With my fork, I poke at the pancakes on the plate in front of me. The sickly-sweet smell of maple syrup makes my stomach roll over. “It’s probably a tumor.”
Showing great forbearance, she refrains from smacking me. “It’s not a tumor.”
“Then it’s Lyme disease. Bugs have always found me tasty.”
“Can you be serious for a second? I’m really worried about you.”
When I glance up, I find her watching me with concern in her eyes. Sighing, I say, “I’m fine. Pinky swear. It’s just…you know.” I make a vague gesture to encompass the general fuckery of my life. “The situation.”
When she makes a scrunchy face, I say offhandedly, “I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m on the birth control shot.”
It’s only when she narrows her eyes at me that my heart skips a beat.
Wait. How long ago did I have my last shot?
Swallowing back the acid taste of the bile rising in my throat, I start frantically calculating dates in my head.
I was with Mal for three months. It’s been three weeks since I got back.
How long before I went to Russia did I get the shot?
My brain, which has been so unhelpful to me lately, cheerfully provides the precise answer: six weeks.
It was the week before Valentine’s Day, which means that the shot would have been effective until about the beginning or middle of May.
I was with Mal until the middle of June.
It’s now the second week of July.
And I haven’t had a period yet.
Oh, fuck.
Sloane says sharply, “Riley?”
“Yep.” Avoiding her eyes, I stare at my pancakes as if the winning lottery numbers are in the syrup. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
“So you’re covered?”
“Yep. I’m due for another shot, but seeing as how I won’t be having sex with anyone but myself for the rest of my life, I might not bother.”
Shitfuckpisscrap. Fucktrumpet cumbubble!
She exhales. “We should get you to a doctor for a checkup, anyway. This isn’t normal.”
“I’m fine. I promise. It’s just depression, that’s all.”
After a moment of silence, she stands up, rounds the table, and hugs me.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she whispers. “Don’t forget that I love you.”
This bitch is trying to kill me. She’s never told me she loves me before. Not ever that I can remember in our whole lives.
My voice breaks when I say it back.
Then a hot wave of nausea hits me. I run to the kitchen sink and throw up.
Panting, eyes watering, leaning over the sink staring at the contents of my stomach, I wonder how the hell I’m going to smuggle a pregnancy test into a safe house.
As it turns out, I don’t have to. I find three unopened boxes of pregnancy tests in a drawer in Sloane’s bathroom when I’m rummaging around for a bottle of shampoo.
It only takes one of them to deliver the news.
My heart thudding, I stare at the two little pink lines in the window on the white plastic stick and whisper, “Your daddy’s a jerk, kiddo.”
Then I do the only reasonable thing left to do.
I burst into tears.
47
Riley
I spend the rest of that day in a haze. I go to bed, pull the covers over my head, and try to think clearly about what I should do next.
It’s useless. My brain is broken.
To match the other broken organ inside my chest.
Now, Mal will have another reason to want to keep me away. An even more powerful reason. It isn’t only my safety at stake.
I’ve got a baby gangster on board.
And if Mal is so protective that he’d keep me at arm’s length for my own safety, I can imagine exactly what a nutcase he’d be if he discovered I’m pregnant.
He’d probably move to another planet. He’d set up shop on Mercury and run the Russian Bratva from there.
I don’t sleep at all that night. By the next morning, I’ve decided I just need to put one foot in front of the other and deal with the most obvious thing first.
I have to tell my sister that I’m pregnant with the child of the assassin who swore vengeance on the man she loves for the murder of his brother.
Jesus on a cracker. How does that conversation start?
As it turns out, it doesn’t, because Sloane has her own important news to share.
She knocks on my door, poking her head in when I don’t answer.
“You awake?”
From under the covers, I exhale a leaden breath. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Come on in.”