Page 269 of Ricardo

“You are.”

“I am thinking about Dante. I can’t stop thinking about Dante. But now this is in my head too, and it feels…” I stop because I do not know how to explain it without sounding awful.

Victoria waits.

“It feels selfish,” I whisper.

Her expression changes. “No.”

“I’m sitting here wondering if I’m pregnant while Dante is in a hospital bed.”

“You are sitting here because your body is trying to tell you something after weeks of signs you ignored. That does not make you selfish.”

I look down at the bag.

“Ricardo has enough to carry.”

“Yes,” she says. “He does.”

That is not the answer I expected.

My eyes lift to hers.

Victoria leans forward. “And if this is true, it is important information. He needs to know before he potentially goes to war with Harrison.”

The words make my stomach drop.

War with Harrison.

A child in the middle.

“You don’t think it’s too much right now?” I ask.

Victoria’s face softens.

“Of course it’s too much. For you too.”

“He’ll lose his mind.”

“Probably,” she says.

I almost laugh again, but this time there is no humor in it.

Victoria reaches across the table and takes my hand. “But not at you.”

My fingers tremble in hers.

I want to believe that.

I think I do believe it.

That may be what scares me most.

Ricardo will not be angry at me. He will not look at me like I have trapped him or ruined something or become one more crisis dropped at his feet. He will look at me the way he looked at Dante in that hospital bed. Like love and fear have both put knives in his hands.

And then he will turn those knives onto Harrison.

I do not know what survives that.