What? My eyes widened. She never told me? Why the fuck not? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We broke up. I thought it was best to wait.”
“Until she ended the pregnancy,” Moby sneered. “Quite the surprise huh? She didn’t want your kid. Didn’t want tied down to you at all.”
“What!?” I exploded.
Moby’s phone rang and he stomped out, running up the stairs as he began yelling.
“I didn’t end my pregnancy, Grim.”
Not believing her, I found it hard not to lose my temper.
I was fuckin’ done until she said one more sentence. Just eight tiny words with a massive and gut-wrenching impact that left her lips on a broken sob.
“Moby beat me, and I lost our baby.”
Pure unfiltered rage broke through my brain with a burst of hatred and bloodthirsty vengeance.
“I will fucking kill him but before I do, he’s gonna suffer and wish hell would take him in to relieve his pain and agony.”
She didn’t register my anger, but the words seemed to give her a sense of calm. “I want him to suffer.” Her voice was tiny and deflated, like exhaustion had taken over and there wasn’t much energy left. “I made a mistake leaving you and letting us fall apart.” One hand lifted, shaking lightly as she pushed her hair back and out of her eyes. “I should have said so sooner, but you didn’t want to believe me and so much shit has happened since then.”
An argument danced on my lips and I shut it down. She was right. “If I hadn’t been taken prisoner today, would you have told me what really happened?”
Her eyes were red and puffy where she’d been crying, probably from the time when I was knocked out. The depth of the blue was rooted in a sorrow I hadn’t seen in her eyes since the moment she left me after Acid’s death.
“Probably not,” she finally whispered.
Her words pierced my black heart with agony. For a few seconds I couldn’t breathe. It was like my heart stopped beating and my organs seized all at once with a burst of pain that robbed my body of oxygen or strength. Shattered. That’s what I was.
All that was left was a broken and empty ache. Biting my lip so hard I tasted blood, I resisted the urge to roar, scream, and shout my loss to the entire fuckin’ world.
My chest rose and fell quickly. I struggled to catch my breath until my gaze landed on the devastated expression on Trish’s face. I’d lost a child before I ever knew he existed. She’d lost something worse. My Trish lost a baby she’d known about and loved and then had him cruelly yanked away. Murdered. Stolen from her womb.
If I ever did anything in my life after this moment, I would make that motherfucker Moby pay for what he did. He would suffer long before I ever gave up his soul to be reaped. He’d never find peace. Never be able to gain reprieve. I’d hand him over for a special kind of punishment reserved for the worst of the worst. The blackest of souls. My hands slowly closed and formed fists as I felt my Reaper rise within. Fury trembled my body as I attempt
ed to gain control over the rage that threatened to burst free.
Trish needed me. I’d failed her before, but I wouldn’t now.
“Why would you want me to believe a lie? To hate you for something that wasn’t your fault? Or worse, never know the truth at all?”
“It was easier.”
Easier than what? My chest ached with the thought of what she went through alone the entire time and I should have been by her side. I was angry at myself for thinking the worst of her when I should have known that Trish would never do that to us. I should have known she was broken. I saw her aura was changed. I knew something had happened to her and now I realized Moby had been in her life and tormenting her for a long time while I knew nothing about it.
Pain reflected in her gaze as I searched those blue pools for something more than regret, loss, and desperation. I knew pain. Hell, I’d lived and inflicted it upon others. As a Royal Bastard, I knew a hard and unforgiving life. As the president of the club, I was nothing but dark secrets, carnage, vengeance, and broken promises.
I failed Trish and that fuckin’ gutted me almost as much as the knowledge that the one beautiful thing in this world I got right had been cruelly yanked away by my choice to become a biker. I lost a piece of myself before I ever truly had a chance to know what it would be like to hear Trish tell me I was going to be a father.
Anger simmered under the surface and I swore I would make this right between me and Trish, for my unborn kid, and because I wasn’t about to let the Scorpions take anything else away from me. Life didn’t hold a lot of beauty, not when your soul was sold to the devil. There were few things that I genuinely loved and cared about but my Royal Bastards brothers and the woman on the floor at my side –– they were fucking everything.
“Why was it easier?” I tried to gentle my voice and prevent growling every other word as I’d done for the last couple of minutes.
“Because I’m scared, Grim. I’m terrified of what intimacy and closeness means with you and that devil thing inside you. I don’t know,” she faltered, sighing softly, “I’m not sure how to make this work between us.”
Fuck. I never wanted her to be afraid of me. Since the moment that my Reaper showed his true nature, she’d kept a part of herself hidden away. Now I knew why.