Claimed by the Betrayed Mercenary

Connor’s POV I’m the luckiest guy alive, that’s what I thought three months ago as I stood beside my wife, holding her hand as she pushed the single most important person in my life into the world. A positive pregnancy test and a shotgun wedding at the town hall with two members of staff as our witnesses, and I was literally living the perfect life. I watched in awe, as the woman of my dreams, laboured through the pain, and our precious baby girl slipped from her body, taking her first breath before she wailed. She was perfect, in every sense of the word, ten tiny fingers, ten sweet toes, a mop of blonde hair and piercing blue eyes like her mother. I had selfishly hoped throughout Eva’s pregnancy that our baby would have my Jade green eyes, the ones both myself and my younger sister inherited from our mother, but the moment I laid eyes on my little girl, it didn’t even matter. Eva cradled her to her chest, her brow sweaty, looking down at the tiny being we created with so much love and I honestly thought that my heart would burst as I stared at them, wondering how I got so f.ucking lucky. Then I took that seven pound three bundle into my arms and love like I’ve never felt before washed over me. I loved my family, my sister, Eva, but this was different, I would die just to stop this little girl from shedding a single tear, I would burn the world down if it would keep her safe, she was mine. For three months, that’s the life I had, I took time off from my job as I worked whatever hours I was needed, and threw myself into the roll of being a dad. I changed diapers, bottle fed her breast milk when Eva pumped, got up in the night, everything! I didn’t want to miss a single second of my little girl’s life. I honestly believed that my life was perfect, Eva was exhausted but I did what I could to help her, even after I returned to work, sometimes staying up after a twenty four hour shift just so my woman could get some rest. After about a month though, I couldn’t help but notice that Eva was distant. Before then I had put it down to tiredness and recuperating from the birth, but even then I thought maybe I was just being too impatient, it’s a huge deal, pushing a human out, she just needed more time. Two months, and I notice that she’s not answering my calls when I ring to check on my break, her excuses were always, ‘I was sleeping’ or ‘the baby needed feeding.’ I accepted it but I couldn’t stop the niggle in the back of my mind. Still, that didn’t prepare me for today, three months after the birth of Grace, our beautiful little girl, where I was about to open the door to the end of my world. Ding dong! ‘Babe, can you get that? Gracie needs changing’ Eva calls down to me as she heads up the stairs, ignoring the chiming door to her right. Pushing up from the table where I’m working on some documents for an upcoming job on my laptop, I lock everything down behind the encryption wall and shut the lid before heading toward the door. Pulling it open, I find a frazzled looking blonde guy shifting from foot to foot on my porch, he tugs at his hair as he focuses on me. ‘Hey, can I help you?’ I ask, eyeing him warily, something seems off about him and I park my foot behind the door, hand on the wood, preparing to shut it in the guy’s face if he makes one wrong move. ‘I’m here to see Eva’ he replies, shifting slightly, trying to see past me as I hold the door tightly. ‘What do you want with my wife?’ I demand, alarm bells going off in my head. The other guy lets out a shaky breath, ‘look man, I got nothing against you, and I’m sorry OK, but I can’t keep doing this!’ ‘Doing what?’ The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as my fingers grip the solid wood beside me. ‘Eva? EVA!’ The man starts yelling, ignoring me completely, ‘EVA!’ ‘What the hell man, you need to leave or I’m calling the cops’ I order. ‘Not without Eva’ the stranger replies, ‘not without my kid! EVA!’ I feel the world turn slightly as I stare at the man in front of me, still desperately calling for my woman, like he has a right too. ‘Wh . . what?’ I mutter distantly, sounds tunnelling around me. ‘Grace’ the man replies, ‘I’m sorry man, but she’s mine! And I’ve been waiting for three months for Eva to leave you but she hasn’t and I’m tired of seeing my daughter only when you f.uck off to work a job. I want my family, and I’m not leaving without them.’ I stumble back a step, looking over my shoulder as I shake my head, trying to comprehend the blonde man’s words. I find Eva behind me, standing on the bottom step, her arms wrapped tightly around my daughter as she stares at me, her face white. ‘Eva?’ I croak, ‘why is he saying this? It’s . . . it’s not true right? Tell him he’s wrong! Gracie, she’s mine!’ Eva’s bottom lip starts to tremble and I know, immediately I know, the guy is telling the truth . . my baby, my sweet beautiful, perfect Gracie isn’t mine at all. ‘Eva’ the man behind me groans, stepping over the threshold, into my home, his eyes pinned to my wife as though his entire world is standing there. I stare at him, taking in his features, searching for similarities between him and the little girl whose umbilical cord I cut. I almost break as I see them, the slightly rounded cheeks, the cows lick to the right of his parting that Gracie has just started to show and the eyes . . the eyes that I thought were Eva’s but are actually the exact shade of the man inside my house, destroying my world. ‘Duke, what . . . what are you doing here’ Eva hisses, her eyes pinned to the blonde, fear and . . . is that . . hope? In her eyes. ‘Baby’ Duke murmurs, reaching for her, my woman taking a step toward him in a trance. ‘I’m sorry, I know you said you needed time, but I can’t do it, I can’t sit at home and pretend that I’m OK with you living with another man with my child.’ Another man? I’m her f.ucking husband! I’m not the other man here! Pain and grief mixes together with cold hard fury and with a roar, I slam into the blonde, shoving him into the wall, my fist flying into his face, making contact with that nose, the one that looks just like the one I kiss every night before I place my daughter in her crib. Duke’s nose breaks under the force, smashing just like my heart as I slam my fist over and over again into his face. ‘Connor! NO! Stop!’ I can barely hear Eva’s voice over the pounding of blood in my ears, shaking off the fingers that try to claw at my arm so I can keep destroying the man in front of me. Duke tries to defend himself, but he’s no match for me, not with my training and the blind white rage that rolls through me, I don’t stop, not even as he slumps to the floor, blood pouring from his mouth.