25. Alice
25
ALICE
I catch the elevator two floors down from the ICU and head to my ultrasound appointment.
Lying down on a hospital bed feels weird.
I’ve only done it around Lifesaver, Match, and Brander. Never properly like this.
A tingling sensation spreads through me as the nurse lifts up my gown to expose my stomach. Muscle memory. I need sex right now to escape, not confirmation that the baby is healthy when Daddy has already got it in his head that I’m aborting the child.
My heart hurts at the thought.
Yesterday was like a movie, and not a nice one. Last night at three AM after several hours of tossing and turning and overthinking, Brander peeled back his comforter and allowed me into his bed. He big-spooned me the entire night, and it felt safe. His gigantic arms blocked out the entire world, and reality receded for a short few hours.
Daddy coming home yesterday to find all three of the bikers plus Levi all gathered around me in the family room wasn’t how I thought he’d find out about everything.
First up, I didn’t think he ever would.
But it’s even worse now.
He doesn’t approve.
“Everything okay, Alice? You look slightly worried,” Kayla, the ultrasound tech, says.
I swallow the lump in my throat and force a smile. “Yeah. All good.”
“You’re only three weeks so there isn’t an awful lot for us to do at this stage, but everything at the moment looks perfect. I imagine you’re getting excited?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Who’s the father?”
This will be the question of the day every day when the bump starts to form.
“Match, Brander, and Lifesaver.”
I take pleasure in seeing her face contort. I know the information that I have three boyfriends has already gotten around at work, but I imagine she thought that if I’m pregnant then that means I’ll surely be settling down with only one. After a moment of confusion, she decides to flash me a smile. She’s fighting hard to hide her surprise, but her eyes get the better of her, rising all the way to her hairline.
“Of course, I’m unsure which one it biologically belongs to, but all three will be fathers.”
“Like a Mama Mia situation?”
“Nope,” I say. “More of a…package deal.”
“Oh!” she says. “Lucky baby. I didn’t even have one father, and this little human gets three?”
Match, Brander, and Lifesaver will all make great fathers.
Assuming Levi’s plan pulls through, and none of them die.
A sharp pain drives through me.
Fuck.
What if one of them doesn’t make it?
Agony rips my chest in half at the thought of being without just one of them. Each of them have totally different qualities that would enhance a child’s life. Lifesaver, for one, is a doctor, so we’d save ourselves millions in medical insurance if the child needs anything or gets into an accident. His love for health, nutrition, and fitness, coupled with his complex understanding of human anatomy, will make him a good father, and I don’t know, there’s just something about that man that squishes my heart every time I look into his eyes.
I’d want the baby to have either Lifesaver or Match’s eyes. Looking into blue or amber eyes all day would make me so happy, and I’d love the baby to have Match’s organization skills. Out of the three, he’s the most sensible (aside from the occasional cocky side comment). If there’s one thing to learn from Match, it’s the importance of taking your time and doing things well. And of course, if we’re talking physical attributes, a little boy with curtain bangs would be cute.
And then there’s Brander. Hard-as-nails, takes-no-shit Brander. Considering his parentless, homeless background, I know he’ll treat the child like royalty, and do everything in his power to protect it from harm. Discipline is one of the things I know he’ll also excel in, though. Tough love is something that children need.
Something Daddy never gave me.
I trust all three of them to be fair, and to love the baby with everything they have.
But what if something happens? Outlawing through the desert comes with many risks. Yes, it protects, but there’s high risk for it to also destroy.
Nerves filter back into my stomach.
Can I trust Levi?
He lied to me once about hooking up with another woman.
Does that make him capable of lying again?
Did his involvement in the Bratva really begin when he said it did? When Vlad caught him red-handed pressing his wife up against some wall?
What if it’s more complicated than that?
“Thanks,” I say to the nurse as we wrap up the ultrasound.
“Anytime. And make sure to get lots of rest. Stress isn’t good for the baby.”
Just what I fucking need to hear, when tonight I’ve got to get up onto a podium and extend my body against a pole for a crowd of men that are trying to picture me naked.
Sunlight streams down from a cloudless blue sky. I haul my bag over my shoulder and stick my hand up to wave at Brander—he’s been loitering in the parking lot on lookout.
He climbs off his bike and envelops me in a hug.
I press my face into his neck, inhaling the spiced caramel scent of his cologne. The fragrance unties a few knots.
“How was the scan? How was work?” he asks.
“All good.”
He takes a step away to examine my face, iron-gray brows scrunching together. “You don’t have to listen to your father, you know. You’ve been doing that you’re entire life. Besides, you’re twenty-two, not some sixteen-year-old high school dropout with no direction. You have your job.” He pauses. “And us.”
He smooths a piece of stray hair behind my ear. “We’ll look after you, but I understand your sadness. He’s your father, through thick and thin, and he’s a good guy that made a bad mistake.” He chuckles softly. “I know it sucks, but sometimes I wish I had this problem.”
