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“Slade.” She gave him a penetrating look, urging him to let her handle it.
He went dead still, hands still balled into fists but no longer reaching for his weapon. He was trusting her to know how to handle things.
Her mind crashed back into reality. The sharp point of the knife tore a hole through her shirt and pricked the skin on her side. This man had given a huge badass like Apollo a horrific wound, and he’d bled—a lot. She was much smaller, and she had to protect her body, the very thing that her child needed to sustain its life.
“What do you want, Trey?”
“I want my father back, you whore!” Hot breath rushed past her ear.
Her instinct was to fight and fucking fight hard. But she had to defuse the situation, and that meant using her wits, not her fists.
With her stare locked on Slade, she tried to force her body to relax. The tenser she became, the more agitated the man holding her would grow.
“You know it’s not possible to give you back your father,” she said in her most soothing tone, something that didn’t come easy to her. “So what will this get you? Let’s talk about what you need.”
“I need my father back. You ruined him and everything he built!” The stench of fear and sweat rolled off the man, leaving her gasping through a bout of nausea.
Do not puke.
Her nostrils flared as she dragged in a deep breath of fresh air. Slade’s chest swelled too, as if he breathed with her, for her and the baby.
She continued to talk to Trey. “Your father made bad decisions that got him in trouble. You have a bright future here. You’re getting an education. You can make something of your life.”
“That’s not true! Once I stab you and leave you to bleed out, I’ll be put in prison and it’s all over.”
“Deals are made every day. You don’t have to give up your dreams.”
“What do you know about my dreams?” His weight shifted against her. The arm with the knife loosened the tiniest bit, and Lena took the opening.
Right before she attacked, she saw fear blaze in Slade’s eyes.
“I got this,” she roughed out and saw his small nod right before she threw her elbow backward, ramming it into the kid’s nose. The crunch of bone breaking really turned her stomach, but she didn’t have time to think about it because she was too busy breaking his arm at the same time she swept his leg out from under him.
The knife clattered to the ground, and Slade kicked it away. Then he tackled Trey to the pavement, delivering a knee to the groin meant to end the bloodline. Fist cocked, he glared down at Lena’s attacker.
“This is for hurting my wife.” He slammed his fist into Trey’s mouth.
* * * * *
Slade propped himself on one arm to stare down at his beautiful—and very tired—woman.
A glance at the clock on the hotel nightstand told him Lena had been sleeping for twelve hours straight. The cocky part of him grinned at the knowledge that he’d worn her out so thoroughly with several shaking orgasms. An even cockier part of him was damn happy that the reason she was so tired was because of the baby he helped create.
The late afternoon sun peeked through the slats of the blinds and fell across the bed, carving into her body. Her hard, fit form was growing lusher. Her breasts she wanted sucked and played with were heavier and fuller, the nipples a deeper shade of rose.
He cut his gaze over her hips. They were the same size and shape as always, but the idea of them widening to bear the weight of his child left him hard and aching.
His cock bobbed on his abs. The urge to wake her and make her scream his name again almost broke him down as much as seeing that knife against her side.
She’d handled the attack much better than he would have done. His balls-to-the-wall response would have gotten her stabbed.
The soft brush of Lena’s breath reminded him of what he could have lost. And worse, that he needed to find a way to balance their life together.
Charlie would need him back soon. Within the week. That left Lena alone and pregnant to deal with whatever came next for her.
He wasn’t going to let her face it alone.
The ping of his phone on the nearby nightstand made her breathing change. She rolled onto one side, away from him, as he grabbed the phone and read the text from Gia.
