“It’s not your call. Cole, strip Jett of his patch and fuck up his ink.”
“You got it, Si.” Cole and Axe drag an unconscious Jett away.
My rage won’t die down. The guy doesn’t deserve to live.
“I need you to calm down for me,” Silas orders me. “Get your woman and take her home.”
Molly.
I forced myself to ignore the killer pain in my side and deep behind one eye. Thank fuck I’d seen worse bruises than this before I hit puberty. I can walk this off. Molly is the person I should be worried about. And the child she’s carrying.
My child.
I hurry over to her chair and lift her into my arms. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she answers and brushes her lips against mine.
I see the bigger picture as I carry her to my truck. Molly’s fine, and so is the baby.
Any other outcome would’ve scared me to pieces, but that’s what I heard. If a woman makes you really excited and a little scared, she’s the one. I don’t remember where I picked up that nugget, but it makes sense. And I know there’s no one else I’d want to carry my child other than this petite fighter with a heart of fucking gold and the soul of an angel.
Chapter 18
Tate
I bring a bottle of club soda to Molly’s bedside. She’s been nauseous since I brought her home from the ordeal with Jeff.
I cup her face, and she swats my hand away. “That still hurts from the boxing match.”
“If you can’t handle this how are you going to manage popping a kid out of your vag?”
That wasn’t supposed to fly out of my mouth, but I’ve never had the gift of being tactful.
“Ugh,” she groans, shifting around on my bed.
Now’s the time to man up. That is my only opening to raise a question that needs to be discussed. Does she plan to keep our baby? Does she want my child?
Fuck, it’s her choice, but both options leave me questioning their merits. Both losing and keeping our unplanned child creates more questions that paralyze me. What if she doesn’t want the child? What if she does? Why would she want to have my child? This baby will have half my genes, which can’t be good for anyone. He’s sure to be fucked up in the head like me, at least a little. What woman would willingly sign up carrying my child, let alone raising him or her? I’m such a useless, degenerate fuck-up, what would she be getting out of the deal? Having my kid will mean being shackled to me forever.
I can’t blame Molly if she’s considering the idea of avoiding that kind of future. She intimately knows my history of getting fucked up, busting skulls, fucking over women, and screwing up my life. I’ll probably end up being the deadbeat dad to end all deadbeat dads.
“Fuck, this isn’t happening,” I whisper.
“What’s isn’t happening?” Molly asks without moving from her spot on my bed.
“Nothing. I’m all right.”
I leave it at that and hope she lets it be.
“You can talk to me.”
I know from her pleading tone that we need to clear the air between us before we both suffocate. I’m not in the right frame of mind to have this conversation, but at the same time, there’ll probably never be a good time. We can’t avoid it for the next nine or so months.
“Fuck. Okay. What I wanted to ask you was… are you planning to keep…it?”
I don’t know why I keep picturing the child she’s carrying as a boy. Deep down, if she wants to keep the child, that’s what I want. A little boy who’ll get all the love and nurture I never got when I was young. At the same time, I have a hard time giving the baby a gender out loud. There’s still a chance she doesn’t want to keep him. Babies need their mothers. The last thing I want is to encourage a woman to bring an unwanted child into this world, so I won’t make her choice any harder. It’s her body, after all. Even if doing what’s right for her will rip open a gaping hole in my chest and kill whatever’s left of my broken soul.
Chapter 19
Molly
His question feels like a slap in the face. I can’t be neutral or objective now. The bottom just fell out of my world.