Page 45 of The Endless Want

I can’t say it yet.

So I breathe around it. “I’m tired, Mack. I’m tired and scared, and I can’t tell if my heart is broken or if I’m just done.” My voice drops, barely audible. “Declan hasn’t contacted me. Not once. And I don’t know what that means. I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know if what happened in that safehouse was a mistake or—or something that meant nothing to him.”

She exhales sharply. “I’m two floors up. Give me ninety seconds.”

“No.” It comes out too fast. “Mack, there’s a camera on every corridor in this building and two of Liam’s men outside my door. If you come running down here at seven at night, somebody writes it in a log. Somebody always writes it in a log.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Fine. Tomorrow I come down with the training bags, like a woman returning gear. Nobody logs that.” A pause. “And then you tell me the part you’re not saying. You trust me?”

Tears sting my eyes. “Of course I trust you.”

“Then let me handle this,” she says. “We’ll figure it out. And if Declan’s silence is part of the problem, then maybe Liam can shed light on what that bastard is doing. He’s not subtle. If he’s ignoring you, he’s doing it on purpose. And I have a feeling it’s not because he doesn’t care.”

My heart stutters painfully. “It feels like he doesn’t.”

“Yeah, well,” she mutters, “men who almost lose someone don’t think clearly afterward. Especially not Declan. Just… hang on until tomorrow.”

A few more days feels like years. But I nod anyway, even though she can’t see it. “Thank you.”

“Ailish,” she murmurs, voice thickening, “cry if you need to. I won’t tell a soul.”

And for the first time in weeks—not since the alley, not since the safehouse, not since the nausea began swinging me by the throat—I let myself sob properly. Quiet, muffled, shoulders shaking until the weight loosens enough for me to breathe again.

Mackenzie stays on the line the entire time. Not speaking. Not offering platitudes. Just breathing with me. When the tears slow to a halt, I whisper, “I don’t know how to do this.”

“You don’t have to know,” she says. “You just have to keep going. One step at a time.”

“I’m so tired of steps.”

“Then crawl,” she replies. “Just don’t stop.”

I close my eyes, pulling in a shuddering breath. “Okay.”

“Get some rest,” she says. “I’ll handle the politics. You handle you.” She hangs up before I can thank her again.

I sit there in the silence for a long time, the burner phone heavy in my lap. The urge to open that bottom drawer and take the test swells in my chest like a balloon ready to burst.

But not yet. Not tonight. Not when my hands are shaking this badly.

I tuck the phone away, stand slowly, and walk to the small bathroom attached to my office. I splash cold water on my face, stare at my reflection in the mirror—pale, tired, eyes faintly swollen—and force myself to breathe.

The nausea has ebbed for now, but a hollow ache remains, lodged just beneath my heart.

If I’m pregnant… If this is real… Everything changes.

My alliances.

My safety.

My future.

My place in this war.

My place with Declan.

And the worst part? I don’t know whether I want the test to be positive or negative. I don’t know which outcome scares me more.

I return to my desk, sink into my chair, and fold my arms on top of it before lowering my head. The day’s weight settles over me like a blanket of wet wool—heavy, suffocating, impossible to shrug off.