Chapter 22
EMMA
The world stops.
It actually stops. Like someone hit pause on reality and we’re all frozen in this moment where I just told my father I’m pregnant with Leo Santoro’s baby.
The silence is deafening. I can hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears along with the breathing of the surviving men scattered around the room. The creak and groan of the damaged chandelier overhead is the only sound, crystal pieces shifting and threatening to fall.
But no one speaks. No one moves.
Behind me, I feel Leo go completely still. Not just quiet—still, like every muscle in his body has locked up. He inhales sharply and his hands tighten on my shoulders for just a second before releasing entirely.
His hands drop away from me and the absence of his touch is jarring and wrong.
I wince. I just told my father I’m pregnant before I told Leo.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Leo was supposed to know first. I was going to sit him down somewhere quiet and explain and give him time to process. He deserved at least that because this is his baby too.
But when does anything in my life go the way it’s supposed to?
In front of me, my father looks like he’s been shot, like I actually pulled the trigger and put a bullet in his chest. His face has gone white—whiter than I’ve ever seen it. The gun in his hand wavers, shakes, and lowers slightly like it’s suddenly too heavy to hold.
“You’re lying.” The words are barely audible. “You’re lying to make me stop. You’re—Emma, tell me you’re lying.”
“I’m not.” I’m surprised my voice is so steady because internally, I’m screaming.
“I’m not lying, Dad. I’m pregnant. I think I’m five or six weeks along?
” I shrug. “Maybe closer to six. I just found out.” I gesture vaguely at myself.
“I took a test and it was pretty positive. I was going to tell Leo but then—”
I don’t finish, but then again, I don’t need to. The evidence of what happened next is scattered across this room in pools of blood and broken bodies.
“Then you showed up with your army,” I say instead.
Dad’s still staring at me as if he’s never seen me before and trying to memorize my face. He looks at me as if he’s trying to find the daughter he lost somewhere in the stranger standing in front of him.
And I can see the exact moment he understands. The exact moment it all clicks into place.
The way I’m standing protectively in front of Leo, and the cuts on my hands from breaking out of the panic room.
He sees what Leo’s probably been seeing for weeks now.
I’m not the same girl he lost. I’m not the Emma from her wedding day. I’m not his little girl who did what she was told and smiled at business associates and wore the right dresses to the right events and never questioned his decisions.
I’m someone different now. Someone forged in fire and violence and impossible choices. I’m someone stronger and fiercer. I’m certain of what I want and willing to stand in front of a gun to get it.
And I’m pregnant with Leo Santoro’s baby.
My father’s face crumples and devastation spreads across his weathered features. His mouth opens and closes. Opens again. No words come out.
Connor Brennan—who always has the right words and can negotiate anything, who built an empire on his ability to talk his way in or out of any situation—has nothing to say.
The silence is fucking painful.
“He—he stole you,” my father says finally.
There’s no rage or fury in it now, just bewilderment.
His grief so deep and vast I can feel it from here, pressing against me like a physical weight.
“He took you and he—Emma, he stole you from me. You’re my daughter.
My little girl. He stole you and now you’re—you’re—”
He drops his head, unable to make himself say it.
Pregnant. With the enemy’s child. Choosing the man who destroyed our family over the father who raised her.
“I know.” My throat is so tight I can barely get the words out. “I know he did, Dad. I know he took me. I know he kept me here. I know he’s the reason everything fell apart.”
I have to stop and swallow past the lump in my throat before I can continue.
“And I fell in love with him anyway.”
The words are going to kill my father, but I say them because they’re true. My father deserves the truth even if it destroys us both.
My father makes a sound I’ve never heard before. It’s like something inside him just shattered into a million pieces. I’ve never seen him look like this—lost, devastated, utterly defeated. Connor Brennan doesn’t break or let anyone see him hurt.
But he’s breaking now right in front of me. And I’m the one doing it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the words come out as a whisper because I can’t make my voice any louder without it breaking completely.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy. I know you don’t understand.
