Boots thumped against the floor until the sheriff was toe to toe with Elden.
“On. The. Floor,” the sheriff’s voice was eerily quiet. “Both of you.”
I grasped Elden’s cut tighter. “It’s one thing for you to come in here and misuse your authority for some fucked-up search. You can get away with that. For a time. But you manhandle an innocent pregnant woman, myinnocent pregnant woman, you can’t explain that shit away,” Elden replied just as softly, in a way that was equally menacing.
The air was thick with tension. I did manage to hold in my vomit, which I counted as a win. But that was likely because I was too terrified.
“I’ll take my chances,” the sheriff finally said.
Things happened rather quickly after that.
All I remembered was the sheriff reaching around, presumably trying to grab me. Maybe I imagined that. And the rest.
But what I saw, with crystal clarity, was Elden, in handcuffs, being taken away from me.
ChapterTwenty-Five
Hours later,the entire club was back. The police were long gone. They got what they wanted after all.
The club’s lawyer was at the station. She had been at the station for hours. Elden had been at the stationfor hours. They wouldn’t let me go see him. Something about my blood pressure. Or my safety. I didn’t know what. All I knew was that they weren’t letting me go to the station. So I was there. At the club. While Elden was locked up.
“Please sit down, sweetie.” My mom’s expression was pinched with worry. She had arrived not long after they took Elden away. She had been trying, and failing, to calm me down ever since.
“Elden doesn’t like tight spaces,” I told her as I began pacing. “He doesn’t like losing control. Being locked in somewhere. And that fucking piece of shit, cockhole,cuntlocked him up.”
Though this situation was not worth smiling about, not even a little, it seemed my cursing amused the peanut gallery consisting of Colby, Javier, Lucas and Sariah.
Sariah arrived shortly after my mother. She hadn’t attempted to calm me down because she likely took one look at me and knew I wasn’t going to calm down, so she then situated herself at the bar with the boys. She pointedly ignored Colby. Something I noted with detachment.
“Don’t use that word, sweetie,” Mom said under her breath.
I stopped pacing to look at her. “I am a woman. I am allowed to use that word however and whenever I wish. And right now, I wish to call out the sheriff for being acunt.”
More snickers came from the peanut gallery, even Hades, who was sitting with his wife, had a twitch to his lip. It could’ve been an involuntary tic.
“I’m going down there,” I decided for the four hundredth time. “I’m not standing here doing nothing.”
Macy got up before my mother did. “You aren’t doing nothing,” she told me, a hand on my bicep. “You’re here, calling people cunts. Growing bones. Eyes. Ears. You’re growing his baby. You’re keeping it safe. And going down there in the state you’re in jeopardizes that very important job.”
Her words penetrated, but barely. She squeezed my arm.
“Yes, okay,” I murmured.
“Good,” she smiled at me.
“Does it gross anyone else out the way she just explained that Vi is growing fucking eyes and ears inside her body at this very moment?” Colby asked the room.
I whirled on him. “It’s the miracle of life, you donkey fucker,” I hissed. “Treat me like the goddess I am, or you’ll be eternally sorry.”
He pursed his lips in a way that told me he was fighting a smile. He held up his hands in surrender, eyes gravitating to the door. “Thank fuck,” he muttered. “I think she might’ve murdered someone soon.” He was talking to the door, not me.
I spun around, seeing a large form. He was wearing a cut. He had a chocolate goatee peppered with silver. His eyes were ice blue. It was my biker.
I didn’t hesitate to sprint toward him and launch myself into his arms.
He caught me without effort, my arms and legs wrapping around him.
I inhaled deeply, reveling in his scent, in the hardness of his muscles, the buttery leather of his cut, the firmness of his arms around me.