My hands clenched into fists, and it took all that I had not to go through my dad to get to him.
“You know him?” Grease asked roughly, glaring at me in accusation.
“He had a class with my woman,” I clarified through clenched teeth.
“Ah, more than that,” Steve murmured, staring at me. “Bellatrix and I were study partners…friends, even.”
A rough noise broke from my throat and Casper’s hands fisted in my t-shirt, still using his body weight to keep me in place.
“Shut your mouth,” I growled.
“She was pretty,” he continued, stopping only when the butt of Dragon’s pistol smashed across his cheek.
“Talk about my daughter again and I’ll have you gaggin’ on your balls,” Dragon warned.
“You’re her dad, huh?” Steve murmured, then spit blood out of his mouth onto the floor. “Shoulda taught her not to tell her plans to just anyone.” He smiled then, and his teeth were red with blood. “Makes it too easy to find her… and the rest of you.”
That was the last word he said.
Gunshots filled the room as Grease and Will lit him up, his body jerking over and over in the chair as they filled him with bullets.
When they finally stopped shooting, we all just stood there in silence.
“He was gettin’ off on that shit,” Grease mumbled, looking at the floor as he stuffed his pistol back in his jeans. “Didn’t want to listen anymore.” Then he turned and walked out of the warehouse, Will following behind him.
“Trix doesn’t need to know,” I rasped as we heard their bikes fire up outside. “Not her fault—not somethin’ she needs to worry about.”
“Agreed,” Poet murmured, watching me closely. “Got nothin’ to do with her.”
“Yup,” Casper said.
“Course not,” Dragon mumbled.
We turned toward the mangled body in the chair.
“Should we cut him up or just bury him like this?” Poet asked the room.
“Cut him up,” Casper, Dragon and I said at the same time.
Chapter 26
Trix
“Little Warrior, you got a visitor outside,” my dad murmured, waking me up from a deep sleep.
I glanced at the clock and saw that it was ten-thirty at night, not super late unless someone had been crashing at nine the way I’d started to. I’d tried to stay up and watch TV with Leo, but that usually meant he was carrying me to bed an hour later because I’d fallen asleep on the couch, so I’d started taking my huge ass to bed early. I was getting too big for my little brother to carry me anymore.
“What?” I asked, pushing up on my elbows.
“You got a visitor.” Pop walked back out of my room.
I groaned as I rolled to the edge of the bed and set my feet on the cold floor. I’d been wearing Cam’s t-shirts to bed with some of Leo’s boxers, but pretty soon, I was going to have to pick something else up at the store. The shirts were already stretching super tight around my belly, and by the time I woke up every morning, I’d pushed them to right up under my boobs in my sleep.
I stumbled toward the open front door and pushed open the screen as I adjusted the shirt, stopping dead when I saw Cam standing at the bottom of the stairs.
He’d let his beard grow in. I noticed it at my doctor’s appointment, but it had gotten even thicker over the past few days. I loved it.
“Hey,” Cam rasped, his face shadowed.
“Hey,” I mumbled back stupidly, letting the screen door shut softly behind me.
We stood there silently for a few moments.
“That my shirt?” I could feel his eyes focused on my belly, but I couldn’t see the expression on his face.
“Oh,” I laughed uncomfortably, “Yeah, you packed it and nothing else fits, so…” My words trailed off as I realized what I’d said. I’d never thanked him for what he’d done, but I had a feeling if I did so then, he wouldn’t be happy about it.
“Doesn’t look like that one fits,” he joked softly.
“It doesn’t.” I chuckled. “I usually end up pushing it above the belly to get comfortable.”
Cam’s hands fisted at his sides.
“Show me,” he said.
My heart started thumping hard in my chest, the fact that I couldn’t see his face making his order even harder to follow. Could he see mine? The moon was behind him, casting him in shadow, which meant it was shining directly at me.
My hands went to my top, and my fingers shook a little as I gripped the sides and pulled it up and over my swollen belly, tucking it under my breasts. I tried to ignore the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra, and that the movement made that fact perfectly clear.
“You’re so beautiful,” Cam whispered, moving up one stair. “Every time I see you, you get prettier.”
“Fatter, too.”
“Rounder. I like it.”
I took a deep, shuddering breath and held it. He was so close now. I could reach out and touch him, but I was afraid to.