Trina crept back downstairs, flattening her body against a wall when she heard Dana shut the door to her parlor, probably preparing for the first set of clients of the day. Trina exhaled heavily and waited, straining her ears as hard as she could to see if Dana was about to come back out into the main hallway. After several long moments of perfect undisturbed silence, Trina decided to take a leap of faith and dash all the way across the hall to the side exit. She quickly left the building and took off running. She took the first corner she found, and then the next, and the next, until there was a healthy amount of distance between her and the brothel.

 

Only then did she allow herself to slow down and get her bearings. She had a pretty good idea where Lucas’s condo was, but it still took her a few minutes of staring at a map she’d taken from Kittie’s room to figure out where to go.

 

Forty-five minutes later, she was totally soaked through, half from the rain, half from sweat after power walking across town to get to Lucas’s condominium complex.

 

“Oh, shit,” Trina whispered to herself as she caught a glimpse of herself in a passing cab window. “I look like crap.”

 

Still, she came all this way and risked her standing with Dana to talk to Lucas, and she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she gave up now. “I can do this,” she said to herself, still half gasping for breath after walking so quickly to get here. “I can fucking do this.”

 

Trina walked around to the back of the building, going through a hidden entrance like always. Somehow Trina figured that Lucas didn’t care that much, but Dana instructed her to always enter that way, lest someone see her going through the main entrance and figure out what Lucas was up to. She quickly scaled the stairwell up to Lucas’s condo, huffing for breath by the time she approached his front door. For one last long moment, Trina doubted herself again. What if he throws me out? What if he tells Dana? What if he says that he doesn’t care?

 

Trina swallowed hard, clearing her throat as best as she could before reaching forward and tapping firmly on the door. Well, there’s no going back now, she thought to herself, fidgeting furiously with her fingers while she waited for Lucas to answer his door. Come on, come on, come on. Please, hurry up. I can’t wait much longer or I’m going to explode. She knocked on the door again, more insistently this time.

 

“Jesus Christ, what?” Lucas snapped as he threw the door open, an annoyed expression on his face. “Oh.” His face relaxed a little upon noticing that it was Trina on the other side of his door. “I thought you were someone else.”

 

“Dana?” Trina suggested, feeling the contents of her stomach turn over inside of her gut.

 

“No, no, just Caliperi contacts, that’s all,” Lucas said, opening the door wider and wordlessly gesturing for Trina to follow him inside.

 

Trina stepped into the entryway. She felt like she was about to puke, so she kept swallowing rapidly, trying to keep her stomach acids down where they belonged. “Are you expecting company? Or … contacts or whoever?” Trina asked.

 

“No, not really,” Lucas said. He shut and locked the door after her and gestured for her to come over to the couch with him, putting a hand on the bottom of her back briefly before taking it away again. “Sometimes one of Caliperi goons will stop by and try to annoy me, that’s all. What’s up?”

 

“I—I… uh…” Trina stuttered out. She had no idea how to begin to tell him what she’d learned earlier that morning.

 

Lucas smiled at her, reaching forward and cupping the side of her face, sending lovely tingles down the side of her neck. “I met your guy last night. Martin, right? We’re going to sort the supply out. Before you know it, I’ll be able to kiss Caliperi’s fat pimply ass good-bye.”

 

He grinned at her before leaning in to press their lips together softly, but Trina didn’t reciprocate, feeling as stiff and cold as a corpse even while her internal organs were churning like the wheels of an old factory about to collapse.

 

“What’s wrong?” Lucas asked as he pulled his mouth away from hers and shifted closer to her on the couch, leaning over to inspect her face. “You look like you’ve seen somebody die.”

 

Trina blew out her breath, slowly reaching up to pull Lucas’s hand away from her face. He won’t want to touch me after he hears this, she thought.

 

“Trina, what is it?” Lucas asked in a low, rough whisper. He sounded desperate to know what was bothering her, giving Trina the last little amount of confidence she needed to blurt the words out into the air between their mouths.

 

“I’m pregnant!” she said, almost shouting it. She shrunk up on the other side of the couch, putting extra space between her body and Lucas’s. “Okay, that’s what’s wrong. I’m knocked up. And it’s yours. Without a single doubt, it’s yours.” She couldn’t force herself to look at him and see his reaction, instead burying her face in her hands, hiding her eyes away from his.

 

Lucas was silent for a long time, and all that Trina could hear was the shallow sound of her own breathing as her lungs worked furiously to try to get her the oxygen that she needed. Pretty soon he’ll realize what I said, Trina thought, and then it’s all over. Me and Lucas. We’re done. Finished.

 

“Trina …” Lucas finally murmured, and before Trina could even find a way to interpret the strange kind of softness in his voice, he reached out to touch her again, brushing some of the hair back from her neck.

 

Trina summoned the courage to peek through her open fingers to try to read his face. He looked… concerned, his brow furrowed and his forehead wrinkled as he stared at Trina, his eyes darting back and forth between each of hers. “Trina,” he said again, pulling gently on her shoulder until she slid back toward him. “Trina, talk to me.”

 

“About what?” Trina asked in a dull, flat tone of voice. She was still terrified, her heart thudding almost painfully inside her rib cage, but she felt something else, too. A little spark of hope, pathetically weak and fragile and beautiful, sprouting up inside of her soul. He didn’t seem mad at her. He didn’t even seem upset, just a little worried.

