Epilogue
RIOT
Two years later
Anna called me in the middle of the afternoon.
I answered before the second ring. “Hey. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” she said, sounding so calm that I immediately knew something wasn’t.
I straightened away from the workbench. Mace was talking to somebody beside me, but whatever he was saying disappeared beneath the sudden awareness that Anna was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and had been under strict instructions to call me if so much as the baby looked like she was thinking about making an appearance.
“Where are you?”
There was a pause that made the back of my neck tighten.
“Before you start,” Anna said, “I’m already at the hospital.”
I was moving before she finished the sentence. “Why the fuck are you already at the hospital?”
“Because I started having contractions this morning, they got closer together, and the doctor said I should come in.”
“This morning?”
Mace stopped talking. I grabbed my cut from the back of a chair.
Anna sighed into the phone. “Riot, I knew you were going to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Act like I’ve committed some kind of crime by not calling you after the first twinge.”
“You’ve been in labor all fucking day.”
“I haven’t. I’ve been having contractions all day. There’s a difference, and before you argue with me, I’m the one currently having them.”
That shut me up for roughly two seconds.
“Are you alone?”
“My coworker brought me. They’re keeping me now, so you can come without turning the highway into your own personal racetrack.”
“I’m coming.”
“I know you’re coming. That’s why I called.”
I was halfway across the clubhouse by then. Mace looked at my face, understood immediately and stepped out of the way.
Anna’s voice sharpened. “And Riot?”
“What?”
“Do not ride like an idiot.”
“I don’t ride like an idiot.”
She laughed, which annoyed me because I was completely fucking serious.
“I have ridden behind you,” she said. “I’m already in a hospital. I don’t need you arriving at one in an ambulance.”
A contraction caught her before I could answer. The line went quiet apart from her breathing, slow at first and then tighter, and every muscle in my body locked because there was absolutely nothing I could do from where I was.
“Anna?”
“I’m fine.” She sounded breathless now. “Just get here in one piece.”
“I will.”
“And Riot?”
“Yeah?”
“If you get stopped for speeding, I am not leaving labor to bail you out.”
That made me laugh despite the panic crawling around under my skin. “Pretty sure that isn’t how speeding tickets work.”
“I’m having a baby. I don’t care how anything works right now.”
“I love you.”
Her voice softened. “Love you too. Now get here safely.”
I made it safely.
That was all anybody needed to know.
Six hours later, Anna hated me.
Not in the way she’d once spent eighteen months convincing herself she did. This was much more specific.
She hated my face.
She hated my hands.
She hated the fact that I kept asking whether she wanted water.
She hated the hospital bed, the monitors and whichever nurse had suggested walking might help.
I sat beside the bed with her hand locked around mine while another contraction finally eased. Sweat had dampened the hair around her face, and exhaustion had stripped away most of the smart comments she’d started the day with.
I wiped the cool cloth across her forehead.
Anna opened one eye. “I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate your bike.”
“That’s unnecessary.”
“I hate your fucking enforcer patch.”
I looked down at it. “Now you’re just lashing out.”
“I hate your voice.”
“That one hurts.”
“And I really, really hate your dick.”
I couldn’t help it. “You’ve historically been pretty fucking enthusiastic about it.”
Her eyes opened fully.
The nurse on Anna’s other side suddenly became very interested in the monitor.
I nodded once. “That was the wrong thing to say.”
“Do you want to meet your daughter?”
“Very much.”
“Then shut the fuck up.”
I shut the fuck up.
The nurse lasted another five seconds before she started laughing.
Anna glared at both of us.
“None of this is funny.”
“Nope,” I said immediately.
The nurse pressed her lips together and nodded.
Anna closed her eyes again. “I hate her too.”
“She seems nice.”
“Riot.”
“Shutting up.”
Another contraction began before she could threaten me properly.
Her whole body tightened. The humor disappeared from the room as fast as it had arrived, and Anna’s fingers crushed mine while she breathed through the pain.
I moved closer. “Look at me.”
“I don’t want to look at you.”
“Fine. Break my hand instead.”
“I’m trying.”
That one nearly made me smile, but then her face changed and whatever joke I’d been about to make died.
I had seen Anna scared before. I’d seen her furious, grieving, stubborn enough to walk into places she had no business walking into and brave enough to admit when she’d been wrong.
I had never seen her this exhausted.
“You’re doing it,” I told her.
“I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“I know.”
“That isn’t helpful.”
“No.” I pushed the damp hair back from her forehead. “But you’re still doing it.”
She looked at me then.
There wasn’t anything clever left between us. No old fight, no club line, no reason either of us had to pretend this wasn’t terrifying.
“I’m fucking tired.”
“I know, baby.”
“I want her out.”
“I know.”
“And if you ever get me pregnant again, I’ll kill you.”
“Understood.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”
“I absolutely fucking believe you.”
That got the smallest laugh out of her.
Then another contraction hit and she nearly removed my fingers.
Things changed quickly after that.
The doctor came back. Nurses moved around the room with the calm efficiency of people who did this every day, while I stood beside Anna feeling like somebody had taken every useful thing I knew how to do and thrown it out the fucking window.
I could fight.
I could protect.
I could deal with a threat.
None of that mattered here.
All I could do was stay beside her.
So I did.
When Anna said she couldn’t do another push, I told her she fucking could because she’d already done everything that came before it.
When she swore at me, I let her.
When she crushed my hand, I gave her the other one too.
And when the doctor finally said, “One more,” Anna turned her face toward mine.
“Riot.”
I leaned close enough that our foreheads touched. “I’m here.”
Her grip tightened.
“You don’t go anywhere.”
“Not a fucking chance.”
Anna screamed through the next push.
Then suddenly there was another sound in the room.
Small, furious and very fucking loud.
Everything inside me stopped.
For one second I saw a tiny red face, wet dark hair and clenched fists before our daughter was placed against Anna’s chest.
Anna started crying immediately.
I just stared.
I’d known there was a baby coming. Obviously I fucking knew. I’d watched Anna’s stomach grow, felt little feet kick beneath my palm and spent months listening to her complain that our daughter was apparently using her ribs as target practice.
None of that had prepared me for her being here.
She was a person.
Our person.
Tiny enough that Anna’s hand covered half her back.
“Riot?”
I couldn’t answer.
Anna looked up at me through tears. “You okay?”
“No.”
Her mouth trembled into a smile.
I touched one finger to our daughter’s back.
She moved beneath it.
That tiny movement hit harder than anything else had.
“Fuck.”
Anna laughed softly.
“She’s okay,” she said.
I nodded because apparently speaking had become fucking impossible.
“You’re okay too?”
“I’m okay.”
I bent and kissed Anna’s forehead, then her mouth.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Our daughter made an angry little noise between us.
Anna looked down at her and smiled. “Definitely yours.”
I finally found my voice. “Because she’s loud?”
“Because she’s pissed off already.”
“Good.”
“Of course you think that’s good.”
Our daughter’s fist opened as I touched her hand. Five impossibly tiny fingers closed around one of mine.
I went completely still again.
Anna watched me for several seconds.
Then understanding dawned across her face.
“Oh, fuck.”
I looked at her. “What?”
“You’re going to be unbearable.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” Her tired smile widened as she looked down at our daughter. “You’re going to follow her everywhere too, aren’t you?”
The baby tightened her little fist around my finger.
I smiled.
“Damn right.”
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DEAD LUCKY MC - BOOK 1