45. Michael
Michael
The city looked like it was made of neon lies.
From the balcony of my penthouse, the strip spread out below me — glittering, pulsing, breathing like a monster that fed on desperation and cheap dreams. Car lights smeared the roads. Music pulsed through the floor. Some drunk cackled two floors down.
Vegas never slept.
And tonight, neither could I.
The scotch in my hand didn’t help.
Didn’t numb a damn thing.
I took a slow drink anyway, letting the burn settle under my tongue.
The clinic was behind me.
The dinner with the council was behind me.
And Krystal’s fake serenity — the forced smiles, the brittle laugh, the padded maternity bump strapped under her designer dress — burned a hole in my brain.
Roman bought it.
Redmond bought it.
Everyone at that table bought it.
Except Krystal hated every minute of it.
Her teeth practically ground down to dust.
Good.
I hated every minute of it too.
The pregnancy timeline was already fucked, and we all knew it.
She’d “miscarry” later.
Then “get pregnant again.”
That would buy us more time if the RICO net didn’t close fast enough.
But even when RICO hit, I knew the truth:
These bastards wouldn’t go down clean.
They wouldn’t go down without blood.
Once handcuffed, once exposed, they’d still send every stray dog in their empire after me… after Brett… and God help them if they ever found out about Kate.
They’d hunt her to the ends of the earth.
And the thought of that made my scotch taste like poison.
I pressed the glass to my forehead.
The memory of the fertility clinic hit me like a punch to the gut.
The sterile smell.
The doctor with the dead eyes.
The fucking cup.
I’d never felt filthier.
I had Krystal outside the room pretending to play obedient wife, while the staff looked at me like I was just another mobster submitting to the machine.
I hated every second.
So I did what I had to do to get through it.
I thought of Kate.
Her laugh.
Her eyes.
Her voice when she moaned my name under fireworks.
Her skin against mine the night we had something real, something beautiful, something that wasn’t wrapped in lies and obligations.
I pictured her face.
Her breath.
Her wanting.
And only then could I finish.
But after…
After I handed that jar over, a part of me died.
The idea that my DNA — mine — was being used to create a child with a woman who wasn’t my wife?
It burned like acid.
But I wasn’t going to think of it that way.
Not anymore.
This baby wouldn’t be Krystal’s child.
Not really.
She’d never raise it.
Never claim it.
Never have a say in its life.
She could barely hold a gun without shaking, let alone hold a baby without dropping it.
This child would be Kate’s.
My real wife.
My real partner.
The only woman I’d ever love.
Kate would raise it.
Kate would hold it.
Kate would name it.
Kate would be its mother in every sense that mattered.
Krystal was just a necessary evil.
A means to the only end that mattered:
Freeing us.
Freeing our future.
Freeing the child growing inside Kate — though she didn’t know I wasn’t aware of that yet.
I closed my eyes—if I could just see her.
Touch her.
Smell her hair.
Hear her heart beat against mine.
The ache in my chest tightened into something brutal.
I leaned forward, gripping the balcony railing with one hand and my drink with the other.
Vegas glowed beneath me, a glittering hell I was chained to.
My wife was hundreds of miles away, hiding in the woods. And I was stuck here, playing husband to a woman I’d sooner throw off this balcony than touch again.
Another sip of scotch burned down my throat.
“Hold on, baby,” I whispered into the night. “Just hold on. I’m coming back to you.”
And I would.
Even if I had to kill every man in this city to do it.
The call came in just after dawn.
Unknown number.
Nevada area code.
I already knew who it was.
I stared at the phone for a beat.
My heart kicked once—hard—because for one insane second, I thought:
Kate.
But then I remembered the world I lived in.
The chains I was still dragging.
I answered.
“Mr. Waters,” the doctor said, smooth and clinical. “Congratulations. Your wife is pregnant.”
It hit like a punch.
Not the news.
Not the pregnancy.
The word wife.
For one beautiful, blinding heartbeat, my mind went to Kate.
Then reality came crashing down.
“Good,” I said, voice flat, controlled. “Send me the file. All records to my encrypted line.”
“We will. Congratulations again.”
The line clicked dead.
I stood there for a minute, phone in my hand, staring out at Vegas through floor-to-ceiling glass.
The city glittered like a whore in gold.
Empty.
Cheap.
Hungry.
I hated this place.
I hated this life.
And I hated that the child I’d been forced to create would have its start here.
I went downstairs to tell Krystal.
She was curled up on the sofa, fake lashes, fake tan, fake everything.
Her bump wouldn’t show for weeks, but she already had a hand on her stomach like she was starring in some delusional soap opera.
“Krystal.”
She looked up sharply. “What now, Michael?”
“You’re pregnant.”
