Chapter 30 #2
“Bones of a child so small could end up incinerated in a fire,” Oli adds. “You may never have closure.”
“No, no!” Stefanie yells. “There’s a woman who lives here, and she took her. I know she did. There are photos of my baby girl in this town.”
It’s true that Isolde took her on errands before she moved in with us. However, that’s still not proof that the child is one and the same.
“We’re gay,” Oli chuckles, lying well. “There’s not a woman who lives here.”
“They promised that I’d get her back,” she whines.
“Are those track marks that you have?” Lucas asks innocently. “I don’t think you should be caring for anything living. Why don’t you focus on getting clean and lay your dead baby to rest in your mind?”
“She can’t be dead,” Stefanie sniffles. “I need to see!”
She struggles to get around the two of them, actually grappling to break into the house.
“Indiana is a stand your ground state,” Grant growls, stepping into the foyer like the predator that he is. “Please, make my day and let her through.”
“Oops,” Oli says, stepping aside.
Stefanie staggers into the house, her eyes wild as she looks around until she sees me and the bambina still sleeping in my arms.
“Charlotte?” she cries out. “You do have her! I want to be compensated for my pain and suffering. I…I want a million dollars because you kidnapped her!”
“Golddigger,” I sigh. “That’s all I needed to know. Carry on, Grant.”
Stefanie continues to yell about the injustices of life, and how it’s not her fault that she’s addicted to meth. My eyes widen as Grant simply allows her to sign her own death warrant.
Lucas shuts the door, and Stefanie’s eyes shoot over to him.
“So you are on drugs,” he says conversationally. “Were you taking them when the baby was born?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn’t think about that. I snuggle Leila closer because I can’t imagine how she could ever do that.
“No. Toby made me get clean when he found out I was pregnant,” she groans. “It was really hard.”
“Sounds like it wasn’t important enough to stay away from the drugs,” Oli says. “Meth is pretty strong stuff. If you kill yourself, then what happens to your kid?”
We all make sure we aren’t in Grant’s line of sight or in his way. Oli is so still, I can hear him chanting “my baby, mine” in his mind through the bond.
He’s right. Leila isn’t Stefanie’s baby. That child died the morning that Isolde walked onto the motorcycle club’s property like the beautiful angel of death that she is.
“My dealers would sell her to cover my debts,” she mutters, so low that I almost don’t hear her.
My feet begin to walk backward, wanting to get away from her. The beta woman is tainted and twisted with the darkness of her life. An innocent baby doesn’t deserve to wallow within it, not if we can give her so much better.
This world is too cruel for Leila.
“Why do you really want her?” Lucas asks, eyes narrowing.
My heart pounds as I stare at the desperate evil looking me in the eyes and grin.
“They said they’d give me all the drugs I wanted if I gave her to them,” she says.
I raise my finger in Grant’s direction, needing to know more. Who the fuck is trading babies for drugs?
“Who is ‘they’ and why do they want her?” I rasp.
My heart pounds, and Leila complains as she wiggles against my chest. It’s absolutely adorable, but that means she can feel my agitation.
“It’s complicated,” she says, her eyes on our bambina as if she’s her salvation. She’s not, just her next drug fix. “There are people who like babies in very unhealthy ways. I don’t care. I never wanted her anyway.”
Grant pulls the trigger, but there’s a puff of air and nothing else. Absently, as if I’m outside my body, I realize that he must have put a silencer on the weapon. Sagging against the wall, I watch as Stefanie's eyes widen, her mouth filling with blood as she drops to her knees.
“We’re standing our ground, bitch,” I whisper. “Leila isn’t for sale, and we’d never give her to you after the filth you just spewed.”
“We weren’t ever giving her our baby, period,” Grant says tightly.
Rita walks out into view and her eyes widen as she watches Stefanie fall dead on her face.
“Should I call one of the men to help clean this up?” she asks softly.
Rita is taking this much better than I am. I’m not upset Stefanie is dead, I’m angry as fuck that Leila didn’t have a better biological mother.
“I’ll handle it. Thank you, Rita. I’m sorry I got your floor dirty,” Grant says, putting his weapon away.
“I’m not worried about that, Grant. What did she want?” she asks.
“To sell our baby,” I say, reeling still from the audacity of a woman who would track us down for something like this.
“Good riddance,” Rita sniffs. “Should the men begin digging a hole for her?”
“That would be great,” Grant says, walking toward Stefanie.
“Wait,” the housekeeper says, looking for something. Walking over to a closet, she pulls out a couple of blankets and hands them to Grant. “Just because you got blood on the floor, doesn’t mean I want you tracking it across my carpets too. That’s a bitch to get out.”
Lucas snorts under his breath, pushing Stefanie onto her back. Oliver joins them and wraps her up tightly in the blankets. When they look up, Rita is there with duct tape. I swear, nothing fazes this woman.
“They’re digging the hole now. Alesso, come into the kitchen with the baby. She shouldn’t be here while they’re doing this,” she says.
Nodding, I take a shaky breath and refuse to look down at Stefanie.
“Leila will never know about her,” I say softly. “If we need to tell her something, it’s that Isolde saved her from a burning building. Stefanie Mitchell will not be remembered in any capacity, much like how she lived.”
“Agreed,” Lucas, Oli, and Grant say in that odd way of pack. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t been one for long, we’re more in sync than most packs that I know.
Following Rita out of the foyer with Leila in my arms, I still lift up a small prayer that Stefanie will finally find peace.