Page 22 of Unleashed (Dark Sovereign #11)

EVERLY

The apartment smells faintly of coffee and vanilla candles when I step inside, though my knees are still weak from Isaia’s touch, my skin still burning where his breath ghosted my neck.

Molly is sprawled across the couch, hair in a messy knot, paintbrush in one hand, toenails a violent shade of hot pink. She glances up, takes one look at me, and her grin slips.

“Jesus, Everly,” she says, tossing the brush into the polish bottle and sitting up. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Everything okay with the baby?”

I freeze in the doorway, heat crawling up my neck. My throat goes dry. “The baby’s fine.”

Molly narrows her eyes, sharp as a hawk. Then she pats the cushion beside her. “Come here, Beaumont. Spill it.”

I drop my bag with a thud, drag myself across the room, and sink onto the couch.

The second I sit, Molly tucks her legs under herself and shifts close, her hand pressing over mine.

No questions, not at first. Just steady warmth, like she’s letting me know I don’t have to carry whatever this is alone.

For a moment, I almost cry. “I heard the baby’s heartbeat today.”

Her expression softens, lashes fluttering. She squeezes my hand, then reaches for my stomach without asking. Her palm rests gently against me, reverent, protective. “Strong?”

“Strong,” I whisper, and for a second, the ache inside me eases.

“That’s good,” she says softly. “So, why do you look like you've just walked through a hailstorm without an umbrella?”

At first I don’t speak. How can I form a single coherent sentence when his name is playing on repeat in my thoughts? Isaia. Isaia. Isaia.

“Either you're going to tell me what happened, or I'm getting the pint of H?agen-Dazs from the back of the freezer. The one with the brownie chunks I've been saving for a catastrophe.”

That earns her a broken laugh out of me, and she beams like she just scored a win. That’s Molly—knows when to joke, when to press, when to sit quiet.

“He was there,” I finally say, my voice no louder than a whisper.

“Isaia? He was there?”

I nod.

“He was there for the sonogram?”

“No.” I wipe a strand of hair out of my face. “He…um…when I got on the elevator, he was…” I’m still dazed. Confused.

“He was what? Everly, girl? Are you having a stroke right now?”

“He was in the elevator with me. And he…told me I’m still his.” My palm rests on my lower belly. “Said we both are.”

Her eyes widen, then narrow, her mouth falling open before she snaps it shut again.

“Hold up. Back up. Rewind.” She picks up the nail polish.

“You’re telling me Isaia—six-foot-something, storm-cloud-in-a-leather-jacket Isaia—was in the goddamn elevator with you, and instead of, I don’t know, asking how you’re doing or apologizing for being an ass, he just… laid claim like you were a handbag?”

“Molly…” I rub my forehead, because hearing it out loud makes it sound ridiculous, insane—but it didn’t feel that way. Not in the moment.

“No, no, no.” She waves the nail polish brush at me like it’s a gavel.

“You don’t just casually drop ‘oh hey, the man who wrecked me and ghosted me after I forgave him for murder and kidnapping showed up in an elevator and told me I’m his’ like it’s Tuesday gossip.

You gotta give me details. Start to finish.

What did he do? Where did his hands go?”

“Molly!” I choke, face burning hot.

She smirks, but the softness in her eyes doesn’t falter. “I’m serious, babe. Because you look like someone just spun you around, kissed your soul, and then vanished. And if that’s what happened…well, no wonder you look like you’ve been struck by lightning.”

I press my palms over my eyes, heart pounding. Lightning. That’s exactly what it felt like. His breath, his touch, his voice—it seared through me, leaving nothing but fire in its wake.

When I drop my hands, Molly’s watching me, expression sharper now. Fierce. Protective. “So…what do you want to do about it?”

I blink. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she says slowly, leaning in, “do you want him back? Or do you want to set him on fire and watch him roast? Because either way, I’m here. With ice cream. Or matches.”

That makes me laugh, but it cracks in the middle, collapsing under the ache in my chest. “I don’t know what I want. I just know that when he touched me…” My voice falters, shame and longing warring inside me. “I felt like I had been holding my breath for weeks and could finally breathe right.”

Molly doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t judge. She just stares at me like she knows what I’ve known all along yet refused to admit. I am his. She knows it. He knows it. I know it.

Molly suddenly pats my shoulder and springs up. “All right. You look like you’re about to unravel, and that means two things. Carbs and trash TV.”

I blink at her. “Carbs?”

She’s already striding toward the kitchen, her oversized sweatshirt slipping off one shoulder. “Yes. Carbs. The universal cure for heartbreak, stress, and growing small humans. Sit tight.”

I half-smile despite the heaviness in my chest, watching as she yanks open the fridge and starts rummaging.

A second later, she pulls out leftover pasta, sets it on the counter, and flicks the stove on.

“Don’t give me that look,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Yes, I’m reheating. No, I will not apologize.

Pregnant women need fuel. And I refuse to let you wither away on tea and crackers. ”

“I miss coffee.”

“Once that baby’s done incubating, we’ll drown you in French roast. Until then, it’s tea since you refuse to drink decaf.”

My laugh comes out choked, watery, but it’s real. “You’re bossy.”

“Damn right.” She shoots me a grin, tossing her hair back.

“If Isaia’s gonna lurk around and not take care of you,” my breath hitches at his name, but she keeps rolling, “then you’re stuck with me.

And I take my best friend duties very seriously.

