He'd gotten Eva so fucking upset she'd gone into labor six weeks early and nearly bled out doing it. Doctor's had done an emergency c-section and now there was a tiny baby girl in an incubator with tubes up her nose because she couldn't fucking breathe on her own
and a
woman
, his woman,
who was refusing to speak to him because he was a fucked up asshole who was out fucking other women when he’d had the one he wanted in his house, in his bed, hanging with his kids.
"Prez?" Jase nudged him with his elbow.
"What?" He muttered.
"Kami's here."
He looked up and found a miniature Cox smiling at him. He smiled at Devin and looked higher. Devin's crazy mother was scowling at him. He scowled.
"Chase is dead," She bit out angrily.
He blinked. Okay. Well…that wasn't exactly bad news.
“So what?” He said. “Save’s me the time.”
Kami drew her brows together, looking less angry and more confused. "It wasn't you?" She said.
He jumped up and got in her face. "Bitch, you crazy? You don't fucking talk about that shit in public! Fact,
you
don’t talk about that shit ever!"
"I'm sorry!" She yelled. "You'll
have to forgive me! I tend
not
to
think clearly when I find out my best friend almost lost her baby and her life and not five minutes later I have the NYPD at my door informing me that my husband was tortured for hours then gutted! Fuck, Deuce, they said his insides were strung around his Christmas tree! He was so mutilated they wouldn’t even let me see his body!"
His blood ran cold. Turned into mother fucking ice.
“Ripper!” He barked.
Ripper was already on his feet, pulling out his cell phone. “On it Prez,” He said
, heading for the exit
.
"What's going on?" Kami demanded.
“Daddy!” Devin squealed and took off running.
“Shit,” Tap muttered, nodding toward the hospital entrance. “Anna’s with him.”
Jase shrugged. “His own fault. Havin’ babies all over the world.”
“He’s still with his wife?” Kami hissed.
It took Cox a millisecond to realize what he had just walked in on. Deuce watched him have a millisecond of a freak-out before dropping down on one knee. He caught Devin as the kid launched himself at him.
“Hey little man,” He said gruffly, squeezing him tight.
“What the hell!” Anna shrieked.
Still holding Devin, Cox shot to his feet. “Not in front of my fuckin’ kid, bitch.”
Kami was crossing the room. She held out her arms to Cox. “I can see you still have things
to take care of
,” She sneered. “So give me Devin while you do that.”
Nostrils flaring
,
Cox handed him over.
“Go sit down over there, baby,” She whispered, pointing to a chair across the room. Devin scurried off.
“You fucked this skinny, blonde bitch?” Anna screeched. “You had a god damn kid with her?”
Cox closed his eyes. “Jesus Anna, get a fuckin’ grip, we’re in a hospital.”
“Yeah!” She screamed. “And I just found out you are still fucking around on me!”
“Did you seriously just call me a bitch, you fucking bitch!” Kami shrieked.
Before this shit went full blown soap opera, he grabbed Cox and pulled him aside. "Chase is dead. His insides strung around a Christmas tree. Three fuckin’ guesses who did it. Get one of your bitches out of here before there's a fuckin' cat fight in the hospital my fuckin’ woman almost died in and I'm just suggestin' that it might be Anna you wanna get rid of seein' as Kami's Eva's girl and the only way you’ll get her outta here is a lot of kickin’ and screamin’ which will upset my fuckin’ woman and if you upset my woman that’s gonna end bad for you.”
Sighing,
Cox turned away. “On it, Prez,”
He muttered.
"Tap."
"Prez?"
"Call all the boys. I want round the clock guard on Eva and my girls. Cage too. Best make that discreet though."
“On it.”
Ripper rejoined the group. One look at his boy’s face he knew the news wasn’t good.
"Frankie?" He asked.
Ripper nodded. "Killed three inmates last week, was gettin’ transferred upstate because of it. During transport he killed all four guards and from what I heard, the way he did
‘em
in, shit wasn’t pretty. A real fuckin’ gore fest. He's been tagged for the Henderson hit, too. Law's gunnin' for him. He's runnin' scared. Or knowin' Frankie he's runnin' happy. And no doubt he’s gunnin’ for Eva."
Kami's eyes went saucer wide and she threw herself at Ripper. "He's going to kill my Evie!" She cried.
"No baby, not gonna happen," Ripper whispered soothingly, rubbing her back while he grinned over her head at Cox. Cox, who had since escorted his hysterical wife outside and returned alone, froze when he saw this.
“Keep fuckin’ touchin’ her asshole and you ain’t gonna have hands!”
“Fuck off,” Kami hissed. “Since you’re still fucking your wife and probably half the state of Montana, I’ve dec
ided I’m going to fuck Ripper!”
Ripper, who could care less that Cox was two seconds from snapping his neck, kept rubbing Kami and grinning like a fool.
“You really want make him jealous, Kami,” Jase said, “You could give me a try.”
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he left the group of idiots in the waiting a
rea and headed for Eva's room.
Danny met him at the door. She was wearing her pink sweat suit from three days
ago and looked damn exhausted.
“No, daddy. Bad idea.”
He took a deep breath. “Bad shit goin’ down baby girl. I know she’s hatin’ me right now but I gotta talk to her. ‘Sides, you need to take a shower and get some sleep. Call your brother and go home.”
Reluctantly she stepped aside and he entered the room, closing the door behind him. The dark curtains were drawn tightly, the room dark and shadowed. Eva was lying in bed on her side. She looked pale and weak, had dark circles around her eyes and an IV in her arm. When she saw him, she turned away.
"Go away," She whispered hoarsely.
His chest tightened. "Baby, I can't. We gotta talk."
