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Gideon ignores the question, shaking his head. “You know,” he says, “it’s funny—I was really starting to believe you were going to be part of our family again. I thought I had my little girl back! So color me surprised when our guest arrives and shares with me that my daughter and my shiny new son-in-law are planning on stabbing me in the back.”
He emphasizes those last four words, even gesturing like he’s being stabbed and someone is twisting the knife. I stare at him in disbelief, shocked by how ignorant he is even after everything.
I want to tell him he’s an idiot—that you can’t stab someone in the back when you were never their ally to begin with, that me and Javi were just trying tosurvive—but I have to stay on task.
“Where is he?” I ask again.
“That’s none of your concern, girl—though I suppose you’re allowed to know he’s alive,” Gideon says. “Because the Angel told me one other, very interesting fact…and that’s that dear Javier already knocked you up.”
I watch as he paces in front of the door, shaking his head again like I’m the one who’s wronged him.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” he snaps. “Tell me the truth for once, Esther!”
My composure breaks when he screams at me…because he’s holding everything I care about captive.
I can’t handle it.
“I’m telling you the truth right now, if you would justlisten!” I cry out, swinging my hand toward him in frustration. “I love him and I want him back.Give him to me!”
Gideon stares at me in shock for what feels like an eternity. Then a slow smile appears on his face, cracking his jaw into a rictus grin.
“Finally, you’re honest,” he says. “How refreshing.”
The way he’s smiling makes me want to scream in rage at the same time that it scares the hell out of me. I drop my hands, my breath ragged, tears on the verge of spilling down my cheeks.
“Please,” I whisper. “I’m begging you.”
Gideon chuckles to himself and starts pacing again, his hands on his hips. He glances up at me, then to the door, then back again. He takes in the sight of me—what’s obviously a nest, Javi’s clothes positioned around me.
“You’re just like your mama,” he says. “Should’ve known from the beginning that you needed to be broken. She was a bad influence.”
I close my eyes and the first tears stream down my cheeks.
Gideon laughs.
I’m not even in a position to defend her. I have to get Javi back first.
“My first instinct was to take lover boy and give you to Abel instead,” Gideon says. “You’re already pregnant—and Abel knows how to treat a woman, unlike that no-good mercenary you’ve shacked up with. But now…no. I think I have an even better idea.”
I bite my lip so hard it bleeds, copper mingling with salt.
“Please,” I ask—one last, desperate appeal for mercy.
Gideon grins at me again, his blind eye boring into me.
“You sit tight, sweetheart,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
And with that, he leaves me alone with my thoughts…and with the baby I have to protect.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
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JAVI
My head feels like it’s in a vice, my whole body aching when I come to. Wherever I am, it’s dark, and I can tell I’m concussed by the fact that it takes me a second to adjust to the lack of light. My senses aren’t quite as sharp, little points of neon flashing everyone I look.
Metal creaks around me and the soft sound of waves breaks through. I’m still on the Rig, which is good—they haven’t taken me away on the Heavenly Host ship. Water drips somewhere nearby, and I’m cold, my clothes damp.
