.”
“When do you plan on telling him?”
I stretch my legs out and fluff the pillow.
“I wish I could reach him somehow. He never picks up my calls. What if I printed the ultrasound photo on a tiny baby onesie and left it at his office for his birthday? Do you think he’d understand what it meant?
” I’m still confused about why, when I bump into him, he’s all chatty and flirty, and, of course, someone always calls him.
Then, when I call, he never picks up. The only thing I can do is drop it off at his door.
And now I have to figure out how to get Max to the rehab place to get Hector. I’m nervous.
“I think that’s a great idea.”
The doctor knocks on the door and then enters the room. Her hair is up in a bun, and her smile is bright and kind. “Hello, you two.” She looks to Leo. “Must be dad.”
“No, he’s a good friend of mine. My baby’s dad couldn’t make it today,” I say, cutting in before he says something dumb.
“Wonderful.” She turns the faucet, scrubs her hands pink, and snaps on latex gloves.
The cool gel on my belly makes me flinch.
She presses the wand against my skin, moving it in small circles.
The room fills with a rapid thump-thump-thump, like a tiny drum inside me.
My eyes burn, and my throat tightens. On the grainy screen, a small form twists and kicks, one tiny hand opening and closing.
The image shifts, and there’s a rounded curve—the baby’s backside, positioned perfectly to keep its secret for another day.
Twenty minutes later, I drop Leo off. “Maybe you should name the baby, if it’s a boy, Leo,” he suggests jokingly.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him. He waves goodbye and shuts the door.
I pull away from his apartment, heading to my therapy session, and drive two blocks before I glance at my purse.
The ultrasound photo is folded inside, and I think about that hand—the way it opened and closed on the screen like it was reaching for something.
Something slides off the passenger seat when I make a left turn.
Shit, Leo left his phone. He’ll need it.
Making a U-turn, I pull up to his apartment.
A familiar car is parked in the driveway. Leaving the car door open, I walk up. “Is it true?” Carlos’s voice thunders. “Annette said she’s pregnant.” From where I’m standing, I can see Carlos pacing the living room. The door is slightly open.
“She is,” Leo says flatly.
“Is the child his?”
Leo shoves his hands in his pockets. “Who else would it be, and why do you care?”
Carlos’s lip curls into a sneer. “Max doesn’t know?”
“Not yet.”
Carlos runs his hand through his brittle hair. “How far along?”
“Look, Carlos, I don’t know anything. Just leave it.”
“Leave it?!” he roars. “I can’t just leave it. I knew from the beginning that Max had heart. He would get me to where I need to be. She ruins everything. Rainey is just like her.”
Where he needs to be? Who am I like?
I stop breathing.