His Property (Iron Bandits MC)

Except…aw, fuck. If Peter was Keith’s, thus mine, then that meant that I needed things with Ellie to be copacetic, long-term. I knew I had to wait to see how the test came back, and make sure that no matter what, sex with Ellie was not going to interfere with my place in Peter’s life, if it came back positive. Because no way would I let there be any interference there. If that boy was of my blood, then they were stuck with me. I was gonna be hands-on and all in.

Damn, and that right there was enough to throw my mind back to Ellie, and images of my hands on her, and myself all in, then out, pounding in, sliding out. Fuuuck. I wanted her like no one else I could think of.

“Jack! Dude! Jack, nine-one-one!” Trini was running back to my office, her eyes wide and her phone in her hand.

I snapped to attention. “What? What the fuck, Trini? Where’s the fucking fire?”

“It’s Ellie. Or it’s the baby. Or, I don’t know! But it’s at your house. Something is happening at your house, and I don’t know what it is, but…”

I was on my feet at ‘Ellie,’ grabbing my keys and scanning my office for my wallet, sloshing papers off my desk and causing a general disaster, but not giving a damn about it.

“I’m out.” I was practically running through the shop to get to my bike.

“Call me with an…” I heard as the door swung shut behind me.

No more than six minutes later I pulled up to my place, which already had a small bunch of my MC brothers’ bikes parked out front in a less-than-organized fashion. This was not the Iron Bandits’ way, and I knew my brothers had my back, that they had rushed to get here just as fast as I had.

I didn’t see fire or smoke, I didn’t see ambulances or cop cars. I didn’t see Ellie. I didn’t see anything off.

I did see my front door open on its hinges, and our chapter road captain, Hops, ready and waiting for me there.

“Come on, Jack-o. It’s good you got here.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I needed info, stat.

“First, you gotta know, everyone is all right. No one got hurt. Girl’s fine, baby’s fine. You might-a told us you were a family man at some point, caused some shock with the boys. But they’re fine.” He chuckled, clearly trying to relieve my tension, but I still lacked the necessary deets, and I was getting more and more pissed off by the moment.

“Drop the shit, Hops.”

But I didn’t wait for a reply.

“Grath! Ellie! Where the fuck are you?” I yelled as I stormed into the house, on a mission to locate Ellie and see for myself that she and Peter were all right. I found them in the living room: Ellie pacing around, trying to calm a very fussy Peter, and Grath and the rest of the guys—four of them—hovering over and around her, looking none too pleased with the situation.

“What in the hell is going on here? What the fuck happened?”

Hops was following right on my heels, and took the lead. “Grath got a call from your woman here. She was cryin’, goin’ on about some guy cagin’ her in the house, had a baseball bat and a gun. She said she thought he’d use it. Baby was cryin’, and she locked herself and him in your bathroom, back o’ the house, in case the guy got in. Didn’t have her phone on her, used the one from your bedroom to call. As soon as Grath took the call, we were all on our bikes, got here fast as we could. Didn’t catch the guy—he was gone before we got here—but he left a message. Grath called Trini soon as we found your woman, made sure she was okay. That’s it. ’S all I know.”

I turned to Ellie, a little out of control with raging questions that demanded better answers. “Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”

She flinched, but also straightened her back as much as she could with the baby still in her arms. This woman had grit, I had to give her that. “I hit 2 on speed-dial, that’s who I got. You want me to call you in a repeat situation, you put your cell on your speed-dial.”

Okay. That was fair. “Good answer.” I gave her the point, and she relaxed again with a huff.

I still had a thousand more questions. In order to get her attention focused on me and keep it there, I took the baby into my hands and set him up by my neck, and looked her straight in the eye. “Ellie, talk to me.”

She finally stopped pacing, and while I held the baby—who had, indeed, been surprised enough by my quick grab and his new situation to calm the fuck down and start mouthing my collarbone—she took a deep breath and began filling in the blanks. “Yeah, so, it was that guy I told you about. You know, the one who followed me from Portland? I thought he was gone, out of my life, finally. I haven’t seen him in months. Months and months. Since I left here last summer, you know? But he found me here, somehow. I don’t know how, Jack. I don’t know how he found us.”