Mine (Real, #2)(75)
SIXTEEN
AUSTIN AWAITS
“So it’s all over the headlines that Riptide’s girlfriend is pregnant,” Pete says as we fly to Austin.
Now Josephine flies with us too, and today she sits with Pete, Riley, and Remington in one of the living room sections, while Coach is on the bench, and Diane and I occupy one of the other living room sections. Remy and the men seem to be discussing my security for the two Austin fights. Apparently, we’re approaching semifinals, so Scorpion will now be fighting on the same evenings as Remington.
A part of me is anxious to see if we’ll bump into Nora at the fights, while another part of me dreads the outcome of such an encounter.
Remy is in a gruff, overprotective bad mood. The fact that his f*cked-up parents live in Austin and that he sold the house where we usually stay undoubtedly annoys him. Pete rented another house to keep us away from the media, but Remington is not appeased. I know he doesn’t like the thought of me being in the same state as Scorpion, much less the same zip code.
While I show Diane the pictures Melanie sent me of color schemes for the baby’s room, I hear Remington’s voice, low, as if he doesn’t want me to hear, but authoritative. “Anyone approaches her or so much as looks wrongly at her, you take care of it immediately.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see how Pete nods somberly and smoothes a hand down his black tie. “Don’t worry, Rem, I’ll protect her as if she were mine.”
“She’s not yours, dipshit. She’s MINE.”
“Mister Tate,” Josephine interjects, “I’ll be on standby making sure she’s not in any way threatened or inconvenienced.”
“I really love this blue-and-green scheme,” Diane tells me, disconnecting me from the conversation on the other side of the plane.
Turning back to the images, I sadly tell her, “I wish that ring thing had worked. Remington doesn’t want to know, and I don’t want to find out from a doctor and spoil it accidentally for him.”
“Hey!” Riley yells from the other section. “What are you guys going to call it?”
Remington’s shoulders are hunched as he leans over and studies something Pete is showing him on his phone, and I don’t think he’s even listening to me, but I still say, “If it’s a boy, I haven’t been able to think of anything. But I have the perfect name if it’s a girl.”
“Oh, yeah, what?” Riley asks, leaning back on his arms, curious.
“Iris,” I say softly. Remington instantly turns to look at me, and the intimacy of his gaze bores and burns through me like a wave of lust and love crashing through me.
“I like Iris,” he says gruffly, nodding approvingly.
It takes Pete a lot more effort to get Remy to concentrate again on whatever Pete was showing on his phone, for Remington keeps looking at me across the plane. I can’t concentrate on what Diane says either, for I keep looking back at him.
It just feels wrong to have all these seats between us, my iPod tucked in my bag, and my guy so far away.
He leans as far back in his seat as possible, and across the plane aisle, he stretches his arm and opens his large hand. I link my fingers through his, and then it feels right again. He keeps checking out his man stuff, and I keep talking with Diane about baby stuff, his hand holding mine across the aisle.
? ? ?
AS PETE AND I settle down in the Austin Underground, I have the misfortune of spotting two of Scorpion’s goons watching us from across the ring. I blink in surprise and immediately scan the crowd for Nora.
I can’t find her anywhere, and when my attention drifts back to the goons, I find that their attention is still on us.
One of the guys has a shaven head, and the other proudly wears a scorpion tattoo on his cheekbone, just like his boss used to before Remington carved it out the day he went for Nora.
Nora . . .
The thought of her fraternizing with Scorpion and his minions makes me wretched, and the thought unfortunately also comes with the sensation of a thousand legs crawling on my skin. I’m torn between the multiple urges: to vomit, to run away, and to march over to these thugs and demand they tell me where my sister is. I feel like a compass gone crazy and I don’t know what to do, where to point, or how to react, so I instead sit here and keep watching them—feeling very much like a little baby doe, even if Pete sits beside me, armed to the teeth with little gadgets.
When the two men slowly rise and start working their way around the ring, the realization that they’re heading straight for us makes my lungs constrict. My heart kicks fiercely into my rib cage while my rioting insides fall completely still in dread.
Tense in his plastic chair, Pete whispers, “They’re probably going to watch Scorpion fight later—or they’re scouting Remington. Check how he’s fighting, if there’s any visible injury. Please, for the love of god, don’t do anything, and ignore them.”
I watch the pair stop before us with a sinking in the pit of my stomach. “Don’t move, Brooke,” Pete warns under his breath.
Fiercely aware of the now nearly six-month-old baby in my round little stomach, I force my eyes down to the cement floor while my blood vessels dilate inside me. My legs shake as I curl my hands protectively around our baby, whose heart we’ve already heard and who I want as far, far away from these men as possible.