Haunt (Bayonet Scars #6) (9 page)

I run through everything from my plan to make Segreti Mancuso’s bitch down to how Petrov and those crazy Russian fucks can make shit easier for all of us on both coasts with little commentary from either Leo or Michael. It feels victorious. I’ve spent months thinking about this shit—how to end the violence, take Carlo Mancuso out of commission once and for all, and what we can do to make sure our shit is safe from here on out. There’s only one way I’ve been able to work it that doesn’t end in losing half my charter, and that’s by taking the fight back to New York.

“You want to take the club off their home turf?” Michael asks, his brow furrowed.

“We’re playing defense out here, and it’s getting my men killed and their women hurt. I’m fucking done. I need the boys to vote on it, but if they do, we’ll head out once we know Carlo’s out of Rikers.”

“That’s smart. I doubt Carlo or Emilio will be expecting Forsaken back in New York any time soon. Once Carlo is released, it’s not going to take him long to figure out the mess his nephew’s caused.”

“You got the heart for this?” I ask, my eyes trained on Michael. I’ve never had a dad, so I can’t say I know how I’d feel if I were in his shoes. Can’t be easy, though. “Carlo fucked over Jim’s woman, scarred up her kid. As far as I’m concerned, they have every right to take him out.”

“My father isn’t a kind man. He’s prideful and mean. He won’t let his men know that the order to take Alex out didn’t come from him. He’d have to admit he failed as a leader and let an arrogant prick take control while he was locked up. He’ll lose the family regardless of anything else if he lets that be known. I want to believe he’ll leave her alone, but I can’t take the chance that he won’t.”

“I need to know before I take this to my brothers that you’re on board with this, Michael. I need your word that you’ll let us handle your father.”

“You know, back in Brooklyn, Alex used to tell me that she didn’t want me taking the Omerta. Because then I’ll belong to
the family
and not to her family. I don’t think I understood how much that upset her until now.”

“That a yes or no, kid?”

Junior’s face hardens, his expression unreadable. He’s staring down at the table, watching his wrists as he rotates them in slow circles. I don’t envy this boy or the decision he’s having to make. Even if he won’t be the one pulling the trigger, he’s still promising to stay out of the way when it happens. It’s a big deal to ask a son to let his father die.

Zander
.

God, this kid is barely old enough to drink and he’s faced with this shit. If it were me or my boy . . .

“My sister is my family. She and my brother . . . they have to be kept safe. I don’t want to be the one to take him out, but I will if I have to.”

The tension in the room is high, and it’s mostly coming from Michael. We don’t talk for much longer. There’s really nothing else to say. They’re both on board with the club helping them gain some traction in New York, and they’ll in turn help us end this war once and for all. Taking out Carlo and Emilio doesn’t guarantee us peace, but if we play our cards right, it will secure us a foothold with the Italians that we desperately need in order to keep the threat to my brothers and our families as minimized as possible. If executed correctly, this plan will get Michael and Leo the necessary numbers to overthrow any lingering loyalty the Italians have to his father.

“Closed door meetings with the Italians. Should I be worried?” Diesel strides into the room just as Michael and Leo are walking out. His expression is guarded, his shoulders are hunched, and he’s got his hands shoved in his pockets. I don’t like it. Not one bit. My brothers don’t walk around all apologetic and shit unless there’s a damn good reason for it. I seriously can’t take anything else.

“We need to talk, Pres,” he says, shutting the door behind him.

“You shoot somebody you weren’t supposed to?” He grimaces at my comment. He. Fucking. Grimaces. And ain’t that some shit. If it were Ryan coming to me with this shit, I’d be worried. Even with Grady, who I trust enough to have made my VP, I’d be jumping down his throat. That’s one reason they don’t get along—they’re both hotheads and way too much alike. But Diesel—he’s solid and steady. But something’s happened, and now I actually am worried that he’s shot someone. He did disappear for a week fucking straight without a goddamn explanation. I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t my club at the time, so I let it go.

