Ride To Vengeance (A Rough Riders MC Novel #3): A Rough Riders MC Novel #3 (The Rough Riders MC Series) (13 page)

I clung tighter to Ronan, even when the medics attempted to separate us. Eventually they succeeded and I was placed upon a stretcher. An IV was quickly administered and once the pain medication and whatever sedative they decided to give me entered my bloodstream and kicked in, the world around me began to fade like light at dusk.

Not that I gave a damn about time or space.

I was saved and finally back with Ronan.

As far as I was concerned, nothing else mattered.

Part Two

Recovery

Three Months Later

Chapter Nine

Ronan

N
aomi lay on the uncomfortable lightly padded table while Dr. Rivers pointed out the fetuses to them. Ronan held her right hand and couldn’t help the smile on his face as the OB-GYN explained the situation.

“We can’t tell the sex of the children yet but you’ve got two healthy babies growing inside of you,” Dr. Rivers announced as she turned off the machine and cleaned off the remnants of the gel used for the procedure on Naomi’s stomach.

“Can you tell how far along I am?” She bit her lip nervously. “Last time, you were a bit vague.”

The doctor smiled. “It’s not an exact science but judging from their lengths and the way they’ve grown, I would put you at about fourteen or fifteen weeks.”

He kissed her forehead before he whispered in her ear, “You were pregnant before he abducted you, babe.”

“Are you sure? I mean . . . about the timeline?”

Dr. Rivers turned to stare at her again before she realized her patient had been through rape and traumatization. The rapist’s sole intention was to get the patient pregnant when she’d been pregnant all along. At least that’s what the test results seemed to show.

“Naomi, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Sometimes we can be off by a week at the most but I’m telling you . . . before your . . . traumatic ordeal occurred, you were expecting. No one would have been able to tell you of course because you’d just become pregnant but sweetheart, these children—they belong to your fiancé.”

“Okay,” she replied and smiled before the doctor turned away.

Ronan helped her get dressed as soon as Dr. Rivers left the room. “What’s going on with you? Babe, we’re Catholic. Even . . . if there was a slim chance the kids are his, I wouldn’t love them any less. They would still be
our
children because you and me raised them together. Paternity doesn’t decide parentage—you know that.”

She looked away before her amber eyes met his again. “God, I wish I could pop a Xanax in situations like this. Hell, I’d settle for a damn Valium.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I can’t go through a pregnancy knowing I’m the expectant mother of that monster’s kids, Ronan.” She stifled a sob. “I remember watching
The Fly
with
Geena
Davis and Jeff
Goldblum
. I was at a friend’s house and I couldn’t have been older than fifteen. It was right before my mom died and I thought I was so big and bad for watching a Rated R film. When she wanted to have an abortion because she wasn’t sure whether the child would be . . . human or not . . . I hated her. I judged her because it was just an innocent baby—”

“Honey, what does all of this have to do with our situation?” he wondered as he lifted her chin up with his right forefinger until their eyes met each other’s.

Naomi began to cry, tears pouring down her cheeks as she tried to speak through her choked sobs. “I don’t want his little monsters growing inside of me, baby. What he did to me . . . I would rather kill them than bring them into this world. What if . . . what if nature is
greate
r than nurture and they’re sociopaths like him?”

Ronan allowed her to collapse against his chest and did his breathing exercises.

He knew what it was like to grow up with someone suffering from
Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder—hell Cillian was a first-class scenario of the disease. However, when that someone suffering happened to be your fiancée and the woman you intended to marry, theory and reality were worlds apart.

Ronan had taken her to every specialist from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to finally Palo Alto where Stanford Medical Center was located. He’d paid to have every doctor examine her through this pregnancy just so she wouldn’t have an abortion.

Hell, he wasn’t a hard-core Catholic—he’d murdered people for God’s sake—but he was determined for her to have these children. They were twins and all the doctors confirmed she was somewhere between fourteen and fifteen weeks. It was the fourteenth week she was abducted by Fernando and held by that monster for almost seven days.

He’d raped, beaten, traumatized and sliced her up. Her back was a smorgasbord of scars made with the talented hand using a scalpel. None were deep enough to cause keloid scars but they were crisscrossed against her back like she’d been beaten with a bamboo stick.

Loire had begun a tattoo—a Phoenix rising from the ashes—to signify the strength she’d shown by going through her ordeal. It was slow going but almost done and it covered up her scars beautifully. Not that he had any problem living with what Fernando had subjected her to but she didn’t want any physical evidence of his abuse.

