15. Alison #3
Cat moves to my left. Becca takes my right. Cat’s face goes blank. Cold. Becca’s softness disappears. Bella looks between them. Penny is still sitting, watching, waiting — and somehow she’s the scariest one in the room.
Bella looks back at me. “I’m not telling anyone.”
“You swear?”
“I swear. I don’t tell your friends. I don’t tell your family. I don’t make some clever comment because I think someone already knows.” She says it like she’s reciting my own fear back to me before I can. “I won’t tell anyone.” Then, quieter…“Who knows?”
“None of your fucking business,” Cat says before I can.
“Don’t ask her again,” Becca adds, stepping closer to me.
Penny finally stands. Slowly. Bella looks at her, and Penny smiles — nothing friendly in it at all. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this.”
“For what?”
“A reason.”
“Penelope.”
“To fuck you up, Whelan.” Bella stares at her. Penny takes one step closer. “So think very carefully about what comes out of your mouth next.”
“Penny.” She looks at me. I shake my head. Barely. She stops. For me.
Bella looks at the four of us. Then at my stomach. Then at the bruises still wrapped around my arms. “Fuck.” And she turns and crosses the sitting room and locks the suite door.
Penny moves instantly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
The click echoes. Bella tests the handle. Once. Twice. When she turns back around she’s pale — actually pale, in a way I’ve never seen on her.
“Making sure nobody else walks in.” Nobody says anything. Her eyes find mine. “Does Roman know?”
My fear catches fire. “Why?”
“Does he?”
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“Okay.” Her eyes stay on mine. “Does Tremblay?”
“You do not say his name near my baby.” Bella freezes. My fingers curl protectively over my stomach. “You don’t ask about my baby. You don’t talk about my baby. And you do not tell either of those men one word about my baby.”
“I won’t.”
“If Dad finds out—“
“I know.”
“No.” My voice rises. “You don’t know.”
“Yes.” Her voice cracks straight through mine. “I fucking do.”
Silence. And she hears it a second too late — hears exactly how much certainty was in it.
Something flashes across her face that has nothing to do with Cat, or Becca, or even Penny.
It’s fear. For me. Raw and unguarded and gone almost before I can name it, buried back under whatever she keeps it under. But I saw it. We all saw it.
She swallows. “Roman doesn’t know.”
“No.”
“Tremblay?”
“No.”
Her eyes close for half a second. “Good.”
That scares me more than anything she’s said. “Why?”
“Because they can’t, Alison.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I know.”
“Then give me one.”
Bella looks at me. No smile. No clever remark.
Her eyes drop to the ring on my finger, then to the bruises on my arms — and when she speaks again, it’s quiet, and it costs her something.
“Because whatever agreement exists between Roman and Tremblay depends on you being exactly what they agreed you would be.” My stomach twists.
Her gaze drops briefly to my stomach. “This changes that. More than you understand.”
Becca’s fingers find mine. Cat goes colder beside me. Penny isn’t threatening Bella anymore — she’s listening.
Bella looks back at me. “Men like them don’t react well when something they think belongs to them changes without permission.”
The words land too intimately. Not like a warning she read somewhere. Like a thing she carries.
“You sound like you know.”
Bella goes still. And there it is — Victor’s wives, Celeste, everything she knows when nobody can explain why she knows it, all of it sitting right behind her eyes. I could push. I watch her brace for it, the way you brace for a blow you’ve already decided to take. And I don’t.
Bella waits. When I don’t ask, her eyebrows pull together, almost thrown by it. “You’re not going to ask how I know?”
“Would you tell me?”
Her lips part. “No.”
“Then I won’t.”
Something changes in her face. Small. Gone almost immediately. But it was there — surprise, and under it, something that looks unbearably like relief. Like not being made to say it is its own kind of mercy, and she isn’t used to being handed one.
“Ryan knows?” I nod. “The boys?”
“Yes.”
“Their families?”
“Yes.” She exhales, and her shoulders drop an inch. “Good.”
“Why is that good?”
“Because you’re not protecting this alone.” My anger cracks around the edges. Bella looks at Cat. Becca. Penny. Then me. “And apparently anyone who tries to get to you has to survive these three first.”
Penny folds her arms. “You’re still on the list.”
Bella looks at her. “I’d be offended if I wasn’t.” Then she looks at the dress, and her nose wrinkles. “No.”
“What?”
“This still isn’t it.”
Penny stares at her. “We just had a fucking hostage negotiation.”
“And the waistline is still wrong.” For one second nobody speaks. Then Becca laughs. Cat’s mouth twitches. I do too. Bella points at the dressing room. “Change.”
And somehow, we go back to shopping. Only now Bella knows. And everything about the way she helps changes.