Page 69 of Never Wed an Outlaw

“My sis ain't stupid, Prez. Last thing she'd do is walk right into a fuckin' trap.” Firefly stared me down.

I never broke my gaze, but something inside me reached up, giving my heart a bitter twist. My Enforcer's words stung because she'd taken the bait. Dom and his bastards wanted her out there alone, by herself, where the club couldn't protect her.

And I hadn't stopped her. If only I'd gone to the damned hospital that night, walked her back to her car, throttled the motherfucker who ambushed her and tried to take her hostage before she crashed his shit on the mountain...

“Prez? What the hell's the matter?”

I closed my eyes, shoving my regretful demons back in their boxes. I said a quick, silent prayer in my head.

Lord, just a little while longer. Banish this darkness, send me a light, anything to bring my woman home.

I wasn't a religious man. Hard to be anything resembling that when you'd dispatched as many sick fucks as I did over the years. Still, I prayed, sent up my desperate hopes to a God who didn't owe me a damned thing.

“You've been pissed at me for months. I don't blame you,” I said, stepping up to my Enforcer, putting my hand around his wrist. “If it wasn't for this shit between us, Firefly, she might be standing here today, safe and sound. She went to the hospital without me the night your kid was born because you couldn't stand having me around.”

Firefly bared his teeth. Angry muscle bulged underneath my fingertips. “Now's not the time to dwell on the past. I always said we'd sort out our shit as soon as we brought her home. That's all that matters.”

“We're sortin' it out now,” I said. “Because as long as there's this quiet, toxic resentment between you and me, brother, we ain't finding her. Go ahead. Get it outta your fuckin' system. Maybe the blow to my skull will do me some good, knock some sense into places that need it.”

My fingers dug into his skin. He tried to move back, but I wouldn't let him, holding on in a death grip 'til he moved that bottle high.

“What the fuck's gotten into you?” he said, his blue eyes going wide. “You're acting like a nut right now, Prez, and I –“

“You're pissed. You hate me for shoving my ring on her finger, and then letting her get away. And I hate you for hating it, wanting to spit in my face over the best fuckin'thing that ever happened to me. You thought I was too goddamned bad to put my lips on your little sis, have her in my bed, bury my dick in her, and promise her she'd be carrying my kid within the year.”

I'd seen my boy's eyes glowing like hell itself a few dozen times in battle. They'd never been this bright, this hot, this pissed off.

“You know what you're asking for, Prez?” he snorted, clenching his teeth. “I'll fuck you up. Bad.”

“Exactly. Iwantyou to get this fuckin' poison out of your system so we can put it aside and find my wife. Don't give two shits if you refuse to believe me about going after her. I love her. I need her. I ain't giving up on her for anything, and I'll crawl through hell itself with a broken face if it'll stop the distractions, and put the energy you spend busting my balls into bringing her back.”

The bottle in his hand twitched. I closed my eyes, bracing for a special kind of pain that'd probably knock me out cold, if it didn't do brain damage.

Instead of hearing the whiskey bottle colliding with bone, we both heard a dog in the newly opened doorway. Bingo yipped once. We both turned to see him standing in the hall, Joker holding him by the leash, squinting at the showdown in my office.

“Looks like I picked a bad time to pass out good news.”

“News? What news?” I pushed past Firefly, frantically approaching my Veep, studying the smile on his face. It still didn't look quite right when he smiled, even though it happened a lot lately. The muscles must've needed practiceto work right after all the years he spent scowling, loathing, waiting to avenge his dead brother.

“We've got ourselves a hit in some dusty little town in West Texas, Prez. Came in this morning. Warpath Nomads, riding down from Oklahoma, heading for Mexico.”

My heart stopped pumping for five brutal seconds. The Warpaths were solid, only other outlaw MC in Dixie we trusted. Firefly stood next to me, taking in the news, while Joker went on.

“They think they spotted her driving into town for groceries.”

I grabbed him by his cut, digging my fingers in, stepping over his boots and the dog laying down on the floor. “Think, orknow?There's a big fuckin' difference.”

“Know, Prez. They sent me these about an hour ago.” He reached into his pocket and held up his phone.

The first pic had a license plate number I'd burned into my memory. Second pic showed her getting outta her car, those sweet locks I'd smelled and fisted in my hands a hundred times catching the Texas light. Third pic stopped my fuckin' heart for a whole lot longer than five goddamned seconds.

It was Hannah, wiping down her windows while she fueled up, beautiful as the day she left me forever. No, more beautiful than I'd ever seen her before, because her body showed one big difference from how I remembered it.

That bump in her belly, sticking out, could only mean one thing.

Firefly made a sound like he stopped breathing when he saw it. Shook me straight to my fuckin' core, so rough and sudden it was like catching a bullet. I gripped Joker's leather in both hands tighter, pulling hard, only support I had to keep me on my feet.

“Fuck...” One word rendered me speechless.

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