“Need your word you’re gonna let me say what I have to, and then you can lay into me. But you gotta let me get this shit out first.”

“What the fuck have you done?”

“Your word, Wyatt.” He’s not asking. This is a demand, but I trust my brother. Regardless of what he has to tell me. So I give him my word and wait for him to start talking.

“Rig’s dead.” Gone is the evasive, apologetic bullshit, and in its place is an anger I don’t expect. It takes me a minute to even register what he’s said.
Rig’s dead
. As if waiting for me to get with the program, he nods his head and continues. “Your old lady’s close with Elle. They vacation together and shit. Kids call her auntie. Few months back, Amber hires Elle to find Rig. Woman puts a fucking bounty on his head from coast to goddamn coast. Few months pass and he’s desperate. Takes your boy on a little camping trip. Before you lose your shit, remember that he’s fine. He was never hurt.”

“How did he die?” It’s all I can get out. The only thing I can fucking think about. Rig got ahold of my boy. All these years I’ve tolerated him when he’s come to town. All this time and he’s known my kid. The thought of my son learning a single fucking thing from that pussified bitch makes me sick to my stomach. There’s so much I was planning on teaching him, so much that I wanted him to learn. Like how to fix up a car, how to shoot a gun—everything a dad should teach their son about life. And I threw away every single day of the last fourteen years so I could shove shit up my nose and drink until my insides fucking rotted. It doesn’t matter how much I hate Rig. I hate myself more.

“Asshole had a gun on your kid’s head. Amber took him out with three to the gut, one to the arm, and one in the chest. Never seen a woman so mad before.”

I try to speak but find that I can’t. I want to know where this happened, how it happened, where Zander was before Rig got his hands on him, why Amber wasn’t watching him better, and how my boy dealt with that fucking prick pulling a gun on him. I want to know everything, but I’d rather ask my woman than my brother. She sure as fuck didn’t lay any of this shit on me the other day.

“I was there. Elle got the call from Rig about exchanging cash for your kid, and I made a judgment call. Right or wrong, I made my choice. We don’t have enough men to keep our shit safe out here, let alone sending them to fucking Michigan and leaving our families behind to be sitting fucking ducks. As far as I could see, as long as Rig thought he’d make it out alive, Zander was safe. The minute I go to the club, Rig realizes how bad he fucked up, that he’s not getting the money, and the boy is dead.”

“The boy?” It’s all I can say. The only fucking thing I can think is that this asshole just had the nerve to call
my son
“the boy” like it’s fucking nothing. Like he’s fucking nothing. I shove my chair back and fly across the table without another thought.

CHAPTER 7

“We good?” I look around the room and wait for confirmation that nobody else has anything to say. They all stare at me with bored expressions. Except Diesel. He’s sporting a black eye and a broken nose. He doesn’t look bored. He just looks like he got his ass tore up.

He did.

Might not have been fair for me to jump him, but I did, and I’m still too fucking pissed to feel bad about it. Not only did I have to hear that shit from D once, but I had to make him repeat it to the club. It’s club business whether it’s personal or not. Church ran long for exactly that reason. My brothers needed to know, and some of them were pissed, some understood, and some—like me—were ready for a fight. All I could think the entire time was
this is why we don’t allow guns in Church.

I nod my head and smack the gavel down on the worn table. A strip of wood’s been replaced in the table, right where the gavel normally lands. Forsaken brothers have spent hundreds of hours at this table over the years. It’s not the original table they had in this room. Rage broke that sucker back before he was president. His old lady, Jim’s mom, replaced the original with this one, and though it’s seen its fair share of wear and tear¸ it’s held up well. Just like Sylvia Stone herself—at least as far as I’ve heard—it’s sturdy and unflappable. The woman survived more hits than I care to remember and went down with some serious fight. That third time the cancer came knocking, though—she just couldn’t beat it. According to Ruby, Rage was never the same once he lost his woman.

Fuck.

His woman.

