Page 11 of Knox

I turned to walk toward the road and schedule an Uber.

Then, a large hand caught my wrist. Not rough but firm enough to make me stop.

“You go back to him now, and he’s going to make an example out of you.”

I didn’t look at him. Just stared ahead. “I don’t have a choice.”

Knox tightened his grip. “Bullshit. You always have a choice.”

The impossibility of the statement, spoken with unexpected intensity, made me bark a derisive laugh. I glanced over my shoulder to see him watching me. My father caught us both on camera. Nathaniel Knox just fucked himself and his club over just for interacting with me. And once Father saw that a Devil put his hands on me too? It was a death sentence.

I pulled free with little effort and murmured, “Not in my world, Royal.”

CHAPTER 5

KNOX

I leaned back on the barstool and knocked back the last few sips of beer. I thumped it twice on the bar and grinned at Sam, who was at the other end getting one of the regulars’ orders. She saw me and rolled her eyes playfully. After giving the kitchen the order slip, she came over—waddled, more like. Her belly was pretty visible, and her tank top kept trying to slip free of the stretchy waistband of her shorts.

Jackson sat two chairs down from me, but I still heard him growl. I caught him tracking her every step with a hungry look on his face. “Goddamn, woman,” he muttered as she passed him.

Sam flicked his forehead, a move no one in the world could pull on Black Jack except for her. “Stop acting like I look like a goddess when I’m five months pregnant and I look homeless. Same thing, Knox?” I nodded, and she looked at Mason sitting beside me. “You, too, Mason?”

Mason winked and slid his empty glass toward her. “Please and thank you, Miss Barkeep.”

Sam went and got our refills with efficiency. I knew jack shit about pregnant ladies and how much babies prevented them from doing certain things, but apparently, not tending to the Well’s bar.

She slid two glasses back toward Mason and me. We took hearty sips. She sighed and dropped her chin in her hand. “Stupid no-drinking-during-pregnancy rule,” she grumbled, eyeing my drink like it was liquid gold. “That beer looks good.”

I slid my glass toward her. “Here. One sip won’t hurt.”

Mason elbowed me in the ribs in warning. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen Jackson reach to swat it right out of my hand.

“Get that shit away from my girl,” he warned. “She’s carrying my kid.”

“Exactly,” I retorted, fighting a smirk. “It’ll take the edge off that fact.”

Sam laughed and pushed my glass back toward me. “I’ll get some apple juice and trick my brain into thinking it’s beer.”

“Add some soda water,” Mason added, playing along. “Make it fizzy.”

Black Jack glowered at us. “Shut the fuck up. Sam, baby, get me an apple juice with soda water.”

“Aw, babe, you’re too sweet,” Sam crooned teasingly. “What a supportive boyfriend. I’ll take that.”

Too fast for him to register, she swiped his second, still-full beer bottle and chucked it in the trash. Leaving all three of us with our jaws dropped open, Sam went into the kitchen, retrieved an apple juice box reserved for the kids that would occasionally come in with their parents, and poured it into a beer glass. Jackson stared at it like it was poison as Sam added soda water from the dispenser.

With far too much satisfaction, she set the glass in front of her baby daddy and purred, “Here you go, babe. Your diet starts now.”

Mason and I couldn’t hold it in. We howled with laughter at our president’s suffering and toasted our glasses to Black Jack’s demise, not by the hands of Walter Bates but at the expense of a kid still in his mama’s belly.

As Jackson sulked, Sam patted her hand on the bar in front of Mason and me. “Your burgers will be out soon. Enjoy your cold ones.”

Jackson was already relapsing, half-begging, half-growling. “Sam, baby, I’m all for supporting you, but you can’t take away a man’s booze.”

“Sure she can,” I teased. “It’s called balance, Black Jack. She can’t drink, so now neither can you. Next up: matching prenatal vitamins.”

Sam perked up, hands on her hips, looking far too pleased to have a backup. “Drink up, babe. Gotta get that vitamin C.”

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