Page 87 of Hearts Held

Chapter 29: Everett

You Want a Battle? (Here’s a War), Bullet For My Valentine

I can hear the screaming as I park my motorcar outside the vast barn, the dense air dripping with carnage and anguish.

Clint alerted me as soon as I came back from the underground, monitoring stock, setting traps and preparing the Adders for our next mission.

As I approach the barn door, fists clenched and feet marching, ready to invoke pain, a calming voice resounds in my ear.

“Hold on, my heart.” Baba’s wise voice comes from the shadows. Her delicate arms are crossed over hersmall chest. Crimson stains both her hands and speckles of blood adorn her face and long glorious silver braid.

“We need to talk before you go in there.” Her voice is so stern and full of sorrow.

My hand grips the metal barn door handle. “Baba, not now.”

She interrupts me sharply. “Iwas the one who sent for you.Iwas the one who knew something bad was happening, so I ordered the boys to follow her closely and they saw her get snatched through that bloody hospital window. They trailed her andwewere able to save her. They killed our Tilly, and Bobby is a raging mess. So you need to hear it fromme, before you go into that barn. For it is something difficult to process and you will want to kill every single person remotely related to them.”

Rolling my shoulders back, I turn my head to look in her direction.

“What happened?” I demand plainly, stifling the sound of irritation in my voice—though my ears are pounding and I need to take my rage out onsomething.

“She was pregnant,” Baba states.

My lungs seize.

I can’t breathe.

My teeth may crack, considering how hard I am clenching the muscles in my jaw. Slowly my body begins to sway, and a pounding echoes within my ears.

Drumming louder and louder.

My heart is skipping beats, trying to maintain some sort of regularity after this news came crashing into my soul.

I became careless.

She was the first person I didn’t use a condom with, because she was different.

She wasmine—sheismine, for fuck’s sake.

And now my fucking selfishness and obsession have placed her in harm.

My selfishness caused our unborn child to die.

No.

“How?” I ask, ice leaking from my tone.

Baba lets out a slow exhale and I can hear her trying to remain calm, but there is a small twinge in her voice, that sorrow I heard earlier. It wants to be released, grief and melancholy encircling her and now engulfing me with the news that these fuckers just killed my first child and her first grandbaby.

Her bloodied hand cups her mouth as she tightly closes her eyes. Then she rests her fingers against her temple, preparing herself to tell me the information she is about to.

“Michael kicked her in the stomach seventeen times,” she boldly states, and I can feel her stare boring into me. “The blunt force must have caused the miscarriage.”

No. The information causes my body to flinch as I tighten my grip on the metal handle.

As sorrow and remorse begin to flood my emotions, I cut them off with the wall of malice growing inside me.

No.Fuck that.