Page 127 of In the Dark

“And what? Annarose would be your last chance?”

“She’d be easily controllable with the right husband.” He lifted his chin. “We could have kept this in the family. We still can.”

His eyes narrowed on my belly, and that’s when I was sure he’d completely lost his mind. He couldn’t see right from wrong in his desperation.

Instinctively, I put my hand over it, and Callahan stepped in front of me. “Threaten my wife or our child, and it’ll be your last breath, Monte.”

He turned to me, his voice suddenly consoling. “I’m your uncle. Think of Perla and of your cousins. I raised you. I’ve spared your life countless times.”

He had. Over and over again, but he’d done it as a means to an end, not because he loved me. Not because he cared.

Because he needed a womb.

“And I’ll spare yours,” I murmured, but then I looked to my husband.

I looked to my partner.

I looked to the man who waited for me to command him on what I wanted.

“I’ll spare yours, sweet uncle of mine, but I don’t really know if my husband will.” I let the words fall casually from my lips. “It’s quite a lot of work to carry a child into this world, and so sometimes I let my husband make decisions for me.”

“A child?” Monte put the pieces together fast, I’d give him that. “You’re pregnant? Already?”

“Quite pregnant, dear tío. So smart you are. So smart that you put together a shoddy plan to ambush a world power on his yacht—”

“Our yacht,” Callahan corrected. But then he waved me on.

“And threaten the woman carrying his child.”

“The woman I love very much who is carrying our child,” Callahan said, a smile playing on his lips.

“Jasmina …” Monte started again, but I was tired and nodded to Callahan.

That’s when I saw his shoulders relax as he breathed out, “Thank God, I’m done listening to you. You’re done. Don’t burden my wife with pleading for your life. She’s tired from carrying our child.”

“I am. I’m going back to bed. Dispose of this atrocity, Knight. And make it hurt.”

I handed him my gun and kissed him deeply in front of my uncle before walking off.

I didn’t hear a single sound, but Callahan didn’t return for a couple of hours. In that time, Archer had come to my room to tell me he would be outside my door, but before that, he brought the cat carrier and my crochet materials. “Callahan sent for them.”

Of course he did.

And when my husband came back to bed that night, I knew it was time to show him.

I pulled the SD card from my suitcase.

“What’s that?”

“Something my father left me.”

“Okay. Care to tell me what’s on it?”

“I … well, I don’t know.” I took a breath. “I found it the night of the robbery, and then, well, I didn’t want to look at first because I knew you were watching my every move.”

“But then I wasn’t watching you. Why not then?”

“Because I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to change.”