All Chapters of Pregnant by My Dead Husband's Best Friend: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The head sits on the bar.It stares at the ceiling with milky, unseeing eyes. The skin is gray, waxy under the harsh overhead lights. The mouth is sewn shut with black thread, a grotesque parody of silence.The smell of wet earth and copper fills the main room, overpowering the stale beer and smoke.No one speaks. No one moves.Fifty men stand in a circle, staring at the severed head of the Viper President. The man who was supposed to be our salvation. The man whose alliance was Drakon’s last card.Drakon stands closest to it. He hasn't moved since he read the note. His chest heaves, a slow, rhythmic bellows of rage. He crumples the bloody paper in his fist.Give us the girl and the rat. Or the baby dies inside her.He looks at me.I’m standing by the door, wrapped in my coat. My hand rests instinctively on my stomach. The target.Drakon turns away from me. He turns to the room."Church!" he roars.The word echoes off the concrete walls."Full patch members to the table!" Drakon comma

"Stay in the car," Drakon ordered.I watch him walk toward the open maw of the gates. He moves like a shadow, gun drawn, scanning the corners.I look at the dark compound. I look at Markos, who is racking his rifle in the driver's seat."He's walking into a trap," I whisper."VP knows what he's doing," Markos says, though his voice wavers."No. He's angry. And he's desperate."I open my door."Thalia!" Markos hisses. "Get back inside!""Cover us," I say. I draw the Glock from my pocket—the one Markos gave me days ago.I sprint across the asphalt, keeping low, following the line of the perimeter wall. I catch up to Drakon just as he reaches the main clubhouse doors.He spins on me, his eyes furious. "I gave you an order.""The gates are open," I whisper, ignoring him. "Where are the guards? Where is the resistance?""Inside," he growls. "Or dead."He kicks the door open.We sweep into the main room. It’s dark. Shadows stretch across the floor, long and distorted. The smell of stale bee

"Drive!" Drakon roars.Markos slams the accelerator. The surveillance van lurches forward, tires screeching on the pier. We are thrown back against the metal walls, surrounded by crates of stolen guns and the stench of anxiety."How long?" I shout, grabbing a strap to steady myself."Ten minutes!" Markos yells from the front. "If I run every light!""Do it in five," Drakon growls. He’s already checking his weapon, his face a mask of terrifying focus. "If he gets out of that basement... if he gets to the surface..."He doesn't finish. He doesn't have to. If Nikos escapes the Hole, he disappears. And if he disappears, the war never ends.We tear through the city. Markos drives like a madman, hopping curbs, running red lights, the horn blaring.Drakon stands by the back doors, balancing effortlessly despite the swaying of the van. He looks at me."Stay close to me," he orders. "When we hit the door, you move. You don't freeze.""I won't freeze."I reach down to my boot. I feel the handle

"Down!"Drakon’s weight crushes me into the floorboards just as the shockwave rattles the remaining windows in their frames.Debris rains down on his back—plaster, glass, splinters of the holy table we just desecrated.I lie there, gasping, my cheek pressed against the dusty floor. My ears are ringing, a high-pitched whine that drowns out the shouting from the courtyard."Thalia?" Drakon’s voice is muffled, urgent. He shifts, lifting his weight off me. "Are you hit?""No," I cough, waving away the cloud of drywall dust. "I'm okay. What was that?""C4," he snarls, standing up and pulling me with him. He grabs his jeans from the floor, hopping on one leg to pull them on. "Drive-by. They tossed a satchel charge at the gate.""They're breaching?""No." He buckles his belt, his face grim. "They're testing. Seeing how long it takes us to respond. Seeing if we panic."He grabs his shirt, but he doesn't put it on. He wraps his cut directly over his bare chest, the leather hiding the scratches

Scritch. Scritch.The sound stops.I sit up in the dark, my heart hammering against my ribs. I hold my breath, listening. The silence in the VP suite is heavy, broken only by Drakon’s steady, deep breathing beside me. He’s out cold, exhausted from the grief and the sex.Maybe it was a rat. Just a literal rat.CRACK.The drywall behind the headboard explodes.Plaster dust sprays across the bed like white smoke.I scream, scrambling backward, tangling in the sheets.A hand punches through the wall. Then another. They grip the jagged edges of the hole and pull.The wall tears open with a sickening rip.A figure bursts into the room.He lands on the bed, right on top of Drakon.It’s Nikos.But it’s not the Nikos I knew. It’s not the man in the tuxedo at the church. He looks skeletal. His face is gray, smeared with drywall dust and blood. His eyes are wide, manic, glowing in the darkness. He smells of sewage and rot.He holds a shiv—a piece of rusted metal sharpened to a needle point."Dra