“Okay.”
Within minutes, her breathing evens out. She’s asleep.
I stay awake longer, watching her in the dim light from the window.
Jacob Miller is going to be a father.
Ghost is going to raise a child.
The same hands that have killed dozens of people will hold a baby. Teach them. Protect them. The irony isn’t lost on me.
But Bonnie said I’d be a good father. And I’ve never known her to lie.
So maybe I will be.
Or maybe I’ll fuck it up completely.
Either way, I meant what I said.
I’m not unhappy about it.
And for me, that’s as close to happiness as I know how to get.
26
BONNIE
Iwake up wrapped in Ghost.
His arm weighs heavily across my waist, pinning me against his chest. His breath is warm and steady against the back of my neck, each exhale stirring the hair at my nape. The room is still dark, and the morning sun is just starting to creep through the gap in the curtains.
For a moment, I just lie here. I feel the solid weight of him behind me, the rise and fall of his chest against my back. The heat of his skin seeps into mine through the thin T-shirt I pulled on sometime during the night.
Safe.
That’s the word that keeps circling through my head.
I feel safe.
Of all three of them, I thought Ghost would be the one who kept his distance. The cold one. The one who watches and calculates but doesn’t feel. The sniper who takes the shot and walks away without looking back.
But last night proved me wrong.
His hands were gentle on my body. He touched my stomach—the small swell where his baby grows—with something close to wonder in his eyes.
I don’t know what to do with that information. Don’t know how to reconcile the Ghost who barely speaks, who watches the world through dark, emotionless eyes, with the Ghost who held me last night.
His hand shifts on my stomach now, fingers spreading wide like he’s trying to cover as much of me as possible. Protecting.
Ghost is the biological father. And while I was mostly just relieved it isn’t Marcus—thank God it isn’t Marcus—there’s something about knowing it’s Ghost that feels right, like this was always how it was supposed to be.
I turn carefully in his arms, trying not to wake him. But his eyes are already open when I face him, dark and alert. Watching me.
“How long have you been awake?” I whisper.
“A while.”
“Creep. You’ve just been lying there watching me sleep?”
