The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 74

Chapter 49-2

For a few hours she seems okay, tired, quiet, pale, but okay.

She dozes against me while a cooking show plays low on the TV. My hand moves through her hair because she seems to like it, and because touching her calms something in me I didn’t know was restless.

I text Cobra updates because if I don’t, the man will arrive with half the club and possibly a priest. I ignore Mayhem’s three messages asking whether she needs anything, because the list includes one free murder of an ex-husband, no questions asked.

I show Zara that one when we’re standing in the kitchen, cracking fresh ice cubes. She laughs, then suddenly stops. Her hand flies to her mouth, and I move her before she can even say my name.

The first time she vomits, she tries to apologize.

I don’t let her finish. I hold her hair back, one hand firm between her shoulder blades while she shakes over the kitchen sink, and when it’s over she leans against the counter, breathing hard, humiliated tears slipping down her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t.”

“But-”

“Don’t.”

My voice comes out harsher than I intend. She goes quiet.

I lift her onto the counter, wet a cloth with cold water, wipe her mouth, her face, the back of her neck. Her eyes stay closed. She won’t look at me.

That breaks something in me. “Zara.”

She shakes her head. I step between her knees, careful not to crowd, and wait until she opens her eyes.

“There is nothing about this that you need to hide from me, baby.”

“I hate this.” Her mouth trembles. “I hate you seeing me like this.”

“I know.”

“I’m not…” She swallows, eyes shining. “I’m not exactly gorgeous right now.”

I cup her face in both hands. “Baby, I have watched you memorize criminal financial structures from one glance, tell your father no, survive Knox McVale, start chemotherapy, and still call me an asshole. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

She starts crying again, this time from relief more than misery.

The night becomes a series of small battles that need to be won, again and again and again.

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< Chapter 49

lee chips.

Medication.

Bathroom.

Blanket.

Cold cloth.

Warm socks.

Claim

Another round of vomiting leaves her shaking so hard I carry her to bed and sit against the headboard with her in my lap, because lying flat makes the nausea worse. She refuses to admit she needs to be held. I hold her anyway.

By three in the morning she’s half-asleep against my chest, one hand loosely gripping my shirt as though even unconscious she’s making sure I stay. The thought that I’d leave is so absurd I almost say it aloud. Instead I press my mouth to her hair and hold her through another wave of shivering.

“You’re still here,” she whispers.

“I am.”

“You should sleep.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m resting my eyes.”

Her laugh is a ghost of one, but it counts. She’s quiet so long I think she’s drifted off, then she raises her face to mine. “I’m scared, Locke.”

The words are small and weak, but they hit harder than anything else tonight.

I look down at the woman tucked against me, sick and brave and furious and fragile and stronger than anyone I’ve ever known, and for the first time all night I let the full weight of what I feel show in my voice.

“I know you are, baby. But I’m right here.”

I keep holding her as the city sleeps beyond the windows and the ocean disappears into darkness.

There’s nothing I can do about the poison in her body, the fear, the uncertain future.

Knox McVale may have taught her what it feels like to be alone… but I’m going to spend every day that have teaching her something else:

That some people don’t leave when life gets hard. Some people stay.

And Zara needs to know that she is absolutely fucking worth staying for.

***

214

<Chapter 49-2

By the time the coffee finishes brewing, I’ve checked on Zara six times.

Clam

+ know this, because the machine takes forever, grinding beans and hissing steam and bubbling and babbling, almost like the damn thing needs an exorcist. Every time it makes a new sound, I find myself walking back down the ball to make sure she hasn’t stirred, hasn’t gotten sick again, hasn’t woken alone after a night that took more from her than she wanted to admit.

She’s curled on her side beneath the duvet, one hand tucked under her cheek, hair spread across the pillow in soft tangles. Her face is too pale, her whole body sunk so deeply into sleep that she looks younger, as though the fight has finally drained out of her for a few blessed hours, leaving only the girl beneath it all.

The daughter. The sister. The woman too many people have hurt.

I stand in the doorway longer than I should, watching the slow rise and fall of her breathing, because there’s nothing else useful I can do.

Last night taught me that. Last night stripped away every illusion that I had about competence and control, and it left me sitting on a bathroom floor with the woman I’m falling for shaking in my arms while chemotherapy punished her for surviving.

There are enemies I understand. This isn’t one of them. So I do what I can.

I keep water beside the bed. Medication on schedule. Blankets within reach. A bowl close enough that she won’t have to ask. My phone on silent except for the people who love her enough to text at 4 a.m., asking for updates.

Which is why I’m not surprised when the elevator security panel chimes at one o’clock. Nor by the name on the screen: Cobra Callahan.

I approve the elevator and pour coffee into four mugs, because if Cobra is coming, Mayhem is coming, and if Mayhem is coming, Jade has either invited herself or bullied both men into thinking it was their

idea.

The elevator opens, and all three step into my penthouse like a weather system.

Cobra first, quiet and heavy-eyed, carrying the exhaustion only fathers wear when their children are hurting and there’s no one immediately available to kill over it.

Mayhem follows, broader than the doorway needs him to be, jaw clenched, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans like he doesn’t trust them loose.

Jade comes last, sunglasses on top of her head, fierce enough to make most men retreat, soft enough beneath it that I know she cried on the way over.

She makes it exactly three steps before stopping dead. She takes in the wall of glass overlooking the ocean, the mountains beyond it, the artwork, the fireplace, the kitchen island large enough to land a helicopter on, and finally me.

Her eyes narrow. “Locke Tanner.”

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