 

“Do you want this baby?” Lucas asked. His other hand came up to pull hers away from her face, depriving her of the last shield between them. Now she could see the full weight of the emotion in his eyes. There seemed to be something almost pleading within his pupils, silently begging her. He kept one hand on her back, practically pinning her in place on the couch, while his other hand kept a tight grip on hers. It was like he was afraid she was about to run away, when Trina had been terrified of the same exact thing.

 

“I don’t know,” Trina said honestly. “Ever since I found out, I’ve been so scared I couldn’t even think.”

 

“Scared of what, baby?” Lucas whispered, making Trina’s heart stutter in her chest like a small child struggling to walk down a flight of steps. He’d never called her baby outside of sex before. She was too scared to grab on to that word and assume that it meant what she desperately hoped it meant. Was Kittie right? Did Lucas really care about her? Or was he just pitying her, playing her, placating her so she’d continue to be a convenient fucktoy?

 

“Scared of you,” Trina replied truthfully, turning fully on the couch to face him head on. “I had no idea how you’d react.”

 

“What, did you think I’d be mad at you?” Lucas asked, confusion seeping into his voice.

 

“I don’t know,” Trina said. “Maybe. Mostly I figured you just wouldn’t give a shit and tell me to fuck off and deal with it.”

 

“Trina, Trina, no,” Lucas said. He reached forward to take Trina’s other shoulder in his hand, pulling her close to his chest. “No, baby. I’m not going to do that to you. I’m not going to leave you alone.”

 

Trina couldn’t help herself. She hated being weak. She hated showing how fragile she felt on the inside, but she broke down then, pressing her face hard into Lucas’s shirt and letting a flood of tears out. “Jesus Christ,” she moaned pathetically. “Jesus Christ, I had no idea.”

 

Lucas rubbed her back soothingly, petting over her spine over and over again until she relaxed in his grasp. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Do you hear me? I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Trina gave herself a few minutes of quiet crying, clutching hard at Lucas’s shirt as if he was about to fly off into the atmosphere, away from her. I can blame it on the hormones, she thought, choking out a laugh into the fabric of Lucas’s shirt.

 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Lucas whispered. He rubbed the back of her head softly, smoothing out the tangles in her unbrushed hair.

 

“Nothing, it’s nothing, I just—” Trina sighed, forcing herself to pull an inch or two away from Lucas’s shirt. “I had no idea you were this good. All this time, I’ve cared about you, and I just thought you were… nowhere near as wonderful as you really are. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for ever doubting you.”

 

A warm smile spread across Lucas’s lips as he moved forward to press his mouth lightly against her forehead. He wiped at some of her tears with the tips of his fingers, his eyes glowing with some beautiful inner light as he stared into Trina’s face. “It’s okay,” he said, sounding as genuine and unguarded as Trina had ever heard him before. “You know me now. And it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

 

“How?” Trina asked, unable to stop herself from trembling in his hands as she remembered the dangers that still threatened her life. “What about Dana? When she finds out about this she’s going to lose her shit. She’ll try to hurt me. She’ll try to hurt you, even.”

 

“Fuck Dana,” Lucas said firmly. “I haven’t even touched her since I met you. She’s nothing to me. And now that we have the supply situation figured out with Martin, I can leave the Caliperi family without ever looking back. It’s perfect.”

 

“How?” Trina asked again. Even though she still had her doubts, the spark of hope within her heart grew wider and wider, threatening to overtake all the fear in her body.

 

“I always wanted to be a part of a dynasty,” Lucas said. “Power is nothing without people to share it with, right? What’s the point in taking over if you can’t ensure that your legacy passes on to the next generation?”

 

“That’s why you wanted to be with Dana in the first place,” Trina said, thinking out loud.

 

“Right,” Lucas replied. “Except Caliperi was never going to let me in on the dynasty. Not really. But it doesn’t matter. The old kingdom is dying, and you’ve handed me the keys to a new one. It’s right… here.” As he spoke the last word, his hand slipped down to her stomach, right where their baby was growing.

 

Excitement filled Trina up like a thousand bubbles popping inside of her at once. Now that she knew Lucas wasn’t going to let Dana kill her, it was like there was no end to the possibilities laid about before them like an open road. “I’ve got the names and contact information of every important dealer in this city, back from when I used to sling for Martin,” Trina said enthusiastically, reaching into her purse to grab her phone. “I’ll send you everything you need to know. Together, we can take over. I know we can.”

 

Lucas grinned at her before crashing into her again, sealing his lips over hers so tightly that she couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. She didn’t care, though. With Lucas, she felt like she didn’t even need oxygen to live. All she needed was him, and he was here for her, willing and able to build a family with her. He was everything she didn’t know she’d been waiting her whole life for, and he was right here. There was nothing standing in their way now.

 

“Stay here with me today. And tonight, too,” Lucas said as he pulled away from her mouth to gasp for air.

 

“Because it’s not safe anymore to be at Dana’s?” Trina asked.

 

Lucas nodded. “But also, because I’m going to fuck you until you can’t even walk.”

 

“You’ll have to carry me everywhere,” Trina said, wrapping her arms around Lucas’s neck and pulling him back down for another deep kiss.

 

“Gladly,” he murmured into her mouth.