Page 99 of Vegas Baby!

I squinted. “Are thesenewfucked-up things?”

“Unfortunately. I mean, related to the old things, but different.” Her forehead scrunched up. “I don’t know if I have the energy to tell it twice.”

“Is this a speakerphone conversation or an in-person one?” I asked.

“Probably in person, though given how those two tend to react to things, speakerphone is likely better for all of us.”

Thank god.

“Can one of you call them for me?” she asked.

“On it.” Micah pulled out his phone and dialed Luke.

“I’ve been gone for five minutes,” came Luke’s response.

“Ava has news everyone needs to hear. If you and Nathan had stuck around for those five minutes, I wouldn’t have to call you.”

“What’s going on?” Luke asked.

“We don’t know that yet,” said Micah. “I was just in charge of getting you and Nathan on the phone.”

Everyone turned to Ava. She shrank against me and I wrapped her tighter in my arms.

“Charlotte’s been messaging me about adopting the baby.”

“Oh hell no,” Luke snapped. “She can back the fuck up right now.”

“She still doesn’t know who I am,” Ava explained. “Andrew told her some bullshit about me adopting to them through an agency. He’s refusing to tell her the truth so the only way she’s finding out is if I tell her. I don’twantto tell her.”

“Why not, sweetness?”

“Because it fucking sucks to find that out. She’s inwaydeeper than I was and she’s not going to have a pack to help her out of this. She has two little kids to worry about.”

“Want me to drive to New York and run him over?” Nathan offered.

“In what universe would that help anything?”

“I never said it would help,” he replied. “Would be damn satisfying, though.”

“I would help,” said Bryce. “The bar for him is on the fucking ground. How does he keep digging deeper?”

“I don’tknow. What should I do? I know Charlotte deserves to know, and obviously she would find out when I don’t give her a baby, but I hate having to be that messenger. She was so excited.”

“I don’t think there’s any way around it, angel.” Micah sighed, scratching his chin.

I was of the same mind. There was no real way to spare Charlotte. She was married to an abuser, had children with him, and sooner or later that world was going to come crashing down on her. If I could find a way to soften the blow…

“No matter what way you look at it, Aves, you’re going to have to break her heart. She’s not getting that baby.”

Ava trembled, swallowing hard, burnt sugar filling my nose. “You really don’t want me to take that route?”

Micah and Bryce looked as if her question punched them both in the face, and I was feeling similarly slugged, my chest tight at her words.

“You think we would want you to give up our child?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “Is that something you thought of or something he fed you?”

“Both,” she quietly confessed.

I clutched her to my chest and pressed a kiss to her hair. I knew why she might worry about it, even with the bond, butgod, it fuckingstungto have it expressed. Swallowing that hurt, I focused on my mate. As difficult it was for me to hear her have those concerns, I knew it was a million times harder for her to experience it.

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