Warning: Strong Language and Sexual References!
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"Have you told your boyfriend about this yet?" Maddie asked Ary after she was finished with her doctor's visit. It was a follow-up to do some tests to see if there were indeed any serious complications after the miscarriage and explosion.
"Do you see him here waiting with me?" Ary snapped at her sister. Her hormones were still a little out of whack and when she wasn't being a blubbering baby, she was being a total bitch. There was no in between.
"I don't know if that's a yes, and he ran away, or a no, he doesn't know," Maddie said, frowning. She was still firmly convinced that Rave was a bad guy.
The forensics on the explosion at the Sheriff's office showed that a professional grade bomb had been hidden in one of the toilet stalls in the men's room. There weren't any leads on who could have left it, but Maddie was sure it had something to do with Rave. Ary wasn't sure of anything at the moment. It had been too hard for her to focus on anything other than what was going on with herself.
"Hey, we won't know anything for a few days," Maddie said to Ary as they walked out of the clinic. She was trying to be supportive.
"I don't even know how I want it all to turn out. I feel relieved about the miscarriage, which I know sounds bad, but...." she let her voice trail off as she stopped next to the Jeep.
It was cold and windy out, but Ary hardly noticed it. The blistering wind made her feel better. It made her feel alive and alert. That was something she needed at the moment.
"Raising a child in a gang would have been a bad thing anyways. It's not a very stable environment. Do you even think your boyfriend would stick around to raise a kid?" Maddie mused, as if she were some great psychologist.
The question hurt. Ary would be lying if she said she hadn't thought about Rave's reaction to the news. She knew he didn't want kids either, but what would he do if they didn't have a choice? If she didn't have a miscarriage? Most of her thoughts always ended with Rave leaving her high and dry, and that was not something she needed right now. The thought made her want to burst out in tears and she was more than done with being a crybaby.
"You're right, Mads. Raising a kid in this environment would have been a shitty thing, but it's not because Rave would have been a bad dad," Ary snapped at her sister. She was tired of Maddie beating down Rave for no damn reason.
"I never said that," Maddie objected. Her face was flushed though. She may have never said it directly, but she had strongly hinted at it.
"Hello, we grew up middle class in a town where kids could wander the streets alone and not worry about being kidnapped. But look at our mother. She's a nutjob. Look at Luke. Do you really think any of us turned out okay?" Ary demanded of her sister.
Ary didn't wait for an answer as she yanked open the door to the Jeep and angrily jumped in. Thankfully she'd been smart enough to just have Maddie meet her there. If she had to be stuck in a vehicle with her sister it would have been way too much for her to handle. She would have murdered Maddie.
There was nothing that Ary could do about her health at the moment, and she didn't want to return to the club. She had been actively avoiding Rave all week. She knew that he was worried about her and she felt bad for lying to him, but what else could she do? She couldn't tell him what had happened. She wasn't pregnant anymore so there was nothing to talk about. End of story.
To keep her mind off of Rave and the miscarriage, she decided to start looking into the bombing. She was going to head to the motel that Layla's family owned. The only lead she had to anything regarding Christian was Maria.
When she got there, Layla was in the room. She was adamantly telling Maria about some cute guy who had stayed at the motel last month. Maria looked like she was bored out of her mind. Ary remembered the days of listening to Layla go on and on about nothing and she felt bad for the other woman.
"Hey, Layla, can I talk to Maria for a second?" Ary asked the younger girl.
"Oh yeah, sure. Continue on with your super secret meetings," Layla told her. She gave Ary a very exaggerated wink as she left the room.
Ary shook her head. Keeping a witness in protective custody with a twenty-year-old gossip might not have been the best idea, but this was all coming out of Ary's own pocket. The P.I. business wasn't that lucrative at the moment and as a consultant for the Chicago PD she only got paid on a case-by-case bases. Investigating Christian was her first and only case, and it was not going very well. At this rate, she'd never get paid.
