“Anything else I can do for you, Pops?” Horse asks.
“Not right now. Get home. If I need y’all, I’ll call. Right now, I need to get this little guy home to Rachel. She’s goin’ to lose her mind when I tell her about Corinne,” I mutter, shaking my head.
“Alright, let me know if you need anything. I’ll be here, same as every other brother you have. We’ll find that asshole and get my little sister back. I’ll also give Dean a call when I get back to the clubhouse. He should be able to help,”
“Thank you,” I nod, clapping him on the back before he heads to his bike followed by Dragon and Gadget.
As soon as they're gone, I turn to Shadow and hand him Luca. “I can’t go back until I have Corinne. Take Luca home and I’ll call Rachel as soon as I can,” I instruct.
“Prez, come on, you need to be the one to do this, not me,” Shadow argues.
Shaking my head, I let my defenses down for a moment. “I already fucked up where Rachel’s concerned. I can’t fail her again. I promised I’d bring both our kids home. This is me keeping that promise,” I explain.
I’ll never allow anything to come between Rachel and I again. She’s more than property, or an ol’ lady, and I realized this when I heard her tears through the phone. She’s my fuckin’ world, and I’ll die before I let anything or anyone else harm her.
I just need to find our daughter first.
31
Rachel
“I wish I were out there helping you,” I murmur into the phone, talking to Stoney. I’ve done the same thing every day for the past week since Shadow handed Luca over to me and explained what was going on.
I usually only get to speak to him once a day, and that’s after I leave him a voicemail. I’d made sure to threaten a certain part of his body if he did not call me. A couple hours later, he’d called and I’d laid into him, telling him he was not leaving me out of this, that she was my daughter and I needed to protect her. I also demanded he tell me everything he knew so far.
When he told me what Torben said about Jackal being the kids’ uncle, I’d told him everything the evil man said to me. Neither of us understood how he was my brother. I don’t even want to think the possibility of his connection to me is true.
“Doll, as much as I wish you were here with me right now, I need you at the clubhouse where I know you're safe with Luca,” Stoney says, drawing my attention back to the conversation at hand.
“But—”
“No buts, Rachel,” he interrupts me. “For my sanity, please. Besides, your injuries would limit what all you’re able to do,” he says calmly.
“Fine,” I huff in frustration, falling back on the pillows in bed but mindful of Luca lying next to me asleep.
Since Shadow handed him to me, he’s been more demanding than normal, between refusing to sleep in his pack-and-play and not wanting to take his bottle unless he’s held a certain way. And at night, he won’t fall asleep easily unless he hears Stoney’s voice.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, breaking the silence. Although neither of us have mentioned the elephant in the room, I know we need to discuss what happened. Then again, I’m not sure I want to because that night those two women not only got their asses handed to them, they were raped, along with Summer, Beanie, and Candy.
All of them are in rough shape, but not as bad as Tiny. She might be lucky to not have been in the same predicament as the others, but she was beaten to within an inch of her life. They ended up having to take her in for surgery due to internal bleeding. Right now, she’s hooked up to ventilators and monitors while she’s being kept in a medically induced coma.
Clearing my throat, I glance down at my leg. “I’m hurting still but it gets better each day,” I say. I should be grateful I wasn’t as bad off as some. “I feel responsible for all of this happening to your club.”
This is the first time since everything happened that I’ve admitted this aloud.
“Doll,” Stoney rasps. “None of this was your fault. You were protecting yourself, Luca, and Corinne by getting them out of that situation. If it’s anyone’s fault, it was mine. I should have left more of my brothers at the clubhouse, but my head was up my ass. I was pissed over what happened earlier in the day and the fact we didn’t get a chance to resolve the issues between the two of us. Telling you now, baby, I don’t like having shit between us, same as I don’t like having a phone to my ear instead of you in my arms.”
My breath seems to get lodged in my throat at his statement. “I don’t like it any more than you do. But that doesn’t mean I’m over what I walked in on,” I say, letting the dice fall where they may. I didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone, but I guess that’s how it’s going to happen.
“I know you’re not and I don’t expect you to be. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t be either. I’ve had a lot of time to think about the situation and the things I know you don’t know about it.”
“What don’t I know about it?” I interrupt, my head starting to fill with all different scenarios, of what could’ve happened if I hadn’t opened the door when I did. Would he have joined them on the couch or come to me after they got him all worked up?
“Rachel, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but whatever negative shit you're thinking, you need to let it go. I’m gonna