He rounded her hospital bed so he could see her face and she immediately rolled to her other side.
"No, we don't. Go away."
Okay, different tactic.
"Eva. Chase is dead."
He watched her body go rigid
"He was tortured," He continued. "Gutted. Insides strung up on his own Christmas tree."
Eva dragged herself into a sitting position, clutching her abdomen. "Where's Frankie?" She whispered.
"Off the grid."
"Oh my god.
Chase…oh my god…this is all my fault…he didn't…I…
oh my god
-
"Baby," He gripped her face and forced her to look at him. "Listen to me good. Chase knew what he was getting into when he made that deal with you. He knew Frankie personally and he worked Frankie's cases, he knew exactly how fucked in the head Frankie is and what he is capable of. Thing is, he wanted you so bad, he didn't care."
A tear rolled down her cheek. "He didn't deserve that, I mean no one deserves that but Chase really didn’t deserve that," She whispered. “He could be a jerk but he wasn’t a bad person. He just wanted to be loved; he wanted a family to love and to love him…He just didn’t know how…Oh, god, Chase…Oh, god…”
She was grieving, he got that, but the last thing he wanted was to hear her cry for an asshole she had fucked and had feelings for.
Feeling the jealousy start to creep up and the anger that followed, he sat down beside Eva, took
her mouth and kissed her hard.
She didn't fight him and they shared a long, slow kiss, full of wet lips and greedy tongues. When he pulled away, Eva pressed her forehead against his and sighed into his mouth.
"How is she?" She whispered.
He cleared his head. The baby, she was talking about the baby. "She's still not breathin' on her own babe."
Biting her lip, she nodded. "It's n
ot your fault," She whispered.
Yeah it was. He opened his mouth to protest but she pl
aced her finger over his lips.
"It was a difficult pregnancy. It’s not your fault.”
His chest compressed and he sucked in air. He didn’t deserve her. He never had. He never would.
"I named her," She said softly. "Ivy Olivia West. Ivy because it's sort of still Christmas time and Olivia after-
"My mom," He said hoarsely feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world.
"Deuce?"
"Yeah babe?"
"The birth certificate. What do you want me to do?"
"Nothin'," He whispered. "I'll fill it out, she's my kid."
She locked onto his eyes, sucking him in, holding him still, making him so fucking crazy. Always making him crazy.
"Deuce?”
“Yeah?”
“No more women."
Fuck.
"Yeah babe, I know. I've been fuckin' up.”
"You get angry at me and you want to take it out on pussy you take it out on mine. It won't matter how mad I am, I will never deny you." She gave a shaky laugh that made his chest ache. He'd fu
cking hurt his woman real bad.
"Eva baby," He said softly. "There's not gonna be anymore women. Already moved Miranda out; cut all ties. I promised you I'd fuckin' earn you and it’s 'b
out time I started doin' that."
She let out a shuddery sigh that only made him feel worse.
"I love you, Deuce," She whispered. "So, so, much."
He stared at her, she stared at him and he knew exactly why his boys had railed at him. She did love him. He was her world. He knew because he could see it in her big gray eyes. Suddenly the past didn't fucking matter anymore. She wasn’t going to run and he was going to treat her like the goddamn queen she was.
For the first time in a long time, Deuce knew true peace.
Three months w
ent by and Ivy was discharged.
Eva turned half his room at the club into a nursery.
Then the crazy bitch gave Danny her own room at the club, helped her decorate the fucking thing too. Pink and purple as far as the eye could see. He flipped his fucking shit. Put a steel door on her room with a sliding deadbolt. Put bars on her window. Lined all his boys up and told them straight up his baby girl was off fucking limits. Told them if any of them looked at her the wrong way they were going to ground.
Not one of them so much as looked at her. In fact, they stopped talking to her altogether.
Shit moved forward.
Life got good. Real fucking good.
Kami and Devin moved to Montana to be near Eva and Ivy. Not Cox. Kami swore up and down Cox had nothing to do with her decision. He might have believed her if she hadn’t been in Cox’s lap while she was spouting her bullshit.
He turned forty nine.
Cox
left his wife and moved in with Kami.
Danny got a boyfriend.
Danny's boyfriend broke up with her and he swore he had nothing to do with that.
Cox finalized his divorce. He put a diamond ring on Kami’s finger. She didn’t like it and bought herself a bigger, more expensive one. And matching earrings. And he thought he heard Cox muttering about taking away her internet access. Something about shoes that cost several thousand dollars.
Devin turned five.
Cox bought him a dirt bike and Kami beat the crap out of him with a cooking pot.
Eva turned thirty one.
Kami kicked Cox out. Something about not liking the way he’d been looking at a supermarket cashier. He was more interested in how she’d managed to get Cox in a supermarket.
The boys had a new tag made for him, the back of which read, "Foxy". He managed to punch three of them in the face before they all turned tail and ran. Then he put it on.
And grinned.
Summer was good to the club. Lots of business. Lots of coin rolling in. Two of his boys got married. The club voted in three new brothers.
Eva’s ass deflated. Not that he cared. He'd take Eva any which way he could get her. Thin, curvy, juicy as hell. A fucking blimp. What the fuck ever. It had never been her body that kept him tied to her. Shit with Eva went a hell of a lot deeper than looks. Although those tits of hers…and those lips…
And god knows those fucking eyes made him damn crazy.
Cox and Kami got married; she let him move back in.
Ivy turned one. She took one look at her Hello Kitty birthday cake, Danny's idea, and did a face plant dead center. A picture of her covered in cake and frosting, her white flecked blue eyes glittering, grinning her old man’s grin, was sitting front and center on his desk.