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Justice shot him another disgusted stare and then he shook his head and licked his lips as if trying to rid himself of a bad taste in his mouth.
“You know what? Fuck this and fuck you. And fuck throwing her out on the streets after you took so many pieces out of her she’ll never be whole again. I’m out of here. I can’t stomach you a goddamn minute longer.”
Justice turned and stalked out of his office and never once looked back.
The rest of his men symbolically turned around, and like Justice, they walked out.
Drake staggered into his chair and then let his head fall into his hands. Had everyone but him lost their goddamn minds? They were defending the woman who’d tried to take them all down? Were they willing to go to jail because they liked her and she was a great cook who was nice to them?
Doubt and a sense of foreboding crept up his spine. Never before had he questioned his instincts, his gut. They never steered him wrong.
But . . . what if . . .
What if they were right? And he’d made a terrible, unforgivable mistake?
But if they were wrong, then they’d all lose everything they’d worked so hard to achieve.
What about Evangeline?
The question whispered insidiously inside his mind.
Hadn’t she already lost everything? Hadn’t he, for that matter? He stared around at the evidence of the empire he’d built from the ground up. Did any of it mean a goddamn thing if he no longer had Evangeline to share it with? To share his life with?
No, he was better off without lies, deceit, betrayal . . .
But again that nagging voice, the one that whispered to him incessantly, the one filling him with self-doubt, struck again.
What if she hadn’t lied, deceived or betrayed?
What if . . . What if she was innocent and he’d made the worst mistake of his life?
27
Evangeline hurriedly let herself inside the apartment Silas was letting her use and set the small plastic bag on the bar of the tiny kitchen. For now, she ignored it, not yet able to face the possible consequences the package would reveal.
Silas had bought groceries when he’d gone out to get clothing for Evangeline, but the thought of food made her stomach twist into knots and promptly rebel. So maybe ignoring the possibility wasn’t the best idea, though that’s precisely what she had done for the last two days. She had to know—needed to know. It was far better to get it over with so she’d know exactly what she was up against.
With icy fingers of dread clutching at her heart, she picked up the bag like it was an offending object that would bite her and walked slowly to the bathroom. She took out the home pregnancy test from its package and scanned the instructions. It seemed simple enough. Pee on the stick and then wait a few minutes for the results.
After complying with the instructions, she washed her hands and laid the stick on the counter and then stared at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t look pregnant, but then did anyone so early in the game? For that matter, she didn’t know how far along she was, if she was even pregnant at all. Obviously she couldn’t be more than three months along because she hadn’t been with Drake for longer than that.
But her periods had never been regular, so she never really knew when to expect her next one. And if that was the case, why was she standing in here like an idiot taking a home pregnancy test when she would likely start within the next week? Wishful thinking? Was that what she was experiencing? After the devastating loss of Drake, was she clinging to any sort of hope of having some part of him? A baby? Their child?
The very last thing she needed was to be pregnant, but at the same time, hope was so keen, so desperate inside her that she realized now that if she wasn’t pregnant, she would grieve not only the loss of Drake but of a child who never existed either. Talk about signing up for self-torture.
She closed her eyes and reached for the stick and took in a long, steadying breath through her nose. Finally she worked up enough courage to open her eyes and look at the results.
It took a few moments to blink away the tears and the fuzziness in her vision but then she saw it. Staring her right in the face was a vibrant pink plus sign.
Her legs wobbled and she staggered, almost collapsing in a heap on the floor of the bathroom. Her heart exploded with joy even as an overwhelming surge of grief nearly flattened her.
She eased down on the floor, no longer trusting her legs to hold her, and she drew her knees in to her chest, wrapping her arms around them tightly as she hugged herself fiercely, rocking back and forth. Tears, this time a mixture of grief and unfettered joy, spilled down her cheeks and she actually smiled.
