Page 39 of Wicked Brutal

“The women have formed a defensive perimeter.”

Arthur sits down. “Does everyone know why we’re here?”

Thomas looks at me. “I was told there was a significant development.”

Mom glances at Ally, Ally glances at me, and I take her hand. Here we go again. “Ally’s pregnant.”

Saoirse’s head whips toward her. Alice’s hand flies to her mouth. Louise’s eyes fill instantly. Katya whispers something in Russian. Clifford blinks, Gideon’s eyebrows shoot up, Thomas looks between Ally and me, and Theodore goes completely still. Nobody says anything for three whole seconds — and then Louise starts crying, because of course she does. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Ally’s eyes fill again, and Becca immediately grabs one of her hands and Cat takes the other and Penny sets a hand on her knee. Wagons circled.

“Are you happy?” Saoirse asks her.

Ally nods. “Yes.”

Saoirse smiles. “Then congratulations.”

“Congratulations,” Alice echoes, crying now too.

“Yes — absolutely — congratulations,” Louise says, nodding furiously.

Katya gets up, crosses to Ally, and asks, “May I?” Ally nods, and Katya bends and hugs her. “Baby is blessing,” she says quietly, and when she pulls back she touches Ally’s cheek. “You are not afraid of us, yes?”

Ally’s mouth trembles. “I’m trying not to be.”

Nobody asks what they plan to do about the baby. Nobody asks whether they’re keeping it. Nobody looks disappointed. Nobody looks at Ally like she detonated her own life.

Darla eventually lifts a hand. “Before we accidentally spend the next hour planning a nursery — Alison is stable, and I’ll handle her prenatal care privately, so we can all take a breath on that front.”

Louise sags with relief, and Alice asks, “How far along?”

“About ten weeks,” Ally says.

Arthur clears his throat, and the mood shifts. “The pregnancy matters for another reason.” Saoirse’s hand settles over Ally’s. Arthur looks at Ally first. “Do you want Ryan to explain, or will you?”

“Ryan.”

I nod. “Tremblay expects her to be a virgin.”

Every mother around Ally goes rigid. The fathers look murderous.

Arthur just looks at me. “Explain.”

“Roman told Ally it’s a term of the arrangement. Tremblay expects her delivered untouched. Pure — that’s the word they use.”

“Pure,” Saoirse repeats, and there is something in the way she says it that stands every hair on my arms straight up. Ally looks down, and Saoirse turns to her instantly. “No. You don’t get to carry that word like it belongs to you.” Ally looks up. “There is nothing impure about you,” Saoirse says, her voice quiet and controlled — the voice of a woman who has sat across from hundreds of women and heard hundreds of versions of a man turning a body into a contract. “Nothing. Not one thing.”

Ally’s eyes fill, and Saoirse squeezes her hand.

Louise leans forward. “And there is nothing shameful about loving someone.”

“Or about sleeping with a person you love,” Alice adds.

Thomas rubs his jaw. “So Roman believes the original agreement is intact. And Tremblay believes Roman is delivering exactly what was promised.”

I hate the sentence with my whole body. “Yeah.”

Theodore speaks for the first time in a while. “And what happens when he learns otherwise?”