For a second, something in her face softened. The hope. The fear. The confusion.
Then reality hit her, too.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Listen.” I knelt down until I was eye-level with her. “You’re going to eat clean. Organic. You’re not touching drugs. Or alcohol. Or anything that could harm this baby. You hear me?”
She rolled her eyes.
I slammed my hand into the wall beside her head so hard the frame rattled.
“Krystal,” I growled, “you are not hurting my child.”
Her eyes widened. She swallowed.
“I—I won’t. Okay? God. Relax.”
“I’m ordering the chef to make all your meals. If I smell a drop of booze, I’ll lock you in your room again. Krystal, I swear to God?—”
“Fine!” she snapped. “I GET IT.”
“Good. Buy whatever the fuck you want. Paris, Milan, I don’t care. Maternity clothes, baby clothes, jewelry—knock yourself out. Just stay sober.”
I stood and walked out before she could answer.
Upstairs, I closed the door to my private office and called Brett.
He answered in one ring.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Congratulations,” I said softly. “You’re a godfather.”
Silence.
Then a sharp inhale.
“Holy shit,” Brett breathed. “We actually did it.”
“We did.”
A beat.
Then Brett said what I already knew.
“Roman’s wheels-up. He’s going back east.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“You know what that means.”
“I do.”
War.
Shifting power.
Lines being drawn.
Blood getting spilled.
And me in Vegas, neck-deep in a role I couldn’t play much longer.
“But Brett,” I said quietly, staring out at the strip, “I need to get back to my wife.”
He went still.
“My real wife,” I clarified. “I need to look Kate in the eyes and tell her I’ve got a child coming into this world with someone else. I need to tell her myself. I need—fuck—I need to see her, Brett. I can’t stay away. I can’t live like this. Not anymore.”
“Michael…”
“I’m dying here,” I snapped. “I can’t keep living a double life. I can’t pretend marriage with Krystal while my real wife is hiding in the damn woods alone. Let me go to her.”
Brett exhaled hard.
“This can be nine months, bud. Nine months and then you’re free.”
“I won’t last nine months.”
“You have to.”
Silence stretched.
Then:
“Give me cover,” I said. “Tell them I’m meeting with the Russians. Babysit Krystal. Keep her drug-free. Keep her idiot uncle off her. And then get me back east under the radar.”
“And Kate?” Brett asked.
“I’ll find her at your safe house, right?”
A small pause.
Then:
“…yeah,” Brett said softly. “You will.”
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in weeks, I could breathe.
“I’m going home,” I whispered.
I left the SUV hidden a mile out, walked the deer path through the pines, boots silent on the damp earth. The night was cold, but my blood was already on fire.
Inside, the house was dark and asleep. I knew every creak, every shadow. I moved like smoke up the stairs, pulse hammering in my throat, cock already thick and aching just from the thought of her.
The bedroom door stood ajar. Moonlight spilled across the bed in a silver blade, and there she was.
My wife.
Tangled in the sheets, one leg kicked free, the thin cotton of her nightgown rucked high on her thighs. Her back arched in a slow, restless roll; her lips parted on a broken sigh that sounded exactly like my name.
It punched the air from my lungs.
I stripped in the doorway, shirt, belt, jeans, everything hitting the floor without a sound.
Naked, half-hard and shaking, I slid into the bed behind her.
The mattress dipped; the sheets were warm from her body.
She made a small, needy sound in her throat and pressed back against me before her eyes ever opened, like her body recognized mine in its sleep.
I curved around her, chest to her spine, one arm sliding under the soft weight of her breast, the other splayed low over the gentle swell of her belly. She felt different (fuller, heavier, ripe in a way that made my mouth water and my heart slam against my ribs).
I brushed my lips along the nape of her neck, breathing her in. She smelled like sleep and warm skin and home.
“Michael?” A cracked whisper, thick with dreams.
I answered by dragging my mouth down the slope of her shoulder, teeth grazing, tongue tasting the salt of her skin.
My hand cupped her breast so much heavier now, spilling over my palm and her nipple was already a tight, aching bead against my fingers.
I rolled it slowly, gently, then not gently at all.
She gasped, hips jerking back, the soft cleft of her ass cradling my cock. I was fully hard now, pulsing against her, slick already at the tip.
“Tell me you’re real,” she breathed, voice trembling on the edge of tears.
I slid my hand lower, over the curve of her stomach, down between her thighs. She was drenched. Swollen, slick, open like she’d been dreaming of this exact moment. I parted her with two fingers, circled her clit once, slow, then pushed inside.
The heat. Tight, wet silk gripping me.
She cried out, a soft, broken sound that went straight to my balls.
“I’m real, baby,” I growled against her ear. “Feel how real.”