I know this makes no sense to you. I know you think he brainwashed me or manipulated me or that I’m just confused and scared. ”
Tears are burning behind my eyes now and they’re hot, impossible to hold back.
“But this is my choice.” I take a deep breath to steady myself. “This baby is my choice. Leo is my choice. And I need you to—”
My voice cracks and I have to stop and breathe through the tightness in my chest before I can finish.
“I need you to let me make it.”
My father makes another sound between a growl and a sob. I turn my head away. I can’t look at him anymore and watch him break and know that I’m the one breaking him.
I turn slightly, just enough to see Leo’s face over my shoulder.
He’s standing there frozen, his eyes locked on me with an expression I’ve never seen before. Shock. Wonder. Fear. Love. Hope. Terror. All of it mixed together in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
His face is pale and his hands are clenched at his sides. He looks like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t know if he’s allowed.
“If you still want me,” I say, softer now, because this is the part I’m not sure about. Will Leo decide that a baby is too much?. Will he choose the easy way out and let my father take me home and pretend this whole thing never happened?
He could. He could walk away right now and decide that being a father isn’t something he signed up for.
Please want this. Please want me. Please want our baby.
I’ve never seen Leo move that fast in my life, and I’ve seen him fight. But this is different. This is desperation. This is need.
One second he’s standing there frozen, and the next his guns are hitting the floor with twin clatters and he’s closing the distance between us in two strides and pulling me into his arms so hard I nearly lose my balance.
The impact drives the air from my lungs. His arms wrap around me with one around my waist, and one around my shoulders and he pulls me against his chest like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
His hands are everywhere—my face, my hair, my back, my arms—like he’s checking to make sure I’m here and this is actually happening and not some dream or hallucination brought on by stress.
“You’re pregnant,” he says against my hair, and his voice is shaking. “You’re—Emma, you’re pregnant. With my baby. We’re—”
He breaks off, unable to continue.
I’m shaking too and I’m definitely crying. Everything is too much and not enough all at once. My hands curl in his torn, bloody shirt that smells like smoke and gunpowder and him and I hold on like he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s tilting sideways.
“I want you,” Leo says fiercely and raw with emotion I’ve never heard from him before. Not even when he said he loved me. “I want you, Emma. I want you and our baby. Always. Do you understand me? Always.”
One of his hands slides down from my back and comes to gently rest on my stomach, like he’s afraid to press too hard and hurt something that’s barely there yet. His palm is warm through my shirt.
“You’re pregnant,” he says again, like he’s testing the words out. “You’re—we’re having a baby. We’re going to be parents.”
“Yeah,” I manage shakily, with tears streaming down my face. “We’re having a baby. Surprise?”
The absurdity of it hits me. I’m standing here in a destroyed hall surrounded by bodies and destruction, telling the man who kidnapped me that I’m pregnant. And I’m happy.
This is so fucked up.
He laughs. It starts as a chuckle and turns into something that might be a sob halfway through. “You couldn’t have told me before you put yourself between me and a gun?”
“Didn’t really have time,” I point out, and I feel myself smile. “I was kind of busy breaking out of your shitty panic room.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we’re going to need to talk about that.”
“You locked me in there,” I continue, because if I stop talking I’m going to fall apart completely.
“So really this is your fault. If you’d just let me stay with you instead of playing the overprotective mob boss card, I could have told you properly.
Somewhere romantic that wasn’t, you know, a fucking war zone. ”
“Emma.” Leo’s hands cup my face, forcing me to look at him. There are tears in his dark eyes and the wonder on his face makes my mouth dry. “I love you. You know that, right? I love you and I’m—I’m terrified. I have no idea how to be a father, but I want this. I want you and I want our baby and I—”
His voice breaks completely and he has to stop. He presses his forehead to mine and just breathes for a second.
His heart pounds against my chest and I can feel how cold his hands are where they’re holding my face. His tears slide down his cheeks and mix with mine.
