Page 7 of Reckless

Her saying his real name in that thin, pained voice cuts straight through whatever denial he is trying to build around himself. He looks down at her.

She tries to smile and fails. “I think our son has your patience.”

Sin lets out a breath that seems to drain the last of his strength. “God help us all.”

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” she whispers.

It is such a small thing.

Such a Victoria thing.

Dragging him back with a joke because she knows the man beneath the cut, beneath the presidency, beneath all that controlled violence, is standing in front of her, terrified.

And he comes back for her.

Sin presses his forehead to hers for one brief second, eyes closed, both hands steady on her face. When he lifts his head, the fear is still there, carved into him too deeply to disappear, but the president has returned enough to move the room. “Main room,” he orders. “Now. Clear it. Towels, blankets, first-aid kit. Marley, Ro, Sage, you’re with her. Ghost, get me someone medical on the phone who knows more than the emergency operator reading off a script. Nitro, stay with ambulance dispatch. Koa, keep the door clear. Bear, keep everyone else the hell back unless they are useful.”

The clubhouse snaps to his voice.

That is the thing about Sin. Even scared out of his mind, he is still the man everyone obeys.

And just like that, the Las Vegas Defiance clubhouse becomes a storm with a purpose.

Getting Victoria from the kitchen to the main room feels like crossing a football field instead of twenty feet. Sin barely lets go of her, one arm around her waist while he keeps hold of her hand. Marley and I stay so close we’re practically tripping over each other, ready to grab her the second she needs us. Every few steps, another contraction hits, bringing us all to a stop until she can breathe through it.

The main room looks like a crime scene committed by love.

The coffee table is gone, dragged so far out of the way it has taken two rugs with it. Chairs are shoved back. Beer bottles litter every flat surface. Cards are scattered face up across the poker table, and someone has knocked over a bowl of pretzels that nobody is currently emotionally equipped to care about. Ro is on her knees throwing pillows into place, while Liam appears from the hallway with an armful of towels so enormous I can only see the top of his head.

“I brought all of them,” the prospect announces.

Koa looks at the pile. “Why are there beach towels?”

“They’re towels!”

“They have flamingos on them.” Koa chuckles in his deep belly laugh.

“Do babies care about flamingos?” Liam asks as if he is honestly curious.

Koa opens his mouth, considers the question, then points toward the floor. “Put them down.”

Mace comes in behind him with bottled water, Hash with the first-aid kit, and Anchor carrying what looks like every clean blanket in the building. Nobody knows who told them to get those things. Maybe nobody did. Maybe this is just what family does when panic hits hard enough. They scatter, grab whatever might help, and bring it back like offerings to a tiny furious god who has not arrived yet.

We lower Victoria down onto the blankets.

It isn’t graceful.

There is no way to make bringing a whole new life into the world on the clubhouse floor graceful.

She’s sweating, her breath catching at the end of every inhale, and all the jokes in the world can’t hide the fact that the pain is carving through her one contraction at a time. Her fingers dig into mine on one side, Sin’s on the other, and I decide immediately that if she breaks every bone in my hand, I’ll simply learn to write with the other one and never mention it. The thought barely registers. None of the little things do anymore.

Not the ache in my knees from kneeling on the hardwood. Not the damp patch soaking through the legs of my jeans. Not the way my heart feels as if it’s trying to climb into my throat every time Victoria’s face tightens and another contraction steals her breath.

Somewhere along the line, this stopped being somebody else’s emergency.

It became ours.

Marley kneels by Victoria’s knees, calm in a way that has to be at least partly fake. Somehow, she’s making the rest of us believe it too. Ro stays by Victoria’s shoulder with a damp cloth, quietly talking her through each contraction.