I'm standing holding, essentially, a stranger's hand, while laughing at the scene before me. It feels completely surreal, not the scene before me, but that I'm not frightened.

Lila is laying on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hand, sipping it nonchalantly as she watches the four men sitting on the floor struggling with pieces of wood.

The older of the 4, who's almost as big as Vidar, is reading the instructions. I'm fairly sure he's Lila's husband as he looks almost exactly like Vidar. The other three men are bickering about common sense and woodwork, apparently all of them are getting beaten by cot.

They all look up at us in surprise as they finally notice they have another audience member for this amusing act.

Lila smiles softly at me and shifts over to make room for us to sit on the sofa. Vidar leads us carefully through the mess of wooden planks and screws.

I'm grateful for that, as my legs feel unsteady and wobbly as well as holding a rather chunky Liam. It's getting rather difficult as he's getting heavier and I'm certainly not as strong as I once was, especially with all that extra weight on my stomach.

Lila glances down at our intertwined hands and smiles knowingly. A cheeky grin spreads across the men's faces. They all look at me like I'm some zoo animal, so I hold Liam closer to my body for comfort.

That plan however is foiled as Liam grizzles in frustration and cranes his neck to take in his surroundings. Lila strokes his cheek slowly to try and calm him, but that doesn't work either.

Reluctantly, I turn him around so he's gazing out at the mayhem on the floor. He continues squirming and grizzling, his chubby little hands reaching out into the room.

Sighing I go to put him down on the wooden floor, he'll probably just sit and look at the world from a new angle. Vidar, however, holds his hand out to stop me. I pause.

He crouches onto the floor by my feet and clears a space beneath Liam without any screws or planks of wood, making sure they are out of his immediate reach as well.

I place him down onto his pudgy bottom. To my disappointment, Vidar drops my hand and walks out of the room without a word to any of us.

Feeling a frown start to form, I let a mask of blank disinterest fall onto my features before anyone sees my hurt at Vidar leaving.

However, my hurt is short lived and apparently entirely unnecessary as Vidar reappears seconds later with a selection of brightly coloured baby toys. Liam looks over to him and squeals in childish joy, clapping his chubby fists together and bouncing up and down on his bottom.

I reach my hand down to caress his silky hair but he remains disinterested to my affections as Vidar is sitting beside him at this point and is handing him an assortment of felt coloured balls, a red rubber ring and a couple of teddy bears.

Liam selects the rubber ring and begins chewing on it with his little gums, delighted and distracted.

Vidar begins to help out the other men with the cot, he seems far more capable at the task before him than the rest and within minutes the basic framework is taking hold.

Lila takes this time to chat mindlessly to me about her day and something to do with what she and Erik were doing that night. Honestly, I just stare down at Liam as he finally gets the opportunity to be a baby, to play with toys, to be carefree.

I watch Vidar with fascination as he focuses on the cot and bickers with his father, but every couple of minutes he pauses and pulls a face at Liam or ruffles his hair, doing anything to get a gummy smile from the baby.

Lila lightly taps on my shoulder so as to not startle me. I realise guiltily that I had tranced off into my own thoughts, completely ignoring her.

"Sorry." I wince sheepishly as I turn my attentions back to her, letting my hand rest on my bump. I'm smaller than I was with Liam at this point, but I'm far skinnier this time around.

Liam was the pregnancy He cared about. His boy. His heir. This later pregnancy was more of assuring his line, of having lots of strong sons to help him rule what He put as his 'empire'.

"I messaged the doctor to come around as soon as you came downstairs, I wanted to wait until you felt more comfortable around us. I hope you understand."

I furrow my brow slightly, not too keen at the prospect of another man coming into the mix, a man who is not Vidar being at such close quarters.

"I know sweetie, but I promise you don't need to worry about him. He works with us, he's a member of our club and he will only do what you're comfortable with him doing. I can sit in with you as well... or Vidar can." Her hand rests on mine and she squeezes it firmly.

"C-club?" I ask quietly.

"Yeah our club sweetie. You're a resident of the Viking Warriors motorcycle club."

"Oh." Is all I can say. Something in the back of my mind is tickling and itching. That name. There's something about that name.

Shaking my head, I put my crazy thoughts down to paranoia and trust issues. I'm looking for things that aren't there.

"You ok Astrid?" Vidar's calming voice brings me once again out of my distracting thoughts and I smile at him slightly to reassure him he returns it with a bigger grin on his face and my heart almost stops with how gorgeous he is- free and relaxed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cot was finished for Liam by the time the doctor came to look me over. But it was at this moment that the genius brainpower of 5 men realised that had they assembled the cot in my room, they wouldn't have had to navigate the stairs with a huge, wooden bit of fabric.

I chuckle as I hear the swearing and shouting come from the stairwell. I'm sitting on my bed holding Liam and stifling giggles.

The doctor was a kind, softly spoken man with glasses and a gentle face. I immediately felt trust towards him, he checked with every action he needed to do, every question he asked was thought out and sensitive.

I'm malnourished but not to a severe extent, I need to eat as much as I feel comfortable to do- I'm also going onto some vitamin and iron pills as well as stuff for the baby. Lila said she would help me with those and relay the message to Vidar so he can help me remember too.

After the vitamin pills, he just told me what I had already worked out. My bruises would heal in time. Liam was unharmed aside from one cigarette burn to his shoulder that was already healed.

I cried for a week after that happened. I begged to take it for him but He just chuckled as two of his men held me down- forcing me to watch as I pleaded.

I heard Vidar's roars of outrage when the doctor relayed that part of the story to him. The doctor had checked if I wanted any of it kept confidential, I merely shrugged. Vidar will see the truth on Liam's body sooner or later.

From what I could hear it took his father and another man to hold him down, to stop him from tearing something or someone apart.

Lila's face appears in my room, flushed with giggles as the men follow after her with the cot, the mattress for it and the blankets to cover him. They place it, at Vidar's orders, directly by my bed so I can reach Liam at the drop of a hat without even having to get up from bed in the night.

I already know that Lila has relayed everything I told her to Vidar, not that I blame her. I am living in his house after all. Plus, knowing that he knows what happened to me, how tainted I am, and yet he still chooses to help me, to hold my hand. That thought comforts me.

Without realising it, I have once again fallen into a trance and everyone has filed out of the room. Leaving just me, Liam and Lila.

"Hiya sweetie. I think you could both do with a good night's sleep, don't you?"

I nod gratefully as I lean over the cot and lower my already slumbering baby into it.

Sighing in relief, Lila pulls the curtains closed as I sink under the duvet. She waves to me as she pulls the door closed.