Page 81 of The Endless Want

The words unravel me more than anything else today. “I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to protect myself. Or the baby. Or everyone else caught in this mess.”

Liam rises. Walks to me. Places a hand on my shoulder—light, grounding, brotherly. “You don’t need to have all the answers today. You only need to know this: you are safe. I will not let anything happen to you. Or your child. Declan or not.”

Tears fill my eyes again—silent, trembling tears.

“You have a family behind you, Ailish,” he says, voice low and steady. “Whether Declan steps up or not.”

I still hurt, but I believe him.

CHAPTER 24

Declan

I don’t remember walking out of Ailish’s apartment.

All I remember is the sound of the door closing behind me—devastating in its finality. A sound that shouldn’t have meant anything more than wood and metal sliding into place, yet it felt like the last inch of ground beneath me giving way.

For months I’ve endured gunfire, back-alley threats, meetings with men who would gladly slit my throat if given half a reason, ambushes in parking lots, and the constant pressure of an enemy that still hasn’t shown its full hand. But none of it—none of it—landed as hard as that click of her shutting me out.

By the time I reach the car, my pulse is a storm in my veins. I get inside, and the door slams too loudly, rattling the frame, vibrating up my arms, reminding me I’m spiraling whether I want to admit it or not. I sit there with my hands gripping the steering wheel until the leather strains beneath my palms, my chest tightening as if I’ve run miles without stopping.

She’s pregnant.

The words repeat, slow at first, then faster, then all at once like they’ve been waiting years to break free.

Pregnant.

With my child.

Ailish is carrying my child.

The thought is too big to hold at first, too enormous to take in without everything else in my world shifting in response. I press my forehead to the steering wheel and force myself to breathe, but each inhale feels thinner than the last, each exhale tighter, as if the air itself is resisting me.

My child.

Ours.

Then comes the second wave, harsher, cold enough to sting.

She didn’t tell me. And someone—some Russian sick bastard—managed to photograph the ultrasound.

My hand curls into a fist, and I slam it once into the wheel. Hard enough that the impact shoots up my arm, not hard enough to break anything. I’m not even angry at her. I’m angry at everything around her, everything that made her think she had to carry this alone, everything that pushed her into a corner so tight she thought silence was safer than the truth.

I want to get out of this car and go straight back into her apartment, pull her into my arms, tell her I didn’t mean half the things I said. Tell her the fear swallowed me whole, and I reacted like a man drowned in it. But she told me to leave. And I did. And the knowledge that I walked away from her—walked away while she was terrified, shaking, trying her best to stay upright—makes something inside me tear clean down the center.

The pain sits there, low and searing, sitting behind my sternum like a new, unwelcome organ. What am I supposed to do with this?

I know violence. I know war. I know loyalty and betrayal. I know how to eliminate threats and negotiate with men who would kill for pocket change. But this wild, impossible need to protect something I’ve never seen, never touched, never even thought I deserved—this shakes me more than any bullet ever has.

I drop my head deeper into my hands, pushing my breath out slowly until it doesn’t shudder on the way out.

I want the baby. That truth thrums through me now with a clarity that should have been there the moment she told me. I want it. I want to protect it. I want⁠—

The passenger door opens.

I snap upright, muscles tightening automatically, my hand instinctively moving toward the weapon tucked under my jacket before I register who it is.

Liam.