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2026-01-07 00:05:03The floorboard gives with a rusty groan.
I cough as a cloud of ancient dust puffs up, stinging my eyes. It smells like dry rot and secrets. I reach into the dark hollow. My fingers brush against something cool and smooth. Not the crisp texture of cash. My heart sinks. I was praying for a stash. A rainy-day fund Nikos hid from the bookies. Enough to get Mick off my back, or at least buy me a bus ticket out of here. I pull my hand out. No money. I’m holding a black leather-bound ledger and a cheap, plastic burner phone. The phone is cold against my palm. It feels heavy, like a loaded gun. I drop the phone on the mattress and open the ledger. The spine cracks. It hasn't been opened in a while. I recognize the handwriting immediately. The jagged, hurried scrawl of my husband. January 12th: $5,000. February 4th: $8,000. March 20th: $12,000. I frown. These aren't debts. These are deposits. I flip the pages. The numbers get bigger. The dates get closer to the day he died. Next to the last entry—May 15th, $50,000—there’s a note in the margin. Two letters circled in red ink. S.R. My blood turns to ice. Savage Reapers. The Wolves’ sworn enemies. The men who deal in guns, girls, and misery. The men Sal warned me never to make eye contact with. Nikos wasn't gambling. He wasn't losing money at the track or the tables. He was selling. He was selling club secrets. Routes. Shipment times. Names. "You bastard," I whisper. The words scrape my throat. I stare at the book, my hands shaking so hard the pages blur. He wasn't a victim of his addiction. He was a traitor. Every time he came home with a split lip and a sob story about bad luck, he was lying. Every time he let Drakon pay for our groceries, he was stabbing him in the back. He played us all. I throw the ledger across the room. It hits the wall with a satisfying thud, but it doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel sick. I look at the phone on the bed. It’s an old flip phone. A relic. I pick it up. My thumb hovers over the power button. Drakon told me to check the floorboard. Did he know? Did he suspect? I press the button. The screen flickers to life, casting a sickly blue glow over my duvet. The battery icon is in the red. One unread message. Received: Yesterday, 4:12 PM. Yesterday? Nikos has been dead for six months. Who is texting a dead man’s burner phone? I open the message. Payment due. Deliver the girl to the warehouse, or we take her ourselves. The phone slips from my fingers. It bounces on the mattress. The girl. Me. I’m not a widow. I’m not a person. I’m a balance transfer. Nikos didn't just sell secrets. He sold me. That’s what the fifty grand was for. That’s why Mick was here. That’s why the Reapers are circling. I scramble backward, pressing my spine against the headboard. I can’t breathe. The walls of my tiny apartment feel like they’re closing in, crushing me. "No," I whimper. "No, no, no." I need to leave. I need to grab my bag, get in my car, and drive until the gas runs out. I reach for the phone to turn it off. To destroy it. I want to smash it into a thousand pieces and bury it back under the floor. BZZZT. The phone vibrates against the sheets. A harsh, angry buzz. I freeze. The screen lights up. Incoming Call. I stare at the Caller ID. The letters dance in front of my eyes, mocking me. Impossible. Hubby. The room spins. My hand moves on its own. I reach out. My fingers brush the cold plastic. It rings again. Loud. Demanding. Hubby. Nikos is dead. I buried him. I saw the closed casket. I threw dirt on the grave. The phone keeps ringing. I flip it open. I press it to my ear. My hand is shaking so bad I almost drop it. I don't speak. I can't. Silence on the other end. Then, a breath. A sharp intake of air. "Thalia?" The voice is raspy. Familiar. The voice of a ghost. "Baby?" he says. "Are you there?" I scream.