Right. Because he never properly got to meet his father.
Shame heating my cheeks, I drop my face.
Brander lifts my chin back up. “Everything will work out.”
I swear every time this man smiles, his face lights up the world like a starry sky on a clear night.
Looking into his eyes makes things half feel okay again.
That’s when it hits me.
I want the child, genetically, to be Brander’s.
He deserves it the most, and the thought of him and I making something together makes my heart fuzzy.
I feel good.
Until I realize that our plan commences tonight.
And even though Brander excels in survival, it doesn’t make him exempt from danger tonight. Something could happen, not just to him, but to the others too.
And not just to the bikers.
But to Daddy too.
What if he dies with us on bad terms?
This isn’t just about me anymore, though.
The child growing within me deserves a grandfather.
“Hey, can you do me a favor?” I ask.
“Anything, darling.”
“I need to speak to my father. Can you take me to Summerlin?”
“Alice.”
My father opens the door like it’s made of steel or something.
I slide indoors. My hands set up camp on my arms, chest closed because I’m in no way shape or form ready for this conversation.
A linen shirt has been buttoned up only a third, his white chest on display. Dark circles pool under his eyes, and sleep crusts both corners of his eyes. He at least dressed himself today, but barely. The pants might be tailored and purchased from Alan David, but he wears them back to front, and the brown leather belt strapped around his waist snakes through only two of the five pant loops.
“I know you want me to get an abortion”— cut straight to the chase— “but that’s not what I want. You won’t understand, and you don’t have to, but at least hear me out.”
His exhausted eyes stare at me, waiting.
“I’ve never felt happier than I have this past month.”
More staring.
“My relationship with Match, Brander, and Lifesaver…it’s more of a marriage.”
His eyes don’t widen, and his lips remain threaded together in a straight line.
“I’m carrying one of their babies, and they’re all going to father it.” I take a breath. “And as for Lifesaver, he’s a good guy. He didn’t know I was your daughter when this all got started. He feels terrible, but he’s happy with me.”
“That’s true—Lifesaver is a good guy, but his involvement in the MC is why I kept you at arms length from him. It’s a dangerous world to be in, Alice. Laws are set for a reason—to ensure safety. Bending them brings serious consequences. These guys might not have suffered any yet, but they will, and I want you as far away from them as possible when it happens.”
“But they make me happy. Don’t we all deserve to be happy?”
Daddy leans into the wall, ankles crossed together. “It’s alright, Alice.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we’ve both made mistakes in our life.”
“But none of this is a mistake.”
“Sure it is.” He stands upright again. “When we’re young, mistakes are inevitable. You’re like I was—young and impressionable, but you’ll come around one day.”
“No, Daddy. This isn’t the same as you speed-dialing the Bratva one afternoon.”
“Alice, baby,” he says, voice controlled. He’s too tired to raise it. “That’s not?—”
“This isn’t a phase, Daddy. This is my life. I love them.”
“You can’t love three men at once, all twice your age. They’re using you.”
“You don’t understand.”
When a twenty-something-year-old daughter tells their father that they don’t understand, it sounds pathetic, but it’s the only thing I’ve got.
No word in the English language—hell, any language, I don’t think—can accurately describe how I feel toward Brander, Match, and Lifesaver.
Words simply don’t cut it.
It’s clear that I’ve inherited the people-pleasing gene from my father. Staring at his disappointed eyes makes me want to make things right again. My eyes crave his smile, and my skin tingles for his arms—I want them wrapped around me as we both reach agreement, but something has changed since meeting the boys. Somehow, I’ve developed an inner voice.
Daddy’s voice will often ring in my eardrums, reminding me what’s best to do, though not necessarily what’s right. Like at work when the floor manager told me to refrain from telling a patient’s family they were dying because there’d already been too much “emotional baggage” that day. “Smile, listen and keep the peace,” is something Daddy always tells me to do to avoid conflict and get through life, so I obeyed the floor manager and left it at that.
The patient died a day later and the family didn’t get to say goodbye.
Since meeting the boys, I’ve learned that life is fickle. If the barrier to death can open at any given moment, what’s the point in listening and pleasing?
I don’t want to go back to how it was before.
My heart beat steadily before meeting the boys. A month ago, adrenaline included road rage and going to the store three minutes before closing to see if I could check off my entire grocery list in time.
Now I finally understand what it feels like to live life in the fast lane every single day. To do what Tammy has been doing her whole life. It’s not a personality trait to play it safe. It’s a state of mind, and the boys have introduced me to that.
Driving down open desert roads fizzes excitement through my bones. It’s like life on steroids every day, and don’t even get me started on the sex.
An orgasm a day keeps the boredom away.
I head toward the door. “You don’t have to understand.”
“What?” Daddy says.
“I’m having this baby, and I’m staying with Lifesaver, Match, and Brander. Tonight, after we’ve executed this plan, I think it’s best if the two of us go our separate ways.”