When he stops tearing the room apart, he stands just two feet in front of me. My fingers twitch to reach for him, but my touch won’t comfort him no matter how much I want it to. His chest rises and falls quickly, the sound of his strained breathing loud enough to worry me, and his heart beating so hard that I can almost hear it. Once he calms down, his heart always goes crazy fast from the exertion of acting like a human bulldozer. I guess some things never leave you, no matter the time or distance.
“He’s really mine?” The words are so fractured and pitiful that it gets me right in my heart. I could burst into tears right now if that didn’t feel manipulative and really fucked. This is Wyatt’s time to be upset, not mine.
Every ounce of him.
Of course he’s yours.
He looks exactly like you.
I try to say any one of the things I’m thinking, but I get distracted by his cut. Right above his heart where it used to say V. PRESIDENT on a dirt-covered white patch is a different patch that takes my breath away. It’s older, more worn, and dotted with a spot or two of dried blood. I gasp as I absorb the meaning behind the patch staring back at me.
“You did it,” I whisper as I memorize the stitching of each and every letter on his president patch.
One day, baby, I’m going to be king and you’re going to be my queen.
He’d told me wanted the gavel the first time I met him, which was right before he started prospecting for Detroit. Dad had seen him hanging around at club events and parties for a year or so by then. Wyatt was a good kid as far as Dad remembers. I’d never seen him around, mostly because I wasn’t welcome at the parties. I was barely Zander’s age when I met Wyatt. Mom and Dad would have killed me and Mishy if we’d shown up to the clubhouse uninvited. But that day was a family day. Wyatt got to flirting with me, having no idea the world of hurt he could bring on himself by hitting on the president’s fourteen-year-old daughter. I told him he could get in a lot of trouble, but he didn’t care. He just fed me that line and said he was going to be prospecting and that I was going to be his. I nearly died when he walked right up to my dad, said a few words, and then took Dad’s fist to his face a few times without fighting back.
He got his cut and started working on his top rocker that night.
And almost three years later, after he’d been patched, I was voted in and officially his. Club rules didn’t mean much, though, because I’ve belonged to this man since the day we met.
“Tell me he’s mine.” I’m jarred from my memories by a hopeful, desperate plea. The only thing I can compare the pain and want in his voice to is my own when Rig had our son. I’d have given anything, hurt anyone, and made mountains fucking move to get my boy back in my arms. And it’s in this moment that I know we can make this work. He loves our boy—despite all the time that’s passed, he still loves Baby Z.
I nod, unable to speak, and watch as all six feet and six inches of my man falls to the ground. He hits the cement with his knees and holds his torso up with his bruised and bloody fists pushed into the top of his legs. I throw myself at my old man and wrap him in my arms as he tucks his face in my neck. His body jerks in my hold. It’s not until my neck is wet and my hair is sticking to my skin that I realize this is another first for us.
He’s crying.
My own tears fall, dampening the top of his head, but I don’t move.
I just hold him and don’t ask him to talk or look at me. I’ve never seen this before and as cathartic as it is, it scares me how badly I’ve hurt him. Wyatt doesn’t just get upset. He tortures himself with every drug he can find, knowing it’s going to send me away. I won’t let him fall apart again. If he’s this torn up about our son, I can’t help but freak out about how he’s going to react when he finds out we also have a daughter.
CHAPTER 5
“Come on, Gramps. Just one shot?”
I shake my head at Zander begging my dad to let him shoot his rifle. The kid is actually fucking bouncing. All six feet of him is buzzing with excitement over getting to play with Dad’s toys. I don’t tell him that the rifle in question actually belonged to my mother and was passed down to my sister, Michele, when she died. I also don’t tell him I’m the reason Dad keeps shooting him down. No pun intended.
“Boy, do you really think my answer is going to change just because you won’t stop fucking asking?” Dad asks him.