Hunter (Riders of Apollo #2)

Chapter 17: Julian Atlas

As we finish off doing the dishes, Mari walks into the kitchen looking worried so I quickly dry off my hands and follow her into my office. "Everything okay, you two?" Gem reaches for me, so I bring her into my embrace, I stroke her back as she looks up at me with her big blue eyes.

I would easily throw myself in front of anything to stop this baby girl from getting hurt. My baby girl.

"I call you daddy?" Gem's voice is soft and a little scared, I look over at Mari making sure that she is okay with this as well. I don't want her to think that I'm forcing my way into her family and taking her child away. Her large smile and excited nod tell me everything I need to know so I turn back to Gem and tell her yes.

She squeals excitedly and wraps herself around my neck tightly. "I'm gonna go and get dressed and then we'll go out, okay?" I kiss her head and let her down so that I can go and get ready for the day.

"Okay, daddy." Her smile when she says that warms my heart while I fall in love with it, she's my fucking daughter now. No one is taking her away from me. Mari looks a little overwhelmed with it all, so I kiss her head before hurrying up the stairs

I change quickly and brush my teeth and hair before grabbing my cologne. I make sure I have my wallet and my handgun so that I can protect us, even though the beef has calmed down I don't want to risk anything.

"Prez, I'm headed out." I stop off at Bear's office since we always have to check in our movements so that he knows where his people are deployed.

"Have you heard from the captain?"

"Yeah, he wants you, Sav and I to head in tomorrow for a meeting with the new recruits."

"Okay, call in if you have any trouble and stay on our turf." I nod and kick off the wall, finding Gem and Mari in the lounge with the guys. Gem is on Breaker's lap and she's tracing the tattoos on his forearm while he drinks his coffee and watches the news. He doesn't normally like being touched, having to initiate it himself or he beats someone up, and he doesn't really talk. He's silently intimidating and a scary mother fucker in battle.

"You ready to go?" I lean on the back of the couch that Mari is sat on and rest my chin on her shoulder.

"Sure, if you can get our daughter back." My heart seizes and I plant multiple kisses on her cheek, our daughter. That sounds right.

"Hey princess, you ready to go?" Gem lights up when she sees me and tries to get off Breaker's lap, she quickly realises that she can't and looks up at him expectantly. He gently lifts her down and she sprints around to me, lifting her arms so that I pick her up. "So, the park and then lunch?"

Gem cheers and I reach for Mari's hand, walking us all out to the club's SUV. We fit in the car seat before clicking her in and heading off. We choose to go to the park a few blocks over because it has the best play park for Gem to go to and it's the park where most of her friends go as well. I find a decent parking space and head around the car to open the door for Mari before lifting Gem out of the car.

As we walk over to the play park Gem spots one of her friends and takes off, thankfully we can see her and it's not that far away. We catch up with her and keep an eye on her as she climbs and jumps over things with her friends. We sit down on the bench and Mari sits so close to me that the entire right side of her body is touching mine, I sling my arm over her shoulders and press my forehead to the side of hers.

"Thank you." I whisper and she looks up at me.

"She loves you and you're so good with her."

"I need to ask you something." Her eyes fill with curiosity and she turns in her seat to look at me straight on. "I know we haven't been together very long, but will you be my Old Lady?" She doesn't answer me which gives me sincere anxiety but when she brings me down to kiss her, I relax slightly. When she pulls away, she has tears on her cheeks but she's smiling. "You gotta answer me here, baby, I'm scared."

Her smile spreads into a grin and she laughs softly. "Of course, I'll be your Old Lady, Hunter." I kiss her softly knowing I can't exactly take it any further in a play park with a load of judgemental church biddies and children around. "Do you miss Texas sometimes?"

"Yeah, I was born there, and I thought I'd never leave. I was gonna take over the ranch and marry some southern belle and have twelve kids, but my parents died, and I couldn't afford to run the ranch, so I had to sell it. I enlisted a week after their death, tucked that money away and went into the army. I used the money to buy my bike when I was patched into the club."

"How long did you train for to be a Green Beret?"

"I don't really remember to be honest; I was so deep in my grief that I needed something else to focus on. I mean I had lost both parents, my home and the only family I had left had disowned me years before that. It was the first time I was on my own and I thrived for the brotherhood of the military, I needed to prove myself."

"What was it like?" I know she's asking about the war and I want to keep it from her, I don't want to frighten her or anything but if she's going to be my Old Lady she deserves to know.

"At first it felt easy, I knew how to use a gun and almost every weapon under the sun. I knew how to be stealthy and how to escape tough situations. They teach you all this, but they forget to teach you how to live with yourself after you've killed someone. My first was in Baghdad, he was firing at us, killed three of us and I was the only one with a clear shot. One hit and he was down... I wanted to remember his face; I didn't think it was fair that people would forget him, so I had to know what he looked like. It was a child... couldn't have been more than fifteen and that's when the war became hard. When I'd look at the camp and recognise the exhaustion in the brotherhood, the sadness in the training and the grieving in everyone else."

"You said you were medically discharged..." She prompts, her hands are tight on mine and her eyes flicker from me to Gem, who I have been focused on since I started talking.

"My last tour, we were heading into an enemy base camp and we didn't know that they had lined the entrances with IEDs expecting our arrival. The first one went off and we immediately tried to fall back, we were unsuccessful. The ones on either side of us exploded, only two of us survived. I've got scars everywhere and shrapnel in my back, so they shipped me off. I was treated for my wounds and then my PTSD, they gave me meds for all of it as well."

"You have PTSD?"

"Yeah. Not in the standard form, I can be around bombs and guns because I was trained to concentrate only on that. It's when everything is quiet, when everyday noises overwhelm me, or in nightmares. I twitch sometimes and I always have to have my gun on me otherwise my head just swarms with noise. I'm taking every day as it comes, and you and Gem are the best things to happen to me."

"I love you..."