Savage Things (Chaos & Ruin Book 2) (24 page)

I can’t gauge the look on his face. Is he happy? Is he angry? God, he just looks confused. He slowly rises to his feet, so that he’s towering over me. “You’re pregnant?” His voice is low and soft, like he’s scared to form the shape of the words with his mouth, let alone allow them past his lips.
 

I nod.
 

He’s not happy. I cover my face with my hands. I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking
breathe
. I love this man so much. He is the blood that keeps my heart pumping. The oxygen that fills my lungs. The balm that soothes my soul. If he hates me for this, if he resents me, it will shatter me into pieces.
 

“How?” He says the word quietly, the sound of it weighty and resonant in the still air.
 

I explain about the antibiotics. “I’m sorry. I was sick. I should have remembered. I was so busy with work, though. When I started throwing up, I thought it was still the flu, and then…then I realized what had happened, and…”

“How long have you known?”

“Four days,” I whisper. Zeth doesn’t move. I wish he would. I wish he would pick something up. Throw something. I wish he would speak. Shout. Laugh. Cry.
Anything
. I need to know what he’s thinking. Either way, good or bad, I just want to know, so we can deal with it. He just stands there, staring, though. The muscles in his arms keep twitching, the tattoos marking his skin shifting as he fights to figure out how to stop his body from trembling.
 

“Zeth—”

He turns around quickly, picks up his leather jacket from the coat rack, and then he storms out of the house, slamming the door behind him. The house rings with the sound, echoing like a shotgun.
 

Oh shit. Fuck, shit, fuck.
 

I lean forward, bracing myself against my knees, trying to slow down the frantic racing of my heart. Now I really can’t breathe. I can’t even form a coherent thought.
 

He—he didn’t—he didn’t even say anything. How? How could he just leave without breathing one word to calm me, to make me feel better? How could he have stood there for all of those drawn out seconds and be able to hide his reaction so well? He’s angry. He’s angry and he hates me for this, I just know it. God, I can’t fucking breathe.
 
I can’t fucking—

The door swings open again, ripped open so violently that it’s a miracle it remains attached to its hinges. Zeth storms back into the house like a force of nature, a whirlwind, unstoppable, charged and snapping with energy. He throws his jacket onto the ground, coming to a stop three feet away from me.

“You’re
pregnant,”
he says, running his hands through his hair. It’s a statement this time, not a question. “You are pregnant. With a baby. With
my
baby.”

“Yes.” He’s not implying that I’ve been sleeping with someone else, and there’s a chance it’s not his. I can tell by the stunned look on his face that he’s just trying to get his head around the concept. I’ve had a couple of days to let this news settle in, after all, and it still has me reeling. It’s understandable that he’s so stunned.

“This…I wasn’t expecting this,” he says. “We never spoke about children, Sloane.”

“I know. It was a shock to me too, believe me.”

“How far along are you?”

“Not long. Only three weeks.”

He nods. Nods, and then starts pacing up and down. His fingers are still buried deep in his hair. “And…you…” He blows out a deep breath. Shakes his head. Growls under his breath. I’ve never seen him like this. He doesn’t know what to say. How to say it. I can already hear the words, though.

I put him out of his misery and voice them myself. “And I want to keep it?”

He freezes, eyes locking onto mine. The tips of his ears are bright red. “I know you’re not going to get rid of it, Sloane. I just want to know if…” He scowls, clenching his hands into fists. Frustrated isn’t the word for his emotional state right now. It’s something bigger, something more than that, but I just can’t seem to put a name to it. He sinks into the armchair opposite me, his head hanging, chin almost touching his chest. He looks defeated.
 

“I want to know how you feel about it,” he says, rushing the words out. “I want to know if having a baby, having
my
baby, is something you think will make you…
happy
. Can you…can you see it? In your head?”

He’s never looked more vulnerable. God, I want to rush across the room and throw myself at him, but Zeth handles his feelings in strange ways. He won’t be able to cope with me mothering him. He’ll reject it. He needs me to give him time to get his words out, and he needs me to answer him as plainly and simply as I can. So I do.

“Yes. Yes, I can see it. I can see it all. I want this baby. He’s half of me and half of you. How can I not want that? I was scared to even think about it for a while, I’ll admit it, but I
know
now. This isn’t planned, and the timing sure as hell isn’t right, but I know we can make it work. If you’re here with me, we can do anything.”

He sits very still, digesting my words. His head is still hanging, like he’s bracing for the worst news of his life. Maybe this is it. I could seriously just have delivered the most terrible news Zeth Mayfair will ever receive. God, I hope I haven’t. I’m praying that’s not the case when he lifts his head and I see the tears in his eyes.
 

“Thank god,” he whispers.
 

A wave crashes into me, so strong and powerful that I can feel the relief reaching down and taking hold of me, so intense that my head spins. I let out a choked sob and then clamp my hands over my mouth, trying to hold back the other, louder sobs that are building in my chest. Zeth jumps up out of his chair and rushes to me, taking hold of me and lifting me off the sofa into his arms.
 

“I can’t believe it,” he says, whispering into my hair. “Don’t cry, angry girl. Everything’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise. I
swear
to you. Fuck, I love you so much.”

