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“Doesn’t matter,” I snap. My voice comes out lower than I intend. “I have to go.”
Nina grabs my arm. “Damien. Think. You walk in there without a plan, you’re giving Lev exactly what he wants. You’ll get yourself killed. That won’t help her.”
“I have to save her.” My voice breaks on the edges. I don’t care if she hears it. “I won’t lose her.”
Ryan, quiet until now, steps forward. “Then let me go with you. You’ll need help getting her out. Keeping them safe.”
Them.
That’s the word he uses.
My head snaps toward him.
“Them?”
Ryan looks suddenly pale. He opens his mouth—but before he can speak, another message hits my screen.
I open it.
And everything stops.
An image loads—grainy, black and white. A medical form half-cropped. But I don’t need the whole thing. I know what it is. What I’m looking at.
A tiny shape.
An ultrasound.
Our baby.
My legs nearly give out.
The room falls away—Nina, Ryan, the city around me—gone. All I see is the outline of something that shouldn’t be real, something I never thought I’d get to have again.
“Sasha is pregnant?” I say, voice barely a whisper.
No one answers.
They don’t need to.
I grip the edge of the table like it’s the only thing anchoring me. My throat is tight. My eyes sting. I don’t remember the last time that happened.
“She’s carrying my child,” I murmur. “And I sent her away.”
“They’remessingwith you,” Nina says, desperate now. “Damien, listen to me. That message was meant to rattle you. Theywantyou emotional. That’s when you’re easiest to kill.”
But I barely hear her.
I’m looking at the screen again. At that little speck of life.
She didn’t tell me.
I pushed her away thinking I was protecting her…and now she’s in the hands of the one man who wants to see me destroyed.
She’s probably terrified. Alone. And pregnant. And it’s my fault—every decision I made led her straight into danger.
If anything happens to her…if I lose her because I let my pride speak louder than my heart—I’ll never forgive myself.
All I can hear is Sasha’s voice in my memory—laughing, stubborn, teasing me. All I can feel is the fire behind my ribs. The fire of every mistake I made that led her here.