24. Declan
Declan
I don’t remember walking out of Ailish’s apartment.
All I remember is the sound of the door closing behind me—devastating in its finality. A sound that shouldn’t have meant anything more than wood and metal sliding into place, yet it felt like the last inch of ground beneath me giving way.
For months I’ve endured gunfire, back-alley threats, meetings with men who would gladly slit my throat if given half a reason, ambushes in parking lots, and the constant pressure of an enemy that still hasn’t shown its full hand.
But none of it—none of it—landed as hard as that click of her shutting me out.
By the time I reach the car, my pulse is a storm in my veins.
I get inside, and the door slams too loudly, rattling the frame, vibrating up my arms, reminding me I’m spiraling whether I want to admit it or not.
I sit there with my hands gripping the steering wheel until the leather strains beneath my palms, my chest tightening as if I’ve run miles without stopping.
She’s pregnant.
The words repeat, slow at first, then faster, then all at once like they’ve been waiting years to break free.
Pregnant.
With my child.
Ailish is carrying my child.
The thought is too big to hold at first, too enormous to take in without everything else in my world shifting in response. I press my forehead to the steering wheel and force myself to breathe, but each inhale feels thinner than the last, each exhale tighter, as if the air itself is resisting me.
My child.
Ours.
Then comes the second wave, harsher, cold enough to sting.
She didn’t tell me. And someone—some Russian sick bastard—managed to photograph the ultrasound.
My hand curls into a fist, and I slam it once into the wheel.
Hard enough that the impact shoots up my arm, not hard enough to break anything.
I’m not even angry at her. I’m angry at everything around her, everything that made her think she had to carry this alone, everything that pushed her into a corner so tight she thought silence was safer than the truth.
I want to get out of this car and go straight back into her apartment, pull her into my arms, tell her I didn’t mean half the things I said.
Tell her the fear swallowed me whole, and I reacted like a man drowned in it.
But she told me to leave. And I did. And the knowledge that I walked away from her—walked away while she was terrified, shaking, trying her best to stay upright—makes something inside me tear clean down the center.
The pain sits there, low and searing, sitting behind my sternum like a new, unwelcome organ. What am I supposed to do with this?
I know violence. I know war. I know loyalty and betrayal.
I know how to eliminate threats and negotiate with men who would kill for pocket change.
But this wild, impossible need to protect something I’ve never seen, never touched, never even thought I deserved—this shakes me more than any bullet ever has.
I drop my head deeper into my hands, pushing my breath out slowly until it doesn’t shudder on the way out.
I want the baby. That truth thrums through me now with a clarity that should have been there the moment she told me. I want it. I want to protect it. I want—
The passenger door opens.
I snap upright, muscles tightening automatically, my hand instinctively moving toward the weapon tucked under my jacket before I register who it is.
Liam.
He slides in like he’s been getting into my car every morning for years, shuts the door, and studies me with an expression I haven’t seen in a long time. Not anger. Something heavier. Something I don’t know how to accept.
“You look like hell,” he says, voice even.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, though we both know it’s a lie.
“You’re not.” He doesn’t sound judgmental. Just certain. “And that’s why I’m here.”
I tense, waiting for the lecture, the accusation, the order. “If you’re going to tell me I abandoned my post—”
“Declan.” He cuts me off softly. “Stop.” The word lands heavier than a shout. He breathes out, slow, steady, as if choosing every word with care. “I know.”
My heart spikes once. “Know what?”
“About the baby.”
It’s like the world narrows to a pinpoint. I force my voice steady. “Who told you?”
“No one trying to make trouble,” he says. “And before you get twisted up about it—no, I’m not angry with you.”
That stops me cold. “You’re not furious that she’s pregnant with my child?” I ask. “That she didn’t tell you? That she didn’t tell me?”
“I’d be furious,” he admits, “if you didn’t care.”
The words stagger me. I look away, jaw tightening as the pressure behind my ribs grows sharper. “She thinks I’m using her. That I don’t want the baby. That I’m exactly who I was years ago.”
“Well,” Liam says, “you did react like someone backed into a corner.”
“And what would you have done?” I snap, then shake my head, frustrated at myself. “She’s in danger. She’s carrying a target we can’t protect. She—she’s—”
My voice fails.
She’s ours.
Ours and in danger.
Ours and terrified.
Liam doesn’t interrupt. He lets the silence settle until I can bear to speak again. “She thinks I don’t want it,” I say quietly. “That’s the part I can’t stand.”
“She’s scared,” he says. “And she didn’t want to make anything worse.”
“She shouldn’t have gone alone.”
“She didn’t know who to trust.”
My chest squeezes painfully. “She could’ve come to me.”
“You nearly killed a man for following her,” Liam reminds me. “Rightly so. But she knows what your temper looks like when you’re pushed. She was trying to avoid starting a war.”
“I am the war,” I whisper.
“Exactly.”
His gaze softens, and that’s worse than anger. “You and I… we’ve been divided for too long. Distrustful. Distant. And the Russians used that.”
I swallow hard.
“But this?” he says. “This child? This danger?” He shakes his head. “It’s time to pull our heads out of our asses and act like the men we claim to be.”
I drag in a breath. “Meaning?”
“We work together,” he says. “No more secrets. No more acting alone. No more assuming the worst about each other.”
His voice dips, weight settling into each word.
“And when it comes to her, you don’t get to storm in like a soldier and demand obedience. That’s not what she needs from you.”
“I don’t know what she needs,” I say honestly.
“Try listening,” he says. “Before reacting.”
I huff out a humorless breath. “That’s never been my strong suit.”
“No,” he agrees, “but now’s the time to learn.”
We sit there, the car quiet except for the faint hum of the city outside. He studies me a moment longer, then adds, “You’re going to be a father, Declan.”
The sentence lands with quiet force, sinking deep, anchoring itself somewhere I didn’t know existed.
A father.
Liam sees how hard it hits me and nods once as if that settles something between us. “There’s more,” he continues. “Nadia has offered access to old contacts. Russians. People who owe her favors or information.”
My breath stills. “You… you’re bringing her into this?”
“I wasn’t going to,” he admits. “But after today—after they got inside Ailish’s clinic files, after they photographed her ultrasound—after they proved they know exactly how to hit below the belt—I’m done pretending we can fight this with half our resources tied behind our backs.”
My vision sharpens.
“We call in those favors,” he says. “And you’re part of that process.”
“You’re trusting me with that level of intel again?”
“Yes,” he says simply. A weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying loosens by an inch. “We’re a team again,” Liam adds, quieter this time. “We protect her together.”
I nod, slow but certain.
“And Declan,” he finishes, “don’t go to her until you can speak without scaring her. She deserves calm. She deserves patience. She deserves to believe you want this baby.”
“I do,” I say immediately.
“Then show her.”
He squeezes my shoulder once—a gesture I haven’t felt from him since before the fractures started.
Then he steps out of the car, closes the door behind him, and walks back toward the compound without looking back. For several long seconds, I just sit there, breathing in the silence he leaves behind. Not the suffocating silence from earlier. A different kind. A steadier kind.
For the first time in months, my path feels clear. I don’t know how to be a father. I don’t know how to fix everything I broke with her. But I know that I want her and our child.
And I will burn every inch of this city to ash before I let anyone take that from me.