A dry chuckle left DEUCE’s lips at her claim. She thought he was worse than BLU? It’s not fuckin’ realistic, he thought as the rest of her words drowned into the background of his thoughts. She’s just tryna’ get another rise out of me, he rationalized. Because there was no way - no way on God’s green earth that he was worse to KATYA than the man who had violated her in more ways than one, multiple times. It was the worst thing she could’ve ever said to him, whether she meant it or not. DEUCE wasn’t a fucking saint, but he prided himself on many traits and morals that a monster like BLU didn’t possess. 

It wasn’t until KATYA’s voice rose that she regained his attention, and the male turned, perplexed at her sudden expression of overflowing emotions. Her bright eyes were highlighted by glistening tears that fell past her bottom lashes to her cheeks as she hurled each word at him, forcing him to feel what she was feeling. Her words hit him, and his brows furrowed, his expression afflicted and defensive. DEUCE opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by the sudden blows to his chest. He attempted to grab KATYA’s wrists to cease the onslaught of the assault, but her quick hands moved wildly with no specific pattern - and seemingly with no intent to truly bring him physical harm. He clenched his jaw in resignation as she continued hitting the solid, unmoving wall of his chest, pulling his hands away and holding them up, holding himself back from shoving the now hysteric, pregnant woman to the ground. She was the only one - the only that could lay her hands on him without it equating to her signing her death certificate. He could still feel the ghost of her fists pounding into his chest over his quick, pulsing heartbeats after she stopped and turned away from him, denying his eyes access to her face. He took a few deep breaths through his flared nostrils and dropped his hands, closing his hands into fists for a few seconds before relaxing them.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re not.” 

At this point DEUCE couldn’t act like he didn’t understand where she was coming from, no matter how aggravated he was at how long it took her to tell him that. Even though his pride was nagging at him to end it right there and leave her feeling the way he did when her bullet went through his arm, he couldn’t bring himself to listen to it and that was all because there was another part of him that swelled with pride at her actions. Maybe he was fucked up for it, but he was glad that she lost her composure, glad that he and only he could illicit that out of her - because only she could bring it out of him. She wasn’t as untangled from him as she had made it seem and no matter the status of their personal relationship, he would always feel like he had a right to her because she was always going to be his heart. It was fated to be that way. 

But what was he going to do now? Admit that the reality of their commitment to each other hit him all at once? Admit that he left her not only to give her time grow, but to give himself time to figure his own bullshit out? DEUCE’s dark eyes studied her profile before he took the steps forward to face her, sliding his hands to the back of her neck as his thumbs brushed over her cool cheeks, forcing her to make eye contact with him. “You think I’ll let you walk away from me after all of that?” He was silent for a moment as he tried to figure out his words, looking around before his gaze dropped back to hers. He pulled his hands away and slid them in his pockets, reminded by the bulge between them that she was carrying another man’s child.