Havoc (Hostiles Sequel) 3/3

Secrets

"I've tried my best to keep out of this but what's this about you being pregnant?" Sao asks, pulling  Makenna out of the hug and holding her at arms length to study her closely 

She was glowing, there wasn't much else to confirm the pregnancy and though she hadn't said anything yet, the guilty smile on her lips told him everything he needed to know 

"We said no more secrets Ken!" Sao complains, throwing his hands up as she sighs, wondering who could have possibly told him 

"Which is why I didn't tell you. I didn't want to put you in a place where you had to lie to him again." Makenna shrilly points out 

"You're not going to tell him?" Sao probes, and with that question it's abundantly clear who he'd received the news from. 

Snitch!

"Have you told him?" she sighs tiredly, frowning up at him as her heart beats against her chest 

"No." Sao curtly says, his brow furrowed with worry now

Makenna's shoulders relax visibly, a breath she didn't know she was grasping for finally making its way into her lungs. Sao wonders if this was a great segue to telling her the other reason he was here.

"But only because I can't get a hold of him." He adds in a soft mumble, his thoughts clouding his face, his hands dropping from hers. 

He wasn't absolutely sure, but Dionysius was missing. He hadn't been in contact with anyone, not his parents, not Sophie Stanislavsky, not even Sao in over a week. He'd missed his therapy, wasn't in any of his houses, not even the ranch, and there had been no activity on his cards or phone, no public appearance. Sao had been hoping, rather naively, that he might be here, with Makenna and Lachlan, working towards a reconciliation, but that wasn't it. 

Makenna would've asked how Sao, of all people, couldn't get a hold of Dionysius Plutarch, but then the man was probably off somewhere indulging in the delights of Miss Universe in full view of the press and public. That, was the other half of her baby, the man who had tried not once but twice, to have her sign off her own child to him. 

"I'm not ready to tell him. When I am, I will." she states tersely, picking her nose up so Sao knows she's serious about this 

"What is there to be ready for?" Sao suddenly wonders, drawn away from his announcement that he'd have to file a missing person's report and curious about this in particular 

"Custody battles." She shrugs, turning around to view the garden, as though she had never seen it before. 

When Lachlan had told her she had a guest, she was hoping it was Zafira come to apologize for being way less than enthusiastic about her pregnancy or maybe even Eva with some illicit chocolate and jellybeans. It's not that she wasn't happy to see Sao. He would always be her best friend and she loved him deeply, but she had other friends all Dionysius had was Sao! Often, when it boiled down to it, Sao and Makenna both understood that his allegiance should lie more with Dio than with her. 

"Custody..." Sao bites his tongue, taking in a deep breath as if to remind himself of something calming 

"The day after he burst into my perfumery to let me know he now owns it, he had me in his hotel room. He tried to make me sign full custody of our child to him. The day after the wedding, he tried to get full custody of Payton. I'm not losing this child, not for anything and especially not to him, Sao." Makenna warns him, glaring at him now as if he was here to take her baby away

In some ways it felt like that, her heart was racing at the thought of anyone taking her child away from her. It had been a week and a half since she made the announcement and aside from Eva, and surprisingly, Hope Lewasi texting her back and forth about the pregnancy, what she was eating and how she was doing, her family had been quiet. Nadia, had been quiet. Too quiet. So quiet in fact she had found the time to look Sao up, fly him in and tell him he needed to let Dionysius Plutarch know about the pregnancy. The nerve her sister had doing the exact opposite of what she had done when the shoe was on the other foot!