Mace (Untamed Sons MC: Birmingham Chapter #1)

29. Mace

TWENTY-NINE

MACE

I watch Maylie like a hawk. It’s been four months since Link died in our kitchen, and although the bruises are long gone, the scars I can’t see are still there.

Maylie has tried to keep it from me, but I know she is traumatised from her attack, and although she’s doing better, there’s still that underlying fear in her. I see it even now, through the fake smiles she’s giving to my club brothers and their families as she moves around the room, making friends.

“She doing okay?” Nicky asks.

I don’t like her being in the clubhouse, but to make her mine in the eyes of the club, my brothers have to get to know her. Having her within five feet of Crank makes my blood boil, and if Blade doesn’t stop eye-fucking her, I’m going to rip his fuckin’ head off.

“Yeah. All I need to do is get her property patch on her back and then she never has to fuckin’ set foot in this place again.”

My best friend leans back in his seat, his body language seemingly at ease, but I’ve known him for so long that I can feel the tension simmering under the surface. “It’s a joke that you think that. There shouldn’t be an issue bringing any fuckin’ family here.”

There shouldn’t be, but unfortunately, that is the situation we’re in and will continue to be in until Crank is gone, along with his supporters.

As I glance around the kuttes in the room, I find it hard to know who the fuck has my back beyond my brother and Nicky. There is too much ill feeling, too much mistrust, for our chapter to ever survive the way it is.

I don’t take my gaze off my woman as she stops to talk to nearly everyone she passes. We’re going to have to talk about the danger that looms behind some of these men. Things may look calm on the surface, but we are fighting a war. It’s only a matter of time before blood starts to flow.

“One day, things will go back to how they should be,” Nicky says.

“Until that day, I’m gonna protect my old lady from this club.”

I push up out of the chair, my gaze locked on my woman as I cross the room, ignoring the flare of jealousy that stabs my chest as she offers a smile to one of my club brothers. Those smiles are mine and mine alone.

As I get closer, she notices me and beams. I fucking love her with every beat of a heart I didn’t know still worked.

“Hey, handsome.”

The one thing I love about her is she doesn’t mind public displays of affection, and the moment I’m close enough, her arms wind around my neck and she pulls me down for a good crushing kiss .

“I missed you,” I say to her.

“I didn’t even leave the room.”

“But you left my side.”

Her eyes roll, but I can tell she likes it. “For like a second.” Her gaze darts behind us before coming back to me. “What’s the deal with her?”

She drops her voice low, and I glance over my shoulder to see Chloe sitting in her usual spot in Crank’s lap. “Nothing good. And don’t go trying to save her. Believe me, Chloe doesn’t want to be saved.”

Maylie’s phone beeps, thankfully drawing her attention away from the shitshow in front of us. “I need to go home and get ready for work.”

“I’ll take you.”

“Like I expected anything else,” she says around a smile, but I see the sadness beneath it. I wish I could fix it for her, wish I could make the monsters go away.

I place my hand on the small of her back and guide her out the room, giving Nicky a lift of my chin as we pass. Maylie does one better, stopping to hug him, crushing him against her as if they’ve known each other for years.

“And don’t forget to eat the brownies I left in the kitchen,” she says. “There’s also a sponge cake and some cookies that Ivy made, but I’m not sure how edible they’ll be.”

“You’re something else, girl,” Nicky says.

I wrap my arm around her shoulder, tucking her to my side as we walk out to my bike. Everything feels exactly how it should be with her and with my family. It’s just my club that is wrong, and I don’t know how we fix that.

As we stop at the side of my bike, she pulls out her phone. “I just want to message Ivy and make sure she’s okay. She wasn’t feeling so good this morning.”

Her sister is due to give birth in a month, and I can already sense Maylie’s worried about her. “Sure.”

I wait patiently for a moment until she’s finished, and a response pings back almost immediately. “She’s okay,” she says, letting out a relieved sigh. “I swear, she’s going to make me grey.”

