Page 86 of Broken

“Your overnight bag is already in my truck. We’ll call everyone on our way to the hospital,” I mumble as I put her inside the truck and then dash to the driver’s side.

Once in the truck, I hold her hand over the middle console, and I keep holding it all the way to the hospital.

Our jellybean is finally going to come say hi to Mommy and Daddy. Just when I think life can’t get any better, it does. Loving Gabriella Cruz hasn’t only made my life complete.

It’s made it worth living.

Chapter 40

Gabby

“She’s beautiful,”I whisper.

King reaches down and lets his fingers sift through the shock of blonde hair on our daughter’s head. I don’t know if it’s divine intervention, if the Man Upstairs decided I’d suffered enough, or what. All I know is that our daughter, Miss Kinsley Etta West looks completely like her mother and none of the man who raped me. He’d never be her father. She will never know about him. God willing, we will never tell her a damn thing about that monster. King is her dad. He’ll be there for her and that’s who will love her with everything in him.

I named her Kinsley because it was the closest that I could think to King. King demanded we name her Etta after Etta James. It’s a beautiful name and it fits her. Surprisingly, it was also an easy delivery. Labor was quick and the pain wasn’t bad at all—even if I couldn’t use an epidural because I’d already progressed too much by the time we got to the hospital.

“I’m going to have to keep my gun handy to keep the boys away,” King mutters. “Our Etta looks just like her mom.”

I smile up at him, loving that he thinks that, and definitely loving how much he adores our daughter. “Any regrets or worries, King?”

“Not a fucking one,” he whispers leaning down to kiss me gently.

“You know I love you,” I murmur.

“I love you, too, Sunshine.”

“Do you think our house will be ready when we get out of here?”

“I know it will. BB has the prospects fixing up the baby room today. Yellows and grays, just like you wanted, and on the wall opposite the crib Katie and your mom painted giant sunflowers. You’re going to love it.”

“Thank you for moving to Kentucky and giving all this a chance,” I whisper, because it still takes my breath away everything that King has done just to give me and Etta everything we could want.

“Don’t tell your dad—or your damn brother—but I love being here. The club is going to take a fuck of a lot of work, but it’s good. I like the men. I love what we’re working towards together. I also love our house.”

“I still can’t believe we bought a house,” I mutter, mostly because I can’t. King was adamant once he decided to take over the club. He wanted to move us in a big house that we could grow our family in. He didn’t want to move a hundred times. He said it was important for our kids to have a childhood he never had—which meant a real home and security in knowing it would always be there. We found a log cabin with huge windows and a fireplace in the great room. It’s just down the road from the Devil’s Blaze clubhouse, which is more than convenient. It has five bedrooms—which was a little scary, but King said it’s better to have too many bedrooms than too few. I agreed with him. We got it way below market value because it was in a bank short sale. The owners were getting divorced, and the house had to go quick. The most shocking thing about that was that King paid cash for it—making my eyes pop out of my head. He explainedthat he’d been a full member of a club for years and didn’t spend a lot of money. He sunk a mint in a restaurant, for Shelby’s grandmother, but Shelby and her grandmother threw the gift back in their face, so the club paid him back for the property—since they originally owned it before King bought it outright. That meant he had the cash. It also meant we wouldn’t have a mortgage over our head. If my mom and dad didn’t love him before—they certainly do now. All this means, that once we leave the hospital, we’ll be a family in our new house. Incidentally, the house also has a huge deck that overlooks the mountainside and no neighbors around—just in case my man gets the notion to piss off of it. Just the thought makes me laugh.

There’s a gentle knock on the door and I gasp as I look up. Mom, Dad and Carlos walk in. Following close behind them is Dragon and Nicole. If that wasn’t enough Aunt Katie and Uncle Torch follow, BB, Pez and Apex are next. Our family, the family that King and I have around us here. Tears sting my eyes as I take in the smiles and the way my man moves over to hug and/or welcome each of them.

This is my life. This is my family. This is the beautiful life that I’ve always wanted and the one that I will give my daughter. I never believed I’d have this. I truly didn’t. I look up at King’s laughing face as he hugs Dragon and they talk, and my heart stutters in my chest from the force of the love that surges through me. King gave me hope when I had none and just as I was drowning in fear of the unknown, he swooped in and rescued me. While all that was going on, he taught me what love really is.

He also taught me a lesson that I will never forget. It will be one that I will share with little Etta and any other children that we have. It’s a simple one, yet profound. I’ll make sure that my baby knows that life can be beautiful, but it can also be so hard you think you’re going to die. Yet, it’s when life is at its darkestpoint light fights its hardest to get in. Sometimes you have to search for it, but the light is always there. King was my light, and I pray with everything in me that one day my daughter knows the love that I have for her father in a man worthy of her. A love that might start in darkness so thick it chokes you but grows so big and bright that there’s no way to contain it. That’s who my Etta is to me and her father.

A light that was so bright that only pure love can flow from it.

Epilogue

KING

Six MonthsLater

“To my daughter and my son-in-law may you always have the happiness you feel today in your hearts,” Skull says, toasting us with punch—because he hasn’t had a drop to drink since he came to Tennessee to apologize to Gabby.

“To my son and his beautiful wife. Thanks for my grandbaby. I’ll take two more just like her,” Dragon says, holding Etta in one hand and a beer in the other.

Everyone laughs, but I just shake my head. I do enjoy hearing Gabby’s giggle, though. I hold her close. We’re now husband and wife. I never thought I’d want to be a husband again in my life, but this time it’s right.This time, it’s perfect. Gabby was always meant to be mine. We both know that now. We’ve made mistakes, some bigger than others, but in the end even our mistakes taught us to appreciate what we have with one another now.

I lead Gabby out onto the dance floor, and she smiles up at me in her beautiful white wedding dress that hugs her full breasts and flares out at the bottom to make her look like the princess she is. Her gorgeous gold hair is piled high on her head and the beauty I see when I look down at her makes my heartsqueeze in my damn chest. I love this woman with everything I am. What’s more, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she loves me the same.

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