Redemption (MC Biker Romance) (7 page)

“Due date would be May second,” she
added. “Want me to write that down for you?”

“No,” I said, a smile forming on my face.
“I’ll remember it. So the baby is okay then?”

“You’ll need to talk to the doctor, but
generally yes,” she said. “At this stage, everything looks great. And a healthy
heartbeat at 8 weeks is considered a very good sign.”

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if
I’d tried. We never made it past six weeks with either of the other losses.
This was a very, very good thing.

“Everything okay, sweetie?” Mary Jane
asked as we headed back out to her car.

“Yes,” I smiled. “Everything’s fine
actually. Thank God.”

I reached for Tuck, but he yanked away in
favor of clinging on to Mary Jane. Apparently those two had become well
acquainted while I was being examined.

“It’s okay,” Mary Jane said as she helped
him into his car seat. “I’ve got it. You get yourself settled for the drive
home.”

As soon as the three of us were buckled
in, Mary Jane turned down the road to take us home. I stared out the window and
the miles of vacant prairie and open space and for the first time, I felt whole
again. Ash and I had wanted a second child pretty much ever since Tuck came
along. We loved Tuck so much that we wanted another one as soon as possible.
Now it was finally happening.

I rubbed my belly and squeezed my eyes
and hoped that the tiny little one growing inside me could feel my love for it.
When I felt the car slowing down and taking a right, my eyes shot open.

“Where are we going?” I asked. I wasn’t
familiar with the area but I knew damn well we were going north instead of
west, towards the house.

“Oh,” Mary Jane said. “I have to run a
quick errand while we’re in town. I hope that’s okay.”

She wasn’t asking, she was telling.

“What kind of errand?” I asked.

“I have to drop something off for my
husband,” she said with a smile.

I glanced over at her hands, which
gripped the wheel. Her left ring finger was naked as the day she came without
so much as an indentation. “I didn’t know you had a husband. You never
mentioned it before.”

A nervous smile spread across Mary Jane’s
face. “Well, I suppose it just never came up in conversation before.” She
shrugged like it was nothing.

From the corner of my eye, I watched her
like a hawk. Something was not right. Something was very wrong.
 
I just had to stay calm and try to put
it together.

I studied Mary Jane. Her black slacks,
cream blouse, pearls, and red lipstick seemed a little overdone for taking me
to the hospital. Why had she dressed up for that? It was almost a little
costume-y.

She reached over and dialed down the AC,
since it was getting stuffy in there. It was unusually warm for a September
day, nearly in the nineties, which made me question why she was in long sleeves
and pants.

“
Eeeeh
,” I
sieved. “Ouch.”

Mary Jane said nothing, pretending not to
notice.

“I’m cramping again,” I said as I
clenched onto my lower belly. It was a complete and utter lie, but I had to
test her. “I think I need to go back.”

“Oh, we’re almost there. This’ll just
take a minute. I promise.” She placed her hand back on the steering wheel and
the cuff of her sleeve fell revealing part of a snake tattoo on her wrist. I
didn’t know a single pearls-and-heels wearing woman with snake tattoos on their
wrists.

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I’d
been set up. Mary Jane was a Cottonmouth all along, just waiting for the
perfect opportunity to pounce.

I forced myself to breath and act calm.
The last thing I wanted was for Mary Jane to know I was onto her. She has plans
for
me and Tuck,
and I didn’t want to make things
worse than they were already going to be.

Mary Jane pulled her Mercedes into the
back alley behind an old abandoned warehouse. I glanced back at Tucker who was
sound asleep in his car seat. I thought about grabbing him and running and
getting the hell out of there, but with a million different buckles bolting him
in tight to his seat would take time and draw attention to us. It was going to
be our only option though, and it was a risk I was going to have to take.

I flung off my seatbelt, popped the lock
button and flew out of Mary Jane’s car, yanking on the passenger door behind
me. I was moving as fast as I could, but it didn’t feel fast enough. Everything
seemed to be moving in slow motion. As I hurriedly unbuckled Tuck, sweet
freedom was seconds away.

I glanced up at Mary Jane who was just
sitting there, staring straight ahead, not trying to stop me, and I wondered if
I’d had it all wrong. Maybe I was just tired, paranoid, or crazy? Sleepless
nights and minimal human interaction could do that to a person.

With Tuck finally in my arms, I spun
around, prepared to run as fast as my feet would let me, but was immediately
bumped by a big man in a leather vest, blue bandana, and fierce, beady eyes
just like my father’s. I didn’t know the man, but I knew that look. Behind the
man were three other men, all standing with their arms crossed and blocking my
path.

The man in front of me reached over and
grabbed my arm, sinking his meat hooks into my flesh and yanking me towards a
door.

The warehouse was dark and dust particles
circled the air around us. Flickering fluorescent lights buzzed above
us and the heavy,
metal door slammed once the last of the
men were inside.

