Chapter 159
Chapter 159
The door clicked shut behind her, sealing the two of them in a dim, echoing pocket of air that felt too small for everything inside her.
Beck stood slowly from the bench behind the bars. His hands trembled as he moved toward her—close but careful, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want something anymore. His face was bruised along the jaw. His lip was split. His eyes, though—his eyes were the same, soft and devastated and full of something that reached inside her and wrapped its fingers around her cracked ribs.
“Izzy,” he repeated, voice a raw scrape of breath. “Are you hurt? Did they… did anything happen?”
She shook her head, swallowing the tight knot rising painfully in her throat. “No. I’m okay. I’m…I don’t know if I’m okay, but I’m alive.” Her fingers tightened around the bars until they bit into her skin. “Beck, I thought they were going to take me back to him.”
Beck closed his eyes briefly, a tortured exhale leaving him. “They’re not,” he whispered fiercely. “I won’t let them.”
“You couldn’t stop them,” she said, harsher than she intended. “You were in cuffs. I watched them drag you away.”
His eyes snapped open, full of hurt—but not at her. At himself.
“I know,” he murmured, voice breaking at the edges. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
She shook her head, tears welling again. “It’s not your fault.”
“It feels like it is,” he whispered. “Everything that’s happened to you… everything he’s done… I should’ve protected you better.”
She pressed her forehead to the bars. “You did. You have. Beck, you saved me more times than I can count.”
He stepped closer, hands lifting like he meant to touch her—then dropping because the metal stopped him. The space between the bars looked impossibly small, and impossibly huge.
“Izzy,” he said, voice low, steadying, desperate. “Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”
She hadn’t expected the question to shake her so hard.
Her breath trembled as she tried to speak. “He knew,” she whispered. “He knew I was pregnant. I never told him. I never said a word—not to him, not to anyone but y—”
She cut herself off, suddenly unable to say it.
Beck already knew, though.
His face went blank with shock, then hardened with fury—not wild, not explosive, but something quieter, colder, more dangerous. His jaw flexed. His shoulders squared. His hand curled slowly around one of the bars near hers.
“How?” he asked, barely audible.
“I don’t know,” Izzy said, voice cracking. “I don’t know if someone told him or if he guessed or if—” Her voice slipped into ragged panic. “Beck, he acted like the baby was his. Like… like he owned it. He talked about names. About nurseries. About marriage.”
Beck inhaled sharply, fingers tightening around the steel until his knuckles whitened. “Izzy,” he said gently, even though fury vibrated beneath the surface, “listen to me. A man like that… he doesn’t get to claim anything. Not you. Not the baby. Not your life.”
Her eyes stung. “I’m scared.”
“I know.” His breath hitched. “God, I know.”
Her hand lifted through the bars, shaking violently. He met it halfway, pressing his rough fingertips to hers. It wasn’t enough—it would never be enough—but it was something, and right now something felt like oxygen.
“When they separated us,” Beck said, voice low, “I thought they were taking you straight to him. I thought I’d never see you again. I nearly ripped out of the cuffs.”
Despite the moment, despite the fear, she let out a broken laugh. “That sounds like you.”
He smiled. A bruised, tired, gut-wrenching smile.
“I would’ve done it,” he whispered. “They would’ve had to shoot me to stop me.”
Her throat tightened. “Beck…”
His voice grew quiet. Softer. More intimate than anything he had ever said.
“You and the baby… you’re everything. I don’t care how complicated it is. I don’t care how scared you are. I don’t care if the baby’s mine or not—”
Izzy jerked, breath catching.
Beck didn’t flinch.
“—I’m staying,” he said, steady and sure. “I’m here. I’m not backing down. I’m not leaving you.”
Her tears fell silently, warm tracks against her cold cheeks.
“You don’t have to do that,” she whispered. “Beck, this is too much. You could get hurt. Or worse.”
He stepped closer until his forehead nearly touched hers through the bars.
“I love you,” he said simply. “That’s it. That’s the whole thing. I love you. And I will love that baby, no matter what. No matter how they came into the world.”
Something shattered inside her then—not in a breaking way, but in a release. A dam exploding. A truth she had tried to outrun catching up at last.
She pressed her lips to the cold metal. “Beck…”
He leaned in until the bars cut into his skin. “Izzy. I’m here.”
Her breath broke into a sob.
“I wanted a life with you,” she whispered fiercely, the confession tearing out of her. “I still do. But everything’s such a mess. Dick is everywhere. He has money, connections, excuses—he’s already spinning lies on TV. He says I’m unstable. That I’m confused. That you manipulated me.”
Beck’s face twisted. Rage flickered. “I’ll kill him,” he said quietly, terrifyingly calm.
“No,” she said sharply. “No, Beck. That’s what he wants. If you hurt him, it proves his story.”
Beck’s jaw ticked. “I don’t care.”
“You have to,” she insisted. “For me. For the baby.”
His expression softened instantly at the word baby. A mixture of awe and fear and tenderness washed over him.
When he spoke, his voice cracked. “You’re really… you’re really pregnant.”
She nodded, tears slipping down. “Yeah.”
He closed his eyes like the weight of the world had just shifted, then opened them again with a new determination burning inside.
“I won’t lose you,” he whispered. “I won’t lose either of you.”
Izzy’s heart swelled so painfully she thought it might split.
Before she could speak, footsteps echoed down the hallway.
The officer.
Their time was up.
Beck heard it too. His hand tightened around the bar next to hers.
“Izzy,” he said urgently, voice sharpening, “listen to me. They might keep us separated for a while. They might question us. They might try to twist our words. Don’t let them get inside your head. Don’t let them convince you he’s right.”
She nodded quickly. “I won’t.”
“And Izzy—” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t tell anyone more than you have to. Not until we know who’s on his payroll.”
Fear curled inside her belly. “Beck—”
“I love you,” he said again, because he needed her to hear it before the door opened. “I love you. No matter what happens next.”
She pressed her fingers to the bars, choking on her own breath. “I love you too.”
The door opened behind her.
The female officer stepped in. “Time’s up.”
Beck’s hand slid down the bar slowly, painfully, like he was fighting against being ripped away from her.
“Izzy,” he said, voice hoarse.
“Beck.”
They didn’t move. Not until the officer gently touched her arm.
Izzy stepped back.
But her eyes didn’t leave Beck’s—not for a second—not even as the door began to close.
His voice reached her through the narrowing gap, desperate and full of fire:
“I’ll get us out of this. I swear it.”
The door locked with a soft click.
Izzy pressed a shaking hand over her stomach.
For the first time since she ran, since she hid, since everything spiraled —
she believed him.