Page 51 of Callum

“Hopefully,” Grant adds, a slight smirk dancing across his lips. “We’ll kill the bastard and dump his body in the woods before the year is out.”

We’re all quiet for a moment, allowing the truth of that statement to sink into our bones. We’ll be free of him soon enough.

“Speaking of bodies in the woods,” Maddock smiles, but it isn’t a kind expression. “Should we get down to the real reason we’re here?”

“I have something,” the words tumble from my lips before I’m aware I’m saying them. It just feels wrong to be here with all my brothers and not tell them. Grant eyes me wearily, knowing I’m about to tell the others about the baby. We hadn’t explicitly agreed to keep it between the two of us, but I know he hasn’t mentioned it to the others. “Rosalind was pregnant when I left Forest Falls.”

“What the fuck?” Maddock’s voice is low, but it carries over the surprised sounds of our brothers. My eyes lock with his, and I see it all on his face. He’s jumping to conclusions that he doesn’t like.

“I didn’t know,” I tell him, hoping he will believe me. “She didn’t even know at the time. She found out a few weeks after I left, but I had already changed my number by then.”

“Why didn’t she tell one of us,” Lachlan’s question breaks the tension between me and Maddock as all eyes swivel to me again.

“She told the Father.”

“That son of a bitch,” Grant growls, rubbing both hands over his face and through his hair. No one gets under his skin quite like the Father, and this time doesn’t appear to be any different. “He never said anything.”

I feel my head shaking back and forth without conscious thought. “He never said anything to you, but he said something to her.” I force a breath through my nose at the memory of the look on Rosalind’s face when she repeated his words. “That useless fuck told her that I didn’t want the baby.”

A charged silence fills the space until Merrick finally asks, “Where’s the baby now?”

“That’s the thing,” my gaze flits to Grant, his brows pulled low over his eyes. “Rosalind thinks she’s dead.”

“She?”

“Thinks?”

I nod at the questions coming from every direction, my eyes never leaving Grant’s face. “Ginetta told Rosalind the baby was stillborn. She even held a dead child in her arms.”

“You’re saying it like you don’t believe it,” Grant points out, the gears already working behind his eyes.

“I don’t,” I agree, taking a deep breath before I continue. “She said the doctors came to her room late at night, unprompted, and ‘suddenly realized’ something was wrong with the baby. She wasn’t even eight months pregnant, and they rushed her to the hospital for an emergency C-section.”

Grant raises one eyebrow, “None of that sounds overly suspicious.”

“No, but them taking the time to knock her out completely for the surgery is suspicious. That, combined with the fact that Rosalind told me the baby she held wasn’t undersized, and her face was smashed, makes me question everything.”

“Uh,” Lachlan raises a hand like he’s a kid in a classroom. “Non-doctor here. Why is that shit suspicious?”

“If the baby were six weeks early, she would have been small. Small enough for you to notice it if you held them…her in your arms. Also, a C-section baby wouldn’t have a smashed face unless Rosalind had gone into labor. That comes from the fluids in the birth canal, which a C-section baby wouldn’t have encountered, especially at thirty-four weeks.”

No one says anything for a long time, and I’m not sure if they’re waiting for me to fill the silence or not. Finally, someone clears their throat.

“If the baby she held wasn’t yours,” Maddock speaks hesitantly, his face only marginally softer than it had been a few moments ago. “Then what happened to your daughter?”

My daughter. “I don’t know.”

“Then we’ll find out.” Grant’s statement is met with general agreement from all sides, everyone nodding as several hands reach out to pat me on the back and shoulders. Lachlan hits me in the side of the face, and I flick him in the eye in retaliation.

Grant sighs loudly, bringing everyone’s attention back to him. “Outside! All of you.”

The mood shifts between my brothers as we move toward the building’s south side. No one speaks as we walk across the small strip of grass between the Warehouse and the woods, but just before we cross into the trees, Grant speaks up. “You mentioned an issue in the forest?”

He’s talking too loud, and I realize the conversation isn’t meant for the Brothers. Maddock answers in an equally exaggerated volume, a bright smile spreading across his face. “It’s some sort of sewage backup. I wouldn’t bother you with it, but I’m afraid the smell might become an issue over time. You know how these things go,” he trails off for a moment as we cross through the barrier of trees. When he speaks again, it’s at a normal volume, all signs of lightheartedness dropping from his face. “Smells attract rats.”

“Where?”

Maddock leads a complicated path through the underbrush, not waiting to see if any of us follow. “Here.”

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