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Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend 105
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.The bathroom tiles explode.Shards of ceramic and drywall spray over us like shrapnel. Drakon covers my body with his own, his heavy frame a shield against the hail of bullets punching through the wall."Stay down!" he roars, his voice barely audible over the mechanical whir of the drone outside.The mirror shatters, raining glass into the sink. The noise is deafening—a continuous, ripping sound that tears the air apart."We can't stay here!" I scream, pressing my face into the wet bathmat. "It's cutting through the wall!""Hallway," Drakon barks.He rolls off me. He grabs a towel from the rack—miraculously intact—and throws it at me. He wraps another around his waist."Move!"He kicks the bathroom door open.We scramble out. We don't stand up. We crawl. We lizard-crawl across the bedroom floor, dragging ourselves through the sea of broken glass that used to be the window.The drone adjusts. The red laser dot sweeps across the bed, hunting.TAT-TAT-TAT.The mattress e
Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend 104
The elevator doors slide open with a soft, expensive ding.Drakon steps out first, his gun drawn. He sweeps the hallway—marble floors, modern art, silence."Clear," he rasps.His voice sounds like it’s been dragged over broken glass.We are in a penthouse. Fifty stories up. The city spreads out below us, a grid of amber lights and darkness. It belongs to Silas, the lawyer. A safe house for high-end clients who need to disappear.It’s sterile. Cold. It smells of lemon cleaner and nothing.Drakon walks to the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. He doesn't look at the view. He looks at the reflection of the room behind him. He’s vibrating.He’s still wearing his cut. It’s stiff with Markos’s blood. His hands are stained rust-red.He paces.Ten steps to the kitchen island. Turn. Ten steps to the window. Turn.He’s a ghost haunting a glass cage."Drakon," I whisper.He doesn't hear me. He’s back in the trauma room. He’s watching the monitor flatline."He was just a kid," Drakon mutters. He s
Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend 103
"They have him."Leon’s words hang in the sterile air of the recovery room, heavy as lead.Before Drakon can speak, before the horror can fully register in his eyes, a sound tears through the night outside.SCREEECH.Tires lock up on asphalt. An engine roars and then dies with a shuddering cough right outside the clinic doors."The bay," Drakon rasps.He moves. He doesn't run; he explodes toward the door, shoving Leon aside.I slide off the bed. My legs are weak, my head swims, but I follow. I have to."Thalia, stay back!" Leon shouts, chasing Drakon.I ignore him. I grab the doorframe for support and push myself into the hallway.The double doors of the emergency bay burst open.The cold night air rushes in, carrying the smell of diesel exhaust and something sharper. Copper.A gray van is parked haphazardly in the ambulance lane, its side door sliding open with a rusted groan.Two men—nomads I don't know—jump out. Their clothes are dark, soaked.They reach into the back. They pull a
Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend 102
The door handle turns.I mute the TV. On the screen, the fire in the industrial district is still raging, painting the night sky in angry strokes of orange and black.The heavy chair Leon dragged in front of the door scrapes against the linoleum."Clear," Leon’s voice rumbles from the hallway.The door swings open.Drakon steps inside.He brings the smell of the war with him—acrid smoke, burnt rubber, and the metallic tang of fresh blood. His leather cut is streaked with soot. His knuckles are raw. He looks like a demon who just crawled out of a blast furnace.He kicks the door shut. He throws the deadbolt. Click. Thud.He turns to me.His chest heaves. His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide by a cocktail of violence and victory. He scans the room, checking the corners, checking the window, checking me."You're safe," he breathes."I watched it," I say, nodding at the TV. "The news said it's a disaster.""It's a statement."He walks to the bed. He pulls off his gloves, tossing them onto
Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend 101
The air in the clinic room shifts.It snaps tight, like a rubber band pulled to its breaking point.Drakon stands by the door. The grief is gone. The relief is gone. He is a statue carved from granite and hate."Leon," he barks."President," Leon responds instantly."The list," Drakon says. He racks the slide of his Glock. Click-clack. "I want every Reaper business on it. The chop shops. The stash houses. The bars on 5th and Main.""We have the locations from the ledger Thalia grabbed," Leon says, pulling his phone. "But we don't have the numbers to hit them all.""We don't need numbers," Drakon snarls. "We need gasoline."He turns to Markos. The kid is still grinning about the paternity test, but the smile dies when he sees Drakon’s face."Markos," Drakon says. "Get the road crew. Whatever is left of the nomads. Tell them it’s open season. No tags. No colors. We go in black.""We burning them out?" Markos asks."We are liquidating the assets," Drakon says. "If it has a Reaper skull o
Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend 100
"Read it," Drakon says.His voice is barely a whisper. It cracks in the middle, a jagged sound that scares me more than the shouting.The paper lies on the hospital blanket between us. A single sheet of white bond paper, folded once, stamped with the logo of the private lab.I reach for it. My hand is shaking so bad I can barely grasp the edge.Drakon doesn't wait for me to pick it up.He collapses.It happens in slow motion. The mountain of a man, the VP who held the line against an army of Reapers, who took a bullet for me, who carried me through a tunnel of mud... he just crumbles.His knees hit the linoleum floor with a heavy, bone-jarring thud. He buries his face in his hands on the edge of the mattress. His shoulders heave. A sound tears out of him—a raw, guttural sob that sounds like something dying."Drakon!"I grab the paper. I rip it open. I scan the medical jargon, the columns of numbers, the black ink blurring through my own tears.Subject 1: Thalia Mikos (Mother) Subject
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