Page 36 of Blissful Devotion

I nearly sag in relief when we pass my door, only to realize I celebrated too soon when he stops at the very next door.

He reaches for the door, and I can’t stop the shudder that moves through me, so strong that my knees buckle and I nearly hit the floor.

Of all the things I imagined behind this door, the sight before me wasn’t one of them.

A nursery.

“Once we know the gender, we can buy more.”

The room is the same size as the one I was given, but the walls are light, with two windows, light curtains, and a dark wood floor that matches all the furniture.

There’s a crib, dresser, and changing table, with a rocking chair in the corner. It looks like something out of a magazine: simple but efficient.

“I’ve set up for the doctor to come back in three days for the ultrasound,” he tells me, and I swear he seems excited.

This time when my knees buckle, I don’t have the strength or willpower to keep myself upright.

It’s beautiful, everything I ever would have wanted had I furnished this room myself.

I hate it.

The problem isn’t the room, but everything else. I shouldn’t be here; I shouldn’t be with him…

The idea of him being around my child makes me feel like I’m going to be physically sick.

I want to go home.

6 Days without Kat

From the looks of it, none of us got much, if any, sleep, Jade and her guys included.

I brew coffee for everyone, and Roderick makes scrambled eggs and bacon, looking perfectly comfortable in our kitchen.

“He can’t stand the idea of Jade not eating,” Trent says with a shrug as he moves past me to go and join the rest of them in the dining room as I finish up the last of the coffees.

When he puts it that way, it makes a lot of sense.

With everyone fed and caffeinated, we take our own things into the dining room, falling back into the seats we occupied last night.

Well, most of us do, with the exception of Alex.

The room is quiet, and I pull my phone out to send him a quick message, but even as I hit send, I know he won’t answer. I don’t blame him; I’ve never asked what happened, but he was a mess when we found him. He drank himself stupid for a while, but he found a way out.

I just hope he can do that again, because right now Kat needs everything we can give her, and I intend to give it to her.

“Where do we start?” I ask after everyone's eaten, and it becomes clear that he won’t be joining us.

Jade meets my gaze, and I see the understanding shine in her eyes.

How one girl can understand so much makes me uneasy—the things she must have seen, if not directly dealt with.

“We start with research,” Trent says, moving to grab a box from a stack I hadn’t even noticed until he dropped it on the table. “This is everything we could grab from the station that mentioned Trigger.”

“I’ve searched every database from here to Maine, and there’s no mention of Lorenzo. Whatever he’s doing with Trigger keeps him out of trouble and without a record.” Spencer pulls out not one but two laptops, clicking away before he turns them around to show us.

“Or he has an alias we don’t know about,” Zander suggests, and Spencer nods but still looks annoyed with him.

He seems annoyed with most everyone.