What if she was learning how to live without me?
That thought hit deeper. For the first time since I arrived in this hellhole, I felt something dangerously close to fear.
Not for me.
For us.
For whatever we were now and if it would exist once I was freed.
My chest rose and fell slower, heavier. “Don’t,” I murmured, like she could hear me. “Don’t let this be the thing that ends us.”
I wouldn’t survive that. Not in any way that mattered. I exhaled slowly, forcing myself back to center. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t losing her. I repeated it as if it were a song in my head.
I knew one thing hadn’t changed in the nine days I’d been locked behind these bars…
She was mine.
I wasn’t giving her up.
At least not without a fight.
CHAPTER
NINE
ISLA
Another week dragged on,and it didn’t feel real. Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket, completely turning on its axis with Julius being behind bars for over two weeks now.
It’d been fourteen days since I stopped knowing where I stood in my own life.
Now, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at myself, trying to recognize someone I used to be.
My hand rested low on my stomach. I’d been doing that a lot without thinking. I may have looked the same on the outside, but on the inside, it didn’t feel that way. Especially not after the terrifying certainty that settled into my chest sometime in the middle of every night.
I’m pregnant.
I deeply sighed, my fingers lightly pressing into my stomach. I could feel something already there, growing inside me.
A soft knock broke through the silence. “I’m ready when you are.”
Kraven.
“Okay,” I answered, my voice quieter than I meant it to be. “Just a second.”
I didn’t move right away, standing there a little longer with my hand still resting against my stomach. My heart beat too fast. I desperately tried to steady myself before stepping into whatever today was about to become, and I wasn’t ready for any of it.
I didn’t have a choice. Dropping my hand, I turned and opened the door. Kraven stood there, watching me like he was trying to read something I hadn’t said yet.
“You okay?” he asked.
I unconsciously nodded. “Yeah.”
It was a lie. We both knew it, yet neither of us called it out. He stepped back to give me space to pass, but as I moved by him, I felt the shift in the air, this awareness of what was to come.
The tension had been building over the past two weeks, threading tighter with every shared moment between us. The ride to our destination was quiet, uncomfortable, just waiting…
There were too many things sitting between us for our words to make any sense. I stared aimlessly out the window, watching the world blur past, trying to focus on something that wasn’t the elephant on my chest. Or maybe it was the man sitting beside me with the reality of where we were going.
