Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Seraphina
Sweet Child O’ Mine – Jasmine Thompson
Everyone filters back into the room, their footsteps quiet against the polished floor, but I can feel the shift in energy.
I stay close to Trey, my hand brushing his arm, my stomach still fluttering from the tension of the morning, from the weight of everything we’ve just been through, of what is to come.
Trey waits until they’re all in, until every gaze is on him, before he finally stands, his body stretching tall, the muscles of his chest flexing with a slow, lazy ease, the grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips.
Then he smiles, that wicked, dangerous smile that makes the air itself feel hotter, and he points at himself with a teasing tilt of his head.
“Who’s your daddy?” he teases, then answers himself without missing a beat. “I am.”
I can’t stop the laugh that slips out, my head shaking as I look at him. “Okay, daddy. Sit down.”
“Shit, Logan, I owe you five bucks,” Sam sighs.
Logan just grins, already leaning in to press a quick kiss to Mac.
Trey’s eyes flare, the green of them bright and sharp, and in a heartbeat he’s lunging at me. “Fuck. Say that again, baby.”
I frown. “Sit down?”
“No. The part where you called me daddy,” he growls, biting his lip, eyes roaming mine with a hunger that makes my knees weak, makes the air between us tense with anticipation and mischief.
Everyone groans, some hiding it, some not, but I can feel their eyes burning against my skin, and suddenly the room feels impossibly small, impossibly intimate.
“Maybe later?” He asks, hopeful. My cheeks flush hot betraying me. I hide a smile and nod.
Trey’s grin spreads wider and the heat in his gaze makes me shiver from the inside out.
The room fills with voices again, Chace and Niko taking control with a quiet authority that draws everyone’s attention, their words low and strategic as they begin to dissect what we watched earlier.
What it means, what comes next, but none of it truly reaches me, not in any way that matters, because the moment the noise rises, something inside me slips, tilting the world just enough that I no longer feel fully drawn in.
I remain where I am beside Trey, aware of him in the most instinctive way, the heat of his body at my back, the subtle brush of his hand against mine, yet my thoughts are already spiraling somewhere far beyond this room, far beyond this moment, caught in something I cannot seem to pull myself out of.
Pregnant.
The word echoes through me, again and again.
I’m pregnant.
It’s a thrill, a high to think of. Blunting the other fears that had been biting into me.
My hand drifts almost unconsciously, pressing lightly against my stomach as though I might feel something already, as though there might be some sign—some undeniable proof—that this is real, that there is a life growing inside me, something fragile and innocent and entirely dependent on me staying alive.
On me staying free.
A cold, suffocating wave crashes through me so suddenly it steals the breath from my lungs. My peace dissolves, my mind betrays me as flashes of the basement appear. The cold stone floor. A stream running red.
Of Gideon.
What would he do if he knew?
He would spit venom. Callous hatred wrapped in delusion. I won’t let this baby ever hear his rotten voice. My stomach turns violently.
Calm down, Seraphina. Breathe. Then how did Johnathon know?
The memory hits me with brutal clarity, his voice, his certainty, the way he said it like it was fact, like it had already been decided long before I ever had the chance to question it.
You’re carrying my grandchild.
A tremor runs through me.
He didn’t guess.
Jonathan doesn’t strike me as the type to guess. Everything since meeting him has been clipped, controlled…short commands, nothing wasted. Trey definitely didn’t inherit his silver tongue from his father.
Which means Jonathan already had information.
Which means he has someone inside Gideon’s circle.
He took me in the middle of the chaos.
The realization settles heavily in my chest, suffocating and cold, because if Johnathon has someone on the inside…
My skin prickles, a slow, sickening crawl of awareness spreading over me as another thought forces its way in, one I don’t want, one I try to push away, but it refuses to be silenced.
Johnathon has to have more information.
I am safe and sound in a room full of familiar faces… and still, I worry. I pick at myself. My hand presses harder against my stomach, instinctive and desperate, protective in a way that feels almost primal.
I won’t let them take me again.
A sharp panic claws its way up my throat, my chest tightening as my breathing turns shallow and uneven, my pulse racing so fast it makes the edges of my vision blur.
I can’t.
Not now.
Not when it’s not just me anymore.
Because this changes everything.
This raises the stakes in a way I don’t even know how to process yet, because it’s no longer just about surviving, no longer just about escaping, it’s about protecting something that hasn’t even had a chance to exist yet.
And Gideon…
Gideon would take that from me. Whether he calls it corruption or salvation, whether he names it sin or sacrifice, it doesn’t matter, because in his world everything becomes his to control, to shape, to destroy if it doesn’t fit the image he has built in his own mind.
A tremor moves through me, my fingers curling slightly against my stomach as fear coils tighter and tighter inside my chest, suffocating and relentless.
I can’t go back there.
I can’t fall into his hands again.
I won’t survive it this time.