Over and over again, it was her worries and insecurities that came through like a beacon and although he had the patience of Job, he worried about her. In fact, he’d lost weight, quit drinking or doing drugs because he was worried about Naomi and how she was handling her recovery. He couldn’t be wasted or drunk just in case she needed him.

If what she’d been through was awful, he was at least grateful all of Hardy’s scars from the shooting he’d endured, which had led to the successful rescue of Naomi—were all superficial. The president of the Vegas chapter was back on his feet, running the club like nothing happened. Meanwhile he also had a pregnant fiancée to contend with too though Talia was the complete opposite of Naomi and
refused
to slow down. She had a hectic schedule as a rock star and continued it, growing baby bump and all.

Unfortunately, Naomi and Talia had done nothing but butt heads since she returned. Ronan had no choice but to purchase a beautiful, four thousand square foot home for the two of them.
 
Located in one of the exclusive, gated Aliante neighborhoods in North Las Vegas not too far from their clubhouse, it boasted five bedrooms, four and a half baths, and a backyard big enough for a custom-made barbeque and a pool/Jacuzzi combination.

Ronan preferred them having their own place and living just down the street from the clubhouse. It was a great setup and his only worry continued to be his fiancée, and whether she would ever snap out of it and realize he wanted these children. He also wanted her to desperately want them too.

After his father had told him the story of what had gone down with his mother, he couldn’t imagine Naomi having an abortion. If they turned out to be his children, she would hate herself even more but if they were Fernando’s, it would only continue to remind her what she’d run away from and how far she still had to go to make a full recovery.

“Fine . . . I’ll wait until we can do an Amniocentesis.” She grabbed his hand as they walked toward their truck. “It’s a couple weeks away. They can determine whether the babies I’m carrying are yours or Fernando’s.” She turned toward him again. “I know you’re just going to talk me out of it regardless who they belong to but I need this for my
own
peace of mind.”

Ronan disengaged the security and unlocked the doors to the silver Ford Explorer he’d recently purchased and sighed out loud. “Fine. I’ll go through this whole charade with you but I’m not promising anything—regardless whose kids they turn out to be.”

Naomi smiled brightly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

He smirked in return. “You’re welcome.”

God, how could he stay mad at this woman? What should have caused a fissure in their relationship had actually brought them closer together. He was more in love with her now than ever. He was also more dangerous too because anyone who
threatened
her life would certainly receive a bullet to the head before he would ever willingly let her go into harm’s way again.

A
fter he dropped of Naomi at home, he switched vehicles and used his Harley CVO Street Glide to drive to the compound. There was a big time meeting at the chapel taking place and all the members were due to be there.

Cricket had successfully made his switch from Birch Tree to Vegas. Burns had replaced him up north and now the Saints bought their meth from the White Knights again while the
Kitaev
Bratva
provided shipments of heroin. They weren’t selling coke at the moment—at least not large quantities. Eventually, they would have a stable connection through a large faction of rebels Erik
Kitaev
worked with personally in Colombia but until then, they were out of the cocaine business indefinitely.

There were bigger fish to fry and a deal on the table that would no doubt cause strife and anger but one that need to be addressed desperately.

Human Trafficking.

It was the next big thing and according to the Feds, an area they definitely wanted the Saints to have a piece of the action. They were slowly building a RICO case against Dimitri
Koslakov
and several other Mafias, including one gang of Chinese Triads and another organized gang of Albanians—
Aztecas Infierno
were old news and they needed something else to keep their supervisors interested and the money flowing.

Ronan was against it. He knew he would be fighting a losing battle since Cricket, Hardy, Chemist and damn near every member of the Vegas charter were for it. There was minimal upkeep except for the one whorehouse where the girls were kept. In that case, the charter had bought a large ranch from Raymond Jackson where he used to keep his legitimate ladies of the night. They were all clean and ready to be put to use.

Layla was tired of being the manager of Saints and Slappers; Chantal had actually taken over when she wasn’t studying at UNLV for her degree in Criminal Justice.

She was ready to run the test trial case. The first shipment of women they would receive—all of them from Eastern Europe—were already on a cargo ship coming from Rotterdam, the Netherlands directly to Long Beach, California. From there, the women would be transferred to a transport truck that was owned by Angelo Abandonato.

Erik had been vague but most would be Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. Layla’s mother had been of Belarusian origin and thus she spoke not only Belarusian but Russian too.

It was the perfect set up but since when did anything go as planned in their line of work?