Birdie’s eyes flutter, and her hand goes slack under mine.My chest tightens as I watch her struggle to stay awake.
“We have to go.An ambulance is meeting us on the way,” Giblet says.
My eyes burn as I slide my arms under her.Hannibal tries to help, but I snap.
“I got her.She’s mine.If she takes her last breath, it’s going to be in my fucking arms,” I choke out, ignoring the wetness on my face as I climb to my feet.
Birdie sighs, her body shivering.“I love you.”
“Don’t.You wait to tell me that, goddammit.Don’t you dare tell me that as you’re bleeding out in my arms.”
“If something ...”She pauses to cough, and the wetness of it has tears falling from my eyes faster.“They’ll need you.”She finds the strength to grab a hold of my beard.“Promise me you won’t leave them, too.”
“Then you better not fucking leave me either, little mama,” I tell her.
“Saints never surrender, and outlaws never die, baby.Don’t you know that?”she whispers.
Malice turns the kids away as I carry Birdie past them and outside to the cage.
I place her inside gently and brush my lips against her cool forehead.
Then my kids scream for me.
My soul tears in two directions.
Gavel’s hand lands on my shoulder.“Let me take care of this piece of your heart while you take care of that piece of hers.”
No matter how hard I try to stop it, a sob breaks from my chest.“How do I let her go?”
“You don’t.You just place her in my hands for a bit.”
I blink rapidly, flushing the tears from my eyes, and straighten my shoulders.With one last look at Birdie and a whispered thanks to my grandfather, I hurry to my kids.
Their arms wrap tightly around my neck as soon as I fall to my knees in front of them.
“I’m here.I’m here.”
I don’t know how long I sit on this dingy warehouse floor, rocking their tiny bodies as we cry out our fear for the woman on her way to the hospital right now.
My brothers move around us, cleaning up the mess Frankie left behind, ensuring none of this will come back to us.Someone stops to inform me they found Monster’s body.As much as I want to burn him with the rest of the trash, Coco deserves to bury the mansheloved.I order them to take him home.
Dimples gets dumped with her fuck buddy.
Frankie gets taken to the cellar at the clubhouse until I’m ready to deal with him.
“Valkyrie is here to take the kids to the hospital, Prez,” Basilisk informs me.
The twins cry when I buckle them into the back seat but quiet down after I reassure them we’re all going to the hospital to be with Birdie.
My brothers watch me again.Concern etched onto their faces as if they’re waiting for me to break.
What they don’t know is that I already have.
They just don’t see it.
I broke the moment I had to let her go seven years ago.
I spent the last week in the hospital recuperating.Pope has barely left my side.Instead, choosing to sit in the chair at the side of the bed and keep his eyes on me.As if I’m going to die if he looks away.
