Page 147 of Crimson Tears

“You don’t get it, neither of you do! If we have a kid, someone will always have leverage over us. They will just be another reason for one of us to sacrifice ourselves. This life is already hard enough!”

“Then we can move away.” He says it like it’s so simple. Just run away and leave everything we have worked for, everyone we love. “We can leave this all behind.”

I jerk my head as I scoff in his face.

“Leave our family behind? Leave everyone I haveactualgood relationships with? People who would be just as affected by this child as we would. Do you seriously not see the problem here? What happens if someone takes our child and demands the death of Evie in return? Or Laney?”

I try to push him again, but this time he grabs my hands and notices my arm bleeding. Carefully, he takes one of the gauze wrappings by the side of the bed and places it over the wound.

I’m still angry, but I let him help because it is starting to make a mess.

“You can’t think like that, Sweetheart.” Cillian pulls me back into him. “You can’t think of the worst because there’s a high possibility it’ll never happen.”

I tilt my head in astonishment as I fight to get out of his hold.

“Name one of us who has not been kidnapped or has not had to run for their lives at some point.”

His lips part, but then he closes them. I can see that he gets where I’m coming from. Still, he keeps speaking, unable to stop himself now.

“We can protect them.Iwill protect them.”

I clench my jaw, my anger becoming too much to handle.

“Just like you protected me?”

It was a low blow, and I know that. But he needs to understand. They both need to understand why this can’t happen.

Cillian drops my hands as anguish fills his features. I want to take it back because I have forgiven him. But I don’t; I don’t say anything as he turns and walks out of the room.

Instead, I grab a pillow from the bed and chuck it at the door, but it doesn’t satisfy my frustration. I need to break something. I need todestroysomething. I need to stop this feeling from overtaking all of my senses and leaving me a helpless pile of unuseful emotions.

Screaming isn’t enough right now. It’s like I have the anger of a thousand armies pent up under the surface of my skin, and it’s ripping me apart.

Heading to the closet, I open the safe hidden behind the dresser and pull out my rifle along with a full clip of ammunition. The best part about working for an assassination organization…there’s always someone, somewhere, that needs to die.

???

My killing spree was not nearly as eventful as I had hoped. I only used two bullets to remove some men who were breaching Alexi’s territory by threatening a few new businesses under his protection.

Normally, Damien makes a show of why you don’t mess with them. But when I called Alexi and said I needed some targets, he just gave me their names.

One thing I love about that guy is that he can tell when someone’s on the edge just by their voice alone. He didn’t ask for an explanation or tell me to be careful. He just gave me the names and locations and requested photographic evidence when I was done.

When I send him the pictures, he responds with a thumbs up emoji. That’s exactly what I needed. Someone to just let me deal with this on my own.

When I arrive back at the house, Doc has everything set up in the bedroom. I want to ask Cillian and Boris to leave, but I don’t have the energy left to fight with them. So instead, I get on the bed and pull up my shirt like Doc asks with Cillian sitting by my side and Boris standing next to us.

Warm jelly coats my stomach as Doc presses a wand to my skin, sliding the device around to give us some answers. When a wave appears at the bottom of the screen, and a small foot comes into view, I swear everything in the room stops. There is no movement. No sound. The only think I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears.

I reach my hands out and instantly Boris holds my right and Cillian holds my left. Letting out a sigh of relief, I’m glad they stayed because all I want to do now is cry more.

Doc continues to move the wand, and we get a side profile as the small body seems to rotate a bit. Then, he presses a button, and a quiet woosh, woosh, woosh fills the room.

“Doc?” I have no idea what I’m asking, but he seems to understand the question for the both of us.

“It looks like you’re around fifteen weeks, or nearly four months based on the size. I do not see the IUD in there, so it’s fairly safe to say that you either passed it during the trauma, or it’s in an area not causing any issues. Blood flow looks good, and as you can hear, the heartbeat is strong.”

I nod but refuse to look at my men. Before I heard the heartbeat or saw that tiny little foot, it was easy to say I couldn’t be a mother. But the thing I just realized for myself is, I already am one.

---