He was looking right at me, his face completely covered in blood, the only feature familiar were those bright blue eyes. The only eyes I ever wanted to look into.

“What the fuck took you so long?” he asked slowly, his voice raspy and weak.

I heard the sound of laughter behind me, but I wasn’t laughing. I was sobbing and kneeling down before him. My arms wrapped around his neck, uncaring of the blood he was transferring to my clothes. He dropped the butcher knife from his hand and wrapped that arm around me, holding me tightly against his chest.

“I was so scared,” I sobbed, squeezing. He wheezed in pain, and I pulled back. “You’re hurt.”

He forced me back into his arms, muttering, “Nah, I’m fine. Just a few scratches. Keep holding me, doll. Don’t let go of me.”

I kissed him everywhere. Up his throat, over his jaw, on that sweet mouth of his. It was gross, but I didn’t care. He looked hideous, but I didn’t care. He was alive. He was okay, and nothing else mattered.

“You’re going to be my wife,” he whispered in my ear as I pulled away to look at him.

I took his hand and went to smile when it caught my attention. My body stilled, and horrified, I stared at the hole in the centre of his palm, caked with blood. It looked infected and raw.

“What did they do to you?” I asked hysterically.

He gritted his teeth, fighting the pain there and said, “They drilled holes in my hands.”

My jaw dropped.

“You badass motherfucker!” Hector shouted.

A chorus of laughter sounded from behind us. Typical fucking bikers, and judging by the smirk on Borden’s tired face… typical fucking Borden.

We covered him up with a thick blanket and drove him to the hospital.

*

“You keep staring at me like that and I’ll fuck you,” he told me as he lay in our bed at home. He’d been cleaned up, and it hadn’t been an easy task. Nor was it easy having to explain the situation with most of the blood not being Borden’s to a doctor. But, like Borden had said an infinite amount of times before, you could buy anyone’s silence off with the right dollar amount.

“You can barely move,” I replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You need rest. The nurse will come around tomorrow to change the bandages on your hands.”

“I can change them myself.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know, the doctors got real shitty you left the hospital, and they’ll get even shittier if you refuse treatment –”

“My hands are alright. I’m not dying. I don’t need to sit in a fucking hospital bed when I could be in our own bed, fucking you.”

I resisted smiling. “I should have known you were one of those people.”

“What people?”

“The ones that are too much denial to go to the hospital and get help.”

“I don’t want to be away from you,” Borden replied, solemnly.

I crawled into bed with him and he wrapped his arm around me. I’d cried so hard, my eyes were still sore. Even learning he was okay, the tears never stopped falling.

“I thought you were gone,” he whispered down to me. “He showed me a picture of you in that box…and I thought you were gone.”

I just shook my head, swallowing back the lump. “Hawke saved me.”

I’d already explained all this, but he seemed to want to hear it again.

“Then I owe him my life,” he replied.

“Don’t you mean I do?”

“Emma, you are my life.”

My heart thumped faster and a tear fell as I replied softly, “Graeme is gone.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s my fault, isn’t it? If I’d just thought of what you’d do about Blythe’s call, I would never have left to try and get her –”

“Emma, you were thinking emotionally. You were trying to help. Graeme’s death isn’t your fault. It’s Mulligan’s. He was the one behind the trigger. Not you. If we blamed ourselves for every bad thing that happens, we’d never go forward in life.”

I just nodded. It would take some time to believe that. I continued to lay next to his bandaged body. His ribs were broken, the doctors had said, but other than that, he was just badly bruised. He really was a goddamn tank.

“Can I fuck you now?” he asked sometime later.

I smiled. “Once again, Borden, you can’t move.”

“Once again, Emma, you underestimate my ability.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere you know.”

He lifted my chin to him and kissed me. “I know.”

Twenty Four

Borden

It took three months to clean the streets up of Mulligan’s followers. Fuckers were everywhere. In that time they gave Graeme a hell of a funeral (Emma took it hard for a while after), the shipments for the Warlords came in swiftly and without issue, Hawke was splitting his time with Borden and his club, and the streets were calmer, especially when Borden was walking around with holes in his hands. His notoriety skyrocketed, and the fear remained strong, just the way he liked it.

But the best part of the three months that passed involved a ring with a rock for a diamond, a sexy raven haired minx in a silky cream gown, and a quiet white wedding.

Emma Lynne Warne became Emma Lynne Borden.

He’d given her his name. He’d given her half of everything. What was his was hers, and his possessiveness had officially reached capacity.

And now they were on their way back to that old battle axe’s house for even greater news. News that Borden wasn’t even sure how to process just yet because it meant everything in their lives would change. For the first time in a very long time, Borden wasn’t sure of what the future would bring, and it both thrilled him and terrified him.

“You’re quiet,” Emma remarked, studying him in the backseat of the car.

“Just…still trying to get my head wrapped around this,” Borden replied.

She frowned. “Are you unhappy? You haven’t really opened up since I told you.”

“Am I unhappy you’re carrying my child? Fuck no.”

She moved in closer to him, kissing his cheeks softly as he busily looked out the window. “Then talk to me, Marcus.”

He clenched his jaw and turned to her. “What makes you think I’ll be a good father if I’m a very bad man?”