Haunt (Bayonet Scars #6) (2 page)

But it doesn’t feel like home, and I don’t like it there. I don’t like my bed because it smells like other women no matter how many times I change the sheets. It’s not the kitchen my mom used to make pancakes in. It’s not the bathroom I used to fight with Michele over. As much as I want to make this place work for me—for our little family—it just doesn’t feel like home yet.

Knowing my man is here with other women and high off his ass makes staying home feel like a prison sentence. And my only crime was falling in love with a liar.

The double doors of the pleasure palace open, and a group of people stumble out. I move out of their way and steel myself for making it through those doors but pause when I see a familiar face. Rig, Detroit’s new president and my dad’s former VP, stands in the doorway with his eyes fixed on me. Great.

“Go home, babe,” he says with a shake of his head.

“That an order?”

He shrugs his shoulders and looks around, then says, “No, but it should be. Your old man’s gonna be pissed.”

“I know,” I say. Rig’s always been good to me. He doesn’t treat me like a kid like a lot of my dad’s brothers do. “I can’t take it anymore. I know the code, Rig, but he doesn’t even try to hide what he’s doing.”

“You remember what we talked about when you were voted in?”

I try to keep a stiff upper lip and not show my hurt at the memory.

“This is the life. Brothers do what they’re gonna do, and old ladies turn the other cheek.”

“Yeah,” he says and waves me over. He opens his arms and wraps me in an awkward hug. My belly gets in the way of everything these days. I’ve known Rig for years now. This isn’t the first hug he’s ever given me, but it is the first one since I became an old lady. I’m not to be touched and we both know this. The only man who’s allowed to touch me, unless it’s for my safety, is my old man. Nobody would give a shit if my dad hugged me, but a patched brother putting his hands on another brother’s old lady is a no-no. The only thing worse would be if a stranger did it, but this is Rig—it’s not like that between us.

“Those rules are bullshit. We tell our women to turn the other cheek, but you bitches never listen. I ain’t gonna rat you out, but I didn’t see you either,” he says.

I pull back from our hug, but he holds me tight to his body. His hands start to move and rub my back in a slow, circular motion. This doesn’t feel okay anymore. I feel his head dip and his nose brush against the top of my head as he sucks a deep breath in. I don’t want him touching me or breathing me in or anything. Rig’s my old man’s president, so I can’t just push him away. I mean, I probably could, but the prospect scares me for some reason. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something in the way Rig’s holding me that sets off my warning bells.

“Man, found your girl wandering around alone,” Rig says as he clears his throat. My hands fall to my sides immediately. He releases me, and I step back and swing around as quickly as I can with my burgeoning belly.

Wyatt stands halfway down the hall with his arms folded over his chest. His glare is icy, and even from here I can see how tense he is. My man is hot as hell. He’s always been hot, but the more he works out and the bigger his muscles get, the sexier he is to me. His short dark-brown hair is mussed, his broad shoulders heave, and his incredible jaw is locked in place. My hormones are so out of control that I actually have to remind myself that I’m mad at him.

“Good thing you found her, boss.” Wyatt is responding to Rig, but he’s looking at me. His words are clipped. There’s so much anger emanating from him that it’s starting to freak me out.

I’m angry.

He’s cheating on me.

No. He’s cheating on us.

My hand finds its way to my belly in a protective manner. Wyatt won’t hit me, but this situation has my hair standing on end. I don’t like my baby being in the middle of this, but since he goes where I go, I don’t have a choice.

“If you’re busy, I can take her home,” Rig says. Wyatt’s body jerks at his president’s words, and he storms down the hall toward us. I make the mistake of taking a step backward—a move my man doesn’t miss—giving him the wrong impression. In a second, he’s on me, his hand hooked around the back of my neck, and pulls me into his side. It’s not loving like I want him to be. He radiates anger and hate in a way I’ve never felt from him before. We’ve had our fights, and they get heated, but this is different.

