Be My Hero (Forbidden Men #3)(25)

I had plenty else to freak out about, anyway. Namely the fact that the woman Madam LeFrey had told me was my soul mate was really f*cking real.

I was dizzy with the knowledge of it. My Tinker Bell was real. And damn, now I knew why I'd even given her that pet name to begin with. She'd been adorable in her huge T-shirt with a picture of Tinker Bell stretched over her bulging belly.

But double shit. Pregnant? I had not expected that.

My Tinker Bell was pregnant. But not with my baby. Not my Julian. Not my Skylar. Not my—

Fuck, I probably shouldn't feel jealous as hell right now, should I? I probably shouldn't wonder about that baby's father or want to cut his dick off with a dull spoon. And . . . man, I hoped her pregnancy wasn't the result of her rape.

My stomach revolted again. I dashed to the nearest trashcan, but I'd already emptied all the contents in the bathroom, so nothing but dry heaves came up.

Suddenly plagued by memories of all the times I'd been forced to watch Tristy be brutalized, I gagged some more. I didn't even want to consider the possibility that Tinker Bell had gone through anything remotely similar. No. Just . . . no.

But I kept remembering all those times I'd been there to clean Tristy up afterward. Who'd been there for Tink? Who'd taken care of her and—

Dammit. It hurt too much to even ponder.

A cold sweat plastered itself to my brow and my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I absolutely could not believe—

"Yo, Pick!" Ten popped his head through the kitchen entry. "The virgin and I are taking off. You good with closing?"

No. I wasn't good with shit right now. But I waved him away, and forced myself into action, shutting down all the lights and locking up the place. It was a routine that helped keep me focused on the here and now, because thinking about—

I couldn't believe she was real. She was pregnant. She'd been violated.

I was still rattled by the time I let myself into my apartment twenty minutes later.

Fighter was awake and crying in the swing where I'd left him. Cursing, I hurried to him and pulled him into my arms. When shit and piss splattered my arms as the diaper that could contain no more disintegrated and plopped to the floor, I almost puked from the rank smell. Thank God I only had dry heaves left in me.

"Damn it." Dodging the mess, I hurried him to the bathroom to clean him off. After a quick wipe down of both of us and a good scrub to the floor, I carried him back to my bedroom where his crib and his baby stuff were kept because I'd promised Tristy I would get up with him every night. "Damn it, damn it, damn it."

My rage helped keep me centered on Julian and getting him taken care of.

Had Tris not even heard him crying? I wanted to shout at her, strangle her, and hell, I don't know. But this was no way to treat a child. I knew she was dealing with a lot of baggage, but three months ago, Julian had become a higher priority to me than she was, and I was so close to the end of my rope with her, my anger scared me. I was shaking from it.

I had never thought that would be possible. After watching her get shit deal after shit deal in life, I figured I'd always want to protect her and take care of her. I would always be patient and understanding. Except now, I just wanted to rip her f*cking ass for the way she handled her own son.

Julian still fussed as I got him a new diaper. I knew he had to be starving, so I started for the kitchen to get him some food. But first, I paused at Tristy's door and tried the doorknob to see if she was even home, because f*ck, he'd been crying pretty loudly. How could she not have heard him?

She'd locked herself inside, so I hoped that meant she was still here, but I didn't break the door down to make sure. I still had Julian to take care of. I'd deal with her later.

The kitchen was a disaster. My new wife must've gotten the major munchies after I'd left for Forbidden. Bags of potato chips and empty cookie packages had been pulled down from still-open cabinets where they littered the countertop. Cans of soda were lying on their sides with sticky puddles splattered under them. And the dishes were probably at least two weeks old. But I had no time for f*cking dishes.

Still seething as Julian and I fell into the rocking chair in the living room with a full bottle, I plugged his mouth with a plastic nipple and closed my eyes with relief when he finally stopped wailing.

"I hear you," I told him, exhaustion draining from my tense shoulders as I kept my lashes shut. "I'd like nothing more than a nipple in my mouth right about now too, kiddo."

But nipples in my mouth made me think of sex, and sex made me think of . . . yep. Just like that, there came Tinker Bell, flooding my head. Except I saw her as she'd been tonight. Not as she was from my glimpses.

Pregnant and defensive, nowhere near as happy as she'd been in any of my visions.

I could not believe she was real. Or maybe she wasn't.

Yeah, I liked that idea. The girl I'd met tonight couldn't be Tinker Bell. Not my Tinker Bell. She was just some doppelganger for the woman Madam LeFrey had shoved into my head. Lots of people had exact lookalikes in the world. No way could Eva Mercer be my soul mate. Except, shit, she'd been wearing Tinker Bell on her shirt. And she'd smelled like f*cking lilacs. How could that be a coincidence?

In no way did I want to believe all that voodoo shit, like glimpses and predestined soul mates. If only that old bat had just been full of it ten years ago, wanting to scare a teenage boy into cleaning up his act, I could get past this. But everything inside me had seamlessly aligned into the proper place when she'd looked up into my eyes for the first time. It felt as if we belonged together, and not just because I'd spent the last ten years looking for her in every woman I saw. Eva Mercer and I had serious chemistry.