Johnny

"Married?" I gulped as I looked into her eyes.

She must have definitely went into shock asking me that. After everything that has gone down in the past few days it had made me realize just how special she was to me, how special our unborn baby was to me.

"Don't you want to marry me?" She asked as she lowered her gaze to the floor.

"Do you know what you mean to me?" I whispered breathlessly. I tilted her chin up with my thumb and middle finger so she could look me in the eyes.

"Do you know how much I've missed you, how much I've longed for you, to be with you, to be happy with you? When everything went to shit and you left, my heart broke. You ignored me, you wanted nothing to do with me, you kept your best friend up to date about the baby and not even me. That broke me, I was half a man when you left. That day when you called about the sex of the baby I nearly died a thousand deaths," I grabbed either side of her face and planted a tender, wanting kiss onto her perfectly shaped lips.

I was so desperate to hold her. To be around her after so long. I needed this, this kiss with her, it soothed my worried, broken soul. I broke away from the kiss and continued spilling everything out to her.

"Then when I came to see you and you were kidnapped I thought I would never see you again. I was desperate to find any way I could to have you return to me, even if it cost my own life in the process. My father told me everything about Vincent about an informant he had in Vincent's club, what he had done to my mother everything," I studied her bright blue eyes. They were forlorn and how she held it together for as long as she had I will never know.

We were back at the clubhouse settled in my room. Everyone had left us alone so that we could talk, they knew better than to bother us when I gave all of them a look. I would answer anyone's and everyone's questions later but I needed to know how she was, and to make sure she wouldn't be alone.

Avery

When Johnny told me everything that he did my heart fluttered. He loved me, and he missed me. In the back of my head I had always known he had, but after everything that happened, it was crystal clear to me. Why it had to be during a kidnapping and a murder that I had my revelation, still didn't make sense to me, but it happened. I didn't want to leave his sight, all through the car ride home we said nothing. I was still trying to rack my brain, and to analyze everything that happened. I didn't feel like talking, I just wanted it to be silent so that I could process everything. I needed to keep calm, I didn't want all the stress to affect me to the point I miscarried. Even if my pregnancy was out of the 'danger zone' didn't mean that the stress of everything that happened these few days couldn't cause one to happen. I just tried to keep myself numb from everything so that nothing bad happened.

Honestly when Johnny made everyone leave me alone, it made me feel better. I didn't want to hear the 'oh my god you're safe,' or the 'are you okay," or even the 'I love you I'm glad you're back.' I wanted none of that. The fact that I even talked to Johnny when we were at that place and asked him to marry me still made me shudder. I was in shock so bad that it just plopped out of my mouth without even comprehending what I had done. Him evading the subject was humiliating to me because I couldn't even speak to tell him I made a mistake and it was too soon to talk about it especially in the situation, but I was glad he had. Right now I didn't need to talk I just needed to think.

Johnny

"I'm not leaving your side Avery, but I need to go call the cops so that they know what happened and can shove it under the rug and clean it all up," I had to reassure her about me not leaving her when I grabbed my phone from off the dresser, the whole time her eyes had not left from my body. I knew she needed to think so I didn't pry anything from her. We were still in the same clothes we were in from Vincent's clubhouse. Not one of us wanting to leave the other to take a shower, and neither us willing to get up to take one together. We sat on my bed as I told her everything.

This was the first time since was had came home an hour ago that one of us got up from the bed. After we had locked ourselves into my room the rest of my boys came trickling into the clubhouse after coming back from Vincent's compound. They cleaned most of the area up and disposed of the bodies where no one could find them, right in the Mississippi River anchored down. I didn't have to know what they had done, because that's what we always did when we got in a fight with another club, it rarely happened, but when it did that's where they went. It was a well kept secret. No one would bother looking for them because they knew better, and when the boys cleaned up, they cleaned up well. Plus with the cops on our payroll there would never be any evidence to trace us to the bodies of the people we had killed. I didn't like this job, and it was not meant for the faint at heart either but it's what happened when you lived your life as a biker.

I don't ever remember a time when shit had gotten this bad, but I'm glad that it was over. There was only a few things to finish up and then I was done with this life. I needed stability, I needed realness. After I got off the phone with my boys in blue I walked back over the bed and sat back down next to Avery.

"You know I owe you an answer to your question from earlier," I said pausing to look at her.

"Yes you do," she finally spoke. After asking to marry me I thought that was going to be the last time I would hear her talk.

"Well... the answer is yes,"