Be My Brayshaw (Brayshaw High #4)(97)

I wish I could watch her grow, but fate has other plans, and beautiful, bright ones for her. And you.

If you are wondering if my daughter knows of this letter, the answer is no.

I have placed all my faith in Maybell, in her trusting my words, and that you are only reading this now because she is gone.

So here, sweet Captain, is my gift to you.

All my love, Maria.

Raven’s hand is shaking, so I grip her wrist and gently take the paper from her fingers.

Our eyes meet, and the moisture in hers has me swallowing.

She reaches for the large, fake diamond, and as she spins it in her fingers, her thumb pushes along the edge, and a flash drive pops from the other end.

Both of us freeze.

“Cap...”

I grab it from her, flipping it over to find the bottom is a flat silver.

She jumps up, searching my TV for a way to turn it on but she has no clue what to do next.

I stand, pulling it from the wall a bit to slide it in the open space behind it, and instantly, the screen turns a bright blue.

I hold my breath as I grab the remote, my eyes on Raven.

She grips my elbow, towing me back to the bed, and together we sit.

It is my hope that this will ease your soul...

A shaky breath leaves me, my eyes on the ceiling.

Without a word from me, Raven stands, exiting my room only to come back with my brothers’ hands in hers.

I swallow, nodding as they enter, tense and unsure.

They drop onto the bed behind me, and Raven comes right back to sit at my side.

She takes the remote from my hand and presses play.

What’s only seconds aches like hours, and then...

“You’re so annoying, do you have to do this every day?”

My muscles lock when Mallory’s voice fills the room before the picture comes into view.

You can’t see her face, like the camera is behind her as she sits against a headboard on a bed I don’t recognize.

The wall in the background of the shot is a large open window, overlooking... a garden.

“Stop complaining, it’s not for you.”

Victoria.

“Oh shit,” comes from Royce.

Suddenly she’s laying on her stomach, right beside Mallory. As she does, Mallory shifts, her body coming into full view.

Her stomach round and...

My ribs constrict, everything in my body tightening.

Zoey.

My eyes fly to Raven’s belly and back to the screen.

This. This is what my daughter looked like, growing safely inside her mother.

Raven’s hand squeezes mine, and we watch as Victoria pulls something from behind her.

A book.

She opens it somewhere in the middle, like she’s already made it through the first half of what must be three hundred pages and begins to read out loud.

She reads to my baby girl, and my family and I sit here and listen.

Victoria shifts on the mattress, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders and blocking her face from the camera’s view, and right as I think how I wish I could push it aside, how I need to see her lips as the words leave them, a hand slides into view, doing exactly that.

Victoria looks up, and in her eyes, I see pain, fear, and it aches within my own chest.

What were you afraid of?

She quickly stands from the mattress, the camera shutting off right as Mallory calls her name.

It rolls into another video, and then another, each one Mallory is there, and her belly grows bigger.

In the next, the wind blows Mallory’s hair around as she stands in front of a bed of flowers.

She must hear something I don’t, because she turns, frowning at the camera.

“How do you feel?” Victoria asks her.

Mallory’s shoulders fall. “Like someone is playing soccer in my stomach.”

Raven chuckles, her free hand moving to her own baby bump, and Maddoc slides closer to her back.

“It’s kind of annoying,” she says to Victoria.

Raven says the exact words that leave Victoria next, and at the same time, “It’s not annoying.”

Mallory rolls her eyes and moves closer to the screen.

She reaches out, and then the camera is dropped, but not turned off, the frame tilted and only giving a view of half their bodies.

She grabs a hold of Victoria’s wrist and drops it onto the curve of her stomach.

Victoria’s muscles seem to freeze, but then she relaxes, and with slow, gentle movements, she opens her palms wider.

Seconds tick by, her airy laugh following, and my pulse runs wild, kicks harder.

“Basketball,” she whispers.

We were on her mind right then.

I was on her mind.

The father of the baby she’s watching grow, that she didn’t know and had no reason to link herself to.

But she did it for the innocent little life beneath her palms.

The video rolls into the next, and I shoot to my feet, moving closer to the TV.

A hospital...

Holy shit.

Mallory’s cries fill the room.

“I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.” A shuddered breath leaves her. “I should have had the abortion like I was going to before you dragged me out of that office and talked me into this.”

No...

I swear my ribs snap one by one.

“No, you shouldn’t have, and I didn’t stop you. I offered another way, and yes you can, just… breathe,” Victoria tells her.