Chapter 7 #3
And every single time, I’d used protection.
Every. Single. Time.
I was meticulous about it. Obsessive, even.
Borderline paranoid, if I were being honest. I never took risks.
Never let my guard down. Never let passion or heat of the moment cloud my judgment.
Never fucked without a condom, no matter how much she begged, no matter how good it felt, no matter how badly I wanted to feel her without that thin barrier between us.
It was a rule I’d lived by for years. A rule that had kept me safe, kept me in control, kept me from ending up in situations like this. A rule that had become second nature, as automatic as breathing.
So how the fuck was she pregnant?
Protection failed sometimes. I knew that.
I’d read the statistics, heard the stories, seen it happen to other people.
Statistically, condoms were about 98% effective with perfect use.
With typical use, that number dropped to around 85%.
But I’d always been in that 98%. Always.
I followed the rules. I checked expiration dates.
I stored them properly. I was meticulous about it.
Until now.
Maybe.
I ran through the timeline in my head for the hundredth time, trying to make the math work differently.
The last time I’d seen her was the night before she left Diamond Creek.
Almost two months ago. Late August. If she was pregnant now, the timing lined up perfectly.
Too perfectly. The dates matched up in a way that made my stomach twist into knots.
But I couldn’t remember a single moment when I hadn’t wrapped up.
Not one.
Every time we’d been together, I’d been careful. Every single time. I replayed each encounter in my mind, searching for gaps in my memory, for moments of recklessness or poor judgment.
My mind kept circling back to that, over and over, like a broken record stuck on the same verse.
I was careful. I was always careful. That was who I was. That was how I operated.
So how the fuck did this happen?
“Torment.”
Montana’s voice cut through my thoughts like a knife, sharp and deliberate, pulling me back from the dark spiral I’d been falling into.
I looked up, meeting his gaze reluctantly.
His eyes were hard, unforgiving, like chips of blue ice that could freeze you solid if you stared too long.
There was no sympathy there, no softness.
Just cold, brutal truth. “You need to get your head straight. Because when that DNA test comes back, you’re going to have to make a decision.
And whatever you decide, it’s going to affect this club.
Every single member. Every prospect. Every old lady. So figure out what you want. Fast.”
I nodded slowly, feeling the weight of his words settle on my shoulders like a lead blanket. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Montana repeated, his tone dripping with disbelief and frustration. “That’s all you’ve got? After everything we’ve been through together, after all the times this club has had your back, all you can give me is ‘yeah’?”
“What do you want me to say?” I asked, my voice tight, barely controlled.
I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me, mixing with the fear and confusion until I didn’t know which emotion was winning.
“I don’t know if it’s mine. I don’t know what I want.
I don’t know anything right now except that my entire life just got turned upside down.
Everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I had figured out—it’s all gone. Just like that.”
Montana stared at me for a long moment, his jaw working like he was chewing on words he wanted to say but couldn’t quite spit out.
Then he sighed, a long, heavy exhale that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest, and some of the anger drained out of him.
His shoulders dropped slightly, and for just a second, I saw a flicker of understanding in those hard eyes.
“Welcome to the club, brother. Life’s a bitch, and she doesn’t play fair. ”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It really fucking is.”
Mercy cleared his throat. “Alright. Let’s table this for now.
Bane will run the DNA test when the sample arrives.
He’s been trying to trace corrupted files in the DNA database, but every time he fixes one issue, another appears.
Let’s hope this doesn’t delay things, but it’s worth noting.
Until then, there’s nothing we can do. Torment, you need to think about what you want.
Montana, you need to focus on recovering and figuring out the patch-over situation.
Everyone else, stay ready. We’ve still got the Death Dogs to deal with. ”
The brothers nodded, murmuring their agreement.
But I barely heard them.
Because all I could think about was Brandy.
And the fact that somewhere out there, she was carrying a child that might be mine.
A child I hadn’t planned for. Hadn’t wanted. Hadn’t even known existed until five minutes ago.
And now it was club business.
Which meant it was everyone’s problem.
Including mine.