"Can't help it." He runs his hands through his hair, a gesture I'm learning means he's fighting the urge to break something. "You almost went into labor. Again."
"And I didn't. Again." I try to shift positions, but my body has become an uncooperative mass of aches and fluid retention. "I need to last four more weeks minimum."
"You need to last until he's ready."
"He's your son—he was born ready to fight."
The joke falls flat because we both know it's not really a joke. Santiago is already fighting, already stubborn, already too much like both of us for his own good.
That evening, Ghost stops by—not to check on me, but to make his presence known. He fills the doorway like a threat wearing a leather cut, his eyes taking in my swollen form with the kind of calculation that makes my skin crawl.
"President's baby mama," he says, like it's a title and an insult. "Making yourself comfortable in our house."
"Making myself available for my child's father." I meet his gaze, refusing to be intimidated even while horizontal. "Problem with that?"
"The problem is what you've turned him into." Ghost steps into the room uninvited. "Weak. Distracted. Compromised."
"Get out." Zane's voice comes from behind Ghost, deadly quiet.
Ghost turns slowly, theatrically. "Just having a conversation with your—what is she exactly? Not your old lady. Not your whore. Something in between?"
The violence that follows is quick and decisive. Zane's fist connects with Ghost's jaw, sending him stumbling back. But Ghost recovers fast, tackling Zane into the hallway. I can hear the impact of bodies against walls, the crash of something breaking.
"Stop!" I try to get up, but my body won't cooperate, Santiago choosing this moment to practice kickboxing against my cervix. "Both of you, stop!"
Joker and Blade pull them apart, but the damage is done. Ghost spits blood, grinning like he won something. "See? Compromised. Can't even control himself in front of his pregnant bitch."
Zane lunges again, but Joker holds him back. "Church. Now. Both of you."
They disappear into their sacred space where women aren't allowed and violence is voted on like democracy with brass knuckles. I'm left sitting in bed, heart racing, Santiago rioting in response to my stress.
"Breathe," Izzy says, appearing from nowhere because she has a sixth sense for when I need her. "Deep breaths. We can't have labor starting because these pendejos can't keep their dicks in check."
But my body has other plans. The first contraction hits like a fist to my lower back, radiating around to my belly. Then another, eight minutes later. Then seven minutes. Then six.
"Hospital," Izzy says, already grabbing my bag. "Now."
"Get Zane—"
"Fuck Zane. He's busy playing alpha dog while you're trying not to deliver a premature baby."
But he must sense something because he appears just as Izzy's helping me to her car, his knuckles bloody, his face a map of fury and fear.
"What's wrong?"
"Contractions," Izzy answers for me. "Thanks to your little fight club demonstration."
He takes over without asking, lifting me like I weigh nothing, carrying me to his truck. "I'm sorry. Ghost—"
"Ghost is trying to destroy you, and you're letting him." Another contraction makes me gasp, gripping his arm hard enough to leave marks. "Five minutes apart now."
He drives like the devil is chasing us, which maybe he is. The devil named Ghost, the devil named poor choices, the devil named a love that might kill us both before it's done.
At the hospital, they pump me full of medications that make my heart race and my skin burn. Magnesium sulfate, terbutaline, nifedipine—a cocktail of medical intervention trying to convince my body to be patient.
"Please," I whisper to Santiago between contractions. "Four more weeks. Give me four more weeks."
But my son, stubborn like his father, reckless like his mother, has inherited our mutual inability to do what's best for us.
