“Where’s Jinx?” I asked after I swallowed my bite.

“No idea. I haven’t seen her since we left this room.”

I nodded, wondering if she was going to avoid me because of what happened, shrugging it off. I’d talk to her eventually. What I wanted to discuss was better off not heard by her ears, anyway.

“Tell me how you are.”

She laughed and huffed out a breath. “I should be askin you that. Grimm found me three days after that little bridge incident and kept me at some damn shack. I’m only here because you are. When I heard you’d been found, I raised hell until he brought me to this shithole.”

I scanned over her fading bruises.

“He didn’t do this.” She gestured up and down her body but didn’t elaborate on what did hurt her. “Do you think his balls would still be attached if he put his hands on me?” She quirked a perfect brow, making me laugh.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I admitted.

“I already told you; I go where you go. Now, tell me what the hell happened to you.”

Taking a small breath, I told her everything from the time I went over the bridge up until the present, excluding the R on my back, and it felt good. I’d never had another woman I could talk to like this. I wasn’t this open with anyone, not even Jinx. She didn’t say much until I was finished, only adding a curse word here and there.

“My sister is here and I’d love to know why they won’t let us near one another. That bitch acted like she didn’t know who I was. Ya know me and my uncle left to find her and she never needed our fuckin help? He died for nothin,” she fumed.

I watched as she paced back and forth, understanding her anger completely. Her uncle was shredded apart right in front of her and then consumed as someone’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She had every right to be enraged.

“Cali, I don’t know how the fuck you’re still sane.”

“I’m far from sane.” I laughed but I was being serious. Nothing about me was remotely stable. I was a high functioning psycho on my good days. On my bad days, no one was safe.

“That’s not all,” I sobered, keeping my voice low. With a soft exhale I let the cat out of the bag. “I’m pregnant.”

“Huh?” She whirled around so fast she almost spun into the wall.

“Shhh,” I hushed her, nodding my head in the direction of the door.

“Are you for real? I mean, you’re sure? You don’t look any different.” She zeroed in on my stomach as if she had x-ray vision.

I was ninety percent sure. I didn’t have nausea and I wasn’t any bigger than I had been, but I highly doubted Mother Nature decided to be kind and take my period away just for the fuck of it. They’d always been regular and Romero wasn’t exactly wrapping his dick. I told her as much, leaving out the fact I’d been through this before.

“I figured he’d be comin on you, not in you. He doesn’t look like the bareback type,” she mused. “Holy shit, you’re gonna be a mom. Does he know?”

I scoffed once my brain caught up and defined her terminology. Twisting my lips, I thought back to how his gaze lingered on my stomach and a few oddities in his behavior. “I think he does, but he hasn’t said anything. I have an idea on how to fix that.”

“He’s crazy possessive over you. Lord knows what he’ll do if this comes full circle.”

Nodding in agreement, I went to speak when the door flew open with such force that it hit the wall.

“Get out,” Romero ordered her without looking at me.

Sensing his dark mood, Arlen glared at him, not moving an inch. “Are you calm enough to be left alone with her?”

“Get the fuck out.”

His expression didn’t change but she must have seen something in his eyes because she held her hands up in surrender and edged past him, shooting me a look that said, “See what I mean?”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding once she made it into the hall unscathed. He shut the door and walked to the window.

I knew this wasn’t the time to bring up the R now scabbing over on my back. One: I liked it. Two: Romero gave zero fucks and did what he wanted. The argument would end with his dick inside me again and my body couldn’t handle that.

A stifling silence filled the room and I internally groaned. At least our relationship was never dull.

Tags: Natalie Bennett Badlands Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net