“Wanting to leave the compound for an hour isn’t a crime, Ash!”
“It is when there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on your head!”
We’re both yelling. Ghost steps between us. “Enough,” he says. “Both of you.”
Ash glares at him. “Stay out of this.”
“No. You’re both worked up and saying shit you don’t mean.” Ghost looks at me. “Go cool off. We’ll talk later.”
“Don’t tell her what to do,” Titan says.
Ghost turns to him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Stop ordering her around like you’re in charge.”
“Someone needs to be in charge since neither of you can keep your heads on straight.”
“Fuck you,” Titan says.
“Fuck you,” Ghost shoots back.
I watch them argue. Watch Ash’s jaw clench tighter and tighter. Watch the three of them start to fracture right in front of me. This is the hundredth time I’ve seen this. The jealousy. The bickering. The tension that shouldn’t exist between brothers.
And I’m the cause of it.
“Stop,” I say.
They keep arguing.
“Stop!” I shout.
They finally go quiet. All three of them looking at me.
“I’m going to my old room,” I say. “Alone. I need one night to think without all of you crowding me.”
“Bonnie—” Ash starts.
“No. I’m done arguing about this.” I head for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I leave before any of them can stop me.
My old room feels like a stranger’s space. I haven’t slept here in a while. The bed is made with sheets I don’t remember washing. Dust covers the surfaces. I sit on the edge of the mattress and put my head in my hands.
This is falling apart. The arrangement. The relationship. Whatever this is between the four of us—it’s crumbling.
I love them. All three of them. But loving them isn’t enough when they can’t stop fighting over me, when their friendship is fracturing because of jealousy and possessiveness and fear.
Ash has barely looked at my stomach since we got the paternity results. He says all the right things—that it doesn’t matter, that he’ll raise the baby as his—but I see the way his jaw tightens when Ghost touches me. The way he leaves the room when Titan talks about the future.
He’s disappointed. He won’t say it out loud, but I know. The baby isn’t his. And some part of him resents that.
I press my hand to my stomach. I’m going to be a mother.
I’m nineteen years old. Married to one man, in love with three. Pregnant with a baby that could tear them all apart. Living in a compound surrounded by enemies who want me dead or captured.
How am I supposed to raise a child in this chaos?
How am I supposed to be a mother when I can barely take care of myself?
A knock on the door interrupts my spiral.
