Page 66 of Wrath

“Don’t get like that, you know what I mean.” I quickly follow after her.Fuck, I need to do better than this.

“No, I don’t know what you mean, because I thought I just heard you tellingmenot to burymyhead in the sand. Me, your sister who drove 300 miles a few days ago just so our mom could meetyourkid. A kid you still haven’t met yourself.” She crosses her arms over her chest and waits for my comeback.

“Come on, Alicia, that's not fair. You know the situation, and you know how much it’s killin’ me.” I can’t believe she’d stoop low enough to use this against me.

“Saul, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you can trust Raze. He’s a good man and he’s a good leader. He would never kick ya out the club. Not if you're honest with him.”

I scrub my hand over my face and try to stay calm. Alicia has no idea how deep the shit I’m swimmin’ in is.

“I can’t take that risk. If I got kicked out, where's the money to pay Mom and Dad’s mortgage come from, where’s the rent for this place bein’ earned? And who’s gonna be sendin’ Lettie money to feed and clothe my kid? In case you’ve forgotten I’ve been to jail, three fuckin’ times. Jobs ain’t easy to find with that kinda record.”

“That's an excuse and you know it.” Alicia shakes her head like she’s disappointed in me.

“Are you bein’ serious, right now?” Keeping my cool is starting to become a real fuckin’ effort. “D’ya think I like not bein’ with ‘em? Or that I would have chosen to miss the birth of my son? Don’t ya think I wish that I was there, holdin’ the hand of the woman I love while she pushed him into the fuckin’ world, Alicia? You have any idea how fuckin’ soul destroyin’ it is knowin’ that, right now, he’s bein’ raised on a Reaper fuckin’ compound in Sacramento?” I scrub my hand over my mouth and turn away from her because once I let my defenses down, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull ‘em back up.

“I’m sorry.” She comes up behind me and places her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t feel like myself, anymore. It’s like this baby’s taken me over.” She sounds so scared and vulnerable and when I turn back to face her she flops down onto the couch.

“Truce.” She looks up at me and holds up her pinkie and I make a heavy sigh as I hook mine around it.

“I can’t believe you got yourself knocked up by Griller.” I sit down on the couch beside her.

“And I can’t believe you knocked up the Reaper's President’s daughter.” She slaps me hard in the chest.

“In my defense, I didn’t know who she was back when it happened.” I rest back while we both evaluate the mess we’re in.

“And in mine, I was pissed as hell.” She rolls her head to the side so she can smirk at me, and somehow we both manage to laugh.

“Does he look anythin’ like me?” I quit avoiding the conversation we should have had when she got back.

“You saw the picture.” She smiles proudly.

“I know, but it ain’t the same. Sometimes a kid don’t look like a parent, but it has the same expression. Like the one you're doin’ right now. That's one of Dad’s,” I point out.

“Don’t say that, I look nothing like Dad.” She rolls her eyes.

“You don’t until you pull that face.” I earn myself another hard shove in the shoulder.

“Yeah, he looks like you.” Alicia quickly goes back to being serious again. “Mom looked so proud holding him, she told Lettie that he had the same nose you did when you came out.”

I look up at the ceiling when I feel the hurt of not being with them tear at my insides. It shouldn’t be this way. I should be with my family. Proud like my mom is, and able to show my new son off to the world.

“Saul, I know you don’t have a lot of options but you gotta do something. He’s your kid, and Lettie can’t keep lying. Your son deserves to know who his father is.”

“If the Reapers find out that a Soul got Lettie pregnant, my son won’t have a father.” It’s a hard fuckin’ truth but one I have to face. “That kinda shit can’t come out, especially now. It’ll cause a war.”

“What do you mean?” Her forehead creases suspiciously.

“Peyton's father spoke to Raze yesterday, and it’s looking like the Reapers haven’t given up on the idea of takin’ over our patch. More men are comin’ to rebuild what we destroyed.”

“But they can’t, you killed so many of them last time.” Alicia looks confused.

“Manpower ain’t a problem in a club that holds no standards. These are the kinda men who took Kane and Sonny on as prospects. The Reapers have no sense of fuckin’ pride, they’re prepared to put guns in the hands of kids in order to get what they want.” I give her a small insight into how big a problem this could be. “Sometimes, I wonder if we’d be better off just packin’ our bags and startin’ again.” I love my club, even more so since Raze came and took over. It would kill me to leave it all behind, but I’ve thought about it a lot since Lettie told me she was pregnant. There has to be an easier way than this.

“That’s not the answer this time.” My sister shakes her head and whispers softly.

“So, do you wanna keep it?” I glance down at my sister's flat stomach, still struggling to believe that she made a kid with Griller.

“What I want doesn’t really matter. I have to be realistic.” She smiles helplessly.

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