Page 47 of Breakaway

“Angel,” Briggs speaks quietly, the tone of his voice dousing me in dread. “They need to know.”

“Know what?” Raiden questions, turning his attention to me. “What’s he talking about, minha luz?” I’m not the least bit fluent in Portuguese, but that word he’s used in reference to me on several occasions now causes Rita to straighten, a smirk lifting the corner of her mouth. I glare at Briggs, hurt that he would put me on the spot and force this conversation before I’m ready. I know it needs to be had, but I’m terrified of how they’re going to respond to such a heavy revelation. Pressing my lips together, I debate what to say, how to begin. My hands shake as I rub my sweaty palms down my thighs.

“Seriously, what the hell is going on?” Dayton snaps, his patience wearing thin.

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, spilling my closely held secret as if it were a Band-Aid that needed ripping off. It’s eerily quiet as my confession sinks in, a myriad of emotions flitting across their faces.

“You piece of shit!” Dayton roars, surging to his feet. In the blink of an eye, he pins Briggs to the wall, his fist cocked back in preparation for doing maximum damage. My shock renders me motionless, but thankfully, Royce has enough sense to intervene before things escalate into an all-out brawl.

“Calm the hell down, boy,” Roy demands, forcibly separating them.

“Calm? You expect me to be calm when this asshole couldn’t be bothered to keep his dick in his pants long enough to give Andi a chance to fucking breathe before making his move?” Dayton’s chest heaves with indignation, his wild gaze bouncing between the two of us.

“Whoa.” I stand, effectively silencing his misguided tangent. “Briggs is not the father.” I ignore the clenching of said man’s jaw, too flustered to try and interpret his poorly concealed anger. Lifting my sweatshirt, I expose my stomach for everyone to see. “I’m thirty-one weeks.”

“Seven and a half months?” Rita gasps, her eyes filling with tears as realization sets in.

“I’m sorry,” I croak, my deceit searing a painful mark on my heart. “It wasn’t my intention to keep this from you. Any of you. I found out the day the compound was raided. My bloodwork showed elevated levels of HCG, so they ordered an ultrasound for confirmation. I was scared and, at the time, I needed to pretend it wasn’t real. It’s not exactly a cause for celebration when you find out you’re carrying the baby of a man who’s abused you for years.”

“Fucking hell,” Colsen swears, gripping the back of his neck as he tilts his face toward the ceiling.

“You’ve known that long? And you chose to tell him first?” Raiden whispers, the hurt tinging his words breaking the last of my resolve, tears flooding my face when I realize the betrayal they’re feeling is more painful than I imagined it would be.

“She didn’t tell me anything,” Briggs growls. “I found out by accident, so don’t make this something it isn’t.”

“Let’s take a breather,” Rita interjects, crossing the room to take a seat beside me. Her hand slides into mine, offering me a modicum of comfort in the midst of so much hostility. “It’s perfectly acceptable that you would need some time to come to terms with such heavy news. And no one is going to make you feel guilty for how you chose to navigate something so personal.” Her pointed glare connects with each of the guys’ faces, causing them to shift uncomfortably under her scrutiny.

As much as I appreciate Rita’s support, their hurt and anger are a product of my own making. Briggs warned this would happen, and I knew the longer I put off telling them, the worse it would be. Raiden, especially, has every right to feel blindsided by my secrecy. I didn’t think the fallout would be this dramatic, though. I didn’t think our relationships would start to evolve into something more, despite my refusal to acknowledge my feelings for all four of them. But seeing how torn Raiden is—the need to console me pitted against the betrayal he feels—is akin to a blunt blade piercing my skin, hacking away at the tentative bonds we’ve formed. And I’ll have no one to blame but myself if my lie breeds distrust between us.

27

Dayton

She’s pregnant.

Andi is pregnant.

