Page 33 of Assassin's Game
Her laugh was strained. “Yeah, well, you probably don’t have to worry about it anyway.”
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe as panic hit me full force. “Don’t say that, Abby. Don’t think it. We’ll get through this.”
“Will we?”
I eased carefully closer, closer, until my heat could warm her back. “We will. No matter what. I’ll make this up to you, I promise.”
“You can’t,” she whispered. “You can’t keep our baby safe, Levi.”
Our baby.Fucking A.
“Our baby,” I said aloud. A tiny sliver of emotion broke through the hold I had on my heart. “I can’t believe it.” We made a baby.
Abby’s body shook. “Levi—” Her voice broke.
I wrapped her in my arms again, pulled her hard back against me. I loved her fiercely, would kill anyone that dared harm her.
But I couldn’t protect her from this fear. From what might happen.
“What did the doctor say?” I asked quietly.
A shudder shook her against me. “Spotting isn’t uncommon. Stay in bed and don’t exert yourself.”
The words were flat, hollow. They settled in my gut like bricks. In other words, there was nothing we could really do.
“Okay, stay in bed. We can manage that.”
The situation downstairs would have to wait. Nothing and no one mattered except Abby.
And our baby.
X gave you a deadline.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of Abby in my arms. Protect her here or protect her there? Which was more important?
As I held her through lingering tears and finally into an exhausted sleep, I knew the answer I had to give. It went against everything I was. I did the protecting. I did the hard work.
But that wasn’t possible right now. If taking care of Abby meant handing this business with X over to Remi and Eli, then that’s what would happen.
I’d protect my family with my life. Do anything. But I couldn’t protect Abby from this, couldn’t take it on myself and carry it for her. I sure as hell wouldn’t let her walk through it alone.
“Never again,” I promised, whispering the words in her ear. For her. For me. She’d paid the price of my selfishness the last few weeks, learning about our baby alone, worrying over our baby alone, learning she might lose our baby alone. I’d never let her be alone again.
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Chapter Fifteen
Eli —
The words I’d read on Levi’s phone ran through my mind over and over as I watched Remi call his fiancée. I could sense the restlessness, the tension in Mikaela’s team, but that couldn’t matter right now. Abby mattered. That winter fire couldn’t be snuffed out this way—and yet there was nothing any of us could do to protect her. Or her baby.
Another child. I’m not sure why I was surprised. Maybe because Levi had already taken his turn at parenting when he’d raised us on the streets. But if my brothers were in committed relationships, children were a natural progression, weren’t they? I just hadn’t expected Levi to take that step yet. From the look on his face, he hadn’t either.
“Eli?”
I turned to Mikaela, steeling myself against the emotion churning in my gut. “Yes?”
She stood in front of me, a good half a foot shorter, but no one would doubt her strength. And if they did,Ihad no doubt they’d learn otherwise.
