Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 110549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Axel blew out a soft breath. “All of us have noticed the similarities between you two,” Axel began, looking between me and Meghan. “But you guys kept ignoring it.”
“So, we sent off hair follicles to a DNA testing center,” Jessie said quietly.
I bristled, narrowing my eyes at him. I didn’t like where this was headed one fucking bit. Jessie squeezed my hand in response. I narrowed my eyes at Axel. “Well?” I demanded since his wife wasn’t speaking up. She looked nervous, her face pale. Julian was holding her hand in both of his, his worried eyes running over her face.
He looked like he was seriously regretting this decision, as he fucking should. They took this right away from us.
“You’re sisters,” Lincoln told me quietly.
“What?” I breathed as I turned to stare at him.
He cleared his throat. “You and Meghan are sisters,” he repeated. “Half-sisters. You share the same father.”
I swallowed thickly, my eyes welling with tears. I looked at Meghan, but her eyes were squeezed shut, her breathing shallow. I jumped up from the couch, my throat closing up with panic. I didn’t want blood family.
All my blood had done was let me down.
They had no right to do this to us.
“Baby—” Jessie soothed, lurching from the couch, but I jerked back from him, almost tripping over my feet as I did so.
“No,” I gritted. “I ignored it because I didn’t want to know if she was,” I snapped at him. I turned my angry eyes to Lincoln when he tried to move toward me. He halted as soon as he saw the angry, betrayed expression on my face. “I can’t fucking believe you two!” I shrieked. “Why would you do this?!”
“We thought you might want to know,” Lincoln said quietly. “You still have family, West—blood family that loves you and cares about you.”
My chest was too tight. The urge to run was racing through my veins like an out-of-control wildfire. They’d tainted Meghan.
The only blood I wanted was my child. My baby would never let me down.
“I—I—” I couldn’t fucking get my words out. I was freaking out.
This was too much. I didn’t want this.
“West, baby, just let us explain,” Jessie begged, regret coating his eyes.
“Why would you do this?” Meghan whimpered, drawing my eyes to her. She looked utterly betrayed as she looked between her two men. “Why would you force this on us? We didn’t want this.”
“Baby girl,” Julian said softly as he crouched in front of her, “you deserved to know.”
“Deserved, yes.” She nodded in agreement. “That doesn’t mean that I wanted to know. You took this decision away from us.”
And somehow, I knew just like Jessie and Lincoln had done, Julian and Axel had tainted her image of me, all because we shared the same blood.
Tears rushed down my face, and I quickly ran out of the room and up the stairs, locking Jessie and Lincoln out. I ignored them trying to talk to me, ignored them begging me to let them in, to let them fix this.
They’d ruined the image of the one person I had that I could rely on outside of them.
Pain suddenly twisted through my lower abdomen, and I sucked in a sharp breath, my hands fluttering to my belly. I gritted my teeth when my stomach tightened, the pain spreading to my back.
Something was wrong, but I was still too upset to open the door and tell someone.
“West?” Meghan hesitantly called from outside my bedroom door. “I want to talk.”
I reached up and swung open the door, tears sliding down my cheeks at the pain. Her eyes widened in alarm. “West?” she asked, what happened downstairs long forgotten. I squeezed my eyes shut when I felt something warm trickle onto my thighs. “Oh, God, fuck, you’re bleeding,” she choked out.
I wanted to scream. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t far enough along.
“Meghan,” I whimpered, so fucking terrified that I could barely breathe.
“I need to go get Lincoln and Jessie,” she told me.
I shook my head, terrified to be alone. I opened my mouth to speak, but that block came up hard as more pain sliced through my belly. I sobbed. She wrapped her arms around me, holding me tightly as she scrambled through her phone.
“Julian?” she asked when she put him on speaker.
“Baby,” he breathed. “Fuck, I’m so—”
“I need help,” she whimpered. “West, she—she’s—something is wrong with the baby.”
“Shit,” Julian swore. “Jessie, Lincoln!” he bellowed, the sound reaching me not only through the phone but through the walls of the house.
Julian hung up, and a moment later, I heard the familiar sound of Jessie’s and Lincoln’s boots pounding up the stairs. Lincoln moved first, quickly lifting me up into his arms. “Breathe,” he coaxed. “Baby, I need you to breathe. We’re going to get you help,” he promised.
Breathe? How the fuck was I supposed to breathe?