I GRABBED MY stomach.
I’m pregnant.
We’re pregnant.
We’re having a baby.
I’m going to be a mom.
I could barely comprehend the thought. Bane and I had been tricked. I glanced at Bane and he was intently watching my stomach.
In between birth control packs, it wasn’t uncommon for me not to have a period. I’d spotted a little, but that was normal. It never crossed my mind that I could be pregnant.
Was he happy about this? This morning he’d told me there was no future for us. My heart broke in two. Now, I had a life within me. A life made with two people who gave something to each other. Silently, I made a vow. I’ll love you always and forever. We’ll find a way through this. Your daddy swore he’ll get us out of this. It’ll be okay if it’s me and you, kiddo.
Would Bane want to be part of this baby’s life? I wasn’t sure.
Frankie writhed on the floor and my heart ached at the sight of my brother in pain. It had been necessary, but I’d always wonder if there was another way. In the bathroom, Hampton snuck a knife and instructed me to run to Bane. Apparently Hampton was on our side. I trusted no one except … Bane.
There was a man still in the bedroom that hadn’t made his presence known. When I’d walked in, I’d nearly yelped but the gun pointed at me froze me in my place. The scar running along his face would be something that haunted my dreams. Whoever he was, he was bad news.
My head hurt and I felt woozy. I swayed. Bane went to move but stayed rooted as he remembered himself. Hampton spoke as he grabbed my arm to support me, “Should she sit? The last thing we need is for her to fall and hurt the baby. The entire plan hinges on that baby.”
Baby.
Baby.
Baby.
“Fuck, your right. Sit, Maren. Keep drinking.”
Bane watched me intently and there was relief in his eyes when I sat. The small sips were refreshing and helping. I was tired and hungry. Pregnant. I had to be barely pregnant, like a few weeks pregnant. Besides the nausea this morning, I hadn’t experienced anything I’d heard about pregnancy.
Frankie moaned again. How could he have intentionally done this to me? To the baby? He knew what he was doing. Why? It had to be for money.
Bane’s raspy voice broke my thoughts, “So what is all this about? Did you get her pregnant to kill her in front of me again, like Jasmine and Faith?”
Jasmine and Faith. Wife. Baby. Dead.
“No, it’s always been about you coming back to Black Division.” The voice came from the doorway and it was the man who had been in the bedroom.
Bane looked as if he’d been struck. “Sarge. What the fuck?”
The man walked toward the middle of the room. My natural instinct was to recoil from him as I got a good look at the scar that ran jagged along his face. The dark crew-cut hair only added to the menacing look.
The man Bane called Sarge took a chair from the kitchen table and dragged it to the middle of the room. The metal dragging along the floor caused me to look away and cringe. “When you left Black Division initially, I knew it was because of that cunt, Jasmine. I wasn’t going to let some piece of tail take my best asset. On your last trip, I’d followed you. Saw you two confess your love to each other. Figured you’d return there with that romantic notion you told me about living your life and maybe starting a family.”
Sarge scoffed, “Men like you aren’t meant to be happy, Bane. Men like you are meant to fight—cause chaos and destruction. That’s what you do. The plan to kill Jasmine had been in place from the moment you asked to leave. After Jasmine and the baby’s death, you came back. We’d agreed to only six missions, but I figured you’d become addicted to it and want to stay. You didn’t.”
This wasn’t happening. How could this be real? Bane spoke, barely holding it together. “How’s Eric still alive? I saw a bullet go through his head.”
Sarge cut right to the chase. “We looked far and wide for someone with genetic similarities to Eric. It was Eric in the exam room. When I punched him, we pretended it dislocated his jaw. That man Hampton shot in the head was some dumb fuck we’d found who’d pass facial recognitions after having some surgeries. His jaw had been broken, so he wasn’t able to speak. The tattoos were done to match Eric’s exactly. The incoherent moans of pain before Hampton pulled the trigger were probably him trying to say he wasn’t Eric.”
Bane worked hard to control his breathing. Hampton looked unaffected from what I could tell. Of course, he probably knew all of this prior to today since he’d been with them. After a few moments, Bane’s eyes took on a deathless stare, unleashing all the hate hidden in those depths. I shuddered. “How’d you know I’d go for Maren?”
“We didn’t. Over the past two years, there have been hundreds of women we put in your path. They’d all had their birth control switched. We needed you to fall for one of them. The security girl in your building, the mail delivery girl, people at the bars you visited, several girls on work projects were all purposefully put in your path. You fell for none of them. That is until … Maren. When you went for her, we worked fast to get the condoms switched out.”
My head spun. All along I’d been used to get a baby in order to keep Bane in line.