Leo Santoro is crying. For me. For us. For the baby we made.
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” he whispers, and his breath is warm against my lips.
“Yeah, well.” I try to laugh but it comes out shaky. “Surprise again. Turns out we’re really bad at the whole birth control thing. Or really good at making babies. Depends how you look at it.”
His hand on my stomach presses just slightly harder and it reminds me that he’s there and we’re in this together.
Behind us, my father growls or sobs, I can’t tell.
The sound cuts through the moment Leo and I are having and the bubble of happiness. It reminds me that we’re not alone and my father is still here and watching.
I pull back from Leo slightly and he doesn’t let me go. He adjusts his grip so we’re both facing my father.
Connor Brennan looks destroyed.
There’s no other word for it. Destroyed. Devastated. Demolished.
His face is ash-gray, like someone drained all the color and life out of him and left just a shell. His shoulders are slumped forward in a way I’ve never seen—Dad stands straight and tall and commands every room he enters. But not now. Now he looks like he’s carrying a weight he can’t bear.
He looks older than I’ve ever seen him, like the last hour has aged him ten years.
And his eyes. God, his eyes.
They’re hollow. Empty. Looking at me but not really seeing me. Or maybe seeing too much. Seeing the daughter he lost and the stranger she’s become.
“This is madness,” he says hollowly. “This whole thing is mad. You’re pregnant. With his baby.”
He gestures vaguely at Leo without looking at him. He can’t look at the man who stole his daughter and got her pregnant and destroyed his family.
“You’re telling me you want to stay with the man who kidnapped you,” my father continues, and each word sounds like it’s being dragged out of him against his will.
“Who kept you here against your will. Who—who destroyed everything. You’re telling me you’re in love with him and you’re having his child. That you’re choosing him over—”
His voice breaks, cracking right down the middle like glass shattering.
“Over me,” he finishes quietly.
And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not Leo. Not the baby. Not even the violence or the kidnapping or the war.
It’s about me choosing Leo over my father. Choosing a different family. Choosing a different life.
Choosing to leave.
“Dad,” I start, but I don’t know what to say to make this better when there’s no way to make it better.
He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t understand. I don’t—Emma, I don’t understand any of this. How can you look at him and see anything except the man who took you? How can you—” He stops and swallows hard. “How can you love him?”
The question is genuine. He really doesn’t understand.
And how can I explain it? How can I make him understand that somewhere between the kidnapping and now, something changed? That Leo changed. I changed. We changed each other.
I can’t. There are no words for it.
“I just do,” I say simply. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I know you think I’ve lost my mind. But Dad—” My voice cracks and I have to stop and breathe through the tightness in my chest. “I love him. And I’m having his baby. And I need you to—I need—”
What do I need? For him to accept this? To give us his blessing? To walk away and let me have this life I’ve chosen?
All of it. None of it. Something in between.
“I know,” I say quietly, and I can feel Leo’s hand tightening on my waist, anchoring me.
“I know it’s fucked up, Dad. I know it makes no sense.
I know you think I’ve lost my mind or that Leo’s brainwashed me or whatever else you want to call it to make yourself feel better about losing control of me. ”
My father flinches like I’ve slapped him.
“But it’s not about control,” I continue, softer now. “It’s not about you or Leo or who has power over who. It’s about me and what I want. About the life I’m choosing to live.”
I take a shaky breath.
“And I’m choosing this. I’m choosing Leo and this baby. I know you don’t understand it. I know you hate it. I know you wish things were different.”
My voice breaks completely and tears are streaming down my face now, hot and fast and impossible to stop.
“I know you wish I’d come home with you and forget this ever happened and go back to being your little girl who does what she’s told. But I can’t, Dad. I can’t be that person anymore. I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
I press harder against Leo, drawing strength from him. His arms tighten around me.
“This is my insanity,” I tell him, and the words feel like they’re coming from somewhere deep inside me, the part of me that still loves my father desperately and craves his approval and wants to make him proud. “Let me have it, Dad. Please.”