"Miguel knows?" I pull back to look at her face.
She shows me her phone. The texts. The photo of three positive tests in a gas station bathroom trash, brutal evidence. His final words that hit like bullets: "You're dead to me."
The rage that fills me is immediate and absolute—not at her, never at her. At the situation, at Miguel, at the cosmic joke of creating life at the exact moment it could destroy everything. But underneath the rage, beneath the fear, something else blooms. Something that feels dangerously close to joy, to reverence, to a purpose I didn't know I was waiting for.
"We made a baby," I say, the words foreign on my tongue, tasting like possibility.
"We made a disaster," she corrects, but her hand finds my hair, holds me against her like I'm the only solid thing in a world gone liquid.
"Perfect disaster," I tell her stomach, tell the collection of cells already dividing inside her. My lips press against the fabric, and I can feel her trembling, feel her pulse through her skin, feel the future growing between us.
My phone buzzes. The sound cuts through the moment like a blade.
Ghost:Miguel's calling chapel
Ghost:He knows about the pregnancy
Ghost:War's coming
I stand, pull her against me. She fits differently now—not physically, but something has shifted, like the universe reorganized itself around this new truth. Her heart races againstmy chest, and I can feel mine trying to match it, trying to sync up like they're writing their own rhythm.
"Pack," I tell her. "Go to your apartment, pack essentials, then go to Sister Margaret's."
"Zane—"
"War's starting, angel. And you're carrying precious cargo now."
She laughs, but it's all broken glass and razor edges. "Precious cargo. That's one way to describe the thing that's about to destroy both our families."
I kiss her then, hard enough to bruise, desperate enough to brand. I taste salt—tears, hers or mine—and underneath it something else. Something changed. She tastes like future now, like possibility, like everything I never knew I wanted.
"Nothing's destroying us," I promise against her mouth. "Not Miguel, not the clubs, not anything."
But even as I say it, even as I hold her and our unborn disaster against me, I can hear the bikes outside multiplying, engines warming up like war drums, the sound of everything about to change.
"I love you," she whispers, the first time she's said it. The words hit harder than Candy's lie, harder than the positive test, harder than knowing what's coming.
"I love you too," I tell her, meaning it with every atom of my disaster soul. "Both of you."
Her hand finds her stomach, covers mine there. For a moment, we're just two people who created life in the middle of chaos, standing in a back room while war gathers outside. The music has started again—someone's put on Metallica, because nothing says 'impending violence' like thrash metal. The bass line vibrates through the walls, through our bodies, through the tiny cluster of cells that's about to change everything.
"Go," I tell her. "Now. Before this gets worse."
She kisses me once more—fierce and final and full of things we don't have time to say. Then she's gone, disappearing into the crowd. I watch her leave, carrying our future in her body and her brother's rage in her phone. The crowd parts for her differently now, like they can sense the change, smell the disaster on her like perfume.
This is where everything changes.
This is where the war begins.
And somewhere, growing in the woman I love, is the reason I'll win it.
Chapter thirty-two
Two Brothers, One Sister
Lena
I'm sitting on my bathroom floor at 5:47 AM, head between my knees, trying to decide if this nausea is morning sickness or the aftermath of watching my entire life implode at last night's party.
