His voice is low, rough, breaking. “Sparrow, I thought I had lost you.”
I can feel the way his chest tightens, the way his whole body tenses to keep himself from shaking. We clutch each other as if everything else is imaginary — the walls, the bed, the world outside. I can still taste the basement on my tongue, still feel the phantom ache in my wrists and the sticky terror on my skin. But here, with Breaker’s hand holding me, the fear lifts, not vanishing, not entirely, not yet, but retreating to the far corners where it belongs.
He leans back just enough to look at me; his knuckles are split and stained, but his thumb is tender as it grazes my cheekbone. My face is a mess, I know it: nose running, eyes red-rimmed, hair clumped in wild directions. He stares at me like I’m the last thing he’ll ever see, and for a second, that’s exactly what I want to be.
“Look at me,” Breaker says, and I am helpless to disobey.
I look. He is more beautiful now than he has ever been: raw, ruined, unbreakable.
He swallows. “I love you.” The words are gravelly, scraped raw, but true. “I love you, Riley. I love you, and I have something I want to ask you.”
There is no air in the room. There is only the sound of my heartbeat and his voice in my ears, rough and unpracticed and so true it makes my insides shake apart.
“I love you,” I say, and it is easier than breathing, easier than swallowing. “I love you, too.”
“I want you to be my ol’ lady.”
My stomach flips, then soars. I laugh, and then I’m crying again, tears sneaking out despite my best efforts. “Yes,” I say atfirst, but the word is a mouse, so small I barely hear it. I clear my throat and set it free. “Yes. Yes. Breaker, yes, I want that. I want all of it.”
His forehead touches mine, his breath warm against my lips.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because I’m not letting you go, not ever.”
I laugh, and the sound startles me with its lightness. I press my nose to his cheek, memorizing the contour of his jaw, his stubble rough against my face.
For a while, there is only the rhythm of our breathing and the hum of the machines in the room. We say nothing, because we don’t have to. He holds me as if he’s memorizing the shape of my ribs, like he can count my heartbeats just by touch.
A knock interrupts the hush, a double-tap on the doorframe. I glance up, blinking away the tears, as a nurse slips inside. She’s got a clipboard tucked to her chest, eyes scanning the room with the calm of someone who’s seen every kind of disaster.
“Miss Monroe?” she says, uncertain.
I straighten a little, but Breaker’s arm clamps tighter, holding me close. “Yeah, that’s me.”
She glances at Breaker, raises an eyebrow, and then does the nursely calculus of whether she should ask the man to leave. “I need to speak with you. Alone, if possible.”
Breaker bristles instantly. “No.”
The nurse is unfazed. “Sir, this is private patient information.”
“It’s fine,” I cut in, suddenly needing Breaker here more than I need privacy. “He can stay.” I turn my face up to him, letting the old lady thing settle into my bones, and beam at the nurse. “He’s my… ol’ man.” The words are new, but they feel right, and saying them makes me laugh out loud.
The nurse stops mid-step. “Your… old man? Are you confused? He’s not old at all. Miss, did you hit your head? I can call the doctor. You really should sit down.”
“I feel perfect,” I say. “Just tell me whatever it is.”
The nurse’s mouth twitches, as if she’s never had a patient say that before. “Okay, then,” she says, and scans her clipboard. “We ran a full panel when you were brought in for trauma. There were some unexpected results I need to discuss with you.”
My heart twinges. “What results?”
Breaker sits up straighter, his whole body coiled. “Tell us.”
The nurse glances between us, her voice lowering. “These hospital-grade tests detect things far earlier and far more accurately than store-bought ones. So… Riley…” She lifts her eyes to mine. “You’re pregnant.”
The room stills. Breaker goes motionless beside me.
Pregnant.
The word doesn’t even echo; it just hangs suspended in my chest, lighting every part of me at once with shock, love, and hope. And something deeper than all of that, something that is soul-deep and life-changing.