“You wear that patch, so I’ll give you the respect it calls for,” Wyatt says as he shoves a finger at Rig’s president patch. “But you’ve been put on notice. This woman belongs to me. The next time you touch her, I’ll rip your fucking arm off and fuck your mother with it.”

Rig smirks and places his hands on his hips like he’s enjoying this. When he finally talks, I’m wishing he’d just kept his mouth shut. “Your woman came to me, son. She’s lonely and looking for something you’re obviously not giving her. You want to fuck someone, maybe you should try fucking your girl so she’s not up on my dick.”

With the flip of his wrist, Wyatt sends me for the wall behind me. My shoulders and head hit the exposed brick at the same time. I lose my vision for just a moment, but it’s long enough for Wyatt to jump Rig and the two men to have each other locked in death grips with their noses shoved together.

“Wyatt, baby, he’s lying,” I say. My head throbs and my shoulders ache, but I have to tell Wyatt the truth. I don’t know what game Rig’s playing at, but he’s full of shit. I’m not up on his dick, nor have I ever been. “Calm down. Don’t do this.”

If someone else was here, Wyatt would probably be in the clear because Rig fucking taunted him. But we’re alone, and it’s the president’s word versus a non-office-holding brother and his old lady, and our relationship isn’t exactly picture-perfect right now. Wyatt won’t lose his patch over this, but it won’t end well for him either.

“Tell me you love me, baby,” Wyatt says on a plea. He’s gasping for air and still locked in Rig’s death grip, but I have all his attention.

“Every ounce and every breath,” I say. He said those words to me once—that every ounce of him and every breath he takes is for me and me alone. That he’d rather die than be away from me.

Wyatt grunts and then, in a massive show of his strength, shoves Rig off of him. He pulls back enough to eye up the man he considers his mentor. And then he snaps. Wyatt wails on Rig with a show of hatred he’s never exhibited before. It’s intense, the way he slams his fist into the older man’s face and ribs with absolutely no remorse or doubt. Rig fights back, and even gets in a few good hits, but for the most part he’s out-matched. They’re nearly equal in height, but Wyatt puts so much time into lifting that even with the heavy drinking and drugs he’s still a fucking killing machine—and he’s just unleashed all his rage on his president.

When Rig is good and bloody and cowering on the floor, Wyatt finally lets up. He bends down and holds Rig by his hair and hisses words of disgust into the man’s face. “You’re not my president, and you’re not my fucking brother.”

I stand motionless as I watch Wyatt kick Rig one more time and then disappear through the doors of the pleasure palace. I follow without even thinking, so desperate to have some resolution to this thing between us. I didn’t do anything wrong—not really, anyway—and I need him to do something to give me faith that he’s still the same man I fell in love with. Anything would do at this point.

But he doesn’t do anything to reassure me that he loves me and he’s committed to our son. He just strides through the pleasure palace, ignoring every woman who eyes his massive frame, and heads for one of the couches in a far corner of the room. I watch as the man I love plops down on the sofa, shoving a man without a cut out of the way, and snaps his fingers at the woman holding the small mirror flat in her hands. She lifts the mirror up for him and hands him a short, cut-up straw. He leans in, puts the straw in his nose, and sucks up one line after another. I hate that he does this. He didn’t used to. The coke is a fairly new thing for him. Everything’s changed since he patched in. Slowly but surely he’s become someone I barely recognize. Back when he was a hang-around, and even when he was a prospect, he was rarely high or drunk. He only indulged a little, and even then I could still talk to him. But now, when he’s like this, it’s impossible. I can’t help but try anyway.

“Baby, talk to me.” My voice sounds foreign to my own ears. I’m desperate and needy. I hate those girls, but with Wyatt, that’s who I become.

“How long?”

“What?” I have no idea what he’s even talking about now. It’s all half sentences and coded language when he’s in a bad mood.

“How long have you been letting him fuck you?”

“Never. I told you he’s full of shit. Every night I’m at home in our bed waiting for you.”

“You let him touch you,” he says with an icy coldness to his voice that makes me uneasy.

