“Here,” his deep voice surprised me from behind.
Scarlet released me, stepping back as I whirled to face Sal and Kat. They’d just arrived, bags on their shoulders.
Sal and I stared at each other for a moment before he stepped forward and pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. “Don’t you ever pull this shit again, Sophie, I swear to God,” he swore at me.
“Sorry,” I rasped as I was pulled out of Sal’s embrace and into Kat’s.
“What he said,” she warned, her bark holding less bite.
I drew back against the bump I felt. “Oh, my God! Are you…?”
She nodded with a grin. “About six months along now.”
“Congrats,” I whispered.
“Thanks,” she winked, pulling back to take a good look at me.
Mad whined then, pulling my attention away as everyone looked over at him. I crossed the room, scooping him up. He wasn’t used to so many people and his eyes were larger than normal as he looked around the room.
The room grew unnervingly quiet as my brother stared at my little boy. His dark eyes swept to me then to Axel, then back again.
“What. The. Fuck,” he seethed, glaring at Axel with such hostility I worried they’d come to blows at any second.
Axel’s countenance remained calm as he met my brother’s anger head on. Then his grey eyes moved to me. “I didn’t tell him,” he explained, stating the obvious as he moved to scoop Mad out of my arms with an ease I was shocked by. It seemed they’d had a good day.
“When were you two…? How? What the fuck?” Sal barked again in distress. If not for the circumstances, I might have laughed.
“When you went to New York for your grandfather’s funeral,” Axel spoke up and I was glad he did because I was certainly in no hurry to. “I followed you, had your back even though you didn’t know it. After you left, Soph and I well…we… This isn’t your business,” he growled with impatience. “The short version is we met, had a thing. I fucked it up but it resulted in this guy.” He cocked his head down toward Maddox who was drooling like a champ.
“So that whole time she was in Hawthorne you’d already known her. Did you know she was pregnant?” Sal demanded, his eyes wide and shining with confusion and anger.
“Hell, no!” Axel shook his head. “You think had I known that I would have acted like such a jackass? That I would have let her out of my sight? No, I’m guessing your fucked-up parents did something. We haven’t gotten into those details, but something made her scared enough to run,” he said with halted speech, his emotion such that I moved to take Maddox from him.
Sal’s dark gaze swung to mine, leveling me with the pain I saw reflected there. “How could you not have told me?”
“I had every intention to,” I rasped, watching him with wide eyes, guilt and apprehension rolling off me in waves. “I ran out of time.”
“All right, let’s lighten this shit up. Jesus,” Wes broke in, coming to give me a one-armed hug. “Who brought the beer?”
“Uh, what exactly is everyone doing here?” I asked hesitantly. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you but…”
“We figured if you didn’t feel safe coming home, we’d bring home to you,” Connie grinned, moving in to hug me. “Axel got a head start as soon as Henry told Cole he’d seen you. But we were right behind him.”
So it had been Henry. I figured as much.
“But, I…I don’t know what to say,” I stammered lamely, overwhelmed with how much trouble they’d gone to, with how good they were to me.
“Say you’ll finally open up. Say you’ll trust us,” she pleaded with quiet intensity.
“I always trusted you,” I assured her. “It was never about that.”
She squeezed me briefly before stepping back. “Welp, my man’s right. Let’s lighten things up a bit. Where’re we eatin’? I’m starved.” She winked at me.
I could have kissed her for taking some of the heat off me.
Not half an hour later, we sat in the back room at Giovanni’s. Dwayne nearly had a heart attack when we’d all paraded in.
“If I’d known you had access to so many beautiful men, I would have camped out at your place!” he exclaimed after we were settled.
