Battle Hearts (Storm MC Reloaded 3)

She smiles. “Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but it helps.” She bites her lip. “I think you should come in there with me when you get home.”

“I can do that if you need me with you.”

“No, I mean you should try it for yourself. And for us. I think it might help us work through all the stuff we need to.”

“What stuff?”

“Our IVF baggage and our disappointment over not being able to have a baby. And everything that’s going on with our marriage because of all that.”

“Birdie, once I get all this club stuff sorted, and we have time together again, our marriage will get back on track. You don’t need to worry about—”

“It’s more than that, Winter.”

“More than what?”

“Our marriage problems are from more than us being busy.”

Fuck, I know we’ve had problems, but hearing the words from her is like a punch to the gut. I thought once we both stopped working so much, we’d figure it out. Birdie seems to have other ideas. “How about we talk this out when I get home?”

“But will you? Whenever I try to get you to talk, you shut down on me.”

“Yeah, because I’ve been busy.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason, baby. I think it’s been too hard to face our losses this year, so we’ve stopped talking, and stopped connecting.”

I scrub my hand over my face. I’m tired and this kind of hard shit isn’t best discussed when we’re tired. “We’ll discuss it when I get home.”

She turns silent for a long moment before nodding. “Okay.”

“I love you, Birdie.”

“I love you, too.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Her face disappears from the screen.

I rest my elbows on my knees and drop my head. Stretching my neck, I think about what Birdie said. Our marriage has taken a lot of hits over the years, but we’ve stuck together through it all. Hell, we fucking survived IVF. That says a fuckuva lot about a marriage as far as I’m concerned. We just need to spend time together to fix what’s wrong at the moment. That’s all.

I move off the bed and walk into the bathroom. Stripping out of my clothes, I flick the shower on and stand under it, letting the heat work its way into my muscles.

As I’m drying off afterwards, a call comes through.

Zane.

“You got a hit?” I ask, figuring a late call like this isn’t for shits and giggles.

“Yeah, brother. We got a fucking hit.”

I exhale a long fucking breath. It’s about fucking time. “Where?”

He rattles off the address to me and adds, “They’ve been receiving deliveries all week. Looks to be electrical goods and cigarettes.” The same shit they were moving years ago when we burned their warehouse to the ground.

“Thanks, Zane. I owe you for this.”

“Fuck, I owe you for a fuckload more. This doesn’t even come close.”

“I don’t keep score. You know that.”