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“Help is on the way, little bird. Don’t despair.” His midnight eyes fill with an unfathomable intensity before his whisper lands on my ears.
“I love you, Wren Caputo. I’ll love you through a million lifetimes. This isn’t the end for us. Ipromise.”
My breath catches on a sob that wracks through my entire body, and as Matt levels the gun directly at Vaughn, my voice fills the space.
“Please, don’t…don’t take him from me.”
Blood thunders through my ears as I jerk from Marcus’s loosened hold, screaming at the top of my lungs, “I’m carrying his child.”
CHAPTER39
WREN
Vaughn’s eyes hold mine for a long beat, something silent but palpable passing between us, before his face darkens intently.
Matt loosens expletive after expletive as he rakes a hand through his hair, and it’s a pasty Marcus who breaks his brother’s rant when he chuckles.
“See where your patience got you, bro—”
My eyes blow wide when Matt spins to face his brother, levels the gun at him, and pulls the trigger without so much as a second thought.
“Fuck yourself, Marc.”
His face is frozen in horror when the bullet hits him unerringly between his eyes, and I scream as the spatter coats my left side, scrambling away when Marcus’s dead body falls forward with a thud.
“You never could justshut up.”
Matt waves his hands manically as he shouts before he silently stares at his brother for a beat. Then he looks up at me with utterly wild eyes, regarding me for long moments. His navy-blue gaze deepens further as the seconds tick past until he explodes into a flurry of motion.
“You had to go and fucking ruin it all, didn’t you, Neve!”
He sweeps the contents of each shelf onto the floor. Every single thing in the room lands on the growing pile surrounding us, and I look to Vaughn for reassurance to find his eyes moving from the still body of my mother to the equally still one of Detective Fratelli.
“Prince Charming and Snow White were never destined to be ripped apart by an outsider like thismotherfucker!”
At that last bellowed expletive, he begins to tear the portraits of his family members from the walls, the lamps beneath them smashing all over the books on the floor, and a shiver races up my spine.
“Matt…”
He freezes, whirring to meet my eyes, closing the gap between us to pull me against him. All vestiges ofmyMatty have been drained away, and I’m chilled to the core when he pulls a lighter from his pants pocket.
“If I can’t have you…”
He flicks his thumb, and a flame dances to life as I choke out a whisper. “Matty,please…”
His grin is a sick parody of the man I thought he was when he drops the lighter as though in slow motion. “Then no one can.”
* * *
VAUGHN
I’m carrying his child. I’m carrying his child. I’m carrying his child.
Wren’s words go around and around inside my head as my heart swells to bursting. Her gaze buoys me, sending me strength, lending me hers.
Lending me our child’s.
Our child.
