“I didn’t realize I had a choice.” I glanced at where Vera sat in a chair next to the bed. She looked haggard, her hair in a messy ponytail and a large black sweatshirt hanging off her skinny frame.

The room grew uncomfortably silent as we watched each other, and Cody’s hand no longer felt comforting, but heavy on my back. I stepped to the side, moving away from him, but I couldn’t go far. The room was so tiny that we couldn’t even close the door, and the sounds from the group outside made me feel even more unhinged.

“Give us a minute,” Slider ordered Vera and Cody, never looking away from my face.

“Baby—” Vera tried to argue.

“A minute, Vera,” he stated firmly.

Cody reached out and squeezed my bicep before stepping out, and I scooted even closer to the wall as Vera got to her feet and walked around me.

“Close the door.”

“You’re awfully good at giving orders when you can’t even stand on your own two feet,” I bitched, swinging the door shut. It was heavier than I’d imagined.

The room grew quiet again, and I forced myself not to fidget. It was the first time we’d ever been closed in somewhere alone, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I couldn’t even look at him, instead keeping my eyes on the dry erase board on the wall.

Your nurse today is Natasha.

Ironic.

“I don’t think you’re a club whore,” he suddenly blurted, startling me.

“Uh, okay.” When he didn’t say anything else, I turned my eyes toward him. “Is that all you needed?”

“No.” His face was weary and his eyes unfocused as he rubbed a hand studded with an IV over his closely cropped beard. “Can you sit?”

“I’d rather not.” That chair was way too close to him.

“Fuck.”

Slider was as uncomfortable as I was, and it comforted me as much as it pissed me off. Why the hell had he summoned me if he didn’t have anything to say?

We sat in silence for a moment, the second ticking by before he looked away and muttered, “I love ya.”

“What?” I screeched. The door slammed into my back as someone tried to force their way in, and I stumbled before catching my footing.

“Get the fuck out!” Slider yelled, his face immediately contorting into a grimace.

The door behind me slammed shut again, and I turned my head to watch it wearily before stepping back against it.

“Jesus Christ!” he mumbled.

“Can you just say whatever the fuck you need to say? I’d like to go home to my apartment sometime this year. My houseplants are dying.”

“If you had any houseplants, they’re fucking dead as shit by now,” he said flatly.

“Seriously, Slider. What do you want?”

I slid my hands into the back pockets of my jeans just to do something with my hands, then immediately pulled them out as I saw where his gaze had landed. I’d unconsciously emphasized the roundness of my belly.

“Casper’s?” he asked quietly, glancing up at the door behind me.

I gave him a curt nod. “He doesn’t know yet.”

“Bet he’ll be happy.”

“Maybe.”

“Gotta learn to trust him.”

I laughed humorlessly.

“I love ya,” he repeated, stronger this time. “I’ve always loved ya. No matter where you were, no matter what was happening. If I’d known—” He stopped to clear his throat. “I didn’t know, Farrah. That’s the fucking truth. Your mother, she came back with the cops, and I thought she’d changed her mind. Vera was goddamn inconsolable, and at first I was just waiting to hear from her. Natasha was clearing our fuckin’ bank account left and right, up until she gave you to us. When she didn’t come back around asking for money, I thought maybe she’d decided to keep ya. Wanted to be a mom or some shit.”

“You didn’t look for me,” I reminded him.

“I did. I did fuckin’ look for ya. I never stopped lookin’! She was a fuckin’ ghost. She didn’t hook up with Gator ’til you were what? Twelve? How the fuck would I think to look right under our noses? Who the fuck is stupid enough to start messin’ with the same fuckin’ club you were hidin’ from?”

“Natasha,” I answered. “Obviously.”

“Sweetheart, the minute I knew where you were, I fuckin’ came to you. You remember that?”

He was saying all the right words, pushing all the right buttons, and I was so fucking torn. My entire life I’d been told that my father hadn’t wanted me. That he was dangerous. That he’d kill me. And now, here was this man, laying it all out for me—completely fucking sincere—and I didn’t know what to do with that.

So I bluffed. “Three months ago—”

“No. No, fuck that.” His hand formed a fist on the bed, and I couldn’t look away from the veins bulging in his forearm. “I did what I had to do to keep you fuckin’ safe. I’m not apologizing for that.”

My gaze snapped to his. “What?” I asked in confusion.

“We had a fuckin’ mole, Farrah. Fuckin’ killed me to do it, but you weren’t safe there.”

“What?” I whispered again.

“Had to get you outta that clubhouse.”

“No.”

“Couldn’t see who it was, didn’t know where the threat was coming from.”