Cooking, cuddling, and keeping you alive with sarcasm. ”

I curl deeper into the couch, hugging a pillow to my stomach. For the first time in weeks, the apartment feels less hollow, less like a temporary stopgap, more like…home.

Molly brings over two bowls, one piled high for me, one modest for herself. She plunks mine in my lap, then grabs the remote. “Okay,” she says, clicking the TV on. “Do you want murder documentaries that’ll remind you men are trash, or do you want dating shows where men prove they’re trash?”

I laugh again, fuller this time. “God, Molly…”

Her grin widens, triumphant. “That’s what I like to hear. Eat your pasta, Beaumont. You’re growing a badass in there, and I’ll be damned if I let you do it on an empty stomach.”

We eat. We watch people on TV cry over roses and rejection.

She cracks jokes that make me snort noodles through my nose.

And for a little while, the ache of Isaia’s absence quiets.

Not gone—never gone—but muffled by the fierce, stubborn love of the only friend I never thought I’d have and now can’t imagine surviving without.

At some point, the warmth of the pasta and the rhythm of Molly’s chatter blur together, lulling me under. My head tips against the arm of the couch, the glow of the TV washing everything in flickers of red and blue.

When I wake, my phone’s vibrating on the glass coffee table. Hope spikes—and dies when I see it’s Anthony. I swipe decline, the room falling quiet again, the wrong man’s name still burning my retinas.

Not a single day has gone by that he hasn’t called.

Part of me expected him to appear on Molly’s doorstep, but he hasn’t, and I’m thankful for it.

Maybe he knows I don’t have the mental capacity right now for face-to-face confrontation, but I’m not naive enough to think he doesn’t have a clue where I am or what I’ve been doing.

In fact, I’m sure he has a report about my doctor’s appointment in his hand right now.

The apartment is dim, the vanilla candle guttering low on the coffee table.

The TV’s switched off, and a plush blanket’s been draped over me.

I don’t need to guess who tucked me in. Molly.

Always Molly. She’s everything I didn’t know I needed—steady when I’m falling, fire when I’m too weak to spark my own flame.

If the last three weeks living with her have taught me anything, it’s that I was stupid to ever think I didn’t need a friend like her. Everyone needs a Molly in their lives.

I stare at the ceiling, the quiet pressing down, Isaia’s name a drumbeat in my chest. It’s been weeks, yet it feels like an eternity of going back and forth inside my own head. Weeks of wondering why he hasn’t called. Wondering if we’re over. But after today, he made it clear we’re not.

I close my eyes, and it plays back, frame by frame, until my body is trembling again, aching, desperate for him.

The memory of his breath against my neck is still seared into my skin.

The low rasp of his voice, the way his hand curved over my belly, the promise in every touch—it’s all still there.

The desire, passion, the vows and love we’ve both been unable to fight or shut off, so we succumbed to it.

On that island, we surrendered to it completely—no walls, no guilt, no second thoughts—and I found a freedom in loving him that I'd never known was possible.

Heat floods low in my belly just thinking about it.

The island, the elevator, all the times he showed me how beautiful we could be in the darkness.

My thighs press together. God, if he’d touched me one more time in that elevator—just once more—I would have come all over his palm.

My body and soul would have shattered for him, like it always does. Like I always do.

And maybe that’s the point. He still wants me. He has to. Otherwise, why would he have come? Why would he have touched me like that, claimed me like that, if he didn’t?

He knows I’m pregnant. He knew where I was, which means he’s been following me, watching me, just like he did when all this began.

And if that proves anything, it’s that he still wants me.

He still loves me. There’s no reason for me to have that doubt anymore.

So why am I hiding? Why am I waiting for him to come crashing back into my life when maybe this time it’s supposed to be me who reaches for him?

My hand drifts to my stomach, thumb circling slowly over the swell where our baby grows. I have to stop waiting. Stop hiding. Stop pretending that my silence will protect me when all it’s doing is killing me.

I need him.

My fingers fumble for my phone, clumsy as if I’m holding a live grenade. The glass is cold against my palm, but my pulse is fire, hammering too loud, too fast.

Each name I scroll past feels like a hurdle, until his blazes up at me like a wound. Isaia. The sight of it alone makes my throat lock, my eyes sting.

My thumb hovers. Trembles. All I have to do is press. One second. One choice. And then maybe this ache—this hunger—won’t be mine to carry alone anymore.

I squeeze my eyes shut, drag in a breath that feels too thin. And before I can lose my nerve—

I press call.

One ring. Two. Three.

My pulse is frantic, wild, and I picture him—phone in hand, my name glowing across his screen. I see him staring at it, see his thumb hovering. Choosing. Deciding.

“Come on,” I whisper into the empty room, my voice cracking. “Please, Isaia…pick up.”

The fourth ring feels like a noose tightening. By the fifth, I’m certain my heart will split in two.

And then—

Voicemail. The generic one. A soulless machine. I’m not given the grace of his voice, not even the cruel comfort of hearing him speak words meant for no one. Just a tone, flat and final, and all my strength drains away, the phone slipping from my fingers.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t…

Oh, God. A double-breath chokes out of my lungs, a strangled sob wrapping itself around my heart—a hollowed out ache that hurts too damn much.

“Everly?” Molly pads across the carpet, a blanket sliding from her shoulders, her face softening the second she sees mine. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t press. She just lowers herself beside me, tucks me against her, and lets me fall apart.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers into my hair, her hand rubbing slow circles against my back. “Even if he doesn’t pick up, I’ve got you.”