Fight(32)

I dropped the picture.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“Endo.”

“No.”

Winter nodded. “Yeah.”

“You had a baby with Endo. That’s what you’ve been hiding from me?”

“Not hiding,” Winter said. “I’m telling you now. You have no idea how bad it hurts me.”

“Why?”

Winter’s eyes filled with tears. “Does it look like I have a kid with me now?”

I swallowed hard. “Endo…”

“No.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “You…”

“No,” Winter said again. “I gave her up.”

“You gave her up?” I asked.

“Yes. Endo told me he couldn’t have a baby like that. With someone like me. I wasn’t part of his family and I wasn’t the right blood.”

“Christ,” I said. “They have beliefs about marriage, family, keeping their bloodline pure.”

“Yeah. I’m not pure. I don’t even know where the hell my ancestors came from. Never thought it would matter so much.”

“So you let him tell you what to do?”

“What f*cking choice did I have?” Winter yelled. “Look at my life. I couldn’t f*cking have a baby and take care of it. And Endo gave me no choice. Either I did it or he had me killed.”

“No way.”

“Yes. And if he killed me, he would have taken the baby anyway.”

I touched my forehead, ran a hand through my hair. It was getting worse by the second. More confusing. It was too much to take in at once. I thought I was coming here to keep some woman alive. Yeah, maybe I’d get into a fight or two. Maybe take a bullet or something.

But all this?

“Tripp,” Winter said. “Please don’t leave me.”

I moved at Winter. My hands touched her waist. I felt her hips. Those beautiful and natural curves of her hips. My thumbs pressed against her stomach, over her shirt. Whatever she had done after having a baby had worked wonders. I had no idea that she had ever been pregnant.

“I was terrified,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. To give up my baby like that. I was able to pick who got her and I even picked her name.”

“Your daughter.”

“Autumn.”

“That’s what you named her?”

“Yes. I had her on the first day of fall. I went into labor in the middle of the night. But it wasn’t anything pleasant. I didn’t go to a hospital. I was taken in a car to a place. Like a building. It was all set up by Endo. It all had to be secret. The doctor there was paid a lot of money to keep it all silent.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “You gave birth in a building?”

“Yeah. I was fine. The baby was healthy. The woman who took her was there. She was a cleaned up woman. She had a real job, a real life. Endo worked with her to set it all up and make it legit. Whatever power he had, it was meant to work. I held Autumn for a minute and then she was gone. Just… like… that…”

Winter put her head to my chest and started to cry.

Yeah, I had about million more questions for her, but I couldn’t pressure her right now. What a thing to carry in life. To have a child and have it taken away. Especially by someone like Endo. Endo and Aldo were connected to the Red Aces MC. Endo slept with Winter, got her pregnant, and then stole all that from her. Because she wasn’t the right bloodline. I had heard stories before of people having children outside the bloodline and it wasn’t pretty. People were killed. People disappeared.

It was a life I didn’t understand. It was about a family that I never knew and would never know. My family was of Irish descent anyway. I couldn’t track them down and didn’t really give a shit to do so. For all I knew, my family were a bunch of drunk Irishmen fighting anyone who wanted to throw a punch. That was fine by me.

I held Winter tight as she wept. Her hands slid up to my neck, her nails digging hard into my skin.

“I never meant it,” she said. “I screwed up with my pills and it happened. Endo hated me for it. Hated me. He thought I did everything on purpose, to trick him into getting me pregnant. That’s what he said to me over and over. He drank a lot. He got more violent. I think that’s when and why Rocky stepped in. He became a friend to Endo.”

“And now Rocky’s dead,” I said. “And Endo was supposed to die. He’s in a hospital bed in a coma.”

Winter looked up at me. I hated to think it but her eyes looked even prettier when she cried. The wetness of her tears made the blue color brighter.

I was falling for her, and hard.

I kissed her forehead. “Thank you for telling me this.”

“It’s the darkest secret I’ve got. All I can hope for is that Autumn is okay. Living a good life. A happy life somewhere.”

“You don’t know where she is?”

“No idea,” Winter said. “That was how it was meant to go. After it all happened, Endo disappeared. He was done with me. Rocky kind of picked up the pieces. He took me in and took me away from that life. He brought me here and let me stay. I worked at the cafe when I wanted and slowly came back to life. I don’t know, Tripp. It was hard to do. I ran. I exercised. I did anything to try and erase it all. It’s impossible to do that. Because Rocky didn’t wait long to show his true colors. The whole picture thing… it was his way of being jealous. He was always angry that other men had seen my boobs. So he wanted pictures like it would erase my past. I don’t know.”