My father makes a sound I’ve never heard before. It’s like something inside him just shattered into a million pieces. I’ve never seen him look like this—lost, devastated, utterly defeated. Connor Brennan doesn’t break or let anyone see him hurt.
But he’s breaking now right in front of me. And I’m the one doing it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the words come out as a whisper because I can’t make my voice any louder without it breaking completely. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I know you don’t understand. I know this makes no sense to you. I know you think he brainwashed me or manipulated me or that I’m just confused and scared.”
Tears are burning behind my eyes now and they’re hot, impossible to hold back.
“But this is my choice.” I take a deep breath to steady myself. “This baby is my choice. Leo is my choice. And I need you to?—”
My voice cracks and I have to stop and breathe through the tightness in my chest before I can finish.
“I need you to let me make it.”
My father makes another sound between a growl and a sob. I turn my head away. I can’t look at him anymore and watch him break and know that I’m the one breaking him.
I turn slightly, just enough to see Leo’s face over my shoulder.
He’s standing there frozen, his eyes locked on me with an expression I’ve never seen before. Shock. Wonder. Fear. Love. Hope. Terror. All of it mixed together in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
His face is pale and his hands are clenched at his sides. He looks like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t know if he’s allowed.
“If you still want me,” I say, softer now, because this is the part I’m not sure about. Will Leo decide that a baby is too much?. Will he choose the easy way out and let my father take me home and pretend this whole thing never happened?
He could. He could walk away right now and decide that being a father isn’t something he signed up for.
Please want this. Please want me. Please want our baby.
I’ve never seen Leo move that fast in my life, and I’ve seen him fight. But this is different. This is desperation. This isneed.
One second he’s standing there frozen, and the next his guns are hitting the floor with twin clatters and he’s closing the distance between us in two strides and pulling me into his arms so hard I nearly lose my balance.
The impact drives the air from my lungs. His arms wrap around me with one around my waist, and one around my shoulders and he pulls me against his chest like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
His hands are everywhere—my face, my hair, my back, my arms—like he’s checking to make sure I’m here and this is actually happening and not some dream or hallucination brought on by stress.
“You’re pregnant,” he says against my hair, and his voice is shaking. “You’re—Emma, you’repregnant. With my baby. We’re?—”
He breaks off, unable to continue.
I’m shaking too and I’m definitely crying. Everything is too much and not enough all at once. My hands curl in his torn, bloody shirt that smells like smoke and gunpowder and him and I hold on like he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s tilting sideways.
“I want you,” Leo says fiercely and raw with emotion I’ve never heard from him before. Not even when he said he loved me. “I want you, Emma. I want you and our baby. Always. Do you understand me?Always.”
One of his hands slides down from my back and comes to gently rest on my stomach, like he’s afraid to press too hard and hurt something that’s barely there yet. His palm is warm through my shirt.
“You’re pregnant,” he says again, like he’s testing the words out. “You’re—we’re having a baby. We’re going to be parents.”
“Yeah,” I manage shakily, with tears streaming down my face. “We’re having a baby. Surprise?”
The absurdity of it hits me. I’m standing here in a destroyed hall surrounded by bodies and destruction, telling the man who kidnapped me that I’m pregnant. And I’mhappy.
This is so fucked up.
He laughs. It starts as a chuckle and turns into something that might be a sob halfway through. “You couldn’t have told me before you put yourself between me and a gun?”
“Didn’t really have time,” I point out, and I feel myself smile. “I was kind of busy breaking out of your shitty panic room.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we’re going to need to talk about that.”
