Page 117 of Deserter

He leaned in closer, breathing me in, before letting his mouth trail along the backs of my fingers. When I moved them to stroke his beard, he pressed his lips to the skin underneath.

“Shouldn’t have had to go through all that alone. I should’ve been here, holding your hand.”

“How bad is it, Jamie?”

His eyes slowly came up to meet mine and I knew the truth before he said a word. What had happened with the cops was obviously just the tip of the iceberg.

“I started a war.” Jamie toyed with the wedding ring I’d put on a simple gold chain to wear around my neck during pregnancy when my fingers were swollen.

He didn’t look like a thirty-year-old man; whatever had happened in the last twenty-four hours had aged him.

“When?”

Ol’ Ladies weren’t supposed to know about what went on within the club, but he and I both knew I’d never been one of those.

He looked down again and confessed, “Night Molly got hurt. Guy was a gangbanger and we went after him. They were hanging out at a strip club run by a rival and the minute we stepped foot inside, we broke the goddamn agreement.”

I was familiar with the syndicate; I’d asked him once why there wasn’t constant fighting between clubs, expecting a non-answer. Instead, he’d given me the truth.

“If the syndicate’s gone, then the clubs will go back to fighting over territories, won’t they?” I swallowed down the fear and forced myself to hear him out. No matter how bad it was, we’d face it.

Together.

He ran his hand down his face again before nodding. “Yeah, and once one fell, everyone else followed.”

“So, the cop that pulled us over was on their payroll?”

“Cop belongs to the Outlaws MC. Once he saw my ID, it was game over. Thank fuck Brenden was there to get you to the hospital.”

I looked down at Dakota, fast asleep in my arms and asked, “What happens when they come for us, Jamie?”

Jamie’s eyes widened. “Come for you? I ain’t letting anyone come for you.”

It was a bold declaration and one I wanted to believe, but if the clubs had police officers backing them, how was he going to guarantee our safety?

“You don’t believe me?” he asked skeptically.

“Should I? I just went through the most traumatic event of my life and I had to do it alone because my husband was in jail.” I heard the bitterness in my tone but didn’t apologize for it.

He’d just destroyed any illusions I might have had about what our lives were—what our lives could’ve been. The syndicate had always sounded too good to be true, and maybe it was.

If it hadn’t happened with Molly, then something else would’ve managed to take it down.

Maybe it had been naïve to think that men like that could ever live in peace.

“The club will be fine; a few assholes forgot their place and just need to be reminded. I’ll call in Slim and the other Nomads and the problem takes care of itself. I won’t let anything hurt you, Celia. You know that.”

His eyes begged for me to agree.

It had to be the fatigue setting in, but I found myself nodding, suddenly too tired to fight. “I trust you.”

He was beside me now, everything would be okay.

Maybe I would’ve believed both of our lies had I not seen firsthand just how little control he still had. Last night had only proven that he couldn’t protect us.

He couldn’t even protect himself.

Chapter Twenty-Four

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