Page 17 of Silent Schemes (Broken Blood)

This might be the last time we have this, before everything goes to hell.

After lying in the dark with his arms around me, sweat cooling on our skin, hearts slowly returning to normal rhythm, he speaks into the silence.

"Whatever they threatened you with, I can protect you from it."

The certainty in his voice makes me want to cry.

He doesn't know about the flash drive, about Will, about the countdown that's already started.

He doesn't know that in four weeks, either he'll be dead or I will.

"No," I whisper into the darkness. "You can't protect me from you."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're the weapon they'll use against me. My feelings for you. They know, Varrick. They know I've fallen—" I stop myself before the words escape, but it's too late.

"Say it," he demands softly, his arms tightening around me.

"I can't."

"Then I will. I love you, Sienna Cross. Despite everything, because of everything. I love you."

The words hang between us like a death sentence.

Because love in our world isn't salvation—it's damnation.

It's leverage.

It's weakness that gets exploited.

I don't say it back, but my silence says everything.

He holds me tighter, and we both pretend that love might be enough to save us from what's coming.

Later, after he's fallen asleep—a rare vulnerability he only allows with me—I slip out of bed.

My stomach has been unsettled for days, a rolling nausea that comes in waves.

There's a suspicion growing in the back of my mind that I've been desperately ignoring, but I can't anymore.

My period is two weeks late, and I'm never late.

I dress silently in the darkness, leave a note saying I've gone for a drive to clear my head.

It's not entirely a lie.

I need clarity, need to know if the impossible situation just became more impossible.

The 24-hour pharmacy is fluorescent bright and mostly empty at 3 AM.

The teenage cashier is half-asleep, scrolling through her phone.

I buy three different pregnancy tests, trying to look casual, like I'm not potentially carrying the child of the man I'm supposed to kill.

I also grab antacids, aspirin, and candy bars—camouflage for the real purchase.

"Rough night?" the cashier asks, barely looking up.

"Something like that."

I can't go back to the penthouse, not yet.

Instead, I stop at a gas station on the outskirts of the city, one of those places that exists in the margins, where nobody asks questions and the security cameras haven't worked in years.

The bathroom is grimy and smells like industrial cleaner and desperation, but at least it's private.

My hands shake as I unwrap the first test, as I follow the instructions I don't need to read because every woman knows how these work.

The wait is agony—three minutes that feel like three years.

I take all three tests, lining them up on the dirty sink like evidence at a crime scene.

The first line appears immediately on each test—the control line, proving they work.

Then, slowly, inevitably, the second lines appear.

Positive. Positive. Positive.

I stare at the little plus signs, the digital "PREGNANT" display, the two pink lines.

Three different tests, three different brands, same result.

I'm carrying Varrick Bane's child.

The game just became infinitely more complicated.

I lean against the grimy wall, slide down until I'm sitting on the floor that I definitely shouldn't be touching, and let the reality wash over me.

A baby.

His baby.

Growing inside me while I'm supposed to be planning his death.

An innocent life that will be born into a world of violence and betrayal, assuming any of us survive the next month.

My father will use this against me if he finds out.

A pregnant woman is vulnerable, emotional, weak in his eyes.

He'll either force me to terminate or use the baby as leverage forever.

And Varrick... God, Varrick would burn the world down to protect his child.

He'd start a war with my family that would leave the rest of Vancouver in ashes.

I destroy the evidence, wrapping everything in paper towels and shoving it deep in the trash, then taking the bag out to the dumpster behind the building.

No one can know.

Not my father, not Bastian, not even Varrick.

Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I sit in my car for another hour, watching the sun rise over Vancouver, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold that feel too beautiful for the darkness I'm carrying.

Not just the child—though that's a complication I never imagined—but the knowledge that in less than a month, everything will implode.

Will Romano will be captured because of me.

Varrick will know I betrayed him.

Theodore will demand his death.

And now there's an innocent life caught in the crossfire of our war.

When I finally drive back to the penthouse, the city is waking up—normal people going to normal jobs, living normal lives where love doesn't come with a body count and babies are cause for celebration instead of terror.

I slip back into bed just as the sun fully rises, and Varrick pulls me against him without waking, his hand splaying possessively over my stomach.

The gesture is probably unconscious, but it makes me want to scream, to cry, to confess everything.

Instead, I close my eyes and pretend that we're different people in a different life.

A life where love doesn't come with a body count.

Where babies are blessings instead of weapons.

Where I could tell him about our child without signing all our death warrants.

One month.

I have one month to figure out how to save us all—Varrick, Maya, and now this baby who never asked to be conceived in a war zone.

The game isn't just complicated anymore.

It's fucking impossible.

But I'm Sienna Cross.

I've survived impossible before.

I just hope this time, we all make it out alive.

Because now it's not just my life on the line, or Varrick's, or even Maya's.

It's the life of someone who hasn't even taken their first breath yet, who doesn't know their parents are killers, who deserves better than being born into this war.

I touch my still-flat stomach, make a silent promise to the cluster of cells that will become a person: I'll find a way. Somehow, I'll find a way to give you a life that isn't stained with blood.

Even if it kills me.