She tucks her phone into her jacket pocket. “She’ll be fine,” I say. “The last month of pregnancy is hard on the body.”

I hand her the shiny green helmet I bought her for riding with me, but she doesn’t reach to take it. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Her bottom lip slips between her teeth, and my senses go on alert. “Do you think we could take a car?”

The ripple of anxiety that works across her face says a thousand things to me that other people might not notice, but I’ve come to learn all of her nuances. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just would rather not ride today.”

Considering how much she loves riding, that sets off all my alarm bells. “Maylie, talk to me.”

She winces. “I’ve been feeling really shit lately,” she blurts out, and my stomach plummets into the floor.

“Are you sick?”

“No.” She pulls another face that I can’t read. “I just don’t want to be on the bike in case I pass out or fall off.”

“Why would you pass out?”

“Yesterday, when I was getting out of the shower, I got dizzy. Everything was whirling around me and—” She rubs at her stomach, wincing. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Terror strangles me as she rushes over to the edge of the parking area, her hand covering her mouth before she bends over and retches. I’m at her side in an instant, pulling her hair back so she doesn’t puke in it, my mind in overdrive. Dizziness, nausea… how long has this been going on for? How did I not see she’s ill?

She retches over and over but nothing comes up, and she seems weak as I help her straighten.

“Fuck, Maylie. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

She straightens slowly, pulling tissue out of her pocket so she can wipe her mouth, even though she never brought anything up. I don’t miss the wobble she does, and I instinctively hold onto her, fearing she might pass out. Even in the crappy lights of the parking area, I can see how pale she is.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital.” She waves off my concern. “I’m not sick. I’m?—”

“The fuck you’re not.”

She grabs hold of my kutte as if it’s the only thing stopping her from falling down, her head leaning against my chest.

She mumbles something, but I can’t hear what she says.

“We’re going to the hospital. This is not up for negotiation, Maylie. You should’ve told me that you were dizzy and that you’ve been having symptoms. I could’ve done something.”

Her head lifts as I rant, and her smile is almost a little dazed. “You’ve already done enough.” I don’t know what that means, but ice spreads through my veins for a second. “I feel like this because of you .”

I recoil, horrified that I’ve done something to hurt her, to make her sick, but she doesn’t let me go far, grabbing my hand and placing it on her stomach.

“We should’ve got a bigger apartment, since we’re about to have two babies under the age of one.”

I stare at her, my mind reeling. Is she saying what I think she’s saying? “You’re pregnant?”

I hold my breath, scared this might not be real. She’d only come off the pill two months ago, and we’d expected it to take time. Maylie said it could take a year to fall pregnant, so this knocks me off balance.

“That’s what the test said… all seven of them.”

Fuck. Maylie is pregnant. I press a hand to her stomach, feeling nothing different there.

“You took seven tests?”

“I had to be sure. The first six could’ve been wrong.” She laughs. “I thought we’d have a little more time. How the hell are we gonna manage two newborns?”

I grab her face as my urges to keep her safe explode inside me to a level I’ve never experienced. As I duck my head to kiss her, she turns her face away. “I just almost threw up. At least let me brush my teeth before you kiss me.”

If she thinks I give a shit about that, she’s wrong, but I relent as I can tell she feels weird about it. “We need to go home.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not getting on the back of my bike again until the baby is born.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m not sure you should keep working at Temptation either.”

She frowns at me. “Are you okay? ”

I scrub my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. I know we wanted this, but I never considered the reality of how I’d feel when I became a dad.”

She smiles as if her world starts and ends with me, which is exactly how I feel about her. “You’ll be amazing. You already are with Ivy and Toby. I’m more worried about where everyone is going to fit.”

“It’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

I kiss her forehead, needing to touch her somewhere, needing to feel her skin against mine. “I fucking love you.”

“Not as much as I love you.”

My hand goes back to her stomach, hers sitting on top of mine, and I realise in this moment that I have everything I wanted when I was that scared boy of fifteen. I have my family, and I couldn’t ask for more.