Fuck. It might not ever be done. If Tessa and that kid were constantly around, what the hell was I going to do?
Mike pulled his car into the alley in between Fang’s building and the next. He shut off his car, undid his seatbelt, then undid mine. The large man leaned over to me and grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his hazel eyes.
“Laina,” he whispered softly, his fingers around my chin firm but gentle at the same time. “No matter what happens, I’ll be right here with you. I’ll be at your side. Nothing and no one will take me from you, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.” And then he said the words I’d been dying to hear forever: “I love you.”
For the second time in less than an hour, I was frozen. This time, though, it was for a good reason. Hearing him say it after all this time filled me with such warmth I couldn’t begin to describe it. How cheesy, and yet it didn’t begin to explain the way I felt when I was with him.
Mike brought his mouth to mine, ending his declaration by stealing the breath out of my lungs, and I was so shocked at hearing him say those three words that I barely kissed him back. He pulled his mouth off mine and gave me a smile, something so out of the ordinary for him, and finally I did the only thing I could and threw my arms around his neck and hugged him close.
“I love you too,” I whispered against his neck.
Though we weren’t at a super great angle, Mike managed to wrap his arms around me. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.” His words of comfort came easily, swiftly, such a change to how he used to be in the beginning. Oh, how we’d both grown. “You’re not alone anymore. You don’t have to do any of this by yourself.”
He let me go, and when he did, I smiled at him. “I know.”
“Now,” he paused, “let’s go inside and see your second boyfriend while we wait for your third to get here.”
I smiled harder. “Sounds like a plan.”
After we both got out of the car, I walked around it and Mike was waiting. I slipped my hand into his—even now, it still amazed me at how big his hands were—and together we headed for the door in the alley.
And that door? It swung open the moment we got close. Fang stood behind it, holding it open with his foot. He must’ve been in his studio, working on some metal contraption, because his forearms were ashy. His hands were perfectly clean, telling me he’d worn gloves and had since taken them off.
“Hello, Princess,” Fang spoke with a smile, flashing us both his sharp metal canines. “And you, too, Mike.” He let us in, and soon enough we were all in his living room. Mike and I sat on the couch together, while Fang cleaned himself up.
Mike would not let go of my hand. It was odd for him, but I didn’t mind it. Not after everything. Besides, the man loved me, so why wouldn’t he hold my hand as we sat there, side by side?
Fang, ever the host, provided us with drinks. He was slow in sitting on the arm of the couch nearest me. “So, you were very vague in your text,” he said. “Not that I’m complaining you’re here, of course, but I thought you planned on spending the entire day with Mike?” His brows lift. “Unless Mike—”
I knew where he was going with that, which was why I cut in, “It’s not about that. It’s Tessa.”
Trust me, on a normal day, when shit wasn’t hitting the fan, I’d love to daydream about having Mike and Fang tear off my clothes and tag team me, but today was not that day.
“Tessa?” Fang’s ever-present smirk turned into the opposite: a thoughtful frown. “What about her? Has she shown her face here?” With a shake of his head, he went on, “It seemed she did not learn her lesson, then.”
Mike was the one who spoke, “She is here, and… we just saw her.” He glanced at me, as if waiting for me to spill the beans, but I couldn’t. An invisible cat had my tongue, so I nodded at him. “She’s pregnant.”
Fang’s brows nearly hit the ceiling on that one. I knew the feeling. “Really? Well, that’s… not something we expected.” Once the shock of the news wore off, he looked at me. “I imagine this changes things. We won’t be able to act like we normally would. It’s a different type of game now, one we’ll all have to re-learn.”
The man totally understood, which was nice. We didn’t have to explain. It shouldn’t surprise me; he’d always been perceptive. For someone who didn’t normally hang out with people, he sure was able to read them quickly. Take Kieran, for instance. Fang knew from the beginning Kieran was hiding a darkness within him. If only I would’ve listened to him more in those beginning days, maybe I would’ve put the pieces together sooner.
A few moments later, Fang whispered, “Which one upsets you more: the fact Tessa is back, or that she’s pregnant?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered, taking a sip from the cup he’d given me. “My dad acted like he wants to be a part of this kid’s life, to do better by the kid than my mom ever did for me—he was a single parent for so long, he doesn’t want him and Tessa’s kid to know what that’s like.”
“That would be a sweet thought, I suppose,” he admitted, “if it wasn’t Tessa’s child. I can’t imagine things would ever go back to the way they were before, now that he knows what she’s capable of. He can’t forget she tried to have you taken care of, not to mention her own brother. How could he ever fully trust someone like that?”
He wasn’t wrong. I was pretty sure that was why I was having such a difficult time with the news. Wanting to be a part of the kid’s life, after knowing everything Tessa did… wasn’t that, insome way, accepting her past actions? How could my dad claim to love me, how could he say he was willing to walk away from the mayor’s seat, when he couldn’t turn Tessa away?
Yeah, yeah. It was different. A baby was in the picture.
Again, I repeated, “I don’t know. I don’t know how any of this is going to work, that’s why I wanted to meet here, with everyone. Kieran’ll be on his way soon. We need to figure out a plan, something. I’m not going to sit back and let Tessa play more of her games. She’s scheming, I know she is.”
Mike set an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to him, his warmth seeping into me, a silent comfort. And like what he said in the car minutes ago, Fang said, “You have us with you. No matter what, you’ll always have us.” He grinned. “And I suspect you have a few other people in this city on your side, one of which is a literal serial killer.”
Well, when he put it like that, Tessa sure did sound stupid for trying to go against me. I had my guys and a freaking serial killer on my side. Who did she have, other than that baby in her belly?
No one.
