44. Kate
Kate
I’d gotten used to silence.
Not peace— silence.
The kind that hummed in your ears when you were hiding from people who wanted you dead.
Brett’s cabin smelled like cedar, gun oil, and burnt coffee. A safe house built by someone who hated people but loved preparedness. Panic room. Motion sensors. Cameras disguised as birdhouses. A reinforced back door no battering ram on earth could pop.
I should’ve felt safe.
Instead, every creak in the wood made my pulse spike.
I sat at the old pine table, pen in hand, writing in the code Drew’s butch bodyguard, Vega, taught me.
She delivered the letters through a courier chain only Drew’s people understood — sliding them into a PO box carved into the trunk of a dead oak past the nature trail.
The feds couldn’t trace it. Redmond’s men couldn’t sniff it out.
Claire, Sara, Mindy — my girls — they got my words in pieces. Hidden truths tucked inside recipes, song lyrics, and weather reports. Enough to let them know I was alive. Not enough to get them hunted.
Vega stood by the door now, arms crossed, shaved head, tattoos of saints up and down her neck.
“You ready?” she asked.
I nodded and slipped the coded letter into my jacket.
Then I grabbed Brett’s motorcycle helmet — blacked out visor, anonymity guaranteed — and headed for the nature path. The bike waited where I hid it behind a fallen pine. From there, it was ten minutes of off-road riding, another ten on foot.
I didn’t feel pregnant most days. Just exhausted.
But when I swung my leg over the bike and settled onto the seat, a hand drifted to my stomach.
The old Irish bar was tucked between a bait shop and a condemned ice cream parlor. No tourists came here. No bachelorette parties. No influencers taking selfies by the water.
This place smelled like Guinness, broken dreams, and fried cod.
Perfect.
I slipped through the back door. Cameras in the bar were already down—Drew’s doing. The only light came from a neon shamrock sign buzzing behind the bar. A few locals hunched over their beers, minding their own damn business.
Vega led me to the darkest booth in the corner.
Claire stood when she saw me.
Then she didn’t stand—she launched.
“OH MY GOD—KATE!”
Her arms wrapped around me so tight my ribs creaked. I buried my face in her shoulder, inhaling coconut conditioner and cheap prosecco. The scent of home.
Drew sat across from us, broad shoulders taking up half the booth, arms folded like he wanted to punch someone just for breathing wrong.
He stared at me for a long minute.
His voice shook when he finally spoke.
“You look like hell.”
“I missed you too,” I said.
He didn’t smile.
We settled into the booth. Vega stood guard at the door. The place was closed… opened only for us early.
I kept my voice low.
“I’m pregnant.”
Claire slapped her hand over her mouth.
Drew froze—and then the fury arrived like a tidal wave.
“Where the fuck is Michael?” he snarled. “He leaves you in hiding while he plays gangster with the council? If you were my woman?—”
“You’d what?” I snapped. “Own me? Lock me up like Krystal?”
His nostrils flared.
“I’d protect you,” he growled. “Protect both of you.”
Claire kicked him under the table. “Not the time, Drew!”
He slammed his palm on the table hard enough to make the glasses rattle.
“Come to my territory. To me. I’ll marry you and put my name on that kid without blinking.”
I bit my trembling lip.
“I’m married to Michael.”
Silence.
A full beat.
Then two.
Even Vega turned her head.
Drew’s jaw tightened so hard I thought a tooth might crack.
“You… what?”
“His marriage to Krystal is a sham,” I whispered. “I married him in Vegas first. For real.”
Claire choked on her drink. “HOLY?—”
“The fuck?” Drew muttered. He scrubbed a hand over his face, furious and hurt and terrified all at once. “So you’re alone. Pregnant. Hunted. And he’s?—”
“He’s trying to bring the council down,” I said. “He’s doing all of this to protect me.”
“You shouldn’t be living in a damn shack in the woods!” Drew shot back. “You need a doctor, security, actual food?—”
“I have that,” I lied.
Drew wasn’t buying it.
“I’m hooking you up with my doc,” he said. “No arguments. He’ll do your ultrasounds, multivitamins, bloodwork. All off the books.”
Claire squeezed my hand so tight it hurt.
“You’re an idiot for staying alone,” she whispered—but she said it with tears in her eyes.
The back door creaked.
Vega tensed.
Drew reached for the weapon he kept holstered behind his back.
Then—a familiar bark split the air.
I gasped.
Amber barreled toward me—my sweet golden retriever, tail wagging so hard her hips wiggled, whining and crying and licking my face like she thought I’d died.
I folded around her, burying my face in her fur.
“Oh my god, baby… I missed you so much…”
Drew leaned back, arms crossed.
“You didn’t think I’d arrange a reunion without bringing your mutt, did you?”
Claire was smiling through her tears.
