“You’re my child, baby. You don’t get to put me in a position outlive you. I won’t do it.”
“You’re walking a thin line, woman,” Wyatt says with his eyes boring holes into Amber’s head.
“Lied to me,” she says. “Seems you’re walking that same line yourself.”
There’s a venom in his voice that makes me grateful it’s not directed at me when he asks who’s going to watch their kids. The ice in his voice chips away at my tough exterior. I’ve badassed enough for the day. I’m basically done now.
It’s not Wyatt’s size that unnerves me—it’s just him. He’s never been anything but decent toward me, but underneath all the decency lies something disturbing that makes me wary.
“Your mom, my dad,” she says. He opens his mouth and starts telling her he’s not going to risk the mother of his children while she yells back with every bit as much anger and intensity in her voice. It starts out as one general insult after another before sliding into something deeper than I think any of us are prepared for.
“I made a promise to our son that I would bring him to his dad. The only thing that boy wanted after Rig had a gun to his head was to see you. The only thing that let him sleep at night after he had to watch his mom kill a man not two feet from him was knowing he was finally going to get to know you. And now you want to run off and risk your life, risk hurting our boy more? No. If you think I’m doing anything to take you away from him, you are dead fucking wrong.”
I knew about this. Ryan told me one night while we were lying in bed. Hearing it in bed, being told by someone else is one thing. Standing here, hearing it from the person who experienced, it is quite another.
“Either you take us with you and use us the way you’re supposed to, or you’re signing your own death warrants. This plan you have is half-assed. Now, are you boys going to listen to what we have to say, or do we need to wait until you leave so we can follow?”
The silence drones on, so long that I practically break out in hives while I wait for somebody to break. Ryan’s eyes lock on mine from across the room. With a small nod, I welcome him over, and he envelopes me in his arms. I don’t realize how much I need his comfort until he’s wrapped around me.
Ryan bends and whispers in my ear, “I don’t like this.”
“You promised,” I say. “We don’t want to be going back on our promises, now do we?”
“Sometimes I want to go back to when the only thing that mattered was my bike and strange pussy,” he says grouchily. “Fuck lot less complicated.”
“Fuck lot less meaningful,” I respond. He holds me tighter, and it’s in this moment that I know I’ve won. I want to protect my man, and he wants to protect me, but he also wants to marry me. He wants babies with me. And I want all those things, too, even if not right this minute. I want us more than anything, but I need him to let me make my own choices. He doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t have to, but if he wants this legal and he wants our children, he’s going to deal with it. And he knows it. For the first time in my life, I feel on even keel with a man. He wants me as much as I want him, and that means something.
More than something.
Eventually Grady concedes. He stares right at me, waiting for me to speak. Still not happy with me. And I wonder if ever there will be a day that he looks at me with something other than disgust.
“From the beginning, all my father has wanted is to have me and Michael back. So we set up an exchange. Let him think we’re going in, giving him what he wants. This war has taken too many lives, fractured too many relationships. Let him think he’s won. Even if he doesn’t believe it, he wants his protégé back. He’ll risk it for Michael.”
“She’s right,” Michael says. “If he thinks Leo and I are still loyal, he’ll want us back. He’ll want Al back just to prove he can take her.”
“This plan is a lot more controlled, fewer surprise factors, and less likely to get you all killed than what you were planning to do on your own.”
“I don’t like it,” Jim says from the corner. “As a father, I hate it, and I sure as hell don’t want my wife there. But it’s smart.” Jim meets my eyes from where he stands, now with Mom by his side. He smiles softly, almost sadly, and nods his head as if to tell me I did good.