One of his men died tonight, and Dex’s calm behavior only fed the fury burning inside me. I snatched the phone from the counter, and my gaze scattered over numerous naked photos of Leigh. My finger scrolled through the shots, one right after the other of her lying over a pink comforter in a princess-style bed, breasts out, and a finger between her teeth. The last one was her on all fours, and her head turned back with a frown. “Who took these?”
“Hell if I know. They’re good, right? I’m sending them over to my contact to confirm the appointment. She’s perfect.” He grabbed his phone from my clenched fist and admired her picture, smoke spilling from between his lips and over the screen. “Too bad we need her innocent for the exchange, the virgin’s pussy is gonna make me a lot of money.” His finger ran over the screen, and I looked up to see the sick bloke smile.
“We’re not actually doing an exchange,” I reminded him. “I’m killing Ghost before I hand her over.”
“Yeah, right.” Dex clicked off the phone when the screen turned black and pocketed it.
“Dex …” I hissed. “What exactly is the plan?” There was something he wasn’t telling me, and I didn’t like walking into this appointment blind.
“For right now, it’s a need to know basis.” He took another long drag of the blunt before holding it out in front of me between two fingers. “Don’t fuck this up, Oliver. You have one shot at this.”
BABY LEHMAN ARRIVED two weeks late on August 7th, and I’d fallen asleep in Ollie’s lap as we waited in the waiting area for Summer to deliver him. There had been complications, and Summer was rushed into the operating room for an unplanned C-Section, but after a grueling sixteen hours, Ollie and I stood over the bed as Summer cradled her son.
“Do you want to hold him?” Summer asked, looking up at me through tired but joyous blue eyes.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t.” I’d never held a baby before, and I’d always destroyed everything my hands came across. “Trust me. You don’t want me to hold your child.”
“Here,” Ollie spoke up, taking little Turner from Summer’s arms. The baby was tiny, tucking flawlessly inside his strong arms. Turner gripped his finger, big new eyes staring up at him, and the sight brought a ping in my chest. Ollie turned to face me. “It’s okay, love.” I caved to the pressure and held out my arms, and Ollie sank the baby inside. “See?” he moved my hair off my shoulder and over my back. “You were made for this.”
Speechless, I brushed over Turner’s soft arm with my pointer finger. “You guys made this,” I whispered in amazement. “It’s true. Love really does breathe life into this world.”
“It’s true. Couples who are always together end up talking like each other.” Travis laughed, and I carefully rested Turner back into Summer’s arms.
Hand in hand, Ollie and I walked back to the car after saying our goodbyes to the new family of three. He opened the car door for me, and I settled into the passenger seat, quickly wiping away tears that had fallen. It could have easily been from the lack of sleep over the last forty-eight hours since Summer first started having contractions, and maybe exhaustion was getting the better of me. But if I was honest with myself, it had been the way Ollie’s eyes lit up at Turner and knowing I’d never be able to give him that.
“Mia, you’re crying.” Ollie turned in the car before starting the engine and took my hand. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
I rubbed my eyes, then shook hair away from my face before taking a deep breath. “I think I’m just really tired.”
“Oh, no. Don’t hide from me, tell me what’s going on.” His hand hit the nape of my neck, and he gave it a gentle squeeze before it trailed down my back. “Is it the baby?”
“Would you be happy if it was just us? For the rest of our lives, just you and me, no babies?” The conversation had always come so easily for us. We’d talked about our future, what we both wanted, and made jokes and deals about how many I’d owe him, but never thought I would be unable to give him one.
“Are you changing your mind, Mia? You don’t want kids with me?”
I looked over at him, and his face was frozen, lips parted, eyes unblinking as he waited for the punch to the gut. “I do, I just can’t,” I wiped another slipped tear, “I can’t have kids, Ollie. I haven’t been on birth control since we left Dolor, and it’s not like we tried, but we never prevented it either. And it’s not like you want one right now, we’re still young, you’ll be twenty-three this November, we’re hardly in a place—”
“Mia,” Ollie interrupted. “You’re rambling. I can’t understand. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this is my punishment for everything I’ve done,” for the morbid thoughts that go through my head, “I know it. I can’t get pregnant, Ollie.”
Ollie turned his head, his thoughts consuming him, and I wanted to hear what they had to say. I wanted inside his head, but then I didn’t. I was terrified. “You’re sure?” he asked, and there were only a few times I’d heard his voice so clipped and distant.
More tears trembled at the corners of my eyes, and when I nodded, they fell without permission. “I’m sorry.”
Ollie got out of the car, and my gaze blurred as my eyes glossed over from the disconnection, and I watched him round the car to the passenger side and opened my door. He crouched down beside the seat and grabbed my hands from my lap. “Listen to me. It’s you and I, evermore. Remember?” I nodded. Ollie squeezed my hand, sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly. “Being with you is more than enough. You will always be more than enough. And if it’s just you and I at the end of all this, we’ll just have to keep our youth ‘til we’re seventy and put all the youngins to shame. We’ll make out in public, dance in streets, and play footsie under the table at the book club meetings like two geezers in love. You and I, forever.”
I smiled. “Evermore.”
“Come here.” He lifted me out of the car and pulled me into a tight hug.
“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone,” Ollie asked, then sipped his wine as we sat outside with my feet in his lap. His thumb kneaded my sock-covered heel. “Something you’ve never told me.”
“You know all my secrets,” I said through a forced smile, guilt teasing me and my murderous thoughts. Perhaps Ollie really did know me, and I, him, but maybe there was something he wanted to get off his chest, and I leaned in, resting my elbow over the arm of the chair and dangling my wine glass in the air. He opened a door, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Okay, I’ll bite. When I shot my uncle and watched the lights go out, I liked it. There was something about being there for his last breath, having control whether or not he lived or died. All the pain and shame he brought me for years just … slipped away, and I wanted to lay there in his blood and fall asleep in the peace of death from many nights of torment.” Ollie stared at me from the other end, and I hadn’t noticed the way his hand stopped moving over my feet. “His life was in my hands, and I took it, and I liked it. And I’d thought about doing it again.” I leaned back and took another sip of my wine, waiting to hear a reaction out of him. It was my darkest truth, something that had taken so long to admit to myself. “Your turn.”