Vega looked away like she didn’t want to admit the moment was soft. I held Amber tight, tears wetting her fur.
For the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel alone.
I touched my stomach again.
We stay alive, I promised my baby.
And we get back to your father.
The clinic didn’t look like a clinic.
It looked like the abandoned back office of a pawn shop that forgot it was still standing.
Peeling paint. Flickering fluorescent lights. A rusted exit sign pointing nowhere.
But downstairs?
Downstairs was a whole other world.
A secret medical suite built for mob bosses and mistresses who needed bullet extractions, drug detoxes, and paternity tests no cop would ever see.
Cold tile.
Sterile metal tables.
A humming refrigeration unit that held every kind of illegal medicine you could imagine.
I lay back on the exam table, the paper beneath me crinkling as the doctor — an older guy with inked knuckles and half-moon glasses — prepped the ultrasound wand.
Drew stood by the door like a fucking statue, arms crossed, jaw tight, watching every move like the doc might try to stab me.
He was protective in a way that felt both comforting and suffocating.
Claire was perched on a stool beside me, chewing gum and bouncing her knee like she couldn’t handle being still.
“Alright,” the doctor said, lowering the wand. “Cold gel.”
I sucked in a breath as the icy sensation hit my stomach.
Claire grabbed my hand immediately.
“You okay?” she whispered.
I nodded. “Just nervous.”
“Don’t be.” Drew’s voice came from the corner, thick, fierce. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The way he said it made Claire raise an eyebrow.
Drew ignored her.
The room dimmed as the monitor flickered to life, gray static resolving into blurred shapes.
Then—
A tiny flutter.
Steady.
Strong.
My breath hitched.
“There,” the doctor said softly. “Heartbeat.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until Claire wiped my cheek.
“Oh, Kate,” she breathed, voice breaking. “That’s your baby…”
My baby.
Michael’s baby.
A real heartbeat.
A real life.
I pressed a hand to my stomach, trembling.
Drew cleared his throat loudly — loud enough to hide the fact he’d turned away for a second, swiping a hand under his eye.
“Looks good?” he asked the doctor, voice too sharp.
“Very good,” the doctor confirmed. “Healthy. Strong. About seven weeks.”
Seven weeks.
Vegas.
I closed my eyes.
When it was done, the doctor printed the sonogram and left to “do paperwork,” which was mob code for pretend you didn’t see shit.
Drew stepped outside “to make a call,” which was mob code for stare at the wall and wrestle the urge to murder Michael for leaving you alone.
That left Claire.
She turned to me the second the door clicked shut.
“So…” she said, crossing her arms. “How’s Brett?”
I groaned. “Claire?—”
“He stared at me like I was the last chocolate croissant in the case,” she snapped. “Kate. Come on.”
I put the sonogram down and rubbed my forehead.
“You two need to figure your shit out,” I said. “Seriously. I’m not getting in the middle of the Brett-vs-Remi war.”
Claire scowled. “It’s not a war.”
“It will be,” I said gently. “You have to pick a side. Pick a turf. Either you’re going with Remi… or you’re going to be with Brett when all this blows over.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked away.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered.
“Nothing about this is fair,” I said. “But you can’t play both men. Not with the way their worlds work.”
She swallowed hard.
“What if I pick wrong?” she asked.
“Then you change,” I said softly. “You fix it. You move forward. But you have to choose something, Claire. You can’t haunt two doors forever.”
Drew stepped back in, eyes locked on me immediately —protective, pissed, devoted in a way that made Claire’s eyebrows shoot up again.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
I tucked the sonogram into my jacket.
“Yeah,” I said. “Take me home.”
He helped me up from the table — gently, so gently — and Claire watched the way he guided me as if I were glass.
When we stepped into the hallway, Drew’s voice lowered.
“You’re safe with me,” he said. “Both of you.”
And for a moment, I believed him.
Even if my heart belonged to someone else.
Even if this baby would complicate everything.
Even if danger was closing in from every direction.
For one moment, in the dim basement of an illegal clinic, I didn’t feel alone.
The bike was exactly where I left it — tucked under a fallen birch tree, leaves scattered over the leather seat. Drew stood beside it like he was staring down a crime scene.
His jaw flexed.
Hard.
“You’re kidding me,” he said, voice low with fury. “You’re riding this thing while pregnant?”
I popped the helmet off and shook out my hair.
“It’s freedom,” I said simply.
“Freedom?” he snapped. “It’s a fucking death wish, Kate.”
“No,” I said calmly. “It’s sanity. I won’t do anything to jeopardize this baby. I’m careful. And soon enough I’ll be too big to ride anyway.”
He paced a tight, furious circle, breathing like a bull seconds before a charge.
“I swear to God,” he muttered. “Michael should be the one yelling at you like this, not me.”
I felt that in my chest.
Sharp and sweet.
“Drew,” I said softly.