Page 48

I could handle being here. I could stomach the threats, the silence, the uncertainty. But the thought that they might reach for Xander next, that they’d hold the pregnancy over him the same way they were holding it over me—it made my chest lock up.
He didn’t know. He wasn’t supposed to. And if they told him—if they turned this into some twisted form of pressure—I didn’t know what he’d do. I didn’t know what that would make me in his eyes.
This wasn’t supposed to touch him. I kept him out of it for a reason.
I stood again, restless, pacing from the window to the bed and back. My reflection caught faintly in the glass, and for a second, I didn’t recognize myself. I looked tired. Smaller somehow.
If they told Xander, it wouldn’t just ruin whatever thread of peace I had left. It would pull him into this storm I never should’ve been in to begin with. And I didn’t know if he’d walkaway from it, or walk toward it, or if that decision would break both of us in ways we couldn’t fix.
I pressed my fingers to the windowpane and closed my eyes.
I had no way of knowing what they’d do next, but I knew now I was afraid of more than just them. I was afraid of what this would do to Xander too.