Page 67 of Mortify

"How long?" Dad demands. "How fuckin’ long have you been sneaking around with my little girl?"

"I'm not a little girl!" The words explode out of me. "I'm twenty-one years old, Dad. I'm an adult. I make my own choices."

"How. Long?" He doesn't even look at me.

"Four months," Regnor lies smoothly. "We've been together for four months."

"Four months." Dad laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Behind my back. In my house. Under my nose."

"Not in your house," I say. "We were careful?—"

"Careful?" He whirls on me. "You call getting knocked up careful? You call sneaking around with a man almost twelve years older than you careful?"

"Kraken." My mother's voice cuts through. She moves between us, ever the peacemaker. "That's enough."

"Enough? Our daughter is pregnant by a man I specifically?—"

"Our daughter is pregnant, period," Mom interrupts. "Yelling about it won't change that." She turns to me, and her eyes are so much kinder than I deserve. "Are you okay? Is this what you want?"

The question breaks something in me.

When's the last time someone asked what I wanted?

"Yes," I whisper, then stronger. "Yes. Regnor's good to me. He takes care of me."

"Takes care of you?" Dad scoffs. "He knocked you up!"

I can’t hold back anymore. I unleash all of my fury, screaming at him. "Can you just fucking stop it already?!"

"Kraken, with all due respect, you know I’m a good man," Regnor steps forward, moving me behind him slightly. "I'm gonna be here to take care of my child. I'm claiming your daughter. That's all that matters."

Dad lunges for Regnor again, but this time Emil and Oskar grab him, holding him back.

"What the fuck happened to Dylan?" he roars. "Weren’t the two of you dating?"

"You want her with some abusive douchebag? I'm protecting Everly," Regnor says calmly. "And our baby. Because that's what you do!"

"Oh come on, this shit is ridiculous!"

"If you want to think that, go ahead." Regnor's voice goes rigid. "She's mine now. Both of them. And if you can't accept that, that's your problem, not ours."

"Everly." Mom touches my arm. "Dylan... did he hurt you? Is that why you're with Regnor now?"

"He's dangerous," I say quietly, letting them think what they want about the timeline. "When we ran into him at the grocery store, he found out about the baby. Threatened to... to force me to get rid of it. But that’s not even the worst of it. He said he had connections, could hurt Bjorn at his physical therapy. Could hurt the kids here." My voice cracks. "Regnor's the only reason I'm safe."

"We could have protected you," Dad says, but some of the rage has left his voice. "The club?—"

"The club couldn't protect me from someone I was willingly with," I point out. "You'd have had to know there was a threat first. And I was too scared to tell anyone."

"But not too scared to fuck around with Regnor?"

"Kraken," Mom warns.

"We weren't fucking around," Regnor says. "I love her."

His words come out of nowhere.

He's never said that before.

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