Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Serena is pregnant. I stare for probably a full minute, speechless. She puts both her hands on her stomach, not to cover it up, but to cradle it. She reaches for my hand. I let her take it. She presses my palm to her bare skin, lets me learn by touch the new shape of her.
When I look up and meet her eyes, I feel my shock give way to something unexpected. First is the overwhelming wave of joy. The wonder of this brave, beautiful woman carrying my child. I start to reach for her, to draw her protectively into the circle of my arms. Just as suddenly, the joy burns out of me and anger thrashes in my chest as I jerk my hand back from hers.
“Is this why you walked out on me?” I accuse. “You weren’t scared off by the danger. You found out you were pregnant and didn’t want me to know.”
Serena’s face crumples for an instant. The hope I hadn’t recognized in her eyes flickers out. She wraps my shirt around her body, hiding herself from my gaze now.
“It was both. I took the test the same day we met at the diner. You were late, then I found out you were hurt. Not that this is your fault. I take full responsibility. I was scared to tell you because after I stitched you up, I was so upset and emotional and I could only see how our baby would be a pawn in this business. That an enemy would kidnap or hurt our child to control you. We’d never have a moment when he could be a happy, carefree child because we’d have guards all over the place. I didn’t want that, didn’t want our child to grow up at such risk, and to wonder every second if this was the day that some rival family takes our baby for leverage.”
Serena is trying not to cry. I might respect that effort, but I’m so pissed off that I can’t even see straight.
“I was wrong to keep this from you. I was so scared and that’s no excuse. I know now that you’re the only one who can keep us safe, Jack. Please. Please—” She breaks down and weeps into her open hands, right there on my couch, wearing my dress shirt with the sleeves so long on her that the cuffs almost cover her fingers.
I can see her shoulders shake with sobs. I open and close my mouth like a fish gasping for air and dying on the deck of a ship. I can’t reach for her again or imagine trying to comfort her because I’m bleeding out right there, my whole life blown apart. For a long time, I can’t speak. There are no words to tell her how she could have grabbed the gun out my nightstand, pumped my chest full of lead at point-blank range and laughed in my face while I asked her why—and that would’ve hurt me less than what she did. Grief swamps me, a wildfire leaving only ash and emptiness behind. Then in the hollow husk of me, rage flows back in, bitter and wretched. Misery soaks me like acid rain.
When I find my voice, it sounds, to my ears, exactly like my father’s voice.
“You’re carrying my child and kept it a secret. You hid this from me, had the balls to act sad and say you couldn’t bear to talk to me on the phone—God, when I think how that got my hopes up, thinking you must really love me like I’m some stupid teenage motherfucker who didn’t know up from down.”
I rake a hand through my hair, get up and put distance between us. I can’t stand the sight of her, sitting there on my couch in my shirt like she’s the damn Virgin Mary with tears tracking down her cheeks after she betrayed me that way.
I’ve never been angry enough to lose my head and hurt someone. This moment, I’ve scared myself because I feel out of control. I have to get out. I can’t stand this place or this feeling.
I walk out and get on the elevator while I call my car. It feels like I’m dropping fifty levels into hell as the elevator plummets to the ground level. Fuck this. I’m not spending another minute listening to her bullshit excuses. No one has ever hurt me like this, no one ever came close. She might as well be a goddamn assassin because I feel like I’ve been shot about seven times through the heart, through the head, maybe one right through the eye for good measure.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I have to get my head together, make some heavy decisions. I feel sick, gutted, like I’m dying only worse. There’s no one I can tell, because the person I trusted the most is her.