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But this man, the man Brix has become, is a bit cold. His eyes are more often than not hard and emotionless when they’re not shooting laser beams of hate at me.

There’s a hallway off to the side, but I don’t bother going snooping. I don’t think he brought me here for a tour.

He leans against the counter, bending forward so his sinewy muscular forearms are resting on the granite and wraps his giant hands around the crystal glass.

“Talk,” he says when I turn to look at him.

“I don’t…” I inhale deeply and blow it out in a rush through pursed lips. “B, this is so much. It’s a lot, and you haven’t stopped looking at me like you’re ready to snap my neck if I say the wrong thing since we were at my place.”

Has it really only been two days? Each hour has stretched on to feel as though I was thrust back into this life months ago. And each moment has been as uncomfortable as the last.

As though adding a punctuation to my thought, the large tattoo across my chest – that I have yet to actually see – begins to throb and burn.

“Why don’t you tell me what you meant by Kato had to kill his dad because it was either him or me? And where the hell is Cora? No way would Kato have killed his mom.”

But if her husband was dead, she would have finally been free. She could have remarried, though she would have still had to marry someone in the Family. It was no different with the Bratva – wives were often traded from one man to the other if their husband died to prevent having to outright kill them to keep them from snitching to the police.

His jaw moves, but his eyes stay glued to my face. He’s waiting for me to spill first.

Walking away from the counter and dropping onto the black leather couch – with zero throw pillows or blankets – I kick off my flats and tuck my feet under my butt.

Time ceased to exist as I lie on the ground in the fetal position, an unbelievable pain like nothing I’ve ever experienced ripping through my belly. I had been kicked over and over as I did my best to protect both my head and my stomach, but it hadn’t done much.

I ache everywhere. I’m positive I have a few broken bones, and at least a couple cracked ribs.

But what has tears spilling from my swollen eyes and into my hair is the fact the pain in my stomach is accompanied with a dampness, and I know I sure as hell didn’t pee myself.

It takes more energy than I have left to reach down and touch between my legs, raising my fingers to see them coated in blood.

No.Pleaseno.

“Get her out of here. Leave her somewhere she’ll be found, but make sure it’s closer to the Greek’s territory. Her death will earn me sympathy and support from the community,” my father says.

I hear the words, but they sound like static as my head throbs and the blood rushes in my ears. Grief shatters my heart for more reasons than one.

That blood can only mean I lost the baby before I ever had a chance to hold him or her, and my father just ordered his men to kill me. Will Brixton, Kato, or Maddox ever know what really happened to me?

Yes. They will. And they’ll avenge my death. If I could, I might smile at that thought, at the image of my men storming this house and putting a bullet between my father’s eyes.

Maybe they’ll take their time torturing him and the guards who sounded as though they’d enjoyed every second of pain and injury they’d inflicted on me, drag their agony out for days before finally ending their lives.

I’m lifted from the ground roughly and tossed over someone’s shoulder. It makes all the bruises, cuts, and breaks scream and I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth to keep from crying out. My father doesn’t get anything else from me, and that includes the satisfaction of hearing how badly I’m hurt.

It doesn’t matter. It’ll all be over soon.

My body jostles and rocks and all I can do is watch the floor pass below my head as I’m carried through the house, out the back door, and dropped unceremoniously into the back of one of the SUVs used by my father’s men.

The door slams shut, and I blink a few times, staring at the dark sky through the darkly tinted windows. I can barely even make out the stars.

I rock and sway as the car makes turns, goes over hills, and stops at lights or stop signs. My vision and consciousness swims in and out, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die before whoever is driving actually gets me to the edge of our territory to kill me.

Going to sleep forever sounds good. Especially now. Between the physical pain and the way my heart feels as though it has shattered into millions of slivers, I’m not sure I want to wake up to another day.

No. I have to do what I can to fight my way back to my guys. They’ll forgive me. They’ll understand this wasn’t my fault. Then we’ll run away, build a life, and try for another baby.

We can get married and there won’t be a thing my father can do if I’m legally an Antoniou.

Kato’s father, on the other hand, might have a thing to say about his son marrying the only daughter of his rival. It always seemed so stupid to me, like one of those cheesy musicals where they have rival territories.