“It was a hug and I’m sorry.” My voice is small and tears pool in my eyes. I’ve never been much of a crier, but the last trimester is really fucking with me.

Wyatt stands from the couch, wipes his nose, and stalks over to me. He grabs me behind my neck again and pulls me in close to him so our faces are as close as they can get with our son between us.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he says. His other hand palms my belly and then slides around to my ass. His hand squeezes at my sensitive flesh in ways that both pinch and burn. “Every ounce and every breath.”

“Take me to a room,” I say as seductively as I can. If I can distract him with sex, then maybe this will blow over a little quicker.

“Tell me he forced you,” he whispers.

I still, wanting to respond but not knowing how. I’ve spent my entire life around badass bikers, and there’s been no shortage of badass bikers who get fucked up and have bad temper tantrums to go with it. All six foot six of Wyatt hovers over me, pressed into me, touching me. I have to find a way to diffuse the situation and quick.

“Tell me, woman.” Wyatt’s words come out as a bark. I remind myself that this is what the coke does to him. One moment he’s gentle and sweet, and the next his eyes are a million miles away and he looks like he’s on a super-secret recon mission or something.

“Babe, nothing happened,” I say as calmly as I can. I’m not going to lie to appease him—especially not
this
lie. Forcing yourself on another brother’s old lady is suicide. If I say what Wyatt wants me to say, it’s an automatic death sentence for Rig. I can’t and won’t do that to someone—regardless of how displeased I may be with them at the moment.

“You lie,” Wyatt says. Again, his voice takes on a low whisper that couldn’t sound more deadly if he tried. “I see the way he looks at you.”

“Seriously?” I snap and try to push him off me. It does no good but to irritate me. Wyatt’s pulled this bullshit before, but he’s usually over it once the high wears off. “Clear head, baby. I need you to have a clear head.”

“Oh, my head’s clear, bitch.” The words fly out of his mouth like razorblades.

I flinch.

The boy I fell in love with would back off when he saw he was hurting me. But this is the man he’s become, and he’s not nearly as kind or gentle. No, the man before me sees weakness and he exploits it. It doesn’t matter that he promised to love me and to protect me. It doesn’t matter that when we conceived our son that it was in the bed we share, and that he told me I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever been able to touch. And it doesn’t matter that, like the stupid kid I was, I believed him.

“You’ve been fucking around behind my back.”

I want to tell him he’s crazy and that I’d never betray him, but I can’t get the words to form in my mouth. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

None of it matters because he’s a predator and I’m his prey. This is what we’ve become. Veritable strangers, ready to claw at each other every chance we get. He’s always bitching that I’m not the same person I used to be—that I used to be fun and I used to actually like him. Nothing he says is untrue, and so I can’t even deny it.

And I can’t do it again.

I can’t fight about the drugs or the whores or money. Because babies cost money and they need things that I can’t afford on my own, but I know damn well that Wyatt can. I can’t fight for his affection or attention anymore. This has got to end. My parents were seriously fucked in a bunch of different ways, but even they fought less than we do. If it’s like this now, then what is it going to be like when my baby is here?

He places his hands on my ass cheeks and squeezes before sliding them up to my lower back and around to the sides of my belly. I take a deep breath and relax into his touch—but just a little—because he’s always calmer after he reminds himself of the power of our love. This baby that kicks at my ribs and pushes on my bladder only exists because we dared fall in love despite everything. Baby Z is made up of the absolute best of who Wyatt and I are, and nothing and no one can ever change that.

“This baby is a fucking lifesaver,” he says quietly. His eyes are fixed on our baby. His hands roam from the sides of my stomach up to the top and then down to the bottom. He traces the stretch marks beneath my shirt with his index finger. He can’t see them from here, but he’s done this so many times, he just knows where they are. Deep inside, behind the confusion and the anger that overtakes him when he gets high, he knows me. He knows me well enough to know the lines on my stomach like they’ve always been there, even though they’re fairly new.