Page 106 of Diary of a Biker Queen

His gaze dipped to my belly. “I want a second chance. I can’t have another son of my own. But there’s a grandson you carry, and the sharks are circling, Nyah. You must know that. I’ve allowed you to live here where you’re protected, but you must know the Guerra heir is a target on your back that you’ll never escape. You and he need protection.”

“This baby isn’t Luca’s,” I spat back at him. “It never was.”

Carlos didn’t flinch, and I suspected he had already considered that possibility. “It doesn’t matter whether he is or he isn’t. Everyone thinks he is. That gossip moved from mouth to mouth like wildfire. There isn’t a soul within a five-hundred-mile radius who doesn’t know that Nyah Matish is carrying a Guerra baby.” He looked at me shrewdly. “That genie is out of the bottle. There’s no putting it back.”

“You want to raise a baby who isn’t yours?”

“I want to raise a baby with the Guerra name. Which your baby will have, no matter what you put on his birth certificate.”

I breathed out a long, angry breath and stared up at the man. “You will never touch my baby, Carlos.”

He folded his arms across his chest, studying me intently. “Then you condemn him and yourself to a lifetime of fear. One where you are never safe. One where you’re always watching over your shoulder. Every new person you meet, you’ll wonder if they’re an enemy of mine, just waiting for a chance to murder my heir. Because no matter what you say or do next, Nyah, I will publicly claim him as such. He is the Guerra heir. Is that the life you want?”

My fingers shook.

Carlos’s gaze was steady. “Marry me. Now, before the baby is born. He’ll have all the protection he needs beneath my roof. He’ll have guards with him twenty-four seven; he’ll never be in danger.”

“From anyone but you,” I whispered.

Carlos’s gaze didn’t waver. “I told you. I made mistakes with Luca. But I won’t make the same ones again. Marry me. Let me raise that baby as my son and let me prove I can be good to both of you.”

I couldn’t speak. My mouth tried to form words, but none would come out.

Carlos took my hand. “I will mourn Luca’s death for the rest of my days. More so, knowing I was the reason for his death. But I don’t want to have to mourn your child too. And I know I will be if I let you go. So just tell me what you want, Nyah. For me to never touch you? Done. Money? Have as much as you want. But marry me. Let me protect both of you the way Luca would have wanted me to.”

I couldn’t say a word. I could barely breathe.

He squeezed my fingers. “I’ve booked the same church we were once supposed to be married in. Everything is set to go ahead this Saturday. The pews will be full, and there’ll be a party afterward to celebrate.” He ducked his head, imploring me with his eyes to listen. “I’ll be standing there at the altar at three, Nyah. I really hope you’ll be there too.”

32

LYNX

Dear Diary,

Good, upstanding policemen don’t just steal you away in the middle of the night.

Iwas no stranger to the inside of a prison cell.

But I had never remembered one feeling quite as small as the one I’d been in ever since the cops had picked me up. It was barely big enough for me to pace, three short steps by four. No windows. Nothing but a tiny hole in the door where they shoved food from time to time, when they remembered.

Not for the first time, I banged my fist against the door and shouted, “I want a lawyer! You’re holding me here without charges, without a bail hearing, without any sort of legal due course!”

I didn’t expect a response. I’d been shouting and begging and cursing at them on an endless loop for days, and nobody had ever come. There’d been no phone call. No lawyer to accompany me to a bail hearing.

Nothing but these same four walls and tiny space in between.

It was fucking lucky I wasn’t claustrophobic.

So it was complete and utter shock when the lock on my cell whirred and the door opened.

I didn’t budge from my spot on the bed. Just stared at the officer who’d dragged me in the night I’d found Luca’s car on fire.

“Get up.”

I didn’t move. Didn’t trust this man as far as I could throw him. “What for?”

Rivera’s hand hovered over his belt and the array of tools hanging off it. Like he might have to pull his pepper spray or his taser, or maybe even his gun to get me to cooperate. “Because I said to. You’re the one who’s been bitching and moaning the entire time you’ve been in here. You’d think you’d thank me for getting you out for a minute.”