"Christian had to have shared a lot of bedroom talk with you or at the very least you had to have overheard something. Could this bomb have been Christian?" Ary asked as she took a seat at the end of the opposite bed that Maria was sitting on.
Ary wasn't quite sure how much Maria already knew about the bombing. It had been on multiple news stations throughout the week, but Ary hadn't really talked to Maria about it yet.
Maria thought it over. "Christian had a guy that worked with bombs in the military," she said as she picked at her nails. She looked a little scared.
"Did you ever meet this guy?" Ary asked, warily.
"A few times," Maria said. She shifted uncomfortably as she spoke, her eyes cast downward.
Ary didn't need to ask anymore questions on that subject. She could figure out on her own what had happened.
"Did you happen to catch his name?" Ary asked. She had to stick to the case and not worry about anything else.
"Randall something. He got booted out of the army three years ago. He has a real bad temper," Maria warned her.
Ary stepped outside to make a call. The wind had picked up and it had started to snow. It looked like it was going to be another freezing winter. Just something else she had to look forward to.
"Wilcox," the gruff detective answered on the third ring.
"Hey, it's Harper," she said into the phone.
"Hey kid, how you doing?" Wilcox greeted her. He sounded generally interested in her well being.
"I'm just peachy. I figured I might as well start looking into the bomb. I talked to Maria about it," Ary sighed.
"And what did she have to say on the subject?" he asked.
"She says Christian has a friend that worked with explosives in the military, has a real bad temper," she relayed the information that Maria had just given her.
"This guy got a name?" he pressed.
"Randall something. I know it's not a lot to go on, but I figured you could run it through the system. There can't be many Randall's in Chicago that used to be military explosive experts," she shrugged, running a hand through her hair. It was starting to get wet from the snow.
"I'll take a look, but are you absolutely certain this is Christian? Your uncle is a cop. He's sure to have some enemies," Wilcox suggested. He was trying to cover all of his bases and not overlook anything.
"His only enemies are the belligerent drunks he picks up after closing on the weekends. The local bar flies aren't exactly the most intelligent or capable of people," Ary said, immediately dismissing the idea.
"Why would Christian want to blow up your uncle?" Wilcox continued with the questions.
"I don't know. Maybe to send me a message?" she suggested.
"Has Christian or any of his men tried to contact you since the explosion? Any threatening notes or calls?" Wilcox pressed.
"No," she admitted. "But what else could it be? Besides for me, my uncle doesn't have any ties to the Bloodbaths."
"What about your cousin?" Wilcox asked. Ary could hear the hesitation in the older man's voice.
Luke was always a sore subject for her, especially when it came to the police and this case. Despite how pissed off she was at him, she still wanted to protect him. At the very least she didn't want to talk about him. Would her family ever get out of this mess?
"Luke's not with the gang anymore," Ary objected. It sounded like a weak protest, even to her own ears.
"Come on, Harper. You're smarter than that," Wilcox told her. She could just imagine him rolling his eyes at her.
"He's probably at the hospital. I guess I could go talk to him," she sighed. She wasn't too enthusiastic about seeing Luke, especially if he had something to do with what happened at the Sheriff's office.
"Be careful. If this was your cousin, we know he isn't above hurting family," Wilcox warned her before he hung up.
Ary dropped her cell into the pocket of her flannel jacket and leaned back against the railing. She was going to have to talk to Luke, and more than likely that meant seeing the rest of her family as well. Accusing Luke of blowing up their uncle with her Aunt Charlotte around? Yeah, that'd go over real well.
Just as she was about to walk inside and let Maria know she was heading out, her cell phone started to ring. She pulled it back out. Rave was calling her. She immediately went into panic mode. She didn't want to talk to him, but she couldn't keep ignoring him. He'd eventually send someone out to look for her.
"Hey, Rave, what's up?" she answered, awkwardly. Why the hell didn't she just ignore the call?
"You were gone when I got up this morning. Where'd you go?" he asked her.
Normally she'd get upset about him being nosy and wanting to know what she was doing and where she was, but because she was actually hiding something from him she just felt guilty. They hadn't fought at all this past week. They hadn't been around each other enough to fight.
