It has to be, right?
There’s no way it’s real. From the second I saw the positive sign on the pregnancy test, I refused to believe any of this was happening.
No baby in my womb.
No soldiers in my home.
I just closed my eyes and stayed curled up in a ball on my bathroom floor. I could hear the distant sounds of guests leaving soon afterwards.
No one came to check on me. No one gave a damn, and for once, I was grateful for that.
The first boom caught me by surprise.
The second made me sit upright.
Then came the gunfire and the roars of men shooting at each other.
None of it could possibly be real. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be, it couldn’t be.
Even now, as a six and a half foot tall soldier with guns strapped all over his body stands in my bathroom and looks down at me like an angel of death, I refuse to believe it’s real.
And for one blissful, beautiful second, I hold onto that denial.
“This is a dream,” I mumble.
He shakes his head and keeps staring at me.
“Yes, it is,” I retort. “It’s a bad dream and I’m going to wake up soon. This isn’t happening. The last four months didn’t happen. The night we met most definitely did not happen.”
“You aren’t dreaming,” the dark-eyed stranger says.
“Am too.”
He sighs in irritation, takes one stride to cross the distance between us, and yanks me to my feet by my wrist.
“No,” he repeats grimly, “you aren’t. Does this feel like you’re dreaming? Do I feel make-believe to you?”
His face is close to mine. Close enough that I can smell sweat, blood, musk, and just a hint of something cool and fragrant beneath it all.
I want to keep living in denial.
But he’s right. The man from The Siren is right.
He’s very, very real.
Which means everything else is real, too.
The one-night-stand. The pregnancy test. The explosions.
It’s all real. It’s all happening.
Somehow, I drag my eyes up from the floor to meet the man’s gaze. His irises are even darker than I remember. Like pools of oil. Searing right through me.
“Is everyone dead?” I ask numbly.
He nods. “They’re either dead already or they will be soon.”
I shudder and close my eyes. “My father, too?”
The question is heavy with emotion that I’m too overwhelmed to fully process.
He doesn’t blunt his words.
“Yes,” he tells me. “Him, too.”
I open my eyes and stare back at him for a long time. He watches my face carefully. I’m trying so hard not to cry.
Don’t cry, Esme, I scold myself. Not now. Not in front of him.
In the end, it’s a losing battle. I bury my face in my hands and let loose.
Sobs tear through me as I try and fight for control.
I’m overwhelmed, I’m conflicted, I’m scared but most of all… I’m relieved.
Papa is dead.
And I’m relieved?
That’s the first thing that I feel the moment he says the words.
Does that make me an awful person? Does that make a terrible daughter?
I don’t know.
All I know is that I can’t escape the relief that washes over me when the stranger speaks, confirming what I already know in my heart to be true.
“He’s dead,” he tells me again, without any emotion or sympathy. Like he knows I need to hear the truth one more time. “I killed him myself.”
I stare up at his face. The face that’s haunted my dreams these many months.
I never thought I’d ever see him again. I can’t figure out what I’m feeling now that he’s here in front of me, having just murdered my father, the guards, probably the entire staff.
I want to ask more questions. But emotion clogs up my throat and all I can do is keep sobbing.
Papa hated when I cried. He’d slap me across the face and tell me to stop my whining.
I expect the same from this nameless nightmare figure.
But he does nothing. He says nothing.
He just stands there and watches me cry.
When the tears finally subside, I wipe away my tears and look up at him.
“It’s time to go,” he says.
His voice is deep, but strangely familiar. I realize I’ve been hearing his voice in my head for four months now.
I may have forgotten just how piercing those eyes are.
But I remember that voice.
Arrogant as hell. Cold as ice.
Oh, yes—I remember his voice perfectly.
I try not to look away from his eyes, even though I want to. I wonder if he knows the secret I’m keeping with me.
That I’m carrying this man’s baby and I don’t even know his name. He’s just destroyed my home, killed my father.
And he is about to kill me, too.
His hand is still on my wrist. The touch alone is enough to bring me back to the night we met.
I can still feel how his weight nestled between my thighs, pushing into me with forceful passion.
I can still sense the smoky whiskey scent of him flush against my cheek.
I can still remember the way his hands claimed me. Forceful. Irresistible. Dangerous.
This is wrong. He’s belongs to Papa’s world. He’s a monster, too.
He just killed my father. He’s probably killed countless others.
I’m next.
My limbs are weak. My mind goes blank. I feel myself losing grip on reality.
All the while, his hands keep me upright.
I wonder how much time has passed since the moment he entered the room.
Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
Impossible to tell. It feels like we’ve been staring at each other for as long as I can remember.
“It’s time to go,” he says again. “More troops are probably already on the way.”
So he’s going to kill me somewhere else, then. He’s going to drag out this process. Make me suffer, make me bleed, make me beg.
I knew he was dangerous. From the second I laid eyes on him in that club, I knew it.
Turns out I underestimated by a lot.
He grabs me by the arm and drags me out of the bathroom. My legs move as if independent from my body.
I have no control over my actions right now. I’m in a
