CHAPTER SIX — Twenty Million Dollar Problem

LENA'S POV

I did not sleep.

I lay on my back staring at the ceiling until the grey early light started bleeding under the door. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Ghost's face when he read those results. That small shift behind his eyes before everything locked back down and went unreadable again.

None of us is the father.

I knew what it meant. I had known before the envelope was even opened. I just kept hoping I was wrong.

I got up before anyone else and went downstairs because lying in that room alone with my thoughts was doing nothing good for me or the three babies who had apparently decided that my ribs were comfortable furniture.

The common room was empty. I poured water from the kitchen tap and stood at the counter and listened to the compound sleeping around me. Outside the gate the road was quiet. Inside everything was still.

Then I heard Ghost's voice.

Low and controlled, coming from behind the closed door of the back room. I was not supposed to go near club business. That was one of his rules from the beginning and I had kept it without question until right now when my name came through that door clearly enough to stop my feet where they were.

I could not make out every word. Just pieces. My name. The results. Edmund Hale's name said in a tone that made my stomach drop. Then another voice saying something that ended with the words too much trouble.

Then Axel.

Axel was not keeping his voice down. Axel sounded like a man who had stopped caring entirely who heard him. I caught she stays and not our decision and then something that ended with over my dead body that pulled my chest tight.

Silence.

Then Ghost. One sentence. Short and final in the way that meant the conversation was already over before it started.

The door opened.

I stepped back fast and made it to the kitchen table and sat down with my water glass before anyone came through. Boots on the floor. Voices dispersing. The compound waking back up like nothing had happened.

Ghost appeared in the kitchen doorway.

He looked at me. Then at the water glass. Then at my face. He knew exactly where I had been standing. He said nothing about it.

He crossed to the counter, poured himself coffee and leaned back against it. "How are you feeling."

"Fine," I said.

"Lena."

"Tired," I said. "Scared. Fine."

He nodded once. Drank his coffee. Looked at the table between us. I waited for him to say something about the meeting or the results or what happened next. He said none of those things.

He said "you are staying. That is already decided. Do not let anyone tell you different."

I looked up at him. "Someone in that room disagreed."

"People disagreed," Ghost said. "The vote was unanimous. That is what counts."

"Unanimous," I repeated quietly.

"Every hand in that room." He set his mug down and pushed off the counter. "Eat something today. Rook said you barely touched dinner last night."

He walked out before I could answer and I sat there looking at the empty doorway holding that word against my chest.

Unanimous.

Every hand.

Axel found me an hour later sitting on the side steps watching the courtyard.

He dropped down beside me without asking and stretched his legs out and looked at the compound with the easy ownership of someone who had earned every inch of it.

"You heard us," he said.

"Some of it."

"Good." He looked straight ahead. "Then you know I meant every word."

I looked at him sideways. The jaw set. Something still burning behind his eyes from whatever happened in that room. I had seen Axel sharp before and serious before but this was different. This was the kind of feeling that comes from somewhere deep that does not have a casual explanation.

"You did not have to do that," I said.

"Yes I did." He glanced at me. "Nobody in that room gets to say you are too much trouble. Not while I am sitting in it."

"Ghost agreed with you."

"Ghost agreed with the vote," Axel said. "But he had already decided before anyone raised a hand. That is how Ghost works. He decides and then he lets everyone else catch up."

I thought about Ghost in the kitchen just now. That certainty in him. Like the question of whether I stayed was not worth entertaining.

"The babies," I started.

"Are part of this club," Axel said. "Same as you. Not up for discussion."

He said it so simply. Like the DNA results and Edmund and everything still sitting heavy between all of us was just detail around something that had already been decided and was not going to be undecided.

"Axel." I kept my voice level. "You know what those results mean. About who the father actually is."

He was quiet for a moment. Then, "I know what I think it means."

"And?"

He turned to look at me fully. His eyes were steady and completely serious in a way that had nothing performed about it. "And it changes nothing about how I feel. About them or about you. Do you understand me."

My throat tightened. "You cannot just..."

"Lena." He said my name like it was the end of the argument. "I almost ran you over on a bridge. You were barefoot in a wedding dress with nowhere to go. I made a choice that day and I would make it again every single time without thinking twice. Stop handing me reasons to walk it back."

I looked away before he could see my eyes go wet.

He bumped his shoulder into mine. Warm and easy. "Eat something today," he said. "You have three babies using your body as a hotel. They need the fuel more than you need to sit out here feeling sorry for yourself."

I laughed. Short and completely against my will.

He smiled at that. The real one.

That evening Ghost called the full club together.

I was not invited but I felt the compound shift the way it always did when Ghost made a decision that mattered. Something settling. Something that had been slightly wrong going right.

Axel came to find me in the common room afterward and sat beside me on the couch.

"He stood up for you in front of everyone," Axel said. "Told the whole club you are under club protection. That anyone with a problem brings it to him directly. That anyone who makes things harder for you answers to him personally."

I looked at the wall across from me. "In front of everyone."

"Every single person." He paused. "Ghost does not do that lightly. Standing up in front of the full club and claiming someone. That means something real here."

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach and felt one of the babies shift slowly and thought about the girl who said no at an altar and ran and ended up here.

Three men who chose her before they even knew what choosing her would cost.

I closed my eyes and let that settle.

Then Ghost appeared in the doorway.

He looked at me across the room and his eyes said something he was not ready to put into words yet and she held his gaze and waited.

His phone rang.

He looked at the screen. Answered it. Listened.

The expression on his face changed completely.

He looked up and found her eyes across the room and whatever was on that call sat between them heavy and unspoken.

"Edmund doubled the bounty," he said quietly. "Four million dollars. And he is not sending security this time."

The room went completely still.

"Then who is he sending," Axel said from beside her.

Ghost looked at him. Then back at Lena.

"Someone who finds people," he said. "And has never once failed to deliver."