Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

I froze.

When she didn’t say anything, I slowly turned to look at her.

However, she handed me a small Christmas present. “From Ethan.”

Because they were from Ethan, I wanted to throw them out the window.

However, Gigi came over, eating her canned yams with a spoon. “What did you get, Mommy?”

Taking the box from her, I opened it. Inside sat a massive diamond ring with diamonds in a four-leaf clover.

“It’s pretty, Mommy!” Gigi grinned.

“He said he would have gotten it as a necklace, but you would say it was a collar,” Evelyn replied.

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I was too tired. Instead of a collar, Ethan ended up giving me a diamond ring, like a celebrity who had stepped out on his wife and wanted to be forgiven.

However, that was the least of my issues. Ethan could have chosen any style of diamonds, but he had picked a four-leaf clover. That, plus Evelyn’s words meant…the four of us.

“Four is a lucky number.” Evelyn smiled.

I did not speak. Because I didn’t know how to feel about this. If I were pregnant, he could have only found out after…after when? I paused, trying to think,

but too many thoughts came to me at once.

Like when did we get on different pages?

When did his plan change?

Everything was going according to our plans until…until I was poisoned.

That son of fucking bitch.

He had known since then. He had been so concerned with making sure I rested and didn’t stress because he had fucking known then!

This was why he stopped me?

This!

Fucking controlling son of a no-good two-bit motherfucker!

He had never planned on letting me go. He was giving himself time. Time for whatever drug he’d been working on. He had lied and pretended to agree so I would tell him everything I knew.

He stopped me because he wanted another kid? A kid? Another fucking kid? That was it?

“I worked so hard,” I whispered, feeling a tear slide out of the corner of my eye. No one understood this feeling but me—even I wasn’t sure if I understood this feeling. I wasn’t sure if I was angrier at not finishing my plans, or pissed that it was Ethan who had stopped me. Or pissed at this baby. It was going to be a boy, wasn’t it? Only men could cause me this much emotional distress.

“You did, so very hard, and it wasn’t for nothing. Look around. You earned and fought for so much that your daughter drives a toy Bentley and has a life-sized dollhouse outside. You achieved more than anyone else. Don’t let the one thing you didn’t get cloud you from seeing that…put a light to the ring.”

I didn’t know what she meant. She offered me a small flashlight. Taking the ring out of the box, I put the light on it, and it cast pictures around the whole room.

“It’s me, Mommy!” Gigi exclaimed as she got out of her car to look up.

It was pictures of her. Not just her, though. When I turned the ring, there were pictures of Ethan and me. All the images we’d taken over the years together. Some with his family and me. Photos I’d never seen before of myself…even of me sleeping. It was our lives in diamonds.

“Mommy, that one’s messed up.” Gigi pointed to the blurry black and white photo. But it wasn’t blurry. It was as clear as an ultrasound could have been. Leave it to Ethan to do a pregnancy reveal for me and not the other way around.

“Being a Callahan comes with a lot of pain,” Evelyn said as she looked over the photos, too. “But there are also a lot of smiles. We just have to work hard for them. Fight for them. We have to glue ourselves back together when we are broken. As the head, Mrs. Callahan, it’s your job to make sure it happens, no matter what, and despite everything. This was what you wanted, too, remember?”