The Wild Wolf Pup (Zoe's Rescue Zoo #9)(12)

“You,” I say hoarsely.

“Me,” she agrees.

Two words that meant nothing to anyone else in the world but two words that meant the world to us. They are the words that became a vow and when the day comes for Reina to take my name and for us to pledge our love and commitment, it’s those words we’ll say to one another, the only ones that mean anything.

You.

Me.

The words Reina and I live and love by.





Chapter Five




Join an MC they said.

It’ll be fun they said.

They left out I’d be summoned to kidnap a crazy Italian woman and her grandkid, or that she’d hit me in the face with a frying pan. It’s probably a good thing I had no idea the Bianci twister was headed straight for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have met my Kitten.

The feistiest pussy in all the land.

Ha!

I crack myself up.

All jokes aside, the day my president, Jack Parrish, ordered me to grab ‘Carmela Soprano’ and the boy, was the day my whole world changed. It was the detour I never expected but the one that led me straight to the girl of my dreams. Dreams I never knew I had until I had her.

When I first met Lauren Bianci, the mob guy’s little sister, she was dancing in a bar—a bar called the Pink Pussycat. See, my job was to bring Bianci’s mother upstate so she could stay with her daughter while the mob folk shot the fuck out of one another. If you ask me, they should’ve let mama Bianci stay behind—give that woman a kitchen appliance and send her after your toughest enemy. Anyway, I took the Italian nutcase to her daughter’s apartment only to find out little Miss Innocent was lying to mommy dearest and her big brother. Her roommate sent me to the Pink Pussycat, that’s when I came face to face with my Kitten for the first time. One look in her big, blue eyes, framed by black glasses, and I was gone. The Riggs everyone knew and loved was gone and the Tiger was born.

You heard me right.

Kitten and Tiger.

That’s us.

As much as I didn’t bank on her coming into my life, Lauren never saw me coming. I was just as much her detour as she was mine and together we would take each other on one hell of a ride.

At first I thought I was just chasing tail, going after something I couldn’t have—a guy just having fun. But the more time I spent with her, the deeper I fell into her, and as much as we flirted, as much I wanted to bang her brains out, she became my friend. I didn’t have any friends that were girls but I couldn’t stay away from her. I looked forward to the text messages we’d send one another and the few times she’d visit her brother—I even drove up to bumble-fuck New York again to see her face.

I was out of my mind and to prove so, I even invited her to my patch party. Yeah, I invited Kitten to my pussy party. Who the fuck does that? This guy right here. And you know what? Best fucking decision of my life. I can say that now, almost two years later.

Most brothers in my MC look back at the night they got their colors as a turning point in their life because they finally became one of the Satan’s Knights. I look back at that night and I forget all about the patch I received because that was the night I first took Kitten. I took her up against the wall of the Satan’s Knight compound and put Pea inside of her. Not intentionally of course, but yep, you heard me right—I knocked up Kitten.

I didn’t find out right away and if I’m being honest, I was a dick, both before and after I found out about the baby. I stopped talking to Kitten after the night at the clubhouse, and thinking back now, I have no idea why. The best I can come up with is I was scared. Yeah, scared, because I was feeling all sorts of shit I wasn’t used to and I was starting to think about Kitten, morning, noon and night.

I think I had a nervous breakdown after I found out we were having a kid and that she had already named it Pea. I was scared shitless to become a father, to be responsible for a little human—for eighteen plus years. But I wasn’t about to let Lauren do it by herself. I wasn’t going to be a deadbeat dad, nah, not me. I would own that shit.

Own it.

These are the two words my brother and my best friend, Bones, said to me after I told him I was having a kid. These are the two words I live by, and the two words I want scribed on my tombstone when I drop dead.

Kitten moved in with me and we played house for a while. I bought a refrigerator and she covered it with our baby’s sonogram photos. Life was good. I had my Kitten, and we were having a Pea.

The motherfucking Chinese had to go ruin my shit. Fucking Sun Wu and the Red Dragons, those motherfuckers threatened to take everything I loved from me—my Kitten and my Pea.

They would’ve succeeded too if it wasn’t for Bones. My best friend stepped into the line of fire when Sun Wu’s men shot at Kitten. He jumped in front of her saving her life. That bullet would’ve killed my Kitten and probably my kid.

It killed Bones.

He saved them and I didn’t even get a chance to thank him. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t look at my son or Lauren and think of the brother God didn’t give me but the one I chose. We named our son, Eric after Bones, and both Kitten and I tell him stories about the uncle he never got to meet.

Join an MC they said.

Take the detour.

Find your heart and own that shit.

I pause, pushing the carriage passed the park gates and pull off my sunglasses to check out our surroundings. There are a couple of kids playing in the sandbox but the little kid with the fisherman’s hat looks like he has that shit on lock down, claiming the three babies with dresses all for himself.