𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 (𝟏𝟖+)

18. TO LEARN THE TRUTH - ✭LUKE✭

She was pregnant. She had been pregnant with my baby. Malyssa had been carrying our child. Had. She had been. Past tense. My head is wrapping around her words, around just what they meant. Scott Marling had done this to her. Scott Marling had stabbed her in the stomach. He'd killed our baby.

I feel all the bile in my system rise up in my throat, officially trying to choke the life out of me. I feel the tears prick my eyes as all of the emotion slowly begins to trickle through my veins at the meaning of her words. Not only had he tried to kill the love of my life, he'd actually killed the child we'd made inside of her.

I remember that night in agonizing detail. We were supposed to be celebrating something, although she'd never told me what because she'd told me she wanted it to be a surprise. But now I knew what we were going to be celebrating. Now I knew what she was going to tell me that night. She was pregnant. She was expecting our child. Until she wasn't.

We were going to stay in this exact place, this penthouse. Then she'd shown up, slouched on the door frame, with a trench coat on. I'd scrunched my brow in confusion, unsure of what was going on. She'd looked up at me with those radiant sapphire eyes that'd been completely glazed over, dazed, helplessly. Then she'd fallen straight forward and if I hadn't been there to catch her she would've landed straight on her face.

She'd told me she'd needed a doctor but it couldn't be just anyone. I was confused until I looked at my shirt which had been completely saturated with her blood. I'd never felt fear in my life like I had that night. There's no fear that compares to the absolute love of your life showing up on your doorstep with stab wounds so deep her blood is coming out in torrents.

How she'd had the strength to make it up to the penthouse I will never know. Well, I guess I can't necessarily say that considering it is Malyssa. She's the strongest woman I've ever met in my entire life. She had a resiliency that was unmatchable. No matter what life threw at her she'd persevered and made it to the other side.

But even though she'd made it through the experience I wasn't privy to the extent of the damage until now. That is why I'm standing here like a statue thinking about everything that'd happened that night.  How did I not know? How did I not sense that? I knew everything about Mal. I should've known and I hadn't.

She looks over me expectantly but if I move I may break. If I move, I may fall apart. If I open my mouth I know nothing good will come out of it because right now all I'm feeling is pain. That's it. It's all there is inside of me but as I continue to look over her features I see something else.

Fucking Christ, there's more. There can't be more. This was too painful as it is and I wasn't even the one who'd gone through it. But I know Mal and she's keeping something back. She's keeping whatever other painful thing to herself and if I'm not mistaken there's a bit of guilt there in her features.

I swallow the bile down, pushing it way back down into my stomach where it belongs. I blink my eyes until they're dry and gather in all of the emotion I'd let flow through me. She needs me to rein it all in because there is something else she has to tell me. I can see it.

She doesn't need a man who isn't in control because I can sense she's feeling completely out of it. No, she needs Lucas Warner. Because that's what she'd called me; Lucas. She only calls me Lucas when things are bad. She needed that man. She needed that composure. And even though all I want to do is breakdown, I don't.

After taking a deep breath and blowing it out, closing the door on my current feelings, I ask, "what else?"

"What do you mean what else? Isn't that enough? Isn't that-"

"Tell me what else happened between the two of you. You haven't told me everything." She looks surprised even though she shouldn't. She knows I can read her like a book. And there is clearly more that happened between Scott and her. "What happed between you and Scott?"