The door shut behind him with a quiet click.

Three weeks. Four contracts. Two countries. Minimal sleep.

Slade dropped his duffel by the wall, scanning the house automatically—windows secure, lights off, no disturbances.

He stepped into the kitchen—

And stopped dead.

She was standing by the counter, one hand resting low on her stomach.

Her very round, very visible stomach.

He stared.

Slow blink.

Another.

“…Right,” he said flatly.

She raised a brow.

He dragged a hand down his face.

“I knew that,” he added quickly. “Obviously.”

He did not, in fact, look like a man who obviously knew.

Three weeks of targets and extraction routes had apparently shoved one very critical detail to the back of his brain.

He stepped closer, eye dropping again to her belly like it had personally betrayed him.

“That escalated,” he muttered.

She tried not to laugh.

Slade crouched slightly, staring at the curve like it was a tactical anomaly.

“I leave for a month and you’re—”

He stopped himself.

“…You were already pregnant.”

Another pause.

He looked up at her, jaw tight but eyes softer than usual.

“I didn’t forget,” he said.

A beat.

“I deprioritized.”

Which, for Slade, was an admission of catastrophic oversight.

He stood, carefully placing both hands at her waist, thumbs brushing along the sides of her stomach like he was reacquainting himself with reality.

“Next contract,” he muttered, leaning his forehead briefly against hers, “I’m setting calendar alerts.”

Because gunfire, deadlines, and blood money?

Easy to track.

But coming home to the undeniable proof that his life was changing without him noticing—

That hit harder than any ambush.