Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
My body was growing life in addition to working practically round-the-clock. All the nonstop worrying I was doing about Jay, the future of our marriage and Wren’s state of mind. Then there was all the end of the world sex I was having. Which was what it felt like every night. Like we were the only two people left at the end of the world, moments away from certain death, clinging onto each other for dear life. For one last time.
It was mind blowing but terrifying. Yet despite that, I sank into oblivion. I couldn’t be sure he came directly back to bed, but I knew he’d slept at some point because my bladder always woke me in the night, and he’d be clinging to my body with an iron grip.
This night I fought sleep because even hormones couldn’t battle against the fear that Jay was slipping away from me.
I spoke as he stood up, naked, his silhouette carved out of the moonlight.
“I can survive this,” I spoke to his scarred back. “I can handle all of this. Your life. What comes with it. Although I didn’t think I could, I can.” Jay hadn’t turned. “Despite what you likely tell yourself daily, I chose this. I chose you. So I can survive this part of your life. This part of our lives. Because I made vows. I made promises about lifetimes and forevers.” I sucked in an unsteady breath, tears welling up in my eyes. “Those aren’t just promises, they’re oaths, Jay. For better or for worse. And as long as I have you, I can survive the worst that life may throw at us, even if you doubt that. Even if you hate yourself for it. I can and will survive. For us. For you. I’m not going anywhere. What I can’t survive, what I won’t survive, is losing you. Losing the parts of you that were only mine. I don’t blame you. For any of this. I don’t hate you, Jay. I love you.”
I was crying now. Tears silently trailing down my cheek, Jay’s back still to me.
Jay was silent for a long time. Too long.
“You should hate me,” he replied finally. “I deserve it. I don’t deserve your love, Stella.”
And then he walked into the bathroom. Got the washcloth, cleaned me up, then left me in bed alone to quietly cry myself to sleep.
Chapter 17
They shot Eric. In the face. In broad daylight.
I might’ve screamed. Or maybe I had been in too much shock to do so. Everything had been normal, I was sipping my coffee—decaf—Eric was talking about how Kieran wanted him to move in, but he personally thought it was too soon. I was urging him to go for it, nothing was too soon when it came to love and all that. Then I was teasing the big, bad, hulking badass for being absolutely terrified in the face of love.
I was teasing him while thinking about how I was going to tell my husband that I was pregnant, punishing myself for keeping this secret locked inside me. It was hypocritical, me holding this in while I’d demanded that we have no more secrets. But I was afraid. Not afraid of the man Jay was currently, the man who’d had to embrace the darkest parts of himself in order to fight this war. No, I knew that he was scared, scared of what might happen to me, what had already happened to Wren.
There was barely any time to have the life altering kind of conversation that I knew it would be. What had happened to Wren had altered things. Had thrust his dangerous and wicked life out of the shadows and into the daylight. The danger had gone from being some faceless, foreign entity to something real, something tangible enough to live as a scar on my arm and a wound in my heart. The reality of what Jay’s life entailed—what he’d been trying to protect me from by leaving—had hit. Had stolen my husband away from me. Yes, he was still in our bed every night, except when he left in the dark hours then came back. He always showered first. Once, I’d gotten up to shower with him. The water was light pink, diluted with the blood he was covered in. I helped him wash it off.
Jay still fucked me, with urgency, hunger and violence. But he was mentally gone, and I hoped that when this was over, I’d get him back.
Jay was doing everything and anything he could do to end this, to win this war. Meanwhile, he was letting blood stain our home.
Oh, the things men did to show they cared.
He could not say it. He could barely speak to me. It didn’t anger me, though it frustrated me, broke my heart, I did not blame him for it. I understood it. Jay had fought many of these kinds of wars in his time, covered himself in plenty of blood. I figured that in order to get to the top of the criminal hierarchy, you had to get comfortable with death and violence.