We were surrounded.
Four
men in with leather vests and snake tattoos…and Mary Jane.
My sweet
friend, my angel, the nicest person I’d met in a long time – was one of
them.

“How could you?” I whispered to Mary Jane
as tears streaked my cheeks.

She wouldn’t look at me. She just stared
at the hard cement floor and clasped her hands at her waist.

“I thought you were my friend!” I
screamed at her. I wanted her to look at me. I wanted her to look at the
helpless toddler in my arms who hadn’t the slightest clue what was about to
happen. “You’re the fucking devil, Mary Jane.”

“MJ,” one of the bikers said. His eyes
scanned the length of her. “Take that shit off.”

It was a costume all along. I was right.
I watched as she kept her eyes averted to the ground and walked off, heels
clicking, to change her clothes. Part of me wondered if she didn’t have a say.
In some of the old school clubs, the women did as they were told. No questions
asked. My father didn’t operate that way. He kept his club progressive. He had
three daughters, and to him, women made the world go round. He didn’t treat
them like slaves. He treated them with respect and gave them unwavering
protection from harm.

“What are you doing with us?” I
whimpered. I tried to hide the fear in my tone, but it came through loud and
clear.

“
LeRoy
,” the
man in front of me said, his eyes never leaving mine. His lips twisted into a
sinister smile. “Take them to the holding cell. I’ve got to call the
prez
and tell him we got ‘
em
.”

I studied
LeRoy’s
face as it looked slightly familiar to me. Within seconds I’d figured it out.
Green! It was the man who’d set us up in the safe house. He was supposed to be
on our side.

A man no smaller than six foot four,
LeRoy
Green walked up to me and nudged towards a narrow
corridor in front of us. He didn’t place a finger on me. He didn’t have to.
Some men used force and others used the sheer threat of their body size.
LeRoy
was the latter.

I carried Tuck down the corridor,
LeRoy
following close behind, until we got to a door at the
end of the hall. Made of thick, reinforced steel, the door was even heavy for
LeRoy
to open.

“Get in,” he said. “Sit down. And shut
up. No screaming. No yelling. No crying.”

He slammed the door behind him, and the
clunk of the locks echoed through the small space.

Tuck looked up at me, confused, and I
forced a smile. The last thing I wanted was for him to be scared.

“It’s okay, baby,” I soothed him. “This
is just temporary. You’re with mommy. You’re okay.”

The room had to have been no bigger than
eight feet by ten feet, with a small sink a toilet, and a bed. It was the
equivalent of a prison cell, only much dirtier and unkempt. The thin mattress
on the bed was nearly paper thin and covered with various stains, but it was
the only remotely soft place in the room, so I laid down with Tuck in my arms
and tried to get him to take a nap. I needed to think and the confused look on
my baby’s face only made me an emotional wreck.

I shut my eyes and let the tears fall as
soon as Tuck was asleep. All I wanted was for Ash to come bursting through the
door, but that would never happen. Ash was on his way back home, and as far as
he knew, Tuck and I were nestled nice and safe in the big house in the middle
of nowhere.

The afternoon sun had long faded and
darkness filled the cell. Not a single light switch graced those cinder block
walls, and I had to rely on the tiny bit of moon that trickled in through the
barred windows to see my way around the cell.

At some point, I’d fallen asleep for the
night, but I was awoken hours later by a bright flash in my face. Startled, I
jumped up and clutched onto my sleeping son.

“Say cheese,”
LeRoy
said, a camera phone smashed up close to my face.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why are
you taking my picture
?!
”

“So your daddy can see that you’re in
real good hands,” he sneered. “Apparently we underestimated the Black Dogs and
your daddy has decided to call our bluff.”

After a few flashes, he thumbed through
the pictures. “Perfect. That one will do just fine.”

He turned to leave, flashing me a
sinister look on his way out.

“Wait!” I yelled.

He stopped and turned towards me with
raised eyebrows, as if I was inconveniencing him.

“Are you going to feed us?” I asked. “My
son hasn’t eaten since dinner last night. He needs to eat.”

LeRoy
laughed and slammed the door and locked
it behind him. The heavy
trodding
of his boots down
the hall grew faint within seconds.

My stomach rumbled, but it was only a
reminder that Tuck had to go without food too. I could last. I could fight
through the hunger pangs that were about to consume me, but he wouldn’t be able
to understand, and that scared me.

I lay back down on the thin mattress and
tried to remember happier times. I shut my eyes and pictured the day Ash had
proposed to me. We were sitting by a lake, fishing. It was one of the first
beautiful spring days after a long, harsh winter and everyone was dying to get
outside.

We’d gone joy riding in his pickup before
finding a nice, shady pond in the middle of nowhere. We hopped out and grabbed
the bait and tackle from his truck bed and found the perfect spot on the grass.