And neither will this child.
The voices around me continue, low and urgent, plans being formed, strategies unfolding, but they may as well be happening in another world entirely, because all I can hear is the frantic rhythm of my own heartbeat and the single, unrelenting truth that refuses to loosen its grip on me.
I think of Trey—of Mac, Logan, Chace, of Sam—my guardian angels.
For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. —Psalm 91:11
Please, protect me, Lord. Watch over me… and my child.
Mac drifts toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, drawn by something none of us have quite registered yet, and for a moment the chaos in the room seems to still around her as the morning light pours in, catching in the soft fall of her blonde waves until they gleam like spun gold, each strand lit as though she’s been set in place deliberately against the glass, something almost ethereal about her as she squints down toward the strip below.
Her posture straightens just slightly, her head tilting as if she’s trying to make sense of what she’s seeing.
“What the hell is going on down there?”
Her voice cuts cleanly through the room, sharp enough to pull everyone’s attention, and the shift is immediate as bodies turn, conversation dies, and Niko moves without hesitation, long, controlled strides carrying him to her side as though he already knows what he’s about to find.
From where I stand, I can’t see it yet, only the glare of sunlight reflecting off glass and steel, but the tension that rolls off Niko the second he reaches the window tells me everything I need to know.
He looks down once, his expression hardening in a way that sends a quiet ripple of unease through the room before he speaks.
“My men already reported it.” His Russian accent is thicker now, more pronounced beneath the weight of what he’s seeing. “They’ve formed a gathering.”
A chill skates down my spine.
“Who?” Logan demands, already pushing to his feet.
Niko doesn’t look away from the window.
“The Children of the Cross.”
The words land like a detonation.
A sharp curse tears from Logan as he drags a hand through his hair, already moving toward the television mounted against the wall, grabbing the remote and flicking it on with none of his usual ease.
“Fuck this.”
The screen flares to life, the volume rising just enough to fill the silence that’s settled over us, and within seconds the image shifts to a live broadcast.
A news banner stretches across the bottom of the screen.
brEAKING: RELIGIOUS GROUP GATHERS OUTSIDE LUXURY STRIP HOTEL
The camera cuts to street level, and suddenly we’re seeing it—really seeing it—for the first time.
Crowds.
Dozens at first glance, but as the camera pulls wider it becomes clear it’s far more than that, bodies packed tightly together behind makeshift barriers, spilling out onto the pavement, signs raised high into the air, white and red and black scrawled across them in aggressive, unyielding strokes.
REPENT THE FALLENTHE CORRUPTED VESSEL MUST BE CLEANSEDTHE DESTROYER WALKS AMONG US
My stomach drops.
Some of them are on their knees.
Praying.
Others are shouting, their voices rising in a chaotic chorus that bleeds through the television speakers, distorted but unmistakable, fragments of scripture twisted into something sharper.
“Bring her into the light!” “Cleanse the sin!” “She belongs to Him!”
The camera pans again, catching flashes of movement beyond the crowd—news vans lined along the street, reporters speaking urgently into microphones, their voices overlapping as they try to control the narrative in real time.
“…believed to be connected to the viral sermon released earlier this morning—”“…the group identifying themselves as the Children of the Cross—”“…no official statement yet from hotel security—”
Sam is already on his cell, his thumb moving rapidly across the screen as clip after clip plays in quick succession, his expression darkening with each one.
More movement at the door draws my attention as additional security filters into the suite, their presence immediate and imposing as they take position without needing to be told, some moving to the entrance, others stationing themselves just outside, voices low as they speak into comms, relaying instructions, tightening the perimeter.
The room feels smaller now.
Tighter.
Like the walls have inched closer without anyone noticing.
I don’t realize I’ve moved until I’m closer to the window, my steps slow, almost reluctant, as though some part of me already knows what I’m about to see will change something I can’t undo.
The glass is cool beneath my fingertips as I finally look down.
Sixty-four floors up, the world should feel distant.
Safe.
But it doesn’t.
A sick, hollow feeling opens in my chest.
They’re not just gathering.
They’re waiting.
For me.
The hotel is surrounded.
It’s a siege.
“And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.” The words fall from my lips, thin and unsteady, like they don’t quite belong to me anymore.
All eyes turn.
“Isaiah 29:3,” Niko says. “It is a siege, yes. Not to worry, little one.” He stretches, the quiet pop of his joints cutting through the tension.
“Your foe is a foolish one. Considering he is wanted for the attempted murder of your other half, he likely seeks to smoke you out—to make you feel trapped, powerless. It is what the weak do.”
I look to my husband. He watches me steadily.
Doubt curls tight in my chest. I worry I’ve shaken his faith in me. Fractured something fragile with everything I’ve done, everything I carry.
But the weight of this…it presses in from all sides.
Because it feels like there is nowhere left to run.
Nowhere Gideon won’t reach.