I cling to him, barely keeping my shit together. Ahh, who am I kidding? I don’t keep my shit together at all. I cry until his t-shirt is soaked with a patch of my tears, and my throat is aching so badly that it hurts to swallow. I was too afraid to even let myself imagine that he might take this news well, so the fact that he’s comforting me, telling me everything’s going to be all right, that he loves me, makes me feel like my heart is overflowing.
 

“Can
you
see it?” I ask. “Can you see us having a family? Do you think it will make
you
happy?”
 

Zeth lets out a shaky breath. He presses his forehead against mine, closing his eyes. “I’m already happy, Sloane. I don’t deserve you, and I don’t deserve this baby. It’s a fucking miracle. The most precious fucking gift. I don’t…I just don’t want to fuck it up.”

I cup the side of his face in my hand. How did the stars align so that I would meet this man? Both of us have walked such very different paths, our lives guiding us in such different directions, our pain and our suffering carving us into two vastly different creatures, and yet somehow fate brought us together. We found that our differences brought us closer to one another, and our pasts held no power over the future we might share if we wanted it.

And now, a baby.
Our baby.
Still such a strange, alien thought, and yet I feel like another piece of our puzzle has snapped into place, revealing a little more of the story of our lives together. Who knows how many more pieces there are yet to be revealed. Who knows what the end picture will look like. All I know is that this man holding me in his arms is raw, and dangerous, and volatile, and he is fierce, and protective, and kind at the same time.
 

“You’re not going to fuck it up,” I tell him. “You’re gonna knock this out of the park, Zeth Mayfair.”

He kisses me like a man drowning, then, crushing his lips against mine as if I’m his oxygen, I’m his life force, and he just can’t get enough. I kiss him back, clinging to him, unable to get close enough. When he cuts the kiss short, I take the opportunity to ask him one more time. “Please don’t go to New York, Zeth.
Please
. I need you here, with me.
Alive
.”

He looks conflicted, his eyes flickering with anger. “I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere now. But, shit, Sloane. This thing’s going to come to a head one way or another. I’m going to be ready. It’s not just you I have to think about now.”

He’s right, naturally. The warehouse burning down isn’t going to be an isolated event. When it comes to money and power, men and women alike transform into people entirely unlike themselves. It’s an addiction, and just like any form of addiction, the addict will do anything and everything they can to feed their vice.
 

The Italians will be back. The prospect is a frightening one, almost too frightening to think about right now, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that Zeth will be true to his word. He’ll keep us safe. He won’t let anything happen to us.
 

I feel stupid for having waited so long to tell him. Michael was right; I should have trusted him. I feel weightless as Zeth carries me upstairs to our bedroom. I’m sure now that having this baby won’t break us.
 

Quite the opposite. In fact, strange though it might seem, I believe that having this baby might just end up being our salvation.

The End

Acknowledgments

Firstly, a confession: I am not a doctor. I love writing about Sloane’s work, and I do my best to make sure everything is as accurate as possible. When it comes to patients’ conditions and the medication administered to them, I always really try to ensure the veracity of the information I include, but sometimes a lay person’s understanding of human biology and medicine means that errors might occur. I apologize in advance if any such mistakes have occurred within the pages of this novel, and I humbly ask for your forgiveness.
 

Secondly, another confession: I am an English! I live in the states now, and I do write using American English. My books are all edited to check that the content is geared in that direction, however sometimes my English brain will speed way ahead of me, things might get missed, and grammar and spelling might be anglicised. If this happens and you see a rogue U or S in a word, or you’re not 100% familiar with a particular turn of phrase, rest assured that I’m not illiterate and it’s simply my Blighty roots shining through. Again, please forgive!

Now we get down to the good stuff. The thanking part.
 

In no particular order of favourites (see what I did there?), huge thanks must go to Tyler Chesser, Kirsten Stomberg Bumpus, Alice Kulbat, and Jessica Roscoe for cheering me on with this project and keeping me writing. Jess’s alter ego, Lili Saint Germain, must definitely be thanked for sprinting with me, so that I managed to get words down on paper while I was on the road.
 

Thanks to Fiona Wilson for the fast, efficient editing. Thanks to Rebecca Shea for the Starbucks coconut macchiato suggestion—that shit kept me going more than you will ever know! Thanks to Gemma Curran, Kylie Sharp and Emma Keating for the continued support you show me every time I write a new book. I am endlessly grateful for the time and energy you put into helping me.
 

Gemma Sherlock, thank you for signing up to help me muddle through this whole crazy author gig. Your assistance means I get to do what I love most: write.
 

Lastly, thank you to you, Dear Reader, for continuing to follow Zeth & Sloane’s story and to invest in their rocky, romantic, crazy, adventure filled lives together. It’s very easy as an author to forget sometimes that the people you write about every day aren’t, in actual fact, real, and to know that you guys have gotten as lost as I have in this journey is the most rewarding thing in the world.
 

Thank you

X

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Callie Hart is the author of the international bestselling Blood & Roses Series. She considers herself a true citizen of the world, having lived and traveled in many different countries. Her passion for writing can only be topped by her love for reading. When she’s not buried in a book, you can find her lost in Game of Thrones or some other fantastical world.

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