The woman my delusional mind has dreamt up a future with is carrying another man’s child. Albeit a dead man, but that fact remains either way. The DNA of that twisted motherfucker is coursing through the life inside of her, and something about that hard-to-swallow truth makes me want to pay a visit to the local morgue, rip Tobias’ cold and lifeless body from the drawer he’s currently chilling in, so I can inflict some damage of my own. It’s unfair of me to burden her with expectations she isn’t even aware of. A few flirtatious interactions don’t warrant her undying love and loyalty. I mean, how well do we really know one another? Just because she’s made a point of spending time with me, carving out a space in my life that fits her perfectly, doesn’t mean she owes me anything. And yet all those sound and logical reasons do nothing to dissuade my irrational need to claim her—mind, body, and soul.

It was completely reasonable to assume that Briggs had a hand in her current predicament. He’s been lusting after Andi since the day he stumbled in from that week-long bender, dropping his dirt-ridden, strung-out body at her feet like a fucking offering. They’re barely apart these days. Somehow, he’s managed to fool her into thinking he’s a better man than he is. I should want more for him, for this page he’s seemingly turned to be the one that sticks, but rooting for his success would be counterproductive to my own plans.

No part of me feels the least bit bad about slamming Briggs against a wall. He deserves far worse, in my opinion. I don’t make a habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt more than once, but he’s had a slew of chances to prove me wrong, just to fail epically every time. Col might be blind to his tactics, but I’ve come to anticipate the inevitable atrophy of his willpower. Sooner or later, the ticking time-bomb of his addiction is going to detonate, and I refuse to let Andi be in proximity to the shrapnel his self-sabotaging will undoubtedly inflict. She doesn’t deserve to be a casualty of his poor choices.

“Back to the point of this whole show-and-tell,” Briggs deadpans, waving his hand in the general direction of Andi. “Ada Stillwater is going to be a problem, in more ways than one.” His ominous words send a chill down my spine, but Col beats me to the punch, voicing our collective concern.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was taken aback by her being there today. It was instinctive, touching my stomach. Like I could protect this baby from the cruelty of her gaze alone,” Andi confesses, tears gathering along her lower lashes once more. “She knows I’m pregnant. Doing that, showing any sign of defensiveness, was equivalent to waving a red flag at a bull. One that’s had her life ripped apart by the woman she’s hated long before she had an actual reason to.”

“And now her son is dead,” Raiden states absently. “So her attention has been diverted. She has something else to fixate on, instead of the grief she’s likely overcome with. She’s going to channel her heartbreak into rage.” My gaze flits around the room, scrambling for a way to discredit his train of thought.

“She’s going to see this child as a means to an end. Veritas is dead in the water, so to speak, but if she can play the part and convince the courts she’s nothing more than a victim to their extremist beliefs, Ada’s going to do everything in her power to build back what they’ve lost. She’ll have the next generation of a Stillwater to bend and mold, and if she gets her hands on this baby, I’m certain she’ll create something even more monstrous than Tobias ever thought about being.”

The crack in Andi’s voice makes a violent tremble skate across my skin. I’ve always been a go-with-the-flow type, content to sit back and allow things to play out the way nature intended them to, but Satan himself would hand me the keys to Hell after watching what I’ll do to that decrepit bitch if she so much as thinks about using Andi’s kid for her own nefarious advantage. I’ll delight in showing Ada how wrong she is about the demonic entities walking this earth, because my eyes look nothing like Andi’s, but I promise it’ll be my hands that snuff the life from hers.

“We’ll never let that happen, Andi,” Royce promises, the vehemence backing his words giving me a slight sense of relief, knowing she has an army at her disposal. “The system might be flawed, but I have faith they’ll get it right. There’s too much at stake for them to fumble such a nationally recognized case.” His faith might be a bit blind, but I’m confident they’ll reach the right verdict, if for no other reason than to salvage what’s left of Chaplain’s good name.

“Well, I think it’s best we don’t borrow grief from the future,” Rita chides lovingly, her gaze boring into each of us, willing us to understand what she’s not outright saying. “Let’s focus on one thing at a time. There’s too much uncertainty, so how about you take control of what you can, and trust the rest will fall into place when and how it’s meant to?” I love Rita–I really do–but sometimes her glass-half-full mentality puts my own placid nature to shame. “For starters, and there’s no wrong answer, sweetie,” Rita emphasizes, squeezing Andi’s hand before continuing. “Are you planning to keep this child?”