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Nothing had ever felt as good as the weight of Rocky’s body against mine, until I felt the swell of our baby beneath my hands.
Chapter 13
Rocky
Being out of work was not as liberating as I thought it would be when I was working two jobs and wishing for enough cash to check out completely.
I was bored and climbing the walls. It had been three days since we’d spotted Big Boy’s car hawking us and I still didn’t have a solid getaway plan. My mind wouldn’t stop working trying to come up with something that wouldn’t force me to take Lasso’s kid away from him but would keep me out of Genesis’ reach.
Every plan I came up with had a flaw, so I reverted back to form. Crafts had always helped me in the past, so I bought some nice organic Merino wool and started making a baby blanket. It was three shades of green ranging from shamrock to teal, in a hypnotic swirling pattern. As I settled into a mindless design, it pushed away all the clutter in my mind—Lasso and the baby and my business—so I could find a plan to get me free.
Just because I hadn’t seen his fat ass in a few days didn’t mean Big Boy had gone back to California. They wouldn’t go until I was with them or in the ground, and details started to slide into place. I needed an isolated location that couldn’t be linked to me, just enough to send Genesis and his thugs running all over the country for me, exhausting time and resources to find someone they should assume was dead.
I froze at the creak of the back door. Lasso had said he would fix it at least a hundred times this week because the screen door squeaked like crazy. He hadn’t gotten to it yet and I didn’t hear that deafening bike of his, so I reached behind the sofa for the bat that had been with me since I’d left Florida.
My right hand wrapped around the handle and I pushed up to a standing position, taking slow careful steps toward the kitchen, avoiding the noisy parts of the floor. I turned at the hall and ran smack into Navajo, the blondest white boy I’d ever seen with iceberg blue eyes and a hard on for all things Native American. Or Native American adjacent. His angry scowl resonated first, and I screamed.
“Loud bitch,” he grunted and punched me square in the face. His grubby, calloused knuckle hit me square in the nose. The awful crunching noise sounded first and then the feel of warm blood sliding down my nose and over my lips.
“Fucker,” I grunted and stumbled back. I bit back a groan when the bat knocked against my ankle and grinned as I pulled my arm back and cracked the bat against his shins.
“You crazy bitch, that’s a metal bat!”
“Aluminum, actually. Light weight but hurts like hell.”
Navajo rolled around on the kitchen floor between the metal work table and the sink, groaning and gripping his shins. “Just come back with us, Rochelle, make it easy on yourself.”
“I can’t do that, Navajo. I won’t.”
“You will. Eventually. You think the Reckless Bastards will fight a war with us over you? You overestimate your importance, sweetheart.”
He might have been right about that, but I wasn’t counting on some biker gang and I wasn’t counting on Lasso either. Not when I wasn’t sure that he could be trusted yet.
“Yet here you are, chasing me down. I’m not going back, Navajo and fuck you for thinking any of this is all right.” I’d quickly unrolled a yard of paper toweling from holder I’d been able to reach on the counter and jammed it under my nose. It had already filled with blood.
“We all got jobs to do, Rochelle.”
He grunted, too much, as he wiggled around before lunging at me, a switchblade clutched in his hands.
“Ow, you crazy bitch!” he said when I whacked him again with the bat. He looked at me with wild blue eyes, clutching his now aching forearm.
“And we all have to fight for the life we want.” I stood and he grabbed my ankle, forcing me to send the handle of the bat flying into his nose in a sudden need for revenge. He dropped like a rock.
I made it to the phone and dialed Lasso. “Trouble at the house. Come quick. And alone.” I ended the call and took a seat in a chair at the small table in the corner of the kitchen, keeping a close eye on a now unconscious Navajo while I waited. Head back with fresh paper towels under my nose, tapping my feet, I was the definition of anxious.
I was lucky Navajo had drawn the short straw today. He had more heart than brain and lacked the cruel streak Genesis preferred in his men. It could have been real bad and all I had was a fucking bat, making me really regret not taking Lasso up on his offer to get a gun. Maybe we’d revisit that later. After we dealt with the unconscious gangster on the kitchen floor.
I couldn’t believe I was sitting around once again waiting for a man. But this was the kind of shit Lasso wanted me to include him in, so I would.
“What’s going on?” He didn’t waste any time, pushing inside the house and stalking straight to the kitchen where he was brought up short. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Navajo. Remember him from San Diego? One of Genesis’ men you bloodied that night. He’s alive. Just had a run in with a bat.” Lasso smirked but his face and his body were lined with anxiety. Around his mouth and eyes, pulling his shoulders and spine tight, he was one big ball of tension.
“I remember. What’s he doing here?”
I rolled my eyes and sat back down. “I invited him over for tea, thought we could work out some kind of fucking treaty.”
“Smartass.” Lasso had his phone out and was mumbling into it, calling, I assumed, member
