Page 39 of Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC 7)

“What do you mean she was jumped outside her place?” I asked carefully. “By who?”

“Whom,” the nurse corrected me. “And as of right now, the man is still at large. Though, not for long, by the looks of you.”

No, not for fuckin’ long at all.

“What happened?” I asked with a deadly calm that denoted control. Control that I certainly did not have.

Dory sat up, and I couldn’t stop myself from helping her into a sitting position.

She hissed when I caught her arm, then pulled away gingerly.

I looked at the bruises on her arm and cursed.

“Dory…” I whispered, sick to my stomach at the bruising.

Both of her wrists had bruises in the shape of hands.

I would fuckin’ murder a motherfucker…

“I don’t know who did it or why,” she admitted. “What I can say is that I’ve been very careful about where I look for a place to stay. And who I’ve been drawing attention from. I…”

She trailed off, and I knew what she needed to say but didn’t.

“Because you’re pregnant,” I finished for her. “You wanted to be safe for the baby.”

The baby.

My baby.

Holy shit, I was going to be a father.

A terrible one, but a father, nonetheless.

Maybe I can be a better father than I’ve been a husband…

CHAPTER 11

I like long, romantic walks through haunted houses.

-Dory to Bram

DORY

I heard the sound of pipes, and I knew that my day was about to go to shit. Or more shit than it’d already turned into.

Why?

Because I knew those pipes.

I’d been hearing them come home to me for ten years.

I dreaded and craved the sound of those pipes for so long that at times, I felt like I’d been doing it forever.

It was a masochistic thing that I did to myself—listen for them.

Because that would mean he was home, even if he wanted nothing to do with me.

I pretended to be asleep when he walked through the doors of my hospital room.

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