Page 64 of Savage Heart

“I did an exam, listened to the baby’s heartbeat—mama and baby are fine. Braxton Hicks are totally normal for forty weeks. Of course, she knows she could go at any time, but this time around, baby was just practicing.”

Tessa hummed. “I’d be scared shitless.” Fae nodded in agreement, her eyes wide. “Fang wants a soccer team of babies, and I want to give them to him, but we’re not ready yet. We’re working on getting the house livable, he’s dealing with his asshole brother, and I just want to have as much headboard breaking sex as I can before I have to share my body with an energy leech.”

Liz chuckled, ignoring Tessa’s comment about headboard breaking sex. Liz hadn’t had sex in nearly three years—and the motherfucker she’d had sex with was Lyle Pace, the piece of shit who got her mixed up with the goddamn Bratva. Thankfully, she’d kicked his ass to the curb, unfortunately, she hadn’t listened to the alarms blaring in her brain when she’d agreed to go into business with him.

“What’s Fang’s asshole brother doing?” Fae asked, not having gone off into her own thoughts as Liz had.

Tessa shook her head. “Most of it is club business, so I’m not privy to it—not that I care, but from what I’ve overheard duringtheir conversations, Jorge is taking care of some kid he ‘rescued’ last year.”

Liz furrowed her brow, confused by Tessa’s wording. “Rescued?”

“I don’t know what happened. All I know is there was a girl in trouble, Jorge got to her before the Mendoza’s could, and he’s keeping her in Columbia so the bad guys don’t get her.”

Fae cocked her head. “Well…that’s nice of him.”

Tessa snorted. “Right. Jorge Calderone only does things that benefit him. Fang is just trying to figure out Jorge’s angle.” She shrugged. “As long as the asshole is treating the girl right, isn’t trafficking her or getting her hooked on drugs, there’s nothing I can say.”

Liz hummed, then grunted when Fae asked, “So what’re you going to do? Trouble seems remorseful, right? He wants to be a good dad to Erika, and that’s more than a lot of single moms these days get.”

Tessa, who was raised by a single mom until her mom married herself to a child raping psycho, nodded. “That’s the fucking truth.”

Fae continued over Tessa’s comment, “I know he’s been an asshole, but…I’ve seen the way he looks at you, the way he watches you when you come in, when you walk through the room—yeah, he’s usually doing dirty stuff with Amelia, but his focus is always on you.”

Liz sneered. “Is that supposed to make me feel better; he’s fucking Amelia but, hey, at least he’s thinking about me while he’s nutting in her.”

Tessa curled her lips in disgust. “Fucking yuck,” she remarked, right before she shoved another cookie in her mouth.

Fae shrugged unrepentantly—Hawk, the asshole, was wearing off on the previously sweet Fae. “I’m just saying, Trouble was a piece of shit, pushing you away, hurting you,missing over nine years of Erika’s life…but…he did it for a good reason. And he broke his own heart, too.”

Sucking in a breath at the hammer Fae just dropped, Liz didn’t have time to reply.

Everyone jerked to their feet at a shout from the bedroom.

Liz was the first to move, hurrying to the massive master bedroom to find Skathi standing near the bed, a pool of water growing on the dark wood floor.

“The baby is coming, I think,” Skathi murmured, the usually cool and calm giantess was pale, her face slack with fear.

Immediately, Liz slipped into doctor mode. Grinning, she hurried to Skathi’s side, Tessa and Fae filing into the room behind her, gasping.

“Alright, mama,” Liz said softly, coaxingly. “Looks like you’re having a baby.”

“Call Odin,” Skathi pleaded, her breaths coming in pants.

“I’ll call him, Skye, don’t worry,” Tessa offered, her voice strained.

Twelve hours later—after settling the adorably anxious daddy, transporting Skathi to the hospital, with a full, roaring cavalcade biker escort, and handing her off to the OBs—ten pound, 22-inch-long Nielsen Stellan Vikander came screaming into the world. Mama and baby boy did amazingly, and Odin couldn’t look more enchanted by his chunky, pink-cheeked son.

As Skathi’s PCP, Odin wanted Liz to remain in the hospital with them, which meant Fae and Hawk had Erika duty. They’d left around 8PM to relieve Saint, a newly patched brother, who’d been playing board games with Erika since he’d picked her up from school. From what Liz knew about Saint, he was the youngest club brother at just barely twenty-one, but he was also, according to Tessa, one of the nicest guys Tessa had ever met. Liz had spent no time with the guy, because he never needed herservices, but now she’d have to meet him officially, and thank him for taking care of her daughter.

Sitting in the private waiting room attached to the private hospital room, Liz flipped another page on her Kindle book, not absorbing a single word. Because Trouble was sitting in the chair directly across the small room from her. Staring at her.

The silence was broken when Trouble finally spoke, his deep voice resonating in the space between them, “You look beat, why are you still here? You need rest, baby.”

She stiffened at the endearment, trying to ignore the warmth that flooded her at his concern.

She didn’t bother looking up from the page. “I’m waiting to speak with Dr. Cross. I wanted to make sure all the T’s are crossed, and all the I’s are dotted, then I’ll head home.”

She could hear his heavy sigh. “I’m glad you were there for her; it probably scared the hell out of her. Skathi is a badass, but I’m guessin’ givin’ birth is hellava lot scarier than facin’ Hamas down range.”

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