Page 87 of Devil's Dilemma

Stubbornly she shuts her mouth.

Red’s unperturbed as he snaps, “He a cop?”

I’m watching her carefully and see the betraying twitch of her face. A confirmation of what I’ve gradually been coming to suspect. The unmarked cars stopping Wills and Cuff was the first clue, and what we found of Don in that house wasn’t the biker we knew.

Well, won’t be the first time a cop’s disappeared. Only problem is, she would have to go as well, and no Devil likes killing a woman. Though it might be kinder than leaving her wondering, to suffer like Mel, never knowing what happened to her man after he’d said goodbye that last time.

But they’ve got a kid.Fuck, more complications.

I’m glad Demon’s flying in. Right now, I’m representing Colorado, but I can’t see further than justice for my woman. My prez though, he’ll do right for the club. Maybe Skull will walk out of here alive, but meet me alone, one dark night, when he least expects it, and then I’ll make him pay the ultimate price.

Red continues to question her. “He goes away for a long time, Clare. You ever see him in that time?”

He’d been with the Devils eighteen months straight. Except for the month he disappeared fuck knows where. Though now I suspect I know who he ran to.

“When he’s on a job, no.”

“Except nine, ten months ago?” I ask to confirm it.

Her expressive face answers for her again.

Now it’s me pushing Red out of the way. “You know what he got up to?” I don’t wait for her to respond or not. I tell her myself. “He became one of us, a member of the Satan’s Devils, acted the part well, too. Soon as he was patched in, he went with the whores.”

A slight tightening of her face and a shake of her head suggests she’d rather not know. Then she gives me words. “If he’d otherwise have drawn attention to himself, Don would have done what he needed to do.”

Why do women come up with excuses?

“Possibly, Clare, though we’d not have thought that suspicious. But, it wasn’t just him fuckin’ a whore to keep up appearances, it was worse than that, Clare. Much worse. He decided to take a woman as his own. Claimed her, which in our world is as good as marrying her. He lived with her. Slept with her every fuckin’ night. Forgot to use a condom, twice. Then he upped and left leaving her pregnant.” What Skull had done makes my voice harden.

She’s now hanging onto my every word.

“He come home and fuck you? After he’d been with his old lady without a condom?” Her widened eyes suggest yes. “And what about her? What about the woman he said he loved, the woman he’d promised to spend his whole life with? He never came back, left with no warning. She found she was pregnant with no man to tell. You’ve got a kid, Clare. What if your husband left for a job and never came back? Disappeared off the face of the earth and you never had any answers. Can you imagine that, Clare? Can you imagine the fucking hurt?”

“No.” Her hands cover her face, her denial I suspect more that those things had actually occurred than her answering my question.

“Yes,” I insist. “She’s five months pregnant with your husband’s baby. It’s a boy. Your little girl will have a brother.” She won’t. I won’t let my kid anywhere near hers. But hell, I’ll lay it on as thick as I need to. “What about her, Clare? What about the innocent woman he used and discarded? What about her?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Melissa

So intent on questioning the woman sitting on a chair, the men haven’t noticed me. I’ve got a wall of leather to hide behind as the men crowd around the woman. While I can’t see, I can hear every word.Skull’s married? With a child?I stuff my hand in my mouth to stop a gasp escaping, while every syllable causes a sharp pain as though knives are piercing my heart.

An undercover cop?I was shacked up with a man who presumably wanted to bring the club down. That was the only reason he’d joined it. Everything he’d ever said to me, and to them, must have been a lie.

I can’t hold back any longer, and I scream out three words, “What about me?”

The men blocking my view of her, part. No one makes any attempt to prevent me stepping forward, my hands huddled across my stomach as though protecting my baby bump. No one lifts a finger as I walk straight up to the woman in the chair.

“What about me?” I scream again, spittle landing on her face.

She makes the connection easily, her eyes flicking to my face then my stomach. A myriad of expressions appear on her features, anger, disbelief, sadness. It’s hard to predict what she’s going to say.

Finally, she settles on denial. “I don’t believe you. The baby can’t be his.”

“You don’t believe me?” I scoff. “Well, in about four and a half months I’ll have proof. Do you know what it’s like, Clare, to be in love with a man you then find out doesn’t exist? To mourn the death of a man who’s still alive? To be carrying the baby who came into being through falsehood and deceit? Can you even begin to imagine it?”

She focuses on my eyes, as though trying to find something she can use to disbelieve me, but I know my expression is telegraphing pain and hurt.

---