Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
I’m screaming now, so much that Jayden makes a little cry.
I immediately stop, panting, rage building in my chest.
I turn and see Kendric lean down and scoop Jayden up into his arms. His eyes flash to mine and I see something in his expression that breaks my heart—understanding. Kendric finally understands why I’m so fucking broken. He looks to my son and, putting a smile on his face, he tells him, “Want to look at my bike, little buddy?”
Jayden nods, his eyes still a little sad, his face still a little distressed.
Reece charges forward, but Alarick steps out, stopping him. “You take another step, I’ll fuckin’ take you down in a way you’ll never come back from.”
Reece pauses, glancing at me with pain in his eyes. “That’s my baby, Zariah.”
Those words tug at my heart in a way that’s almost painful. It is his baby; I couldn’t imagine anything worse in this world then having Jayden taken from me. Everything inside of me is screaming to stop this, hand his son back and just pretend none of this ever happened. I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a mother if I did that. I have to protect my son from even just a chance that he might hurt him sometime down the line.
“We’re done here,” Alarick goes on before I can speak. “You come near her or the boy again, you even so much as breathe in their direction, and we’ll take care of you. Do you fuckin’ understand?”
“That’s my son!” Reece screams. “My fuckin’ son!”
“You care about your fuckin’ son, you should have thought twice about layin’ your hands on that woman,” Alarick snarls.
“You can’t do this, Zariah!”
I close my eyes, heart racing, trying hard to think amongst this chaos. I look up to see him on his knees, crying. It about breaks me. I take a step forward, but Kendric’s voice rolls in behind me. “Do not go to him, Zariah. You know you gotta do this.”
I’m panting now, chest dragging in and out with pain. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to think, all I know is that I feel like a god damned monster right now and I hate feeling like I’m ruining someone’s life. “Get help, Reece,” I say carefully. “Get the help you need because right now, you’re dangerous and I have to protect our son from that. We’ll go to court, have them decide and ...”
“They’ll take him away from me,” he bellows. “You know they will.”
“If they do it’s because of something you’ve done,” I say. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, they’d have no reason to. I don’t want to take him from you forever, but right now, in this moment, I can’t let you have him because you nearly took my life, Reece. I can’t risk him. Get help, proper help, and we’ll discuss the next steps.”
“I’ll fucking kill you, Zariah,” he suddenly roars, leaping up and charging toward me. Alarick steps out, Cohen by his side and the two of them take him down with one, quick movement. Alarick pins him to the ground with his boot and then leans down and growls, “I will put a bullet through your skull and rid the world of your fuckin’ presence if you so much as look in her direction again. Do not fuckin’ tempt me.”
Reece squirms and roars, “Get your fuckin’ foot off me, biker. Get off me.”
Alarick lets him go, and Reece gets to his feet as Tarryn rushes toward him and gives me a look so deadly I flinch. “We’re going to take you down for this, Zariah. We’re going to make sure that everyone knows what you’ve done here. About the bikers. Everything. You think a court is going to favor you when you’ve done that?”
I keep my stance and don’t flinch away from her, then I smile and lean in close. “What bikers?”
With that, we turn and leave.
Bring it on, I say.
Bring. It. On.
14
ZARIAH
I sneak out of the hallway and out into the living area. It took me a while to get Jayden to sleep, and quite honestly, I feel like a god damned monster. He was asking for Reece, and that breaks my heart because one thing I do know, without a doubt, is that he loves his father and his father loves him. Perhaps there is a way to make it work so he can still see him but, for right now, I would be doing the wrong thing to assume he’ll never snap and hurt my baby.
I could never forgive myself for that.
I get out into the kitchen to see Alarick, Kendric, and Briella all waiting for me. They made sure I got home safe, and Kendric got right into changing all the locks in my house so that Reece couldn’t enter. He also made sure I had a security system. None of them think I’m safe after what happened today, and there’s a good chance I’m not. Reece will let what happened build, and he may very well snap. That will leave me in danger, possibly Jayden too.