Masuk❁✿❀ We left the hospital two days later, the discharge papers signed in silence while the nurse offered us the same practiced smile everyone had been giving us since the fall. Thea didn’t say much on the ride home. She stared out the window at the gray stretch of highway, one hand resting lightly on her stomach out of habit, the other limp in her lap. I kept glancing over at her, waiting for something—anything—but she only nodded when I asked if the seat heater was too warm. The first week back was the worst kind of quiet I had ever known. Thea moved through the house like a ghost in her own life. She would drift from room to room in the soft robes she favored, hair loose and unbrushed, eyes distant in a way that made my chest hurt every time I caught her staring at nothing. Mrs. Harlan tried to keep things normal, fresh flowers on the dining table, meals left warming under silver domes, but Thea barely touched any of it. She would sit at the long table with a plate in f
GAGE ASHFORD°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・I must be the most god-awful person in the whole world.The thought settled over me like the damp chill that clung to the hospital room. My hands stayed deep in my pockets, though there was no one left to notice if they trembled. The relief had come unbidden earlier that afternoon in the exam room, when the ultrasound screen had gone quiet and the technician’s face had tightened in that professional way, and for one brief, unforgivable instant my shoulders had eased and the constant knot in my chest had loosened. One less life I could ruin. One less child who would eventually look at me the way Noah already had.The shame that followed had been immediate and vicious, but it hadn’t erased the feeling entirely, and now, sitting here in the aftermath, I hated myself for the way it still lingered at the edges of my mind. Eight weeks. It was eight goddamn weeks.Long enough for us to have whispered possible names in the dark, long enough for me to have bought th
°❀⋆ ❁✿❀ ࿔*:・The world came back in pieces and the first sound I heard was the beeping of monitors, then the smell of antiseptic in the air, and a deep, bone-heavy ache that radiated from my lower back all the way down my legs.My eyelids felt glued shut. When I finally forced them open, the overhead lights blurred into soft halos. I was in a hospital room with an IV line tugging at the back of my hand.“Uuughhhh…” I groaned, and the second I stirred, Gage's head snapped up and his eyes locked on mine.“Thea…”“Gage…” My voice cracked as I spoke, my throat dry as sand as the word left my mouth. The pain in my stomach flared again, and memory slammed back. My hand immediately flew to my belly on instinct, pressing hard like I could still feel that tiny spark of life there. “My baby? Is the baby okay?”Gage’s hand, already holding mine, tightened. His fingers squeezed almost too hard, knuckles whitening, but he didn’t speak. Not a word. His jaw clenched so tight I saw the muscle j
THEA°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・The rest of the day after Mia and Paul’s visit went by in a soft, golden blur. Gage made it home just after they left, walking through the front door and scooped me up without a word, carrying me straight to bed. Mrs. Harlan fussed over all of us with a fresh pot of tea and a tray of plain biscuits, while Mia texted me heart emojis from the car and promised to come back tomorrow with more “pregnancy survival kits.” Gage stayed glued to my side the whole afternoon, one big hand resting protectively over my stomach, murmuring low praises and future plans between kisses to my temple. By evening I was actually keeping down broth, and the mansion felt warmer than it had any right to be.The next few days settled into something almost normal. Mornings were still rough, coming with waves of sickness that had me bolting for the bathroom but Gage worked from home as much as he could, canceling what he couldn’t. We spent quiet hours in the study with his laptop open and my he
Do they see a desperate, broken idiot who’d jump at the first offer of power or revenge or whatever the fuck he was selling? The thought made my hand clench around the glass again, the condensation making my fingers slip.“If you hold any grudge against my father,” I continued, “then do whatever the fuck you want, but don’t involve me in your shit. I’ve got enough problems without some mafia recruiter thinking I’m the perfect mark for whatever game you’re playing. I don’t need another person trying to use me as a pawn in their revenge plot against Gage or anyone else. I’m done being pulled into other people’s messes.”Marco held my gaze for a long moment, and then he shook his head slowly, almost like he was disappointed but not surprised. “No,” he said. “There’s a misunderstanding here. We’re here to offer you a place where you don’t have to carry everything alone anymore. A family.”When was the last time I heard something so funny?I laughed so hard that it scraped up my throat an
NOAH°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・I sat at a bar, nursing a glass of whiskey. The place was half-empty at this hour, just a few people hunched over their drinks and the low hum of some old rock song playing from the speakers in the corner, the kind of dive where nobody asked questions and everybody minded their own fucking business, which was exactly why I’d come here after Lex and Ellis finally left me alone earlier. I hadn’t seen Thea since that confrontation in the hospital room, and I know I told her I was going to have my revenge on her for everything she’d done but honestly, I didn’t know anymore if I even wanted that revenge or if I was just saying it to hurt her the way she’d hurt me, because the truth was a lot uglier and a lot more complicated than I wanted to admit, even to myself. I took another sip, the ice clinking against the glass, and let the whiskey burn its way down, trying to drown out the loop in my head that kept replaying her voice. The bar was quiet enough that I could hear m
NOAH°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・I stumbled out of Mia’s apartment building, the door slamming shut behind me like a final fuck-you from the universe. The cold air hit me like a brick wall, slicing through my coat and straight into my bones, but I barely felt it. Honestly? I don’t feel a fucking thing anymore.The
I shook my head against his neck, tears threatening again. “Please. Just… don’t stop.”He went still for a heartbeat. Then his arms tightened around me, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, the other pressing firm against the small of my back.“You’
THEA ⋆✴︎˚。⋆ .☘︎ ݁˖⋆⭒˚.⋆ I didn’t know how to feel. Last night had been a whirlwind of forced reconciliation, the kind where you swallow your pride and your hurt because holding onto it feels heavier than letting go. Mia had cried, swearing up and down that she hadn’t meant to tell Amelia, tha
THEA‧₊˚🖇️✩ ₊˚🎧⊹♡I woke to the soft brush of lips on my forehead.It was gentle, almost reverent, a clear contrast to the way those same lips had been demanding and filthy hours earlier. My eyes fluttered open, heavy with the kind of deep, sated sleep I hadn’t had in weeks. The room was still d







