Chapter 154 - ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR

Chapter 154: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR

DAMIEN

She wasn’t moving, not even when I gathered her shivering body in my arms.

Angel sat frozen, the medical documents now clutched in her trembling hands, staring at them like somehow the words would rearrange themselves into a different truth. They wouldn’t. I’d made sure of that.

I held her and waited.

Patience. That’s what this moment required. Patience and the kind of restraint that made my muscles ache with the effort of not pushing harder. If I moved too fast, pressed too aggressively—she’d retreat. She’d rebuild those walls I’d just demolished and I’d have to start all over again.

So I waited, and let the information sink into her bones.

But her tears were bothering me.

Not because I didn’t like seeing her cry—I fucking loved seeing her cry, loved the way her eyes got all red and swollen, the way her bottom lip trembled in a way that got my cock excited. But the knowledge that these tears weren’t for me burned like acid in my chest.

She was crying for him.

The life she’d imagined with his baby in her belly instead of mine.

I wiped her tears away with my thumb. More came. I wiped those too. More came. An endless fucking river of grief.

I brought my thumb to my mouth and sucked her tears off my skin, letting my eyes close for a moment. Salt and sorrow. The taste of my Angel mourning a future that was never going to happen.

Exquisite.

That fantasy she’d built was dying right now, bleeding out in my arms, and I was drinking its death like fine wine.

It should have kept me satisfied, but I found myself a little annoyed.

She should be relieved. I just told her the baby was alive. And I wasn’t going to hurt it. So why was she looking at me like I’d destroyed something instead of saved it?

Would she have preferred I scraped her empty rather than learn that the life inside her came from me instead?

The thought burned through my veins. Hot and corrosive, eating through my patience.

She had no idea how badly I wanted to rewrite the baby’s DNA too. Maybe cum in her so deep it caused a mutation. Flood her womb with so much of my seed that it drowned out whatever Vincenzo had left behind, overwhelmed it, consumed it until there was nothing left but me.

Ridiculous, obviously. That’s not how biology worked.

But fuck, it was a nice fantasy.

I swallowed the jealousy down and forced my expression to stay soft. This wasn’t the time for rage.

"That’s our baby, Angel." I traced the ultrasound photo with my finger slowly, following the curve of the tiny form captured in grainy black and white. "The baby we created together. Don’t you think it’s perfect?"

Angel didn’t respond. Hell, she didn’t even seem to hear me. She was lost in that pretty head of hers, probably running through every memory of Vincenzo’s cock inside her and trying to figure out where my baby could have possibly come from instead.

Still thinking about him. Always fucking thinking about him.

I wanted to crack her skull open and scoop him out. Wanted to reach into her brain with both hands and crush every neuron that held his memory until there was nothing left except me, me, me.

Instead, I stroked her hair to tuck a strand behind her ear, my fingers lingering on the soft skin of her neck. I could feel her pulse fluttering beneath my fingertips. Rabbit-fast. Terrified.

"Think about it, baby girl. Even if you managed to leave me. What then? So what if you can get back to Vincenzo?"

She looked up at me. Eyes red-rimmed. Lost.

And so fucking beautiful I wanted to devour her. The urge to swallow her whole and keep her inside me forever where no one else could ever touch her again was intense. Overwhelming.

"V-Vincenzo?" She stammered.

"Now, don’t play coy with me. Yes, I know about the little stunt you pulled with Ines’s phone." I watched her face go pale with satisfaction, panic blooming in her eyes. "You called him, didn’t you? You talked to Vin. You know he’s alive,"

She trembled harder, her whole body shaking against mine like she was caught in an earthquake only she could feel.

"I—I—"

"Relax, baby girl." I pressed a kiss to her temple, letting it linger. Tasting the fear on her skin. "That’s by the way. I don’t feel like punishing you for it as we have a bigger situation."

I felt her exhale and the way the tiniest bit of tension left her shoulders. She thought she’d dodged a bullet.

Silly girl. The bullet was still coming. It was just taking the scenic route.

"That’s my baby inside you," I continued, my hand still moving in slow circles on her stomach. "Vincenzo hates me. Hates everything about me. Do you really think he’s going to welcome you back with open arms when you’re carrying my child? Do you think he’s going to still care about you?"

Fresh tears were streaming down her face again. This was the key to breaking her. Not force. Not violence. Just... perspective. Helping her see the situation clearly and understand that I was her only option. That Vincenzo—precious, perfect, pathetic Vincenzo—would never accept damaged goods.

And that’s what she was now. Damaged. Ruined. Marked.

Mine.

"Think about it logically. Put yourself in his shoes. The love of his life—" I almost choked on the words, had to force them past the jealousy clogging my throat "—comes back to him with my baby. He’ll try to hide it at first. He’ll tell himself he can accept it. That he loves you enough to raise another man’s child."

I stroked her cheek, tender and loving. Wiped away a tear with my thumb and resisted the urge to lick it off.

"But resentment is a poison, Angel. It seeps in slowly. A bitter look here. A cold shoulder there. And one day he’ll snap. One day he’ll look at you with that swelling belly and realize he can’t stand the sight of you. Can’t stand the reminder that you belonged to me. That you still belong to me."

I paused, letting the fantasy build in her mind’s eye. Forcing her to see it—the reunion she’d been dreaming of, curdling into something rotten. The tears of joy turning to tears of rejection and her happy ending dissolving into ash.

"He’ll make you get rid of it. Will you let him do that to us? You loved me when we made this baby, and I still love you. I always will."

"No," she whispered, but there was no conviction in it, just desperation bleeding out. "He wouldn’t hurt me—he loves me—"

"Does he?" I cocked my head, "Does he love you, Angel? Or does he love the idea of you? The innocent little girl he rescued and raised and protected. The pure, untouched Angel who worshipped him like a god."

I let my smile turn sad. Sympathetic. "That Angel doesn’t exist anymore, baby. I made sure of that. And Vincenzo knows it. Every time he looks at you, he’ll see what I did to you. What I made you do. What you became when you were mine."

She was shaking so hard now I thought she might shatter into a thousand pieces right here in my arms. I’d pick them up if she did. Glue her back together in whatever shape I wanted.

"Now you have to think hard about it." I pressed another kiss to her forehead, lingering there. "The baby or him. Because you can’t have both. Not anymore."