Page 144 of Tempting Fate

Holding the glass door open with one hand, I toss my final statements over my shoulder. “Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention… our president might need your steady hand with a needle back there. Seems he had a little slip up with a knife while I wasn’t lookin’.”

The curse that spills from Doc’s lips as he hightails it toward the back of his clinic keeps me entertained as I mount my Harley and peel off into the dark. It’s only once I’ve reached the highway that reality punches me in the face, and the temporary buoyancy I felt from one-upping Brutus disappears.

I might’ve won that battle.

But deal aside, this is the start of a war between me and my president.

So far, all it’s cost me is the woman I love.

29

LILY

Six days later

“What are you doin’ out of bed?” Slash demands. He rushes to my side and manhandles me back under the covers. “I don’t think you should be walkin’ yet.”

“I’m not disabled,” I mutter under my breath. In a louder voice, I add. “Need to pee.”

“Oh.” He blushes, then drags the comforter off me and scoops me into his arms. “I’ll take you.”

“You’re not taking me to the bathroom.”

Warm, minty breath ruffles the hair at my crown when Slash huffs. “Been carryin’ you there for days… not sure why it’s such an issue now.”

The normalcy between us proves fleeting as the spectre of Zeke reappears to haunt us. I haven’t laid eyes on my fiancé since that night, and the excuses I’m being fed to explain his absence are wearing thin. For the first three and a bit days, I was in a daze. Didn’t really notice anything was amiss because I was too focused on the flaring pain in my stomach and what it meant.

I was pregnant.

Emphasis on the past tense.

Every second I’m awake, Bebe’s soft confession when she climbed onto the bed with me after I fainted reverberates around my head.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie, but you’re having a miscarriage.”

For one terrible moment, my heart had soared. Against all odds, Zeke had got me pregnant. The queasiness I’d been dealing with had a cause. A reason. My body wasn’t as broken as my doctors had believed. I was going to be a mum.

Of course, as quickly as happiness bloomed, it shrivelled in the next instant.

I was losing the baby.

Because of Alex.

Because I hadn’t fought hard enough to save the life growing inside me.

“Do you want me to send Nads in so you can shower while you’re out of bed?”

Peering up at Slash’s face, I roll my bottom lip between my teeth and nod. I’m not as sore as I was. My face is healing, and my ribs aren’t hampering my movements as much as they were, but on the inside, I’m a mess.

A blubbering, needy mess.

I want to be all cried out. I’ve spent almost a week sobbing on someone’s shoulder. Nadia’s. Slash’s. Isaiah’s. Cub’s. Sander’s. Even Toker’s when he was wheeled into the room to sit with me. My cousin’s busted face isn’t quite as bad as mine, but his broken arm and pelvis really put the pain I’m feeling into perspective.

My damage is internal.

Toker’s is clear to see.

After being knocked unconscious and literally thrown into the back of a truck, he was used as a human shield to help Bear escape when the Shamrocks caught up with him two days later as he cleaned out a storage shed filled with drugs, cash, and the evidence of his links to the Bishops of Bloodshed. When my cousin was no longer of use, he was tossed out of the truck at high speed and left for dead. He landed in a ditch, out of sight of passing traffic, unable to pull himself to safety with only one functioning arm and fading consciousness.

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