RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

all that. She was the patient, not me. They were her test results. It was her news.

But he weren’t just any doctor.

He worked for the club, for me. I’d brought him on board years back. And I paid him a mint to do things our way.

“Doc,” I pressed, a clear edge in my voice. “What’s the deal?”

There was another beat with him hesitating. But then I heard him sigh in resignation, as he spoke the last words I’d ever expected to hear. “She’s pregnant.”

30

~Willa~

 

CURVEBALL DIDN’T EVEN COVER IT.

The doctor’s words had sounded foreign, distant. Surreal was what they were, what this whole situation felt like.

For once, I hadn’t known how to handle it, how to react. Strangely, the first instinct that had kicked in had been to head to the local bar. It was my normal reaction to swallow down something highly-stressful. Not being able to do that was jarring. The reason behind that denial was the very reason I’d wanted to head to the bar in the first place. Talk about a vicious circle. A pointless one at that.

I’d settled for the back corner booth in the local coffee shop, Java Joint. The redhead behind the counter had given me an odd look and a curious once-over. Judging by the necklace she was sporting with the Steel Titans crest, she was involved with one of the club members. Talk had clearly spread about my presence on their territory. Whatever. That was the least of my problems.

I sank back against the booth, clutching the bottle of water that I’d ordered. My throat had been so dry all morning, raw almost, from the brutal vomiting.

At least now I knew why.

I was pregnant. Pregnant! Me, pregnant. A soon-to-be-mother.

I shook my head to myself. It didn’t even sound right in my own head. It seemed so far-fetched and so completely out of place for me. It wasn’t even something I’d ever thought about, definitely not a road I’d considered going down. Then again, the same could be said of my relationship with Slade.

“Shit,” I muttered, resting my face in my hands.

“So… motherhood?”

I started in surprise and shot my head up at the sound of the voice. I’d been so out of it, so disconnected from my surroundings, that I hadn’t heard or sensed his approach at all.

I took in Ricky’s wary expression. I wasn’t really surprised by his reaction, given the way I’d bolted from the surveillance room, stormed out of the clubhouse, then borrowed a Titans truck and driven into town. It had been more than a little manic and frenzied. I could understand why it would be assumed that I’d be unapproachable right now. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d been ignoring Slade’s many calls and texts for the last two hours.

“He sent you into the fray, huh?”

Ricky smiled and slid into the other side of the booth. “Well, he figured with you ghosting him, you weren’t gonna exactly welcome him showing up here.”

His words rang too true.

I didn’t want it to be the case. I didn’t want a distance between Slade and me. But without that I’d have to… decide. And I wasn’t ready. How the hell could I be? This wasn’t something I’d ever considered, that I’d ever actively wanted or sought out. I wasn’t… equipped to handle this, to be in this position. Not to mention, we were basically at war right now and that should be our number-one priority, our only focus.

It hit me then.

I’d just left right in the middle of a task. Jeez, I was losing it.

Ricky’s hand touching mine on the table between us had me emerging from my thoughts.

God, I couldn’t even keep my mind straight right now. There was just too much to circumvent.

“Talk to me,” he implored.

“I wouldn’t know what to say.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“Things aren’t sorted in my head yet.”

He laughed, actually laughed. “You really are something else, sweetheart, you know that?”

“What does that mean?”

He chuckled again and sank back in the booth, stretching his arms over the top of it. “I mean, you just had a major bombshell come your way, it’s barely been two hours, yet you think you gotta have it all figured out already? This ain’t a mission we’re talking about here, Willa. Nah, this is a different breed altogether. This is life. It’s what it looks like beyond the very limited existence of Shadow.”

“Limited existence?”

“Yeah, you know?”

“No, I really don’t.”

He rubbed the back of his neck roughly and hesitated for a moment, before going on, “It’s the client and the job, then the next one after that. That’s all. That’s your life. Until this thing you got going with Slade, your personal life was just a hookup to take the edge off here and there.”

Oh my God.

It was like a knee to the gut. Jarring. And, if I was being honest, a little bit painful to hear, because the truth in it wasn’t easy to acknowledge.

I was in my thirties and I’d barely experienced anything outside of darkness and violence. I’d barely experienced life. The good, clean, innocent aspects, especially.

“This pregnancy could change all that,” he pointed out.

I scoffed at the notion. “I’m not mother material.”

He frowned. “Why’d you say that?”

“Well, first off, my world is a whirlwind of violence and danger. Not exactly a conducive environment to raising a child, is it?”

“That’s all coming to an end soon.”

“Even with me leaving my current line of work, I still need to do something, to be something. I haven’t figured out what that will be yet, but I do know that I’ll be just as obsessive about it as I have been with Shadow.”

“So, you can’t have a career and be a mother?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I—”

“You’ve always been one hell of a multitasker. This wouldn’t be any different.”

“It’s completely different!” I argued, raising my voice enough that I noticed the redhead behind the counter looking over at our booth. Great, now I was making a scene in a