Chapter Twenty-Seven
Seraphina
Sweet Child O’ Mine – Jasmine Thompson
Everyone filters back into the room, their footsteps quiet against the polished floor, but I can feel the shift in energy. I stay close to Trey, my hand brushing his arm, my stomach still fluttering from the tension of the morning, from the weight of everything we’ve just been through, of what is to come.
Trey waits until they’re all in, until every gaze is on him, before he finally stands, his body stretching tall, the muscles of his chest flexing with a slow, lazy ease, the grey sweatpants hanginglow on his hips. Then he smiles, that wicked, dangerous smile that makes the air itself feel hotter, and he points at himself with a teasing tilt of his head.
“Who’s your daddy?” he teases, then answers himself without missing a beat. “I am.”
I can’t stop the laugh that slips out, my head shaking as I look at him. “Okay, daddy. Sit down.”
“Shit, Logan, I owe you five bucks,” Sam sighs.
Logan just grins, already leaning in to press a quick kiss to Mac.
Trey’s eyes flare, the green of them bright and sharp, and in a heartbeat he’s lunging at me. “Fuck. Say that again, baby.”
I frown. “Sit down?”
“No. The part where you called me daddy,” he growls, biting his lip, eyes roaming mine with a hunger that makes my knees weak, makes the air between us tense with anticipation and mischief.
Everyone groans, some hiding it, some not, but I can feel their eyes burning against my skin, and suddenly the room feels impossibly small, impossibly intimate.
“Maybe later?” He asks, hopeful. My cheeks flush hot betraying me. I hide a smile and nod.
Trey’s grin spreads wider and the heat in his gaze makes me shiver from the inside out. The room fills with voices again, Chace and Niko taking control with a quiet authority that draws everyone’s attention, their words low and strategic as they begin to dissect what we watched earlier. What it means, what comes next, but none of it truly reaches me, not in any way that matters, because the moment the noise rises, something inside me slips, tilting the world just enough that I no longer feel fully drawn in.
I remain where I am beside Trey, aware of him in the most instinctive way, the heat of his body at my back, the subtle brushof his hand against mine, yet my thoughts are already spiraling somewhere far beyond this room, far beyond this moment, caught in something I cannot seem to pull myself out of.
Pregnant.
The word echoes through me, again and again.
I’m pregnant.
It’s a thrill, a high to think of. Blunting the other fears that had been biting into me. My hand drifts almost unconsciously, pressing lightly against my stomach as though I might feel something already, as though there might be some sign—some undeniable proof—that this is real, that there is a life growing inside me, something fragile and innocent and entirely dependent on me staying alive.
On me staying free.
A cold, suffocating wave crashes through me so suddenly it steals the breath from my lungs. My peace dissolves, my mind betrays me as flashes of the basement appear. The cold stone floor. A stream running red.
Of Gideon.
What would he do if he knew?
He would spit venom. Callous hatred wrapped in delusion. I won’t let this baby ever hear his rotten voice. My stomach turns violently.
Calm down, Seraphina. Breathe. Then how did Johnathon know?
The memory hits me with brutal clarity, his voice, his certainty, the way he said it like it was fact, like it had already been decided long before I ever had the chance to question it.
You’re carrying my grandchild.
A tremor runs through me.
He didn’t guess.
