Page 29 of Biker's Hostage

The door flew open, and a second later, Ian stormed in. His face was twisted with anger, his fists clenched by his sides as he strode toward me. Grabbing me by the collar, he yanked me up, shoving his face into mine.

“Did you get my daughter pregnant?”

He spat those words at me, filled with such emotion it was clear he was having a hard time controlling himself. I tried to pull back from him, but his grip was too tight. She’d told him? Fuck. As if things couldn’t get any worse for me...

No point in lying to him about it. I had never been a liar. I might have been a lot of things over the course of my life, but liar? No. I would stand by what I had done, even if it was going to land me in the kind of hell I might not be able to come back from.

I rolled my shoulders back and looked him dead in the eye. And then, I nodded.

“Yeah. I did.”

He shoved me back into the chair, hardly seeming to notice that my hands were untied. I hadn’t bothered trying to cover for my encounter with Chelsea the night before. I figured my hours were numbered as it was, and I wasn’t going to spend them painfully bound to a chair, waiting for my time to come.

I wasn’t going to hurt him. Much as I could probably have taken on this man if I really wanted to, I knew there was no point. There were a dozen other Dogs waiting outside for me, and besides, I didn’t want to hurt Chelsea’s family. I knew how it felt to lose the people close to you, and it seemed like her father really cared about her—not anything I’d had a chance to experience, but I wanted her to have him, given that she was going to bring another generation of this family into the world.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he snapped at me, pacing back and forth. As I watched him, I had no idea what to expect. I felt like he was ready to fly for me at any moment, that he was barely holding himself back. I scanned him for signs of any kind of weapon, but it didn’t look like he had one with him. Which seemed... strange. He didn’t have anything to finish me off with?

I didn’t say anything, knowing that anything I tried to say would only make it worse. I just wanted this to be over. I didn’t know what that looked like, I didn’t know if I would even be alive when it happened, but this waiting... it was killing me.

“You take her from me, you get her pregnant,” he continued, gesturing wildly as he spoke. “And you... what? What was your plan?”

“I don’t have a plan,” I admitted. “I didn’t expect to... to feel the way I do about your daughter.”

My voice caught at the back of my throat as I came out with that. It was the truth. I could never have predicted that I would find myself consumed by these feelings for her, never in a million years. Her softness, her sweetness, her willingness to actually try and reach out to me, even though I had shut her down so many times—it meant more to me than I would ever be able to put into words. Even if I couldn’t be there for her and our child—

Fuck, our child. Just thinking those words felt so damn intimate.

She had seen something in me that nobody else ever bothered to. And it couldn’t have meant more to me.

He stared at me for a long moment, and all at once, I could see the age written on his face, like he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. With a daughter like Chelsea, though, he must have known she was always going to do something wild like this. She seemed like the type. She didn’t conform to the rules that were laid down by anyone, not society, not the Dogs, not anyone. She did what she thought was right.

And I would bet that she’d gotten that from him.

“You really care about her?” he asked me, closing the distance between us, planting his hands on either side of my chair. I nodded. I didn’t break his gaze for a second. I knew how hard it must be for him to believe a word that was coming out of my mouth, but I needed him to know it was real. I needed him to know that this child who was coming into the world hadn’t been born out of hate, out of me taking what wasn’t mine, but out of genuine care, out of us reaching for each other in the most unlikely of circumstances.

“I do.”

He let out a long sigh and rubbed a hand over his face before he straightened up again. After a long pause, he spoke again.

“When I had Chelsea,” he began, slowly. “People told me I should give her up.”

“They did?” I asked, figuring getting him talking was the best way to stay alive.

“Yeah, they did. They told me I couldn’t raise her. Because of my past, who I was involved with, shit like that. I never believed them. I took one look at her, and I knew, I just knew. I would do anything to have her in my life...”

I stayed quiet. I didn’t know where he was going with this, but I was willing to find out.

“And she’s the best thing that ever happened to me. The best thing. Nothing else even comes close. When I look at her, I see my greatest achievement, by far. Without her, I know I would never have settled down. I would never have been able to make any kind of life for myself. I didn’t let what anyone else said get to me, I refused. And I’m glad I gave myself that chance, because if I hadn’t...”

He shook his head, as though it was too horrible for him to even imagine.

Silence hung between us. I didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t killed me yet. Which meant, maybe, that he wasn’t going to.

“Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be the man I am now,” he finished up. “I want to give you the chance to be that man, too, Zane.”

“What?” I exclaimed, beyond shocked. Was he saying...?

“Don’t make me second-guess this,” he shot back, his voice still sharp. “You hear me?”

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