Page 79 of Diary of a Biker Queen

I snorted on my laughter. “Didn’t know what would happen, Dad? Didn’t know shit would hit the fan when you tried to sell me off to a Mafia don when I was already pregnant with someone else’s baby?”

He grimaced, then focused on Luca. “I wanted to thank you. For saying the baby is yours. You probably saved my daughter, and my grandchild’s life.”

Luca’s expression changed from one of hate, to one of seething anger. “Lives you put in danger in the first place, you piece of shit. What the fuck do you want?”

Luca’s fingers twitched at his side, and I suddenly remembered the conversation we’d had outside the Slayers’ party. Where I’d promised to kill his father.

And he’d promised to kill mine.

I wasn’t sure I could deal with another dead body outside the Slayers’ gates.

I couldn’t risk bringing down any more heat on the heads of people who’d done nothing but care for me. Those gates I’d been so desperate to leave this morning now felt like the only place I wanted to be.

My father cleared his throat. “Carlos is going to kill me.”

“Not if I kill you first,” Luca said idly. “You’ve got a fucking nerve, coming here, knowing what you did.”

My father nodded, dropping his gaze. “I know. I came to apologize. To make things right.” He looked over at me. “Your mother cries every night, knowing you’re out here, pregnant and unsupported. Unsafe. We want you to come back with us. To raise the baby in our home.”

I snorted. “You’re deluded.”

Lynx vibrated with anger. “How dare you say she’s out here unsupported. She has a family here she never had with you. One who won’t fucking sell her to the highest bidder.”

My father hung his head at the venom-laced words Lynx hurled in his direction.

But I wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. I pushed past Lynx and moved past my mother, not caring about her whimpers. I stood face-to-face with my father, forcing him to lift his head and look me in the eye. “I don’t want anything to do with you. Ever. For the rest of my life.”

He wrung his hands. “You’re having our grandchild.”

Anger exploded inside me. “I’m having my baby. Mine. He isn’t yours. He won’t even have your last name.”

He swallowed thickly. “No. It’ll have the Guerra name, if the rumors I heard are true.” He spoke to Luca. “You claimed the baby as yours. But we know it’s not.”

Luca’s jaw ticked, and he stalked forward into my father’s space, until they were practically nose to nose. “That baby is mine, you hear me? I won’t have anyone question it. That baby is Guerra blood because I say it is.”

My stomach flipped at the tone in his voice. At the fierce protection in it I’d only ever heard him use when he talked about his sister.

Now it was being extended to my child. And maybe to me too.

But my father didn’t get the hint. Or maybe he was just that determined to say what he needed to. “We’ll never breathe a word of the baby’s true paternity. As long as Carlos thinks that baby is of his blood, the baby and my daughter are safe. But what about the other people who know?” His gaze flickered to Lynx. “Him. Dax. Who else knows? Every person you tell, you put yourself, your baby, and them in danger.”

I shook my head. “You think I don’t know that? You think I’m just going around telling everyone? Nobody else knows, Dad. Just us and Dax. It’s nobody else’s business.”

He eventually nodded. “Good. That’s smart. Because, Nyah, I’m scared for what he’ll do to you if he finds out otherwise. You don’t want to back a man like Carlos into a corner.”

I stared at him, and suddenly I saw the truth. “You aren’t scared for me. You’re scared for yourself. And that’s not my problem.” I shook my head in disgust at him. “You really have no idea what it means to have a family, do you? Or to actually love someone more than you love power? Go away, Dad. My baby and I are just fine without you.”

My mother sobbed dramatically, and I just rolled my eyes, the sounds of her cries as fake as the breasts my father had bought her when hers had started to droop.

“You’ll need help raising this baby,” she insisted. “What are you going to do? Raise it here? In a dirty motorcycle clubhouse surrounded by thugs?”

“I happen to love one of those men you call a thug,” I spat back at her.

Lynx snapped his head in my direction and stared at me in surprise. The shock of my words hit me too. Guilt sank in quickly, because despite the fact we were now something more than friends, I wasn’t sure I loved him as more.

At least not yet. But this “dirty thug” was the man who’d taken me to the hospital when I’d thought I was losing the baby. He was the man who’d found out what pregnant women needed and had snuck me baby books and vitamins when I’d been locked away. He was the man who’d protected Dax’s life and Luca’s and mine.

He wasn’t the loser my mother tried to reduce him to. He wasn’t the serial killer the papers were still reporting on either. He was good and kind and sweet and protective.