My woman.

My mind automatically goes to Amber and that bombshell she dropped on me. I guess I’m being a pussy. It wasn’t much of a surprise. Somewhere in my heart, I knew it all along. Mugs and I never spent much time apart, and when we were apart, I was with Rig. Not only would it have been improbable for her to have cheated with him, but with how often she rode my dick bare, the odds were on me being her baby’s daddy.

But I’m a fuckup who’d snort anything he could get his hands on back then, and that bullshit lie she fed me about not being the father was easier to believe than the idea that she just didn’t want me anymore.

I force myself to close out Church and dismiss the boys before I slip back into my thoughts. Once I’m alone in the room, I close my eyes and remember what it was like to have my woman by my side. She was always so opinionated and a total hard-ass about everything.

The timer tells us the test is ready, but neither of us moves to go look. Amber’s got watery eyes, and her already pale skin is clammy and cold. I hold her in my arms, dying to know if she’s pregnant but fucking terrified to find out. Right now there’s the possibility that shit will go on as normal or that everything is going to change. Once we look and we know, that possibility is gone. Fuck. I don’t even know why I’m getting so fucked up about this.

“I can’t look,” she says. So I tell her I’ll look because I’m a man and men do shit like that for their women. Even if looking is goddamn terrifying.

I eye the white plastic stick that sits on the edge of the sink and make out the results. One line for not pregnant and two for pregnant.

And there’s two very distinct blue lines in the results field.

Two lines that tell me we’re no longer just the two of us
 . . .
we’re three people now. Me, my old lady, and our son. Because fuck all that girly shit. I shoot man sperm.

Our fucking son.

Goddamn, it feels good to think that. It feels good to have something that binds me to Mugs.

“Well?” she whines.

I laugh quietly to myself, selfishly enjoying this moment where I’m the only one who knows that we’re having a baby.

“Well, your ass is probably going to get fat.” I laugh so hard at her reaction—a mix of excitement and fear and irritation at my little comment.

“Come on, momma. Let daddy show you how excited he is,” I say as I trail soft kisses up and down the side of her neck.

I actually told her that her ass was probably going to get fat. Shit. I’m surprised I didn’t lose a nut sack in that moment. Fifteen years and a kid later and she still looks damn good. Curvier but somehow even more beautiful in ways I couldn’t have predicted. Like her fuller hips, larger breasts, and rounder face. As a teen, Amber had a beautiful face, but it was all sharp angles and big eyes. I barely got to touch her the other day—well, at least not the way I wanted to—but she felt thicker, fuller, more womanly than she had in the past.

My mind wonders around in my memories, clinging to some longer than I’d like and ghosting over others that I’m desperate to have a firmer hold on. It’s just penance, I guess. I wasn’t a good old man and couldn’t bring myself to put her first. She was right to leave me and take our son with her. I just hate that the guilt and self-loathing can’t chill long enough for me to enjoy even a small non-painful memory. But even those are laced with regret and sorrow. I can’t seem to shake the shitty feeling no matter how hard I try. I think of how Amber’s belly grew, and how with it, I grew into a man I’m ashamed of. I wanted to be a good brother, to be deserving of the patch, but all I did was fuck up at every turn.

Everything around her fades out, and the only thing that exists in my entire universe is my woman. She’s half-angry and half-I-don’t-even-know, but she’s here and she’s in my bed. Her naked body rests beneath mine, freshly fucked and gasping for breath. Her eyes are focused on the ceiling above her, and no matter how I touch her, she won’t look at me. Since she came, she’s been somewhere else. I want to make the last ten—or is it eleven—years better. I want to erase them and be there with her and our son. I want to be a better man.

“Stay,” I say. My voice is quiet, afraid of scaring her off. I feel like we’ve been here before, but what the fuck do I know? I’ve run through enough coke in the last week that I could’ve financed my own goddamn war if I wanted to. I won’t, though. The only thing I want—no, need—is lying underneath me, sated and perfect.