Page 76 of Jett

I want to hit someone, throw something, but I can’t because they’ll call security and I need to be here. I need to see my woman and my baby, and hold them both. I need to beg their forgiveness because I wasn’t there. I left them alone, and I should have been there to protect them.

I suck in sharp, short breaths, but I can’t get enough air.

I wind up with my arse on the floor and my head in the lap of a strange woman as I sob like a little fucking girl for the girl I lost. The girlwelost. “I need to see them.”

“Of course.”

“Jesus, I didn’t know you could love someone this much who you’ve never even laid eyes on.”

“She’s a beautiful little girl. Come on. I think Raine could use you now.”

I follow the nurse down the hall and into the room. Sitting on the bed under the dim glow of the bathroom light is Raine. She’s got a couple of bumps and scrapes on her head, but they’re nothing when compared with the haunted look in her eyes.

She meets my gaze, conveying everything with a single look—heartbreak, sorrow, apology. I rush to her side, but stop dead in my tracks when I see the little crop of blonde hair and the tiny head resting against her breast. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”

I kiss the top of Raine’s hair and stare down at my little girl. She’s the smallest thing I’ve ever seen, with tiny features and long white lashes. She looks like a doll, but she’s far too pale. She’s blue. Her skin is almost transparent. “Yeah, darlin’. She’s perfect.”

“Do you want to hold her?”

I nod. And she lifts her from her chest, swaddling her in the blanket before handing her to me.

“Support her head,” she says, and then when her eyes meet mine, I see the second her heart breaks all over again. I feel the helplessness in her soul. Our baby isn’t at risk of breaking her neck, because she’s already dead.

I sit in the chair beside the bed, perhaps falling into it heavier than I should with such precious cargo in my arms. She might not be breathing, but she’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen, and she still needs to be handled with care. She’s far too perfect for a lowly biker like me, and if she’d lived, I would’ve spent the rest of my days fighting every arsehole under the sun for so much as looking at her.

It’s this thought that makes me lose my mind. It all just unravels and my heart breaks. For the first time in my sorry, fucked up life, I truly know what it means to be broken. And it’s not a feeling I’d wish on my worst enemies.

RAINE

IDON’T KNOW HOW MANYdays have passed in this room. How many nights I’ve woken to her cries and put her to my breast, willing her to drink, but her lips never move, her mouth never sucks, and my breasts continue to feed her anyway. My body doesn’t understand that I’m grieving the loss of my daughter instead of being able to nurture her. The cooling cot means she can be in my room, beside my bed. I can spend time with my daughter before her tiny body turns to rot. And I use every second I have with her. I stroke her face and tell her how perfect she is, how every nail on her fingers and toes are a blessing I never thought I’d have.

But all of the time I’ve spent loving her, I never anticipated how my heart would break when they came to take her away. The nurse pulls her from my arms. I try to hold onto her frail body, but I don’t want her to break. I couldn’t stand to hear the crunch of those tiny bones, so inevitably, I let go. I fall to my knees on the floor of my hospital room and I beg them to give her back to me.

I don’t care that Jett, Kick, and Indie are all here to witness my meltdown. I don’t care that I’m acting crazy—out of my mind with grief and guilt and sorrow. I scramble to my feet and chase after the nurse. I grab her arm. Little Sophie’s body jerks, and sour milk pours out of her mouth to splatter the floor and my feet.

The nurse’s jaw drops open. The room is dead silent, save for the keening cry from my lips, and I’m pulled back to the bed as the father of my child cradles me in his arms. I hate that I’ve become this person. I hate that I’m acting like a wild animal, but I hate that they’re taking my baby more. And when I try to wrestle out of Jett’s hold, several nurses file into my room and strap me to the bed while they shoot me up with drugs to keep me calm.

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