My hand lazily traces circles on her belly as I open my eyes and it reminds me of the time right before I got locked up, when we were engaged and trying to have a baby.
“You still want to have kids?”
Her muscles tense. “Why are you asking me this, Noah?”
I prop myself up on my elbow and look at her with a scowl. “Why wouldn’t I ask about it? We were trying to have a baby before I got locked up.”
“Just leave it alone.”
“What?” I ask, studying her for a second before I see the hint of pain and fear in her eyes. “Is this an Oliver thing? Did he do something to you?”
She throws the covers back and jumps out of bed before I can stop it. “I told you to leave it alone, Noah.”
I reach out for her but she’s already stalking away and she’s halfway to the bathroom when someone knocks on the door. Jack jumps to his feet and charges out of the room, barking, as Kady turns to look at me with terror filling her eyes.
“The motion sensor,” she whispers and I’m out of bed in a flash, pulling my jeans on and grabbing the shotgun from its spot on the dresser. I point to her.
“You stay here, you hear me?”
She nods and I stalk out to the living room as I cock the gun. Jack is going crazy at the front door, practically foaming at the mouth as he tries to find a way outside. I’ll tell you one thing. I wouldn’t want to be the person on the other side of the door if he found one. Bypassing him, I move to the living room window and peek out as a car peels away from the end of the driveway.
Why the fuck didn’t the motion sensors go off?
Dropping the curtain back in place, I go to the door and pull it open, ready to kill someone if I have to but there’s no one there. I step out to search the driveway when my foot hits something and I glance down. It’s some kind of gift basket with a blue balloon that says, “It’s a boy!”
What the hell?
I scowl as I bend down and pick it up. When I turn around with the basket in my hand, Kady peeks out of the hallway and her gaze flicks up to the balloon hovering above me. She morphs right in front of me into a woman I don’t recognize as pain like I’ve never seen fills her eyes and a sob barrels out of her.
“No,” she cries, shaking her head as she stares at the balloon and then her knees give out. My eyes widen as she buckles to the floor, crying so loudly that I’m too stunned to move.
“Kady?”
She shakes her head, holding her hand up to me before she practically folds in on herself and wails. With each second that passes, she shreds my heart a little more and I’m fucking lost with no idea how to help her. I shut the door and make sure it’s locked before setting the basket and gun down on the desk next to the front door. Jack whines, lying at her feet and I cross the living room to join them, sinking to my knees next to her as I pull her into my arms.
“Tell me what’s going on, baby,” I urge and she sobs harder, shaking her head. “Please, Kady. You’re scaring the hell out of me.”
When she still doesn’t answer me, I move over to the wall and lean back against it as I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight, hoping that she’ll calm down enough to tell me what has her so upset in a few minutes. Rubbing my hand across her back, I tell her how much I love her and that I’m here for her and she has nothing to be afraid of as my mind races, going over the possibilities but there’s just too many. The unease eats away at me and I would give anything to know why the basket and balloon set her off.
They’re definitely from Biche - that much is obvious - but the “it’s a boy!” thing is weird. Was she pregnant? With his baby? Fuck, that thought makes my stomach roll and I swear if he forced her to carry his kid, I’ll kill him with my bare hands whether I go back to prison or not. Even thinking about the fact that he forced himself on her has me ready to murder him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers after she’s finally calmed down some and I shake my head as I slip my fingers in her hair and massage the back of her head.
“You have nothing to apologize for. I just want you to talk to me and tell me what’s going on.”
She sucks in a breath and nods. “You’re going to regret asking me that.”
What the ever-loving fuck?
“Go on, baby. You can tell me anything.”
She glances up at me and nods.
“The day before you got locked up and I was kidnapped,” she whispers, dropping her gaze to her hands as she fidgets, “I took a pregnancy test and it was positive.”
My mind struggles to catch up but when it does, I suck in a breath and force her gaze back up to mine. “We were having a baby?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, baby,” I whisper, crushing her to me as I struggle with the news. It’s everything we ever wanted but I know there is no happy ending here. “What happened?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing happened. I carried him for nine months down in that apartment and gave birth to him in late January. A week from now actually.”
“Him? We have a little boy?” I ask, confused and unsure how to feel. Obviously, there is no child here but she’s talking about him like he’s alive. A soft sob shakes her body as she shakes her head.
“After he was born, Oliver took him away to get a checkup and when he came back, he told me that he didn’t make it.”
Agony rips through me as I think about Kady going through that all by herself and I mourn the loss of a child I never even knew about. Tears sting my eyes and I grit my teeth as she burrows closer to me, searching for comfort.
“I’m so sorry, Kady,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “I’m more sorry than I’ll ever be able to explain to you and I promise I’m going to make this up to you. It will never replace him, our baby boy, but we can try again.”
“No,” she cries, shaking her head. “That’s the thing. We can’t. After I had Thomas - that’s what I named him… after his daddy…”
A tear slips down my cheek and I wipe it away quickly with my fist.
“Oliver brought in this doctor… I don’t think he was a real doctor or a licensed one anyway but he knocked me out and when I woke up, Oliver told me that he’d made sure I’d never have another one of your kids.”
My heart thunders in my ears and my vision clouds as the full weight of what he’s done to my sweet, perfect girl crashes down on me and all I can think is that death is too easy of a fate for Oliver Ford.
* * * *
My hands shake as I fist them together and rest my elbows on my knees, staring into the flames licking up the fireplace. Inside, I feel just like that - a raging inferno that won’t be quenched until I make Biche pay for everything he’s taken from me. I glance to my right at Kady as she sleeps on the couch, her nose red and her skin blotchy from crying all damn day and half the night as we talked about our baby boy and everything she went through when he died. My gaze drops to her stomach and tears spring to my eyes as I grit my teeth and resist the urge to slam my fist into the wall.
Fuck.
Our baby boy.
Before I got locked up, I was so excited to be marrying Kady and starting a family together but now, we never will. He took that from us and I swear he’s going to pay. He’ll pay for every family dinner that we’ll miss, for every t-ball game, for every Christmas that he’s not here with us. I’ll take my pound of flesh for each tiny experience that Kady and I will never get to have and maybe then the scales will finally be level.