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"Morgan?"
My head snapped up, and I turned to see Alex standing in the doorway, a cup of tea in his hand, staring at me as though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was going on here. My face crumpled before I could stop it; the walls collapsing in on me once and for all.
"Alex, I …" I breathed, and he hurried over to me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close.
"Hey, hey, it’s okay," he murmured to me. "I’m here. What happened?"
"It’s not okay," I replied, sobs wracking my whole body. "I just got a call from Gregor."
His face hardened.
"What did he say?" he asked, his voice steady, carefully so.
"He said that he has my mom," I admitted. "And he’s … He’s going to kill her unless I go back to him."
Saying it out loud just made it all the more real, and I felt like I was going to throw up on the spot—not just from the morning sickness. I couldn’t lose my mother, I couldn’t. I knew I would never have been able to forgive myself. I had done all of this in the first place to keep her and Leo safe, and if I let my selfishness get her hurt, I knew I would have lived with it for the rest of my life. I couldn’t let that happen.
I had to go back to him.
My heart shattered as I considered that. Thinking about going back there, pregnant—raising this child as part of his family, no choice but to forget this brief, brilliant time I had spent with Alex. I had allowed myself to believe, even for an instant, there could be a life on the other side of this.
"I can’t let anything happen to her," I told him as I climbed out of bed, shaking like crazy already. I didn’t want to have to go, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t let anything happen to my mom. I had to protect her. The thought of Gregor holding her hostage, threatening her because of my stupid actions, it killed me. It killed me.
"Nothing is going to happen to her," Alex replied, rising to his feet, his eyes set stoically ahead.
"Alex, no, please—"
He lifted a hand to stop me. My heart was pounding in my chest. The look on his face, it was impossible for me to decipher, but I had a feeling he’d already made his mind up about something. He'd already decided exactly how this was going to go.
"I can’t just stand by and let something happen to her," he told me, slowly. "She’s my family now. Grandmother of my child …"
"You don’t know who you’re dealing with," I replied, grabbing his hand. "I can’t let you get hurt, not you, too. I—"
"No, he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with," he corrected me, a dark smile curling up the corners of his lips. "If he thinks he can just come into my life, cause me trouble like this, he's got another thing coming."
"What do you mean?" I gasped. He couldn’t … He couldn’t be saying what I thought he was, could he?
"Stay here," he told me, and he leaned down and planted a kiss on my lips. "I’ll be back as soon as I can."
"Alex, please, no," I begged him, scrambling out of bed to try and catch up with him. But before I could, he was out the door, his eyes fixed straight ahead, as though he had already decided exactly how this was going to end.
I sank to my knees, tears coursing down my cheeks. Everything was falling apart around me.
And, worst of all, I knew that I had caused all of it.
Chapter Twenty – Alex
I brought the car to a squealing halt outside the safehouse and grabbed the gun from the dashboard. I knew this was reckless, knew this was dangerous, but I would be damned if I let something happen to Morgan’s family.
The blood was throbbing around my head as I tried to pull myself together, but the intensity of my emotion was getting the better of me. The moment I had walked back into that room and seen the look on her face, I had known I would do anything in my power to make her feel better. And if that meant taking on Gregor myself? So be it.
I lifted the gun and stormed towards the door of the safehouse, lifting my foot and slamming against it a couple of times until it flew open. I heard a yell of surprise from inside the house, and I rounded the corner to see a dark scene laid out in front of me.
Gregor was there, a gun in his hand, pointed at the head of Iris, Leo and Morgan’s mom, the same woman I’d known all those years ago. She looked a little different now, older, but I could still remember all the times she had welcomed me into her home, giving me a place I could feel safe and accepted when my father was putting too much pressure on me.
But here she was now, with a gun pressed to her temple, sheer terror written over her face as she stared up at me. Beside her, Leo was standing, his whole body tense, hands bound in front of his hips by a zip tie. I didn’t know how Gregor had found out about this place, but that wasn’t the problem right now. No, the problem was getting both of them out of there in one piece and making certain I did everything I could to ensure he never posed this kind of threat to them again.
"Alex." Gregor chuckled. "A Caroni, eh? I never thought your pathetic little family would dare cause me this much in the way of problems …"