"I've been with Maria most of the day, talking about Christian," Ary told him. At least it wasn't all a lie.
"Oh." He sounded just as awkward as she felt. It had been months since she felt this awkward with him.
"Yeah. This whole thing has been driving me nuts. I just want to find out who did this, you know?" she rambled on, trying to cover up the awkward silence.
"Have you talked to your detective friend? Does he know who did it?" Rave asked.
"Yeah. They think Luke had something to do with it," Ary admitted, sadly.
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Rave hung up his phone, his face set in anger. He turned to Mason, who was wiping down the counters of the bar. He was pretending that he hadn't been listening to the whole conversation. He felt just as guilty as Ary did. Lying to his boss and friend was not easy for him.
"Ary says her cousin is a possible suspect in the bombing," Rave said through gritted teeth. He was fighting hard to control his temper.
Before anything else could be said, Rave grabbed his jacket off the back of one of the chairs and headed out the back door.
"Where are you going?" Mason asked Rave, following him outside to the parking lot.
"I'm going to kill that little bastard," Rave stated as he stormed off to his car.
"You cannot go after Ary's cousin, no matter how much he deserves it," Mason told Rave.
"Don't tell me what to do," Rave snapped at him.
He wouldn't kill the kid, just rough him up a little bit. The asshole deserved it. He had almost gotten Ary killed. Again. It was about damn time that someone taught him a lesson. No one seemed to want to punish Luke for his actions, not even Ary. Rave was tired of it and he was going to do something about it.
"What will Ary think about this?" Mason tried a different tactic to get Rave to stop what he was doing.
"I don't really care what she thinks. Luke is dangerous. If it keeps Ary safe, I'll put a bullet in the kid's head myself," Rave said. He had no reservations about killing the kid.
"Colt, would you just stop!?" Mason begged him.
"Why don't you mind your own damn business!? I should knock your ass out for letting Ary get hurt all over again. You're supposed to be watching out for her, not bonding with her family!" Rave shouted at him.
"You know what? I don't even care if Ary kicks my ass anymore. You two need to talk about this. She needs to talk about this," Mason stressed.
"Talk about what?" Rave stopped from getting in the car and turned to give Mason an icy look.
Rave had noticed how close Mason and Ary had been after the explosion. He'd catch them whispering to each other, their conversation stopping as soon as he stepped into the room. Ary had been more than a little distant. It seemed like she flinched away from him every time he tried to touch her. She'd been spending most of her nights away from the loft. He never thought Ary would cheat on him, but he didn't know what to think anymore.
He knew that Ary was traumatized from the bombing. Anyone would be. He tried to get her to talk about it, but every time he tried to get close to her she'd just run the other way. She kept pulling away from him and it seemed she was always headed into Mason's arms. He wanted to know what was going on.
"Ary was pregnant."
Rave felt like he'd been hit by a car. The breath wooshed out of him and he struggled to bring any fresh air in. His chest had constricted so tightly that he couldn't breathe.
"Ary's pregnant?" Rave managed to gasp out, his eyes wide.
"Was," Mason said. He winced as he watched Rave trying to understand what he was saying. "The explosion, the force of it or stress, or whatever, it caused her to lose the baby," he explained.
It took Rave a second to comprehend everything that Mason had said. He was still trying to take in the fact that he was going to be a father and now he had to deal with the fact that he had lost a child he never knew. Mason couldn't even begin to understand what Rave was going through.
"Man, I'm really sorry," Mason placed a comforting hand on Rave's shoulder.
Rave shook it off, his expression hard. His jaw was clenched tightly as he got into his car and slammed the door shut with more force than was necessary. He started the car and revved the engine loudly before peeling out of the parking lot, sending gravel flying as he went.
"Colt!" Mason called after the speeding car. "Shit."
Nothing good could come from this.
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Sorry for the incredibly late update. Thank you all so much for putting up